Just one example is when we were planting a hedge on the roadside last weekend and a lovely gentleman named Paul stopped to say hi. He could identify all the species that we were planting, along with all the birds that flew past during our chat. Before saying our goodbyes he gave us his phone number, and offered us some hazelnut trees. Another chap had driven past and given us a wave during this conversation. A few days later we were on the way to Paul’s to get the hazelnuts and I mentioned to Karim “we’ll need some mushroom compost to plant all the fruit and nut trees”. We turned the next corner and there was a whole truck load of mushroom compost. We had a wonderful tour of Paul’s property, picked up the hazelnuts and a bag full of other seeds from his garden, and sat and had a lovely lunch with him and his wife Catherine. It turns out that Paul is also from a small town in
Also, my permaculture studies always seem to be following the exact parallel of work that actually needs doing on the land. For example, we’re at the stage of fitting out the garage where we need to plan our waste water management system, and my next assignment just happens to be studying reed bed systems. I was finding the research a little daunting to be honest, and annoying in regards to Council’s expectations. Do we really need to pay a consultant hundreds of dollars to conduct a site and soil Analysis just to tell us that we have clay soil??? You only need to walk around the property for 10 minutes after rain to become 6 inches taller because of all the clay under your boots! We’re installing a waterless compost toilet and are very careful about what we put down our drains in regards to soaps, washing liquid etc, so are keen to implement a reed bed system and don’t see the need for a septic tank, which apparently don’t work well in clay soils anyway. Fortunately we managed to find a couple who live nearby that have installed a comprehensive reed bed system with no septic – fully approved by council. We visited their gorgeous straw bale and mudbrick property to research the wetlands system, which is the design that we’ve decided to mimic. This photo shows the bath that the grey water first enters, and the thriving gardens that it nurtures.
The Transition Movement film (how to transition communities from oil dependency to local resilience) was aired at the local cinema for the first time this month and 40 members of the community came, which was an awesome turnout. We have volunteers to lead the awareness, transport and food groups, I’ve volunteered to administer the group emails and lead the waste group, and Karim is going to investigate establishing a local currency. We car pooled to share a lovely meal with some of the people afterward, and are starting to make some great friends.
The following week about 300 people paraded through the town of
Anyway… down to progress on the land!
Thank goodness the locals were right when they said -4oC was rare, as it hasn’t been less than 0 since. The weather has been quite mild, and much to the dam’s despair it hasn’t rained enough to create run-off into the dam “yet”. That said, at least the foot or so of water in the bottom is still showing every sign of holding after several weeks.
The garage fitout is coming along beautifully. A carpenter that we met during the Sustainable House Design Course, Matt, has constructed most of the studs for the walls and ceiling. He did such a fantastic job, and we can really see it taking shape in there now, getting more and more excited about moving in December. We’re nearly ready for the electrician and plumbers to hook things up now, then the insulation can go in, followed by the plasterboard on the walls. You can see the little bathroom at the rear left, just enough room for the shower, compost toilet and a space to dry ourselves.
The Conservation Volunteers threw any ideas I had about hibernating through the winter straight out the window. We thought things would slow down a bit, but they’ve only ramped up! We start each morning with a quick lesson on Permaculture, the first one being a basic introduction to some of the environmental problems that we’re facing. We weren’t surprised that none of the six school leavers had ever heard about problems related to soil loss or food miles, but were pretty shocked that none of them had ever heard the words Climate Change, Global Warming or Peak Oil. I did my best to introduce the subject gently, yet finished by overlaying the population increase graph over the peak oil graph to make sure they realised that some big changes are coming.
Remarkably, we completely finished the wildlife proof fence around the food production area, thanks to the help and guidance of two local and very experienced Permaculturists, Jules and Peter. Jules is a tree surgeon so was able to cut down one tree from the property and teach us how to remove the bark and split it, which we used as fence posts. It was hard work and time consuming, but rewarding from an environmental perspective.
The fence is a fantastic milestone as we can now design the area properly and be ready to plant a few fruit and nut trees next month, plus construct some raised beds ready for spring. You can see that even on the shortest day of the year the food area receives some sunshine – woo hoo! Unfortunately the future house site only receives about one hour of sun during June though :o(
This close up photo shows the wire extending onto the ground to stop the rabbits from digging underneath, and the floppy wire at the top stops the possums from climbing over because they have nothing solid to grab onto. The timber posts were made from a tree on the property, and the roofing sheets to stop the possums climbing up the posts were left over from the garage.
Jules and Peter are also constructing a lean-to over the caravan to protect it from the rain (which we’re trusting will come sooner or later). Posts for this were also taken off the property, and all the rocks are forever proving to be useful.
Jules is going away for a couple of months, so Paul is filling in and will keep working with Peter to help us finish the lean-to and build things like the chicken house and yard, wood shed and greenhouse.
Karim has been spending his Sunday’s on the land to get a piece of the action as well, chopping lots of firewood, planting a native hedge for privacy along the roadside and constructing some beautiful steps up to the garage.
And our orchard design has been completed! You can see by the following design that more than half of the food area has been allocated to a variety of fruit trees and the hazelnut hedge, with particular varieties chosen for cross pollination. That said, we’ll also have loads of herbs and vegetables growing up and around the fruit trees as well. Just a few main features of the design are the ability for chickens to enter the orchard for pest control, a secure chicken house for laying and sleeping which is fully protected from rats and quolls, a large netted area for the chickens to roam during the day without being taken by hawks, a chicken tractor to control their access to three separate vegetable gardens, easy placement for the chicken manure to move straight into the compost area, greenhouse and tractor system, positioning of the chickens next to the wood shed area so mulch can be added to their netted area easily, heat coming off the greenhouse will aid the composting process, compost can be easily moved into the greenhouse and tractor gardens, and north to south footpaths for food growing over trellis. You should be able to click on the image for a close up.
Hopefully all the fruit trees and the hazelnut hedge will be planted in July. We’ve marked out all the foot paths through the orchard…
And the conservation volunteers have started to prepare the ground for the trees. We’re breaking up the existing soil, adding ag-lime, then creating large mounds of topsoil with mushroom compost and horse poo.
