Permablitzes are backyard makeovers permaculture style. Before they happen the facilitators meet a few times with the garden owners to work out exactly what they want and help come up with a permaculture design for the yard. The word is then put out to the local community to come along and lend a hand in blitzing the backyard.

There was about 40 people at the ‘Permablitz the Gong’ get together on the weekend. With help and guidance from the fabulously skilled and wonderfully motivating ‘Permablitz the Gong’ organisers, everyone pitched in tasks they were interested in and gained a lot of skills and knowledge as they worked.  

A classic moment was the neighbour popping his head over the fence and his draw dropping when he saw how many people were helping out with creating a food garden!

Our friends are just so thrilled with what was achieved, and feel it saved them 12 months of work themselves in the garden. It was also wonderfully inspiring for all involved to feel such a sense of community. People who may not have even met before came together to help create a permaculture garden which will help feed it’s owners long into the future.

For more about Permablitz the Gong, check out their website http://permablitzthegong.wordpress.com/. Permablitz Melbourne also has some great stuff happening and fantastic resources others can use to start permablitzes happening in their own neighbourhood.

We always loved popping along to the monthly fruit and veg swaps. There’s such a surprising variety of garden produce and garden goodies to share and swap –fruit, veg, eggs, seeds, seedlings, cuttings and even gardening magazines and books. It’s great to chat with other gardening enthusiasts about what’s been growing in their gardens too. Plus at this swap there will be yummy coffee and nibbles available and entertainment too!

This swap is a ‘jump start’ event after some ever-so-generous volunteers stepped back from years of volunteering to organise the monthly swap.

It’s such a credit to the people who volunteer their time to make these swaps happen, and to the community garden for hosting the event. At this jump start event there’ll be a discussion about volunteering for the ongoing functioning of the swap – a brilliant volunteering activity to be involved in! For more details check out http://thegardennorthgong.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/waste-not-swap-jump-start-17th-feb-2013.html

Everything has gone to seed.

And at times the poor beds have even been used as a work station for building. 

We miss our abundant vegie beds dearly. After years of growing virtually all of our own veg, it’s a real shock to our systems to be back buying all our fresh produce. Our cooking used to revolve around what came from our daily harvest basket. It was a lovely, rewarding way of growing, harvesting and eating in tune with the seasons.

This time away from vegie gardening has solidified our commitment to growing organic veg at home. Yes it takes time, yes it’s constant work, but food from the shops just isn’t anywhere near as fresh and healthy. We’re passionate about buying organic produce, but the availability of organic produce locally is certainly limited. Although in our region has a few places that sell fresh organic produce (check out our Illawarra Green Directory for details), we’re finding it a challenge to travel to these places regularly with a baby in tow.

Within a couple of months we should be through the last of the hard yards with the renovation and able to revitalise the vegie beds. Vegie beds are forgiving. They’ll welcome us back with welcoming arms. We can’t wait.

From talking to other parents, it certainly does seem that different nappy styles suit different babies and the only way to find out what suits you and your bub best is to try different kinds. We’ve picked up different nappies that have been new and unused, or only used a couple of times, from the local second hand Baby and Kids markets and Baby Bazzar markets, and also from Ebay. Hiring a nappy pack with different styles is also a great option, like from Ecopatooties, an Illawarra business. A friend of mine has been really happy with her newborn nappy kit from Ecopatooties, and we wish we had hired newborn nappies for when our little one was just born. We’ve always used the adjustable ‘one-size fits from birth to toilet training nappies’, but really they were too big for our tiny girl when she was born, so there was lots of changing clothes as she frequently sprung a leak! 

We’ve been using mostly pocket nappies such as Bum Genius and Bum Cheeks. They have a waterproof cover and a cotton or bamboo insert that slips inside. They fit well, are easy to put on, and do look very cute! For night-time I find the Pea Pod nappies are really absorbent. We even have a reusable Charlie Banana swimmer nappy for trips to the pool.

Though we haven’t tried them, amongst the greenest of green nappies would probably be something like these gorgeous organic flat cotton Disana nappies with wool covers from Woollykins. Well even greener than that would be embracing Elimination Communication where you become so in tune with your baby you can take them to the toilet or put something under them when you know they are going to do something – but we haven’t tried that one either.  

