'Plants were designed to be the intermediate between animals and the soil. The only reason we source our minerals from a bottle is because the minerals in the soil are depleted' - Phyllis Balch, nutritionist

We’ve been busily spreading locally produced ‘Remin’ rock dust of late, as a key way to improve the health of our soils – and hence our plants and ourselves! This rock dust is basically rock like basalt which has been finely ground to a powder. In this powdered form, microbes in the soil can easily break the rock down into a form that is then available to plants. Rock dust makes a whole range of vital elements and trace minerals available to plants, increasing their health, nutrient value and yield – check out http://remineralize.org/ for more insight into the amazing benefits of mineralising your soils.

We spread out about 120kg of ‘Remin’ rock dust all around our yard. Ideally you’d dig it into the soil, but because we had such a large area to cover and established ground covers, we just threw it around by hand and then watered it in.

To find out more about where we got our ‘Remin’ rock dust from, see: http://www.remin.com.au

Hi, I'm Gruma and this is my mate Charma, nice to meet you! We’re the first two girls to move in to ‘Happy Earth.’

We’re silkies, gorgeously fluffy and very cute if we do say so ourselves. We’re from Kembla Grange, so it wasn’t a long trip to move here which was nice. Can’t wait till we’re a bit older (we’re 9 weeks now) and can get out and free range around this backyard – it’s incredible! Lush green ground covers as far as you can see, including heaps of chickweed, our favourite! We’re lucky we get fed lots of greens along with our grains, and we even get hand picked slugs on a plate of nasturtium leaf for extra protein. These guys are so nuts about fresh food and fruit, they even named us after the South American fruit tree - Grumichama!

We think we’ll like it here, things are looking pretty good – we’ll let you know how things progress hey.

 Catch you later :)

Our local Councils have just launched 'Sustainability Begins at Home,' with heaps of fun activities and workshops set to happen over the next 2 years, an 'online challenge,' a really exciting 'Super Challenge' and a funky, informative website.

Households joining the 'Super Challenge' will set their own action plan to become more sustainble - and will receive $200 of eco helpful freebies (e.g. compost bins, fruit trees), support along the way, and entry into a draw for a solar hot water system!

Only 200 households are able to take part and applications close August 1st - so check out http://www.sustainableillawarra.com.au/ and go to the 'Super Challenge' page to get your Expression of Interest in!

There are amazing opportunities to create healthier, better connected, more vibrant communities in the face of peak oil and climate change. ‘Transition Towns’ are paving the way by creating ‘Energy Descent Action Plans’ that provide a framework for our community to come together on these pressing issues. The transition model is based on the assumptions that:

1. Life with dramatically lower energy consumption is inevitable, and that it's better to plan for it than to be taken by surprise.

2. Our settlements and communities presently lack the resilience to enable them to weather the severe energy shocks that will accompany peak oil and climate change.

3. We have to act collectively, and we have to act now.

4. By unleashing the collective genius of those around us to creatively and proactively design our own energy descent, we can build ways of living that are more connected, more enriching and that recognise the biological limits of our planet.

Like we were, you might be surprised to hear that Australia has it’s own native raspberries – and they’re just as yummy as European varieties, and much better suited to our warmer coastal climate. There are varieties native to the Illawarra, but the Atherton raspberry, from Queensland has especially nice berries and is really productive, so it’s won a spot in our yard.

They’re best contained to a small area in the garden, as they’re keen suckers and fast growers – they love climbing too, so trellises are a good idea.

We planted a row of them in September and we’re indulging in raspberries now. And they’ll continue to fruit just about all year round!

For more info, see our Atherton raspberry article.

Well it’s time to dust off the winter woollies and pull out the beanie, because the winter chills have arrived. Ways we’re keeping our place warm and toasty include:

• Insulating the ceiling
• Using heavy hemp curtains
• Sealing cracks in the windows, floors and around doors
• Heating only the room we’re using, and closing doors to other rooms
• Using the reversible ceiling fan

On those extra chilly nights we put our slow combustion wood heater on for a few hours. An efficient wood combustion heater (not an open fire), fed properly seasoned hardwood logs is the most environmentally friendly form of heating. It wins hands down over electric and gas heating, especially when you can use local, sustainably harvested timber. All of the timber for our fire will come from trees grown right here on our small suburban block (mainly fruit tree prunings). It’s cost neutral, carbon neutral heating! And the ash will be returned to our soil as a fertiliser at the end of winter. Sounds good to us!

For more info about the benefits of wood heating compared to other forms of heating, check out the following article written by David Holgrem: http://www.holmgren.com.au/DLFiles/PDFs/Firewood%20Web.pdf

“Renovating your bathroom?” people asked as we crammed an unwanted bathtub into the back of our tiny Honda Civic. No, we’re doing something much more fun than that! We’ve just finished making a bathtub worm farm system for our wriggling backyard buddies. We’re keen to get the worm castings cranking, and this bathtub will produce plenty of castings, in addition to the ‘can of worms’ system we have out the front. We’ve found the small ‘can of worms’ system has been perfect for starting out.

