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My Favourite Sustainability and Homesteading Podcasts

Darren — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 06:00:23 +0000

Gavin (from GreeningOfGavin.com) recently posted a list of his favourite podcasts, so I thought I’d do the same. It’s not easy finding good podcasts on topics that you enjoy, so personal recommendations are valuable.

Interestingly, there are very few overlaps between mine and Gavin’s lists!

I’m including full URLs here, in case you want to print out the list to share with others.

ABC Bush Telegraph

An entertaining look at rural and regional issues around Australia. I particularly like the Food on Friday segment, the Farm Diary, and the updates on issues affecting food production in Australia. I really like how this podcast is broken up into separate stories, so you don’t have to listen to a whole bunch of guff to get to the good stuff.

The Food Chain – What’s Eating What Radio

Discusses food issues. It’s US-centric, but many of the topics will be of interest to people in other countries as well. I just skip the episodes on US politics etc that don’t interest me.

The Greening Of Gavin

Yes Gav, of course I’m a listener! This is a great Australian podcast, featuring interviews with other green bloggers (including me!), as well as Gavin’s thoughts and observations on living sustainably and curbing consumerism.

The Harvest Eating Podcast

A US podcast on seasonal local cooking. The podcaster is Chef Keith Snow, and he shares a lot of information about cooking tips and techniques, as well as updates about what’s going on with his own farm. To be honest I skip a lot of episodes on topics I’m not interested in, but there’s a lot of good stuff too.

Homestead Dividends

web: http://hdivs.com
feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/hdivs

Another US podcast, this one’s all about turning your house into a productive asset. Dan Vamos covers topics like growing/cooking/preserving food, preparedness, practical home improvements, etc.

Homesteading and Permaculture by Paul Wheaton

This is a hard-core permaculture podcast, full of the sort of information that takes you beyond the books and the mass-market permaculture information and into the nuts and bolts of it all. I highly recommend it to anyone who has done a PDC and wants to continue their learning. Paul can be blunt and opinionated at times, but he’ll definitely challenge your assumptions and make you think!

KunstlerCast

web: http://kunstlercast.com
feed: http://kunstlercast.libsyn.com/rss

I’ve only just started listening to this one, on Gavin’s recommendation, but I’ve heard several interviews with Kunstler and find him very though-provoking.

The Onion Radio News

web: http://www.theonion.com
feed: http://www.theonion.com/feeds/radionews/

It can’t all be about gardening and sustainability! This one is great for a laugh. I like to intersperse the short Onion and 60-Second Science podcast episodes between the longer podcasts when I queue them up in my iPod for listening.

Scientific American’s 60-Second Science

Short, sharp news and commentary from the science world.

The Self-Sufficient Gardener

web: http://theselfsufficientgardener.com
feed:

Another US podcast, host Jason Akers picks a topic each week and discusses it in detail. I like how he sticks to the topic and doesn’t ramble about too much other stuff, and each episode is as long as it needs to be to cover the topic. The motto of his show is “efficient, responsible and sustainable”.

The Survival Podcast

Some people might find this one a bit out there, but I really enjoy it. There’s a bit of US politics and a lot of gun stuff, but I usually skip those episodes. There’s also a lot of great stuff about preparedness, homesteading, permaculture, herbal medicine, personal finances, alternative energy, tools, etc. Well worth a listen, and it gets you thinking beyond the normal permaculture and sustainability topics.

This American Life

Each week, they put out a collection of stories on a particular theme or topic. It’s some of the best storytelling on the web, and it’s a nice break from the doom-and-gloom news.

Transition Towns

A New Zealand radio show on Transition Towns initiatives and sustainability issues, hosted by Dr Joanna Santa Barbara.

Do you listen to any of these? I hope this list helps people discover some new podcasts.

Please add your podcast recommendations below! And if you’re a blogger, please consider writing a similar post listing the podcasts you listen to (green or otherwise). Send me an email or leave a comment below and I’ll link up to it.

ANZAC Day 2012 – Granddad’s Garden

Darren — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:14:44 +0000

ANZAC Day has always been a special day in my family. My grandfather served in New Guinea in World War II, and his brother (a member of Z Force) was killed in service in Borneo. My grandfather’s birthday is April 25th (ANZAC Day), and he has lived on Anzac Park, a few hundred metres from the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, since about 1950.

Each year, we all gather at Granddad’s house in the morning. He gets dressed up in his suit and medals, and we wander across the road to the parade ground to watch the march.

In years gone by, he’d meet up with a whole bunch of ex-service mates and they’d all disappear down to the marshalling area. My brother and I would cut rosemary sprigs from the hedge along his driveway and hand them out to people walking past. Then we’d run over to watch the march and try to pick him out of the crowd.

Over the years, he’s joined the march further and further up the parade ground so he didn’t have to walk so far. The number of mates meeting up with him has dwindled too. He’s 92 now, and just attends the memorial service.

After the march we usually have a BBQ lunch, then sit around catching up with the aunts and uncles and playing with the kids. When the air force jets fly down Anzac Parade at noon, they go right over the top of his house – the noise is incredible!

I always enjoy having a look around Granddad’s garden. I can remember it from when I was a toddler, and it’s barely changed in all that time.