We have about 25 nappies, and use about 6 or 7 a day. Dirty nappies are stored in a big bucket without any water (this is known as dry pailing) and then chucked in the washing machine on heavy duty cycle with ½ a cap of Ecostore washing liquid. We wash a load of nappies every second day. The bamboo inserts take much longer to dry than cotton inserts. Facing the inside of the nappies directly into the sun helps fade any stains. The way nappies are washed and dried has a lot to do with their overall eco footprint. Apart from three occasions, we’ve always line dried our nappies. Our washing machine is also powered by our own solar power system.   

We also use liners on the inside of our nappies. They draw the moisture away from bubs bottom quickly making them more comfortable, and they help protect the nappies from stains. Before our little one started on solid food at 6 months, we used homemade washable polar fleece liners by cutting rectangles of fleece to fit the nappies. Her poos were so little at that stage we just chucked the dirty liners straight in the dirty nappy bucket to be washed.

Once our gorgeous girl started on solid foods and her poos became more solid and volumous (and chunkily colourful with bits of food!), we started using biodegradable bamboo liners. They can be flushed down the loo, but as it’s best not to flush too many as they can clog the pipes, we only flush liners that have poo on them. The ones that only have wee, we wash with the nappies once, as we find they can be used twice before the start to fall apart. After they’ve been used twice only for wee, we pop them in the compost. 

We now use the polar fleece liners as reusable wipes, wetting them with water, or a gentle liquid soap if lots of cleaning up is required! 

It’s also handy to have a couple ‘wet-bags’ like this one featured on ‘Nappiness’, another Illawarra based cloth nappy business. They’re quite handy for storing wet nappies in when out and about. 

There’s no doubting that reusable nappies are more work than disposables. They’re also much cheaper than using disposables in the long run. But what motivates us is the thought of leaving between more than 5,000 dirty nappies sitting in landfill for our distant great great great great grandchildren’s world. No one really even knows how long it takes for nappies to break down in landfill. Even nappies made from biodegrable materials can’t break down in landfill as they’re deprived of moisture and oxygen and essentially mummified, so you’d have to compost them all at home to allow them to biodegrade. However, we’re totally non-judgemental about people’s nappy choices. We live in a very hectic world that is not easy for parents, you do what you have to do to survive! We also can’t imagine what it would be like to have two (or more!) little ones in nappies! 

Anyone else got any thoughts or tips on using reusable nappies? There’s some great comments on a different range of nappies at http://www.clothnappyreviews.com.au/.

There’s so much colour about even the chooks seem impressed...

Our fruit bowl is full of custard apples and cherimoyas...

And strawberries, mulberries, blueberries and native raspberries are a daily treat...

There’s so much for little hands to explore....

How is spring in your garden?

So we’ve been dreaming for years about rebuilding this area – and it’s started with the back of the house being dismantled!

We took apart the back of the house with much care, so as many materials as possible could be reused or recycled. It didn’t literally fall off – but it sure looks like it did!

In the new build we’ll be reusing the flooring, joists and bearers from the original extension. The metal and concrete from the area was taken to local recyclers. We were really pleased to only have a small amount of material that had to go to the local tip. We did have some asbestos though, which had to be carefully and painstakingly removed, sealed up and taken to a special waste facility, at the cost of $350 for a ute load.

To help us design the rebuild we’ve engaged local architect Morgen Figgis from Barnacle Studios. With his creativity and passion for sustainability, Morgen has helped us come up with a plan that we just love. The biggest changes will be moving the kitchen and our main living area to the new northern space, creating an outdoor deck and having a proper height laundry and storage areas underneath. We’ll feel so much more connected to the garden and the magical Illawarra escarpment in our new space!

Eco-friendly features of the new extension will include:

-          Solar passive design

-          Reverse block veneer construction

-          Low-e glazed windows

-          Use of recycled materials

-          Use of local sustainably hardwood timber and FSC certified timber

-          Natural sealers and paints

-          Water tanks connected to the new and old house  

Let the next chapter in our adventure in urban sustainability begin!

As we’re really passionate about growing delicious and uncommon fruit trees in the ‘burbs, we’ve contributed a story about doing just that.