Worm farms are fantastic for recycling food scraps, and they produce the ultimate soil improver – rich, black worm castings. Worm manure beats all other animal manures hands down, and it has no odour, so your neighbours will love you as they won’t be running to shut their windows when you spread it around!

You need to introduce ‘compost worms’ to your systems, as the worms you find in the garden are way too laid back to be munching through lots of food scraps, unlike the hard working compost worms. About 1,000 worms (250grams) is a good amount to start out with, but it depends on your set up.

A brilliant, practical book about starting out with worm farming is Jade Woodhouse’s ‘Worm Farming – Our Saviour For The Soil (www.simplynaturalorganic.com). There are a few local worm farmers in Wollongong, who sell worms and worm casting – we’ve found Max Norden from Wormifert (0414 733 823) really helpful.

Happy worm farming and thanks wormies!

With cosy sleeping quarters, a spacious area for scratching around amongst green prunings, their own water tank and a five star eco rating (all made from recycled materials of course!) we’ve got chickens and ducks from across the country signing up to get in to our newly built chicken house!

 

At the moment the likely lucky girls selected for the spring housewarming party are (drum roll please!)….two silky chooks (charming nature and gorgeous fluffy factor), two Australorp chooks (strong work ethic and impressive laying abilities), and two Khaki Campbells ducks (sweet nature and reputation as good small backyard garden companions). They’ll be our first backyard ‘girls’ so please let us know of any advice, recommendations of different breeds to go with, or locals from whom we could get our lucky girls – thanks!

We've just starting harvesting our abundance of Queensland blue and butternut pumpkins which have gone crazy in our lower backyard. There’s nothing better than the first homegrown pumpkin soup of the season! We find adding red lentils and lots of rosemary, along with garlic, onion and potato, makes an extra hearty and yummy soup.

Pumpkins are fantastic edible groundcovers, as are sweet potatoes, and nasturtiums (leaves and flowers are a spicy addition to salads). These groundcovers suppress weeds, preserve moisture in the soil, and improve soil biology – as well as providing bountiful harvests!

After insulation, heavy curtains are an efficient and affordable way to keep the warmth from escaping through the windows in winter. To best stop your warm air escaping, you want good coverage over the window. We hung our curtains on a rod with wooden rings and placed the rod a good 10cm above the top of the window architrave, and let the curtains fall 30cm below the bottom architrave. We also placed a small hook in each of the brackets that support the curtain rod, so we can hook the curtain right around to touch the wall, and enclose the window nicely.

We made the curtains from heavy, natural, sustainable and attractive material - 100% herringbone hemp we ordered from www.hempgallery.com.au. And many thanks to our brilliant Nanna who turned them into beautiful curtains!

It was at our local community garden at the North Wollongong PCYC, where we first started to learn about sustainable organic gardening. It’s where we first experienced how powerful food gardens are for healing and empowering people, building community, and bring life back to the land. It’s also a place where we have met wonderful people and made fantastic friends. We even met each other under the mulberry tree!

From bare grass and asphalt in 1999, ‘The Garden’ at the North Wollongong PCYC has flourished into a spectacular permaculture food forest. Packed into about 1,000 square metres is an abundance of fruit trees, veggie beds, ponds, arts, mosaics, and a funky chicken house. There’s even an outdoor kitchen with a wood fired pizza oven on the way!

An enthusiastic group looks after and creates this amazing place. Interested people are always welcome to get involved and come along to a working bee. Working bees are usually on the first Sunday of each month, but this can change from time to time. For more info see http://nswcommunities.org.au/thegarden.html or contact Aaron Sorenson on 0424 241 881. Amazing transformations are also happening at Port Kembla, with a group bringing a laneway to life with permaculture gardens.

Within months of planting, we’re already snacking off our insanely fast growing panama berry tree, enjoying it’s sweet red berries that are the size of a big blueberries and taste like a cross between strawberries and figs, with a hint of caramel. You can literally see these trees grow before your eyes – this one only stood 70cm tall when we planted it out about 6 months ago!

These hardy sun loving trees love frost free subtropical climates like Wollongong, can be used as a wind break, and grow to a maximum of seven metres tall. Being such a fast growing tree, they’re perfect to plant in between slower growing fruit trees, and take out when the other trees come into production. They’re also fantastic in community and school gardens, providing quick, rewarding results and yummy snack food.

This is the first of our once a month fruit tree profile blogs, so keep an eye out for the likes of black sapote, babaco, japotacaba, grumacharma and many other fabulous fruit trees that thrive in Wollongong, but most people have never heard of!

For more info, check out our panama berry article.

We’re super stoked to have finished our gorgeous garden path, which has been creatively recycled from our huge old concrete driveway. Where the massive driveway was we now have a smaller driveway more suited to our needs, a water tank, and a gorgeous area planted out with a few citrus, a macadamia, davidson plum, and other fruit trees. By breaking up the hard surface area, we’re also improving the water quality of our local creeks by reducing runoff, minimising risks of local flooding and making sure we get maximum absorption of water on our block for our garden to thrive.

