ALS members Blogs

Just a note that we’re running a part-time Permaculture Design Course in Sydney that starts on the weekend of the 17th March. It’s in a one day a week format (you chose from Saturday or Sunday class, no class on the Easter weekend), and it’s going to be great. This will be our third part-time PDC in Sydney, and it’s an awesome format to study permaculture in if you live in Sydney and can’t get away (or take time off) for a two-week intensive PDC. Visits to urban permaculture systems Collaborative permaculture design tasks (and personal ones too) Oh! The places we'll go! Brainstorming the next steps beyond a PDC Have a look at the video below of our last Sydney PDC to get a sense of what to expect, and also have a look at the great permaculture designs that came our of our last Part-time Sydney course. Maybe...

Here come the potatoes! This is the first year we’ve grown them en-mass, and we are now (finally) starting to harvest. Duch creams, Ruby Lous, Nicloas…. mmm fresh organic potatoes roasted in our own olive oil and rosemary – om nom nom… This story starts with an encounter with a potato nerd (self proclaimed). His name is Wade, and he showed up at our last Biofertilizer course. With sacks and sacks and sacks of seed potatoes. Yay! Wade Neumann. Farmer, Gundaroo Tiller maker, and Potato Nerd Wade likes potatoes very much. He grows his at Mundulla in South Australia, and he is something of an enthusiast on the best way to grow them organically on a commercial scale. We were happy to listen. There is nothing I like better than an in-depth conversation with someone on their favorite topic (as long as it’s not themselves, that is). And so, we...

Here?s a great video of Craig Sponholtz explaining his guidelines for watershed restoration. As with much of permaculture design, it?s all about expanding the edges of fertility, and starting with what you have. Which, is the case of re-hyrating a landscape, is the wet spots! It?s important to have options for fixing erosion and repairing your landscape?s hydrology that can be achieved at human scale, with the available labor that you have. And as you can see from this video, restoring moisture to the landscape is all about small slow solutions? Craig Sponholtz and crew installing one-rock dams (that's one rock high, not long) to slow and disperse water flow, and intercept gully formation Craig Sponholtz?s guiding principles for bringing moisture back to land: Try to do it in the places moisture already exists to some extent Take on things you know you can accomplish with the available energy (which...

Title: Natural Beekeeping 11/12 MudgeeVenue: Milkwood Farm (2) / MudgeeCategory: Natural BeekeepingDate: Nov 3 2012 - Nov 4 2012Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Join Tim Malfroy of Malfroy's Gold as he leads you through the basics of bee-friendly, natural, organic, small-scale beekeeping. You will leave this course with a competent knowledge of the fundamentals of natural beekeeping, and be ready to take the plunge and keep your own bees, Warré style!The course will focus on a style of apiculture that is exclusively designed for the small-scale beekeeper. This bee-friendly method aims to care for the bees, allow them to control their own environment, and is a gentler approach than conventional beekeeping, resulting in healthy contented bees, and superb raw honey.This course is a series of presentations that draw a wide perspective on the evolution of flowering plants and honeybees, and the long and rich tradition of apiculture. There will be open...

Title: Natural Beekeeping 11/12 SydneyVenue: Alexandria Park Community Centre / SydneyCategory: Natural BeekeepingDate: Nov 24 2012 - Nov 25 2012Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Join Tim Malfroy of Malfroy's Gold as he leads you through the basics of bee-friendly, natural, organic, small-scale beekeeping. You will leave this course with a competent knowledge of the fundamentals of natural beekeeping, and be ready to take the plunge and keep your own bees, Warré style!The course will focus on a style of apiculture that is exclusively designed for the small-scale beekeeper. This bee-friendly method aims to care for the bees, allow them to control their own environment, and is a gentler approach than conventional beekeeping, resulting in healthy contented bees, and superb raw honey.This course is a series of presentations that draw a wide perspective on the evolution of flowering plants and honeybees, and the long and rich tradition of apiculture. There will be...

Title: Natural Beekeeping 10/12 SydneyVenue: Alexandria Park Community Centre / SydneyCategory: Natural BeekeepingDate: Oct 20 2012 - Oct 21 2012Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Join Tim Malfroy of Malfroy's Gold as he leads you through the basics of bee-friendly, natural, organic, small-scale beekeeping. You will leave this course with a competent knowledge of the fundamentals of natural beekeeping, and be ready to take the plunge and keep your own bees, Warré style!The course will focus on a style of apiculture that is exclusively designed for the small-scale beekeeper. This bee-friendly method aims to care for the bees, allow them to control their own environment, and is a gentler approach than conventional beekeeping, resulting in healthy contented bees, and superb raw honey.This course is a series of presentations that draw a wide perspective on the evolution of flowering plants and honeybees, and the long and rich tradition of apiculture. There will be...

