© Happy Earth
Happy Earth are a great little crew down in Wollongong, proving that you can create an abundant urban homestead. And they’re just created a really awesome community resource in the form of this garden guide, which is free to all.
Regardless of whether you actually live in the Illawarra region or not, make sure you have a look at this. It’s a super example of localized knowledge, small, slow solutions, and fair share. Read More
Image © The Pothole Gardener
What is it about Guerrilla Gardening? No matter how many times you see it happen, or hear about a new verge planting, it’s always exciting. Is it the fact that growing tomatoes is actually that invigorating?
Or is it that people’s small acts of community are that much needed? Either way, here’s a few things I’ve come across this week. First up, vigilante gardening in Brooklyn NYC. Small scale, but full of implications. Read More
Adam Grubb and Dan Palmer are some of the most accomplished urban permaculture designers I know. Aside from being the founding forces of the Permablitz movement, they also design professionally – creating functional, edible awesomeness in small suburban spaces through their Melbourne Permaculture business, Very Edible Gardens (VEG).
We’ve snared Adam as a special guest teacher on our Urban Permaculture Design Certificate in Sydney in January 2012, where he’ll be taking the class through the mechanics of good urban permaculture design. In the meantime, however, I thought I’d share some of the design work that VEG have done… Read More
© Todd Selby
Eagle Street Rooftop Farm is as good as city farming gets, in my book. If you want an example of lo-fi community food security that is blisteringly cool as well as being truly functional, here you are.
What I would really like is that out of our urban-focussed Sydney Permaculture Design Certificate in January, multiple folks full of gumption, verve and can-do skills get some rooftop farming action going on in Sydney. I mean, look at this place. It rocks. Read More
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 holistically, thanks to good information. Every time we run a permaculture design course, no matter where it is, we see the results of a group of switched-on folks who have re-designed their known spaces with permaculture principles in mind…
Recently I watched Tim Malfroy open and inspect a Warré hive that he installed in Sydney. Over 20 people looked on (it was part of a natural beekeeping workshop) as Tim lifted up boxes, pulled out combs full of honey and brood, and generally checked that all was well in the hive.
What did the bees do during this? Nothing. Nothing at all except keep on buzzing about happily. And that is just unheard of. Read More
Last year on May 1st we hopped down to Sydney to see what delights National Permaculture Day had to offer – and there were many! We devised a plan that covered a range of projects and we spent the day whizzing through a selection of open gardens and talks, and even helped dig up some verge as part of a permablitz. Not bad for one Saturday.
This year the fun is most definitely on once more. There are heaps of open gardens, permaculture talks, workshops and open days across Sydney, and across the rest of Australia as well. Including Milkwood Farm, which we’re opening for 2 tours on 30th April as part of the National Permaculture Day shenanigans! Read More
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 little brick cottage nestled in the center. Read More
Lovely lettuce seedlings. Soon to be in LoveGrub sandwiches!
Around the corner from the community center where we run our Sydney courses is a funky and friendly little cafe called LoveGrub. Down the side of LoveGrub lies a little strip of dirt which the cafe have claimed as their garden. One day LoveGrub asked us “erm, don’t suppose you could turn our little garden into a happening thing, could you?”
So we said “Yes! Of course!” – and with the help of our fabulous Milkwood interns David, Andrew, Adam and Alexe, we did. We used the opportunity of a weekend Urban Permaculture course we were running to completely re-design and renovate LoveGrub’s little strip into a functional permaculture kitchen garden to supplement the cafe’s menu with uber-local, naturally grown, seasonal greens and herbs. Read More
One of our students' amazing designs: a re-design for a suburban small holding
So Winter is ending and Spring is on its way. We spent this winter just gone traveling to Sydney every weekend to teach Permaculture, which made us feel like short-range nomads very quickly. And the end result is now out there; 36 accomplished urban permaculture designers, who will go on to do amazing things. Not bad for one winter’s work. Read More