He’s always had a passionfruit vine growing over the back door:

The main vegie garden has neat concrete paths and good sized beds:

Down the back are the berries – raspberries, loganberries, currants, etc. I don’t know if they’re the same vines, but the same variety of berries has been growing in that spot for as long as I can remember!

There are a few multi-grafted apple trees, that are usually still loaded with fruit at this time of year:

The old play house where my Mum and her sister used to play is still there, tucked under the grape vines. My brother and I also used to play in when we were kids, and Mum’s old miniature china tea set was still in it then. It’s probably still there now – I forgot to check!

There have always been kiwifruit vines along the side of the main shed, too. I’ve no idea how old these vines are, but they’re still productive. There’s also a choko vine in there competing for climbing frame space.

ANZAC Day is the traditional day to plant your broad beans, and every year my aunt Sue forks over and plants out a bed for Granddad. This year they’ll go in that lovely clear levelled bed:

There’s always something new to discover in Granddad’s yard. He’s got shed after shed (7 or 8 of them, I think!) full of car parts, garden implements, tools, old kerosene lamps, jam tins, timber, plant pots – you name it, he’s probably got it tucked away somewhere! I’m sure some of the piles of stuff are 50 years old, and haven’t been touched in all that time.

No related posts.

Head Cheese Recipe

Darren — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:21:35 +0000

Yep, it’s as tasty as it sounds!

Head cheese (also known as brawn) doesn’t actually contain any cheese – it’s a boiled pig’s head, with the meat removed and chopped up, then set in a terrine mould with jelly made from the cooking broth.

For quite a while now, I’ve had a couple of my pigs’ heads sitting in my freezer, waiting to get the opportunity to do something with them. The problem is they need a lot of time to cook, and I’m not often home all day. I’ve had a few days off during these school holidays, so had a go…

I pretty much followed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s recipe from the River Cottage Cookbook, with a few tweaks based on what I had available.

I started with a mirepoix (fancy cheffy sounding word for carrots, onions and celery!) in my biggest cooking pot. I slipped the whole head in, along with the ears (I’ll talk about them in another post), and covered it all with water – it only just fit! Then I added cloves, coriander, nutmeg, peppercorns, thyme, rosemary, parsley and apple cider vinegar.

The whole lot then simmers, covered, for 4 or 5 hours. Longer is better, as it extracts more of the gelatine and minerals from the bones (just like a good bone stock).

Next step was to remove the head and let it cool. While waiting for that, I turned up the stove and left the lid off the pot. You need to reduce the stock by about two-thirds.

Once the head was cool enough to handle, I removed all the meaty bits, diced them up and put them in a bowl. I gave the snout to the dog, and the chickens got the skin and all the fatty, gristly, unpalatable bits (they especially loved the eyeballs!). I was surprised at how much meat came off the head, especially since the cheeks had been removed (for making guanciale).

Once the stock had reduced, I mixed a handful of chopped fresh parsley and more apple cider vinegar through the meat and set it out into a loaf tin (why don’t I have any terrine moulds?!). I then poured the stock over the top until the meat was just covered, and put the tin in the fridge to cool and set.

I had a fair bit of stock left over, so I poured it into silicone muffin trays and put it in the freezer. Once it’s all frozen, you can tip it out and put it in the one bag. It’ll be easy to separate, and a single “puck” can be added to almost any dish to enrich it – a lot like Fergus Henderson’s trotter gear (which I’m also going to be making soon). It adds gelatinous body and porky goodness, really lifting dishes like risotto, stews, meat pies, etc.

Once set, the head cheese is turned out of the mould and can be stored in the fridge for up to two weeks. As I said before, I was surprised at how much this recipe made – the block below must have been well over 2 kg (that’s a large dinner plate it’s sitting on, and I’ve already eaten some!).

I had some on toast for lunch today, and will be giving some to my dad and some friends tomorrow.

I’ve got another head in the freezer, and will definitely be making head cheese again. I’ll be using more of the herbs and spices next time, and maybe some bay leaves as well. You think you have enough flavour in there, but since you eat it chilled the flavours are more muted and it can really take a lot more than I gave it. I’ll also be seasoning the meat with salt and pepper more before it goes into the mould.

If you want to read more about cooking with under-used animal parts, I really recommend Chichi Wang’s The Nasty Bits series over at Serious Eats – I got a lot of good information from her Pig’s Head article.

Do you cook with offal and/or offcuts? What’s the tastiest dish you’ve made?

Illawarra Climate Challenge Launch

Darren — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 10:37:23 +0000

The Nature Conservation Council of NSW is launching their successful Climate Challenge programme in the Illawarra region.

This free programme will give you access to free workshops, you’ll get to meet like-minded people, and you’ll have the chance to win some prizes.

How does it work?

You will receive a passbook, which guides you through all sorts of actions you can take to reduce your carbon footprint. Depending upon the actions you complete, you’ll earn stars (stickers you can put in your passbook). If you earn 35 stars by the final event of the programme, you’ll be named a Climate Champion and will enter the major prize draw.

Interested? You can register online (I just did!), or meet the organisers and register in person at the Wollongong Produce and Creative Traders markets in the Crown Street Mall on Friday 30 March 2012.

This sounds like a great way to get started if you’d like to live more sustainably, but don’t know where to start.

The Climate Challenge has previously been run in 6 different NSW Councils, and one in Victoria.

Go on, pop over and register! You’ve got nothing to lose!