Title: Natural Beekeeping 09/12 SydneyVenue: Alexandria Park Community Centre / AlexandriaCategory: Natural BeekeepingDate: Sep 15 2012 - Sep 16 2012Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Join Tim Malfroy of Malfroy's Gold as he leads you through the basics of bee-friendly, natural, organic, small-scale beekeeping. You will leave this course with a competent knowledge of the fundamentals of natural beekeeping, and be ready to take the plunge and keep your own bees, Warré style!The course will focus on a style of apiculture that is exclusively designed for the small-scale beekeeper. This bee-friendly method aims to care for the bees, allow them to control their own environment, and is a gentler approach than conventional beekeeping, resulting in healthy contented bees, and superb raw honey. The beekeeper enters into a partnership with the bee colony, and from that responsibility reaps great insights and benefits.The course is a series of presentations that draw a wide perspective...

Ok this is a downright divergent post, but what the hey ? it?s Saturday. I just found a bunch of Hey Girl meme entries on the important things in life ? beehives, seed catalogs and compost?Yes this is all extremely silly, but there you have it. These Hey Girl?s came from Kiss My Aster. Regarding just what the heck this Hey Girl movie-dude-turned-meme thing is all about, I don?t really know either. But there?s some great ones (tho sadly unrelated to gardening) at FeministRyanGosling + TypographerRyanGosling. Ok back to it. Where was I? Oh yes ? this weekend at Milkwood Farm: pick blackberries, pick/sort/process tomatoes, beans, eggplant, capsicums etc, hatch chickens, cook during Rose?s day off, and make a decision on those beautiful dexter cattle we?ve got an option on? Like this:2 bloggers like this post.Original link...

Title: Starting an Organic Market Garden 9/12 MudgeeVenue: Milkwood Farm (2) / MudgeeCategory: Organic Market GardeningDate: Sep 9 2012 - Sep 11 2012Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: A practical course on how to create a thriving organic market garden. This jam-packed 3 day course will teach you how you can establish a small, effective and profitable market garden using organic techniques and permaculture principles. Join experienced, successful organic market gardeners Joyce Wilkie and Michael Plane of Allsun Farm for three days of hard-won knowledge and on-the-ground experience of what you need to know and do in order to produce your own food at a level that can provide for both your family and wider community. This course will cover: Garden design, planning & basic layoutTools, resources and other considerationsBed preparationPlanting techniques for different plant familiesMaintenance, seedlings, harvestingNutrient and biomass strategiesIntegrating animal systemsHow to strategise for effective use of energy This course...

Is it bean season where you are? At Milkwood Farm we?re awash in them. Green beans, purple beans, borlotti beans, scarlet runner beans? it?s one big bean-athon. Down in our market garden is a strange and extensive structure called The Bean Banjo. The Banjo is our bean growing trellis of sorts, constructed from polypipe and star pickets, with vertical strings of jute. It?s worked extremely well and was very easy to build. Bean Banjo soon after installation, 25 Nov Stephen (the Milkwood OMG) dreamed up The Bean Banjo in the spring as a way to quickly create a climbing bean structure which could be easily harvested from summer onwards. The idea being that the jute strings could be snipped at the end of the season for easy harvesting of whole bean plants, for the type of beans that you intend to dry. We haven?t got to the drying stage in...

Update: Week 1 of February 2012: We are attempting to keep the birds awayfrom our Black Sultana Grapes!!!Weather highlights:Lowest Min 7.3 CHighest Max 30.4CNo Recorded RainPropagation:Seeds:Peas - Angela's Blue Home Saved Seeds into Wicking Pots under the back PergolaBeans Dwarf - Butter DT Brown direct sown in Bed 13 in the Kitchen Garden Potting up/on:Seedlings:Cauliflower MiniCauliflower Violet SicilianCabbage Red ChoiCabbage Tokyo BekanaKale Red BorBroccoli Royal DomeMizuna PurpleCima Di RapaPlanting: Into a Wicking Pot under the Back PergolaMitsuba Cryptotaenia japonica Spring OnionsNext Week To Do:Plant Potato Tubers in Bed 5 MVG on 12th-14th FebHarvest the Plums from the second tree before the birds eat them!!!And From Last Week:It did not start pea seedlings in loo rolls as I am waiting for some new seeds to arrive!I did not plant out the lone surviving Zucchini plant because a snail got to it first!!Oh well it is a bit late to be planting...

It is with great excitement that we?re announcing an upcoming Advanced Watershed Restoration course at Milkwood Farm, with Craig Sponholtz. Huzzah! As part of RegenAG, we?ve managed to haul Craig out to Australia for a couple of weeks to skill us up on some ground-breaking, doable techniques in erosion control and passive water harvesting, as first brought to prominence in ?Let the Water do the Work? by Bill Zeedyk. Craig Sponholtz teaching watershed restoration with Bill ZeedykCompleted zuni bowl in dry gully with headcut ? water is slowed in order to prevent the headcut creeping further up the gullyCraig?s zuni bowl how-to, taken from his ?Erosion Control Field Guide? The techniques used in this kind of erosion control focus on passive structures, made from natural materials ? it?s all about slowing the water down, taking the destructive energy out of it that does all the eroding and damage,...