We’ve got a copy of this great new book to share with one of our readers. To be in the draw to win just leave a comment on this post by the end of Saturday 18 August. Due to postage costs we’re limiting entry to people in Australia only (sorry overseas readers!). Only one comment per reader please, and we’ll randomly select a winner on Sunday 19 August – so be sure to check back in then!

19 August update – Wow, fantastic to see so keen beans put their hat in the ring for this giveaway. We used a random number generator to select the winner....and it’s Jayne, who commented ‘Have recently started my little window box, inspired by a kids' craft book! I love kids' books because they make everything so simple and possible. Would love your book to guide me into the adult world of permaculture!’ Congratulations Jayne! Thanks so much to everyone for showing your enthusiasm for this book – perhaps you could request your local library order a copy, that way lots of people could enjoy it!

The blue eggs of araucana chooks turned many heads...

As did the impressive ‘hats’ gracing some ducks...

What a fantastic glimpse into the amazing diversity of our feathered friends. We’ll definitely be heading back next year!

And what an adventure it’s been! In the early days up went the solar panels and the solar hot water, and we got busy doing some green renovations with  non-toxic paint, natural floors, ceiling and wall insulation, rainwater tanks and greywater systems.

Then oh the dreaming for a delicious garden – it began! We spent about three months working out the landscape design, figuring out where each and every fruit tree and garden element would be best placed. Then with a vengeance we turf-cut the entire block in October 2007, flipped the lawn on its head and sowed green manure crops to improve the soil. Out went the swimming pool and in went the veggie patch. Our huge concrete driveway was ripped up to make way for a citrus grove, with the concrete painstakingly recycled into a mosaic style garden path that meanders through our food forest. Over time we’ve put in over 100 fruiting trees, shrubs and vines, over 50 different species with everything from avocado to white sapote.

Chickens have joined us, and we relocated a swarm of bees to make home in our top bar bee hive. After creating a garden pond, frogs quickly came to join our garden too.  

Our garden and home have woven themselves into our souls in even more magical ways – we celebrated our marriage in the veggie patch, and birthed our beautiful little girl right here at home.

Our local community has flourished in exciting ways over the last five years, with the passion and determination of many wonderful people. The Flame Tree Community Food Co-op and the ‘Waste-not fruit and veg swap’ were born, and community gardens are continuing to grow. Through the Illawarra Biodiversity and Local Food Strategy for Climate Change project, involving Wollongong, Kiama and Shellharbour councils with funding support from the NSW Environmental Trust, we helped create the Illawarra Edible Garden Guide and community fruit tree groves.  

We’ve put down roots in this little piece of paradise reclaimed, and in our community. We can’t wait to see what the next five years, and fifty years here will bring.

It’s been wonderful sharing our adventures with you through this website over the past half a decade, and we look forward to sharing many more years together.

For our fifth birthday celebrations we’re giving away a copy of the new ABC Organic Gardener Essential Guide, issue 5 which is all about creating a great food garden.  To be the lucky winner, just leave a comment on this post letting us know what you’d like to hear more about on this blog. We’ll randomly select the winner in two weeks on 8 July, so check back in then! Good luck!

8 July update - Thanks so much to everyone for all your lovely comments and fantastic suggestions for furture blog posts! It is this wonderful feedback that keeps us blogging away, and we'll try our best to post about the suggested topics down the track. The lucky randomly selected winner was "Mandy" - congratulations and we hope you enjoy the Organic Gardener Guide! 

On Tuesday the first fruit tree grove was planted out in the park at the back of Unanderra Community Centre, with the help of interested community members. Wollongong Councils Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbury was on hand to help with the planting, and had much enthusiasm for the project, which was wonderful to see!

Community planting days will also be held in June to help create fruit tree groves at Guest Park in Fairy Meadow, and Bulli Park in Bulli. Later there will also be workshops about establishing and maintaining free trees, which will be free for Wollongong Council residents. So if you’re a local and would like to get involved, just call Vanessa John in the Environment team at Wollongong City Council on 4227 7111.

Has anyone else heard about other public fruit tree plantings happening around Oz? We’d love to hear about them!