The Environment Is What We Eat

Darren — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 11:48:46 +0000

Here’s a great talk by a young girl from our primary school, Grace Mahon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzqci6hEteI

Grace entered the prestigious LandLearn NSW public speaking competition at the end of last year and she has been selected as a finalist to compete at the Dubbo Beef Spectacular on March 15.

You can read more about the competition at the NSW Rural Women’s Network site.

What an excellent ambassador for our school and our town!

No related posts.

Corn Eaten By Pests!

Darren — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:44:46 +0000

Late last year I sowed some corn right up the back of our property behind the shed, figuring it didn’t need much looking after and would do well on the ground where our pigs had been. I mulched it with the old chicken coop bedding straw.

It did grow fairly well, especially for the minimal (zero?!) effort I put in.

But then last time I checked on it, I found this!

And this:

I’m pointing the finger at a possum we’ve seen occasionally, but it could just as easily have been rats. I’ve seen a few in the shed lately. Or even cockatoos.

Grrrr.

Oh well, at least the macadamia tree they’re growing under is bearing. The nuts should be ready in the next month or so:

How do you protect your corn from hungry animals?

Bird Nets For Garden Beds

Pig Trotters In Sweet Vinegar

Darren — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:53:45 +0000

I’ve had the trotters (and heads!) of our pigs in the freezer for a while now, waiting for the opportunity to cook something nice with them. I came across this recipe for Stewed Pork Trotters in Sweet Vinegar, and knew I had to give it a go:

(that’s Shu Han’s photo, not mine!)

The first step was to blanch the trotters (boil them) for about 15 minutes and clean them up a bit:

I didn’t have the Chinese black vinegar specified by the recipe, but a quick bit of web searching told me that apple cider vinegar would be a good substitute. And apple goes well with pork, right? I left out the eggs as well – they’re really only there to round out the meal, they don’t contribute anything to the actual pork.

Here’s how mine turned out (yeah, not quite like the picture above – I reduced the sauce a lot more, and my trotters weren’t cut up to begin with):

So how was it?

The first thing that struck me was that there’s something mildly weird about eating a meal where you’re spitting out the occasional toenail. Other than that, it was delicious!

I have to say though, that there’s bugger-all meat on trotters. It’s pretty much all bone, cartilage, fat and skin. It’s got a lot of flavour, but there’s not much you can actually chew on. No wonder they add the eggs to the recipe above. It was deliciously velvety gloopy, and the little bits of leftover sauce set into a solid jelly. There’s truth in the old saying, “something gelatinous is a foot”!

For the rest of the trotters, I think I’ll try making some of Heston Blumenthal’s Trotter Gear to use as a flavour enhancer for other recipes.

Now, does anyone have any ideas for two pigs heads? The cheeks have already been removed (I’m going to try guanciale with them).

Dehydrating Zucchini

Darren — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:15:29 +0000

Like Ally and Rich, we’re currently swimming in zucchini! I mentioned in my comment on their post that we’ve been dehydrating ours, so I thought I should post some photos.

We’re currently getting up to 5 zucchini every day:

Little wonder that our fridge’s crisper looks like this, then:

So, on to the dehydrating. First, I cut the zucchini into slices about 5mm thick. It’s fairly important to get the thickness uniform, so the slices will dehydrate at the same rate. A mandolin slicer is very handy for this, but be careful! I cut my finger quite badly a few weeks ago on this one.

You generally need to blanch vegetables before freezing or dehydrating. This is done by boiling or steaming them for a short time, then quickly chilling them in cold water to halt the cooking process. Blanching destroys the enzymes that cause vegetables to develop off colours and flavours and get tough, and also kills off most of the microorganisms that can cause vegetables to deteriorate.

I’ve found the microwave to be a very convenient, precise and non-messy way to blanch vegetables. I spread them in a single layer in a microwave steamer, steam them for the recommended time, and then plunge them into cold water. About 2:30 seems to be the right time for zucchini slices.

At this point, Hannah likes to help me by arranging the slices in the dehydrator trays.

We then pat them dry with a clean teatowel, and put the trays into the dehydrator.

We run the dehydrator on the front deck. There’s a power point out there, it’s under cover and protected from the elements, and it keeps the noise and warm air out of the house. After about 8 hours, the slices have dehydrated.

All that’s left then is to bag up the zucchini chips, and store them for the soup-and-stew-making season!

What do you have a glut of at the moment? How are you dealing with it?

A More Secure Chicken Pen

Darren — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 07:00:49 +0000

You might remember the trouble I had with foxes last July. We lost our whole flock of chickens (20+), as well as our two Indian Runner ducks, in a single night.

I’ve held off on getting more chickens until I could secure the pen – obviously I never want something like that to happen again. We did get some ducks along the way, but I’ve been locking them up in the shed at night and letting them out into the pen each morning. We also got a dog not long after that attack, and I’ve been placing her droppings around the perimeter of the pen to ward off predators.

It’s taken a while, but this weekend I finally got some time to put my Predator Protection Plan into practice!

My original plan was to create a smaller secure pen, and turn the remainder of the existing run into separate breeding pens. It would have been less work in the short term, but then I’d have to make sure each breeding pen was also built securely. If I could completely secure the perimeter of the existing large run, then I could later build simple breeding pens inside it without needing to fox-proof every one of them.

