Tag Archives: PDC

Urban PDC: strawberries, soil and systems thinking

More beautiful shots by Cathy X from our current Urban Permaculture Design Certificate that Nick is teaching in Sydney. Featuring Michele Margolis’ amazing urban permaculture garden, Adam Grubb teaching soil, and permaculture design! And mini bulldozers, of course…

Cross stitch permaculture

Our current permaculture design course in Sydney is producing a heap of exciting, creative and actually doable urban design, but not as you might know it. 40 urban folks have taken up paper and software, and also cross-stitch and dioramas to help them re-imagine home. I love watching people design. Especially people who are thinking [...]

PDC week 3: pattern and design

Recognizing simple pattern in nature is easy, and it’s the basis of bio mimicry. But just as crucial as recognizing these natural patterns, is thinking about how you can use them to create. That’s where the design comes in. Figuring how to integrate natural patterning into permaculture designs for homesteads, communities, farms and cities in [...]

PDC week 2: David Holmgren’s Permaculture Principles

The second week of our Permaculture Design Certificate, we were lucky enough to have David Holmgren, co-originator of Permaculture, presenting for the whole day. I don’t think anyone will forget this day in a hurry. Apart from walking us through his 12 principles with elegance, enthusiasm and what is clearly an extremely deep appreciation for [...]

PDC week 1: Permaculture Ethics and History

It’s sometimes a bit hard to explain to people just what a Permaculture Design Course entails – the scope is both broad and intricate – but in it’s essence it’s ecological systems theory, applied to an everyday context. Over this winter Nick is heading a PDC in Sydney, in a one day per week format. [...]

Sydney Winter PDC with special guest David Holmgren

Following on from last year’s overwhelmingly positive experience, Milkwood Permaculture is holding another of our unique Part-Time Permaculture Design Certificate courses in Sydney this Winter, starting on the weekend of May 15 and running until the 31 July. We’ve found this one-day-a-week format is an effective way to enable many folks to learn permaculture design [...]

DIY urban bathtub aquaponics system

Aquaponics just might be the ultimate closed-loop food production system. A healthy aquaponics system can provide its lucky owner with fresh fish and fresh organic vegetables year round, for very little ongoing cost. Getting an aquaponics system set up, however, can be costly. There’s lots of off-the-shelf systems to choose from nowadays, but they cost [...]

Visiting the Marrickville Food Forest

Deep in the heart of Marrickville, in a little street of workers cottages, right under the flight path to Sydney International Airport, there is a food forest. A splendid wrangle of Australian rainforest food trees, sugar cane, herbs from all parts of asia, plums and even citrus, grow on a small suburban block with a [...]

The basecamp kitchen garden explosion

During the Spring Permaculture Design Certificate here at Milkwood, a funny thing happened to our basecamp garden. Somehow, it quadrupled in size. It was the most un-anticipated permablitz i have ever been a part of,  and this time (for the first time) it was at our house! Or our woolshed, to be precise. Rosemary Morrow, [...]

Bathtub Aquaponics in Alice Springs

[caption id="attachment_799" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="an abundance of fresh greens, in the middle of the desert"][/caption]

We’ve always been all about aquaponics in theory: a closed-loop system that provides abundant vegetables and fresh fish – what’s not to like? But it wasn’t until Nick took some students on a tour of this amazing bathtub aquaponics system in Alice Springs last April that the true wonder of aquaponics really sank in.

Alice Springs is one of the driest places in Australia. But here, in Steve’s backyard, was an oasis of mythical proportions. Fresh spinach, greens, vegetables, berries and beautiful shady pools containing healthy, fat fish. Not what you normally think of when you think of an Alice Springs backyard.

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