We’ve filled the gaps in between the concrete blocks with soil, and are establishing the very low growing groundcovers brahmi and pennyroyal to hold the soil in place. The path is wide enough to get a wheelbarrow through with ease, and by carefully positioning the pieces with rocks and soil underneath, we’ve been able to create a level surface.

The path meanders from the front gate, down the side of the house past the water tank and nursery to the front door of the future chicken and duck house – which is our next project!

Local, ethically and sustainably produced native forest timber plays a key role in sustainable living. But it can be hard to come by, when most timber and furniture in the shops comes from who knows where, and who knows what the true story is behind how the forests are being managed.

We were lucky enough to find a local producer of sustainable native forest timber and furniture near Jamberoo. Julian harvests mostly from trees which have blown down in the wind on his property, or surrounding properties. We bought a beautiful red cedar slab from a tree of about 70 years of age that blew down in Julian’s front yard in strong winds in 2003. We’ll make this precious piece of local timber into a much loved dining table.

See the Green Directory for Julian’s details.

From a bare backyard of grass, a pool and concrete, our suburban food forest and mandala veggie bed system has sprung to life over the last eight months as shown in the video below. Over 100 fruit trees, shrubs and vines have been planted, as well as an array of soil improving groundcovers and trees.

The next eight months of change will be even more exciting, with the last of the fruit trees going in, chickens and ducks coming on the scene, and the veggie beds being planted out for a bumper summer harvest. Look out for an update backyard ‘timelapse’ video in another six months time!

Sustainable living is as much about growing community as it is growing food. The last Sunday in March each year is neighbour day, which encourages us to say g’day and keep in touch with our neighbours. There’s no buying badges or trinkets that just end up in the bin, and no donations to make.

We find growing food is such a valuable way to build community relations. There’s always produce and flowers to share over the fence, as well as stories about what’s growing and what wildlife has come in to visit. And we’re sure our crazy garden gets people far and wide talking! So say g’day and plant a fruit tree this Sunday – even better plant it with your neighbours! See http://www.neighbourday.org for more info.

Worm castings are phenomenal soil improvers. The last couple of days we’ve spread out 500 litres of worm castings we bought from a local worm farmer (see Local Green Directory). We spread the castings around our fruit trees from the base of the trunk to well past the drip line.

To keep the castings nice and cool we mulched over them with the free horse manure we picked up from the stables just down the road at Kembla Grange. To get our soils really humming, we’ll spread this amount of castings out twice a year.

It's so good having a hot shower knowing the water has been heated by the sun rather than a coal fired power station! Making the switch to solar hot water should cut our electricity bill by a massive 60% - electric hot water systems are real energy guzzlers. We went with a 300L Solarhart hot water system, and fully installed, after the rebates, it cost us around $1,800.

There's federal and state rebates to take advantage of at the moment, if you're switching from electric hot water - check out www.environment.gov.au/settlements/renewable/solarhotwater and www.environment.nsw.gov.au/rebates for the details.

Purple carrots, black Russian tomatoes, yellow zucchini – having a nursery to grow your own seedlings means you can grow wonderful heirloom varieties that are often hardier, easier to grow and far more exciting than conventional varieties available at a typical nursery retailers. It also means you can have seedlings that are vibrantly healthy and ready for planting right when you need them.

We just built our nursery out of recycled materials – the frame is made from old hardwood timber fence posts while the shelves are preloved ACR fencing. The nursery faces northeast to give them as much sun as possible. Sheeting on the south and west sides protects them from strong winter westerlies and southerly winds, while sheeting on the roof shields them from heavy rain and hail. We’ve also wired the north and east side to protect them from hungry cabbage white butterflies and birds. For those hot summer days, white shade cloth can be rolled out over the roof to keep them cool and stress free.

An automatic timer waters them at the end of each day with water from our water tanks. And the floor of the nursery slopes slightly so that water runs off into the water loving blueberry patch – brilliant!

A ‘chemical clean out’ day has been organised this Sunday, the 2nd of March at Kembla Grange Racecourse car park between 9am and 3:30pm, by the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change. You can properly dispose of all your household chemical nasties here for free – stuff like pesticides, herbicides, paints, batteries and CFL (florescent) light globes.

The previous house owners left some pesticides, paints and other nasties at our place. We did ask them to dispose of them – and they did by placing them in the usual domestic waste bin. The legacy we are leaving future generations with our huge garbage tips is bad enough, without making them toxic as well! So we pulled them out of the bin and have been waiting for this day! The racehorse car park is on the Princes Highway at Kembla Grange. There's also another one coming up at Bellambi Point Sports Field car park (Bott Drive entry), on Saturday the 31 May, between 9am and 3:30pm. Check out www.cleanout.com.au for more info.