I originally built the frame of my chicken run a bit like a post-and-rail fence, with one rail at ground level and another about 3 feet (1 m) above the ground. This made it easy to attach the chicken wire and bury it in a skirt around the pen. You can see what I’m trying to describe in this older photo:

Note: clever though it sounds, burying a skirt of chicken wire around the pen didn’t stop the foxes from digging under. The wire was a very light gauge, and although galvanised, it rusted and was easy to break through. In a later attack, a fox even chewed right through a non-rusted piece of this wire! Chicken wire keeps chickens in, not predators out.

I bought sheets of “ripple iron” (like corrugated iron, but with smaller corrugations) from a recycler a while ago for $4 each. I dug trenches between the posts on the inside edge of the pen, about 1.5 feet (45 cm) deep. I then screwed the sheets of ripple iron to both of the rails and backfilled the trenches.

I got five sections – each with three pieces of ripple iron – done on Saturday, despite the rain. I’ve still got one section to go, and then I just need to secure the pen door.

The ducks enjoyed all the digging, and received a good few worms as reward for their patience. Below are the Indian Runners now – they’ve grown a lot since we got them as week-old ducklings in October, and should be laying soon! The front two ducks in the line are Pekins, and the warty grey-and-white one at the rear is our Muscovy drake.

Construction went a lot smoother than I was expecting, and I was really pleased with the end result. I can’t see a fox getting through that!

Willie Wagtail Chicks

Darren — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 02:17:51 +0000

Lately, whenever I approach our composting area I get chittered at and swooped by a pair of willie wagtails. This almost always means they’ve built a nest nearby, so I spent a bit of time with the kids looking for it.

We eventually found the nest fairly low in a gum tree. It contains two cute little chicks:

Willie wagtails are great birds to have in the garden, so we’re happy to leave them in peace to raise their babies.

Adult Willie Wagtail (CC BY 3.0 image courtesy Duncan McCaskill)

These little guys are insectivorous, so hopefully they’re enjoying a diet rich in cabbage white butterflies, fruit flies, mosquitoes and other garden pests!

Digging Up Potatoes

Darren — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:21:13 +0000

Whenever we have potatoes sprout in the cupboard, we plant them out in a spare garden bed. It costs nothing, and you typically get back about 5-10 times as many potatoes as you plant!

Potatoes are also amazing for establishing new garden beds. They break up the ground, attract lots of worms, and leave a lovely rich soil behind.

I use the standard potato-growing technique – dig a fairly deep trench (up to a foot deep), put the seed potatoes in the bottom, and cover them with an inch or so of dirt. As the shoots start coming through, keep backfilling the dirt around them. Keep hilling and mulching them until you can’t go any higher, then leave them until the tops start to die off. Finally, dig!

The girls gave me a hand pulling up our most recent potatoes last weekend.

It’s like a treasure hunt! Every time I turn over the soil, the girls rush in and try to outdo each other. There’s always a bit of competition to see who can collect the most potatoes.

These were the biggest two, although they were all pretty uniform:

After they’ve all been recovered, we brush the clods of dirt off the potatoes, sort them (use any damaged ones first), and let them dry a little in the sun.

Look at that lovely rich soil left behind! There were heaps of worms all through the garden bed.

The end result – a big tub of potatoes. We collected about 12 kg, having started with about 1 kg of sprouted potatoes from the cupboard. Not a bad return! They were all a lovely big size too – sometimes you get lots of little ones, but not this time.

And of course, the girls were proud to have gotten their hands dirty helping Dad!

We’re fortunate here on the South Coast. Our climate is mild enough that we can plant potatoes pretty much any time of the year. Gardening web sites tell you to plant them between August and October; that may give you the best yields, but really they’ll grow anytime the soil is above 10C (50F). If you have potatoes sprouting the cupboard, you’ve got nothing to lose by planting them out!

Do you grow potatoes? Do you have any special techniques to share?

Kiama Primary School Permaculture Garden Tour

Darren — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:58:11 +0000

This post follows on from Kiama Primary School Garden Opening.

This drawing shows the original design plan for the Kiama Primary School permaculture garden, put together by Aaron Sorenson. It’s not exactly how the garden worked out (they never are!), but the general placement of the elements is pretty close. It gives a good overview of the site, buildings, access paths and roads, etc that Aaron had to work with.

You can click on the photo to see a larger version, big enough to read the writing.

I really like looking at these kinds of permaculture designs. They’re full of ideas to borrow, and you can see how the designer has placed things relative to each other, using site properties (slope, aspect, views, winds, sun, access, etc) to their best advantage.

When looking at a plan, I like to imagine how the various jobs would get done in the garden (mulch delivery and application to beds, watering, composting, harvesting, cooking, relaxing, planting out seedlings from the nursery area, and so on). How far would you have to walk, and is it uphill or downhill? How long would hoses have to be to water every plant? Is it far from the regular-picking plants to the kitchen? Would you have to barrow compost very far, and could a wheelbarrow get through to every area? How far would you have to carry tools?

It’s also useful to think about rain on the site, where water will flow, and how it will interact with swales, paths, and other garden elements.

With all that in mind, lets get on with the tour!

First, the top entrance. This is where people enter from the school. Just to the left of where I took the photo is the car park and an access gate. That area serves as a mulch drop point – nice, since you only have to wheelbarrow it downhill! The entrance invites you to enter and follow the path down to the main seating circle.