At the Permaculture Design Course we just finished in Sydney, Adam Grubb got everyone truly inspired about the power of Permablitz. A good permablitz is an valuable opportunity to participate in design, community, digging, growing and learning, all in one day. Following on from Adam?s excellent ?How to run a Permablitz really well? talk that he gave during his visit (video of the talk is below), there?s been a few videos come to light that really help understand just why a permablitz is so darn cool. So I thought I?d share them with you? A great timelapse from a November 2011 permablitz in Brunswick, Melbourne:The ?How to run a Permablitz? Talk that Adam Grubb gave in Sydney recently:And a great Permablitz at Angel Street Community Garden, Newtown, Sydney, in 2008:A lovely slideshow of a blitz in a small backyard at Reservoir, Melbourne, in 2009For more info...

Scarecrow's Garden Journal Notes: January 2012Just some of this month's Harvest:Capsicums, Tomatoes, and Cossack Pineapples.Temperatures range for January:Lowest Min 8.5CHighest Min 21.2CLowest Max 20CHighest Max 39.5C20.5mm RainRain comparison with other years: January average is 22.6mm:2012 20.5mm2011 12.5mm2010 15.5mm2009 0.4mm2008 0mm2007 92.6mmHarvest Tally for January:Doesn't include Greens fed to the chooks on a daily basis or herbs picked for use in the kitchen for cooking or tea making.For Salads, Juice and Stirfries I have been picking Lettuce, Kale, Silverbeet, Leaf Amaranth, Purple Orach, Mushroom Plant, Gotu Kola, Basil, Nasturtium leaves and Beetroot Leaves which are not always weighed.Beans Gourmet Delight 71gBeans Tongues Of Fire 503gBeetroot Bulls Blood 68gCapsicum California Wonder 328gCapsicum Hungarian Yellow 356gCarrots Mixed 96gCelery American Stringless 706gCucumber Bushy 658gLeeks Bulgarian Giant 132gOnion Red 326gPotato Bismark 216gPotato Brownell196gPotato Cranberry Red 384gSilverbeet 77gSquash Acorn Table Queen 103gTomato Big Rainbow 305gTomato Black Cherry 117gTomato Ida Gold 238gTomato Money Maker 883gTomato Pineapple 620gTomato...

So it turns out that mushroom cultivation is really easy ? once you wrap your head around all the intricacies, that is. And setting aside all the ?wow? moments you?ll have as you begin to delve into the wonderful world of fungi. But apart from that, it?s simple! We just hosted a mushroom propagation course at Milkwood Farm, and it was a full-on two days. So much awesomeness! So many possibilities! Why don?t we all learn mushroom propagation in kindergarten? It?s a total fit. Will Borowski, mushroom whisperer, explaing how the heck mycelium does its thing Pending how-tos and why-tos as we lope along the path of mushroom growing at Milkwood Farm (we intend to do quite a bit of it), here?s a peek into the first weekend of fungi induced fun + learning. Sharn's fab 'from mushroom to mushroom' diagram. Click to enlargeAdam Kennedy drilling 'just a couple'...

Update: Week 4 of January 2012: There seems to be plenty of pollen around the Trombones if this bee is anything to go by!!Weather highlights:Lowest Min 11.9CHighest Max 35C3.5 mm RainPropagation:Seeds:Cauliflower Mini Brassica oleracea DiggersCauliflower Violet Sicilian Brassica oleracea Botrytis Group Green HarvestCabbage Ethiopian Brassica abyssinicum Seed Savers NetworkCabbage Red Choi Brassica rapa var. chinensis Green HarvestCabbage Tokyo Bekana Brassica rapa var. chinensis Green HarvestKale Red Bor F1 Brassica oleracea var acephala DiggersBroccoli Royal Dome Brassica oleracea Italica Group Grower's PrideMizuna Purple Brassica rapa Japonica Group Southern Harvest SeedsCima Di Rapa Brassica rapa The Italian GardenerSilverbeet Rainbow Mixed Beta vulgaris 4 Seasons SeedsPlanting out:Silverbeet Rainbow Mixed from seeds sown 27 Nov 2011Celery Tendercrisp from seeds sown 27 Nov 2011Beetroot Heirloom Mix purchased seedlingsAll were planted into Bed 11 in the Kitchen GardenNext Week To Do:Sow Pea seeds in loo rolls late on the 4th Feb for planting out soon after...

Wettest year on record. That?s what they?re saying? Which means (amongst many other rain-related things