The path down from the main entrance is gently sloping, built as a switch-back down the side of the hill. Besides being easier to walk up and down, it slows water flow during rain and prevents erosion. And how about that ocean view!

The paths/swales across the hill have been lined with lots of comfrey. This is a hardy, deep-rooted and fast-growing plant, so it stabilises the banks. Because it has such long roots, it “mines” nutrients and minerals from deep down and brings them to the surface, storing them in its leaves. The leaves are regularly harvested for compost and mulch, and it can also be used to make “comfrey tea” fertiliser or fed to livestock.

You can’t see it very well in this photo, but there are banana plants and other fruit trees in amongst the comfrey. These are mostly shallow-rooted plants, so the comfrey doesn’t compete with them for nutrients.

And that brings us to the seating circle, about half-way down the slope. This is a large level area, with enough seating for a whole class and plenty of room in the middle for demonstrations. Being central, you can also see most of the garden from this vantage point. What a great learning area!

The next three photos are from a display board at the school, to show a bit more detail about how the seating circle was constructed.

It started off with earthworks to level the site, and construction of retaining walls (which provide additional seating if needed).

Next, a base was put down and tyres were put in place as the structure of the seating circle. The tyres were filled for structural strength and stability.

Boards were fixed to the top of the tyres as a base for the decking timber of the finished seats.

Back to the tour…

This area between the schoolhouse and the seating circle is a north-facing slope, but is protected from southerly and easterly winds by the buildings. That makes an ideal environment for south-east Asian vegetables. Below this area is the Mediterranean area, also a north-facing hot area.

Don’t you love the signs the kids have made? They were dotted around the garden to identify various features, plants, microclimates, etc.

About half-way down the slope is the public entrance to the garden, leading in from the footpath. This also serves as a secondary receiving point for mulch, compost, etc.

In a little from the public entrance is the main composting area. Being a large flat area right near the entrance, it would make a good place for stacking bulk materials like hay bales and garden stakes, before distribution around the garden.

Near the composting area were some striking rainbow chard plants. You can see the huge curly kale plants in the background too. Doesn’t everything look super healthy?

Dotted around the garden at the end of swales are these compost bins, dubbed the Daleks by the students. You’re never far from one of these, making it very convenient to get rid of prunings, dropped fruit and other waste while working in the garden. They are the Gedye compost bins that are available from Kiama Council.

Moving further down the slope, the kids have planted a wind break to provide some protection against the salty coastal breezes coming in from the east. There are a few windbreaks around the garden, mostly either bana grass or sugar cane. Both grow quickly to about two metres tall, and can be cut for mulch or composting.

The bottom of the garden (the northern edge) is bounded by the school’s service road. This would reflect a lot of heat on a sunny day, being light-coloured concrete, so the lower part of the garden needs to be planted with species able to handle it. The kids have designated this bottom swale the citrus mound.

Looking back up the slope at the schoolhouse. The main garden is to the right in this photo, and there’s native gardens continuing along the slope to the left. These swales have been planted with bananas and other fruit trees, and also provide a pathway back up to the schoolyard.

I hope you enjoyed this tour as much as I enjoyed visiting the garden!

Please let me know what you think in the comments.

Kiama Primary School Garden Opening

Darren — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 21:12:19 +0000

I had the day off work on Friday, and happily it coincided with the official opening of the Kiama Primary School Garden.

Remember I was awarded a Permaculture Design Certificate scholarship by my local council? One of the other recipients was Maria, a teacher from Kiama Primary School, and she’s been heavily involved in getting this garden up and running. I’m helping to get a similar garden (although perhaps not quite on the same scale!) going at Jamberoo Primary School as the community project aspect of my PDC scholarship, so it was a great opportunity to gather ideas.

Here’s Maria (in the checked shirt) speaking at the opening ceremony:

During the ceremony, all the school kids were lined up along the swales to watch:

Costa Georgiadis (from Costa’s Garden Odyssey on SBS TV) was the celebrity guest and keynote speaker. What a great guy! He was funny, informative, and has an incredible way of relating to kids with irreverent humour and infectious enthusiasm. Here’s Costa with our mayor, Sandra McCarthy, and Vanessa John (Environmental Strategy Officer at Wollongong Council, and coordinator of the PDC scholarship programme) presenting students with some fruit trees for the garden:

Costa was a hit with the kids, mucking around and having fun in the garden:

And of course, I couldn’t resist getting a photo with Costa!

This garden was designed by Aaron Sorensen, and built and maintained under the guidance of him and Dan Deighton (along with Maria, of course!). These two guys have done an awful lot of amazing work at schools around the Illawarra. You can read more about Aaron and Dan’s work with schools over at the Milkwood Permaculture site – Kiama Primary School Garden (showing what the site looked like back in April, when it was just getting started) and Cringila Primary School Garden. The Cringila site was also covered on ABC Open (with video!).

I’ll write a follow-up post in the next couple of days to give you a tour of the garden.

Update: Here’s the promised follow-up: Kiama Primary School Permaculture Garden Tour.

Indian Runner Ducklings

Darren — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:06:18 +0000

We’ve been looking for Indian Runner ducks for a while to replace the ones we lost in the fox attack. There really aren’t many around, and they go quickly when someone does advertise them.

Luckily, I found a guy selling ducklings on the Backyard Poultry board (look for Harry from Thirroul if you’re interested – he’s a great guy and breeds lovely ducks!). We were up in Sydney this weekend, so we picked up 8 ducklings on the way back through. We’ll be keeping 6, and the other 2 are for a friend.

How cute are they?!

They’re very young, and so still need a heat lamp for a few more weeks.

Huge Carrot!

Darren — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 11:36:27 +0000

If it was a fish, this would have been the one that got away. Luckily, carrots don’t put up much of a struggle.

I was pulling weeds out of an overgrown garden bed on the weekend, and noticed some carrot leaves among the mess. Megan had just harvested the last of the carrots (about a kilo worth) from the bed before I got started, so I figured she missed one.

Needless to say, I got a bit of a surprise!

In case you can’t read the scales, it clocked in at 894 grams – almost as much as the small bucketfull Megan had spent half an hour picking!

Does anyone else have any monster vegetable stories?

No related posts.

Illawarra Freecycle

Darren — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 01:06:21 +0000

I’ve been meaning to post about FreeCycle for a while. It’s a great way to find a new home for stuff you no longer want, or to find stuff you need that other people might be throwing away. The whole idea is to stop sending things to landfill that might be useful to someone else. A noble cause!

The FreeCycle Network is made up of almost 5,000 regional groups, with a total of nearly 9 million members. Happily our region is represented, with FreeCycle Illawarra.

The way it works is you first join up to your regional group, and then you’ll start receiving emails. Some will be people wanting things, some will be people offering things. You can only offer things for free (no money can change hands!), and all items must be legal and appropriate for all ages.

A few other local bloggers are active on FreeCycle, including NellyMary and Rich & Ally.

So, here are some of the cool things I’ve been able to pick up…

Lots of firewood. A guy at Gerringong had some trees fall down on his property, so I went down and cut them up with my chainsaw and brought back many trailer loads. I’m still splitting it, but we won’t go cold for a few winters!

A dog kennel.

A stainless steel BBQ plate. It’s very heavy and quite thick, so it’ll go great on a traditional stone-sided wood-fired barbie.

While collecting the above BBQ plate, I noticed the guy had a pile of scrap metal in his front yard waiting for the recycler. He said I could take whatever I wanted. These galvanised flues, and the capped flue below, will be great for building a wood-fired pizza oven like Gavin’s cob oven!

I’ve also given away some stuff on FreeCycle – a microwave and a few other small things.

So how about you – have you used FreeCycle? What did you give away or get?

Swales For Water Harvesting

Darren — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 12:42:11 +0000

About a month ago I did a talk at our local garden club, Jamberoo Community Growers, about swales. Below are the notes from my talk – please let me know if you find them useful!

What is a swale?

A perfectly level ditch, following the contour of the land.

(diagram from Toby Hemenway’s excellent book, Gaia’s Garden)

What does a swale do?

Water harvesting: captures surface water flowing downhill during rain.
Slows the movement of surface water across the landscape, putting it to use rather than just letting it flow off.
Spreads the water evenly along the length of the swale. Water will naturally flow into gullies and away from ridges – swales redistribute it more evenly.
Holds water for some time (usually days, up to a week) after a rain event, allowing it to slowly infiltrate into the ground.
Hydrates the slope below the swale, storing water in the soils and sediments underground.
You won’t need to water even the most fussy plants on a swale for a few weeks after a rain event – more hardy plants won’t ever need watering.

How do you build a swale?

Start by marking out where it will go – dumpy level/a-frame, clear hose, builder’s level on plank, laser level. Use little flags or pegs to mark the uphill edge of the swale.
Dig a trench along the marked line, piling the removed soil on the downhill side of the trench to make a mound.
Think about what will happen if the swale overflows – plan a spillway that won’t erode during high flow, and ensure that the water that exits won’t cause problems downhill.
Make the bottom of the trench level.
Crack/chip the bottom of the swale to aid water infiltration.
You can completely fill the swale with mulch (leaves, sticks, wood, bark, etc) (good for smaller swales) or leave a trench/gullly that will fill with water.
Mulch the swale mound well to prevent weeds and erosion.
Plant legumes on the mound (pigeon pea, cow pea, clover, tagasaste, wattle, etc) to build soil nitrogen and act as nursery trees for your crop species. These can be “chopped and dropped” as mulch during the life of the swale.
Plant fruit and nut trees on the top of the mound (for plants that like drainage) and below the mound (for plants that like moisture).
Build successive swales down a slope, giving consideration to how they overflow into one another.
Space neighbouring swales widely on shallow slopes, closer together on steeper slopes.
Important: Plant out and mulch the swale immediately after construction so you don’t have to fight with weeds later!

Potential problems with swales

If you don’t get the levels right, you can get a heavy flow of water along your swale and concentrate it to the overflow point, which might cause problems downhill. Even worse, it might burst through the mound somewhere along the swale and erode it out.
If you don’t plant trees below the swale, you’ll cause waterlogging by infiltrating more water than grasses and small plants can absorb.
High evaporation can cause salt buildup. You need to ensure the base of the swale is not sealed like a dam, but allows slow infiltration of water. Trees help take up the water and shade the trench to reduce evaporation. Water lost to evaporation is water not used!
Get the overflow point right! Make sure it won’t erode during high rainfall (e.g. line a sill with rocks or pavers, or use buried overflow pipe through the mound). Plan where you’re directing the overflow water, and ensure a heavy storm won’t cause downhill problems.
Don’t allow plants to grow thickly and clog up your overflow points.

My backyard swale, planted with taro, bananas, mango, and sweet potato.

More swale ideas

Make swales a generous width, fill them with wood chips or green waste mulch to level the surface, and use them as access paths. Water will be held in the mulch, reducing evaporation and encouraging beneficial fungi (mycorrhiza), but the top layer will be dry for walking on.
Similar to above, dig ditches on contour in your vegetable garden beds and fill them with mulch as access paths.
Create crescent-shaped mini-swales for individual trees. They’ll collect water (possibly from a wide area) and concentrate it for infiltration just uphill of the tree.
Direct swale overflows into water features, dams, rain gardens, banana circles, or (if you don’t have any other options) stormwater drains.
Direct greywater (from laundry, outdoor showers, etc) into a slotted irrigation pipe that runs along the bottom of a swale. Cover the pipe with lots of wood chips and mulch, so the greywater won’t sit at the surface.
Road or driveway runoff and rainwater tank overflows can also be directed into swales.
On rocky ground that can’t be dug (or if you don’t have the time and energy!), place fallen trees, branches, sticks and rocks along contours (across the slope) and fill behind them with mulch, compost, dirt, rocks, etc. When it rains, more silt will wash down the slope and build up behind the branches, creating a swale-like mound.
Plant water-loving plants (taro, rice, kangkong, lillies) in the swales, and moisture-loving plants (asaparagus, mints, blueberries, bananas, ginger) just above the swale flood level.
In large swale systems, small dams or pools can be created by deepening and widening the trench at intervals. This would create a string of ponds that link up during rain events, much like billabongs along a river.
Swales are starting to be used in urban planning to reduce water flows, nurture street trees, and reduce the amount of water going into stormwater systems.
Aim to keep all the water that falls on your land, on your land!

Gourmet Farmer – Australia’s River Cottage?

Darren — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 14:23:08 +0000

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you’ll know that I’m a huge fan of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall‘s River Cottage TV shows. I just can’t get enough of them!

Well, an Australian TV show in a very similar vein debuted on SBS last year, named Gourmet Farmer and starring Matthew Evans. Like Hugh, Matthew once made his living as a chef. He then worked as a food critic for The Sydney Morning Herald, before packing it all in to move to a 22-acre small farm near Cygnet, in Tasmania’s Huon Valley.

I really enjoyed the first series. It showed the trials and tribulations of trying to grow your own food and raise animals when you don’t have much of a clue what you’re doing (hehe!), and at the same time showcased some of the many small food producers from around Tasmania.

One of the highlights of the first series for me was when Matthew’s mum came to visit, and she asked him if he was planning to breed his new sows. “Nah,” he replied, “I was thinking of getting a boar in to do that.”

Gourmet Farmer comes across as a bit of a lifestyle show with magnificent scenery and delicious recipes, but it has more depth than most and touches on some important food issues – preserving heritage breeds, free-ranging animals, use of sow farrowing crates, the economics of family farming, the excessive restrictions of our “food safety” regulations, etc.

The new series started last week – you can still catch Episode 1 on the SBS web site if you missed it. The second episode will air on SBS tonight (Thursday) at 7:30 pm.

Here’s the promo video of Gourmet Farmer Series 2, to give you a taste of what’s coming up:

So what do you think? Is Gourmet Farmer Australia’s answer to River Cottage?

Puppies and Piglets Available – Illawarra

Darren — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 11:26:44 +0000

I’ve had a few people email me recently asking about both the kelpie puppy we just bought and the piglets we raised this time last year.

The good news is, both are currently available from the respective breeders!

There were about 7 or so pups in Jessie’s litter, all just as cute as her, and as far as I know there are still some available. The family lives in Jamberoo.

The family I got the pigs from last year emailed me last week to let me know they have just had two litters of pigs born, both of which should be available for purchase in about 2 months or so (maybe a little less).

If you’d like to be put in touch with either of them, please email me!

Meet Jessie, The Red Kelpie Pup

Darren — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 22:20:40 +0000

Meet the newest addition to our home, Jessie:

She’s a female red kelpie. We picked her up on Saturday from a local family, after waiting several weeks for her to grow big enough. Not all of us were terribly patient with the wait!

Her mum’s owners have girls in both Hannah and Sarah’s years at school, and I think every kid in both classes has been asking their parents if they can have a puppy!

Jessie’s mum is a beautiful dog with a really good nature. She’s great with kids and chooks, and is really active and playful.

So far, Jessie has handled the transition really well. The kids play with her a lot and tire her out, so she’s been eating and sleeping well. She cried a lot the first night (we tried all the tricks, like a hot water bottle and a sock with a clock in it), but slept through last night without fuss.

I think she’s going to be a great family pet and companion for the kids, and an excellent first line of defence against those dastardly foxes. I’m hoping she’ll also chase the cockatoos out of the fruit trees and the bower birds out of the vegie gardens!

No related posts.

Meeting Joel Salatin In Jamberoo

Darren — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:20:15 +0000

Wow, today was amazing. Definitely one to tick off the bucket list!

I went to an all-day workshop with Joel Salatin (of Polyface Farm, brought to fame by Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma), right here in Jamberoo. I was there with a bunch of friends from around town and from further afield, I met some interesting new people, and I finally got to meet Kirsten and Nick from Milkwood in person!

Here’s me and my mate Adam (the other half of Fiona, from Inner Pickle), having a quick chat with Joel after the workshop. You won’t get those smiles off our faces for at least a couple of weeks!

My head is spinning with all the ideas I heard today, and working out ways to scale them down to work on our acre. I’m going back over my notes, and I’ll be watching more of Joel’s videos on YouTube, and reading his books, to get even more ideas.

But most importantly, Joel’s enthusiasm just fires you up to get out there and try stuff. One of his sayings that struck a chord with me was “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly first”. There’ll be plenty of time to refine and get it right as you go. He actually used the example of a fox eating all your chickens as just a setback, something to learn from and move on from.

I was hugely impressed that both the Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Kiama were there today. I think that shows the level of commitment they have to supporting localised and sustainable agriculture here. I’m sure they can’t have missed all Joel’s points about government regulations and bureaucracy getting in the way of producing and selling food on a local scale!

I even got to try raw milk for the first time in my life, from a local dairy farmer. It was really good, like bought milk but better. Too bad I’ll probably never be able to have it again!

I’ll post some more of my notes over the next few days, as I get it all straight in my head.

Sampling Home Made Parmesan

Darren — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 13:32:54 +0000

No, it wasn’t mine, but tonight we really enjoyed having home made parmesan on our spaghetti and meatballs.

Gavin, from The Greening Of Gavin fame, recently held a competition to name his new home-made cheese blog (the cheese is home-made; although I guess the blog probably is too). Since he’s a big greenie, and as a play on his main blog name, I suggested he name the blog Green Cheese. Gav liked the name but it was taken, so it became Little Green Cheese.

Pop over and check it out!

The prize for picking the winning name was a chunk of home-made parmesan. I wasn’t sure how that was going to go in the post from Melbourne, but it arrived safe and sound.

I was a bit nervous about wasting it, and wanted to keep this special cheese for a worthy meal. Tonight I made Tuscan meatballs on spaghetti, and we finally had to opportunity to break out the parmesan.

What can I say – yum! The cheese was excellent!

If you’re interested in how parmesan is made, Gav has a recipe and instructions on his new site – making parmesan.

Cheesemaking is something I’d like to try, but I have so many other projects on the go that I don’t want to take on a new hobby that I know I’ll become obsessed with! If only there were more hours in the day .

Have you ever made cheese? How did it go? Do you make it regularly?

$50 Bunnings Gift Card Winner!

Darren — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 11:57:38 +0000

The winner of the $50 Bunnings gift card from the National Tree Day Giveaway has been randomly selected – and it’s Sonia, who liked peppercorn trees, silver birch, and blueberry ash. I actually have a blueberry ash in my front yard; it’s a very pretty tree in flower.

Sonia, I have your email address from the blog comment, so look out for a message from me!

To select the winner, I used Random.org‘s True Random Number Generator. There were 16 comments, but one was a follow-up comment by somebody who’d already entered, so I chose a random number between 1 and 15. Sonia’s was the 4th comment.

Thanks to all who entered, and I hope everybody had a nice Tree Day!

National Tree Day 2011 – Giveaway!

Darren — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 13:39:19 +0000

I posted yesterday about National Schools Tree Day. And this Sunday, 31st July 2011, is National Tree Day.

This is a great excuse to get the family outdoors, celebrate trees and all they do for us, and do some good for the environment. If you want to engage with others in your local community, you can use the online tool to find out what events are happening in your area (or even register your own event!).

For our part, my family will be planting some more fruit and nut trees in our yard.

As a bit of a promotion for National Tree Day, Planet Ark has sent me a $50 Bunnings gift card to give away. One lucky reader can use it to buy some trees!

To enter the draw, simply leave a comment below telling me what your favourite type of tree is, and why.

The giveaway is only open to people from Australia (Bunnings is an Australian store, so the prize would be useless to everyone else!), but overseas readers are welcome to comment too. You can list multiple trees and/or make multiple comments, but you’ll only get one entry into the draw per person.

I’ll select the winner at random from all eligible comments made before 8:00 pm AEST on Sunday the 31st.

What is your favourite type of tree, and why?

Schools Tree Day 2011

Darren — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:01:32 +0000

Today (July 29th) is Schools Tree Day in Australia, coordinated by Planet Ark.

The aim of the day is to get kids outdoors, planting and caring for trees and shrubs, improving the environment where they live and learn.

Back in March, Planet Ark commissioned a study to see how childhood interaction with nature has changed over time. You can access the full study, or read the 2-page media summary.

I wasn’t surprised that kids today spend less time playing outdoors now than they (we!) did a generation ago. But the actual figures really shocked me – of the parents surveyed (all had kids aged 3-12):

73% said they played outside more often than inside as a child. Only 13% of their children do now.
72% said they played outside every day as a child. Only 23% of their children do now.
64% said they climbed trees as a child. Only 20% of their children do now.

Sadly, 10% of modern children play outside once per week or less.

The main reasons parents gave for this change were crime and safety concerns, and their own lack of time.

On a personal note, I’m proud to say that my girls have recently discovered the joy of climbing trees. My 8-year-old likes to stop and say hello to her favourite climbing tree every day as she walks up the drive from the school bus .

Do those numbers surprise you? Do you actively try to get your kids to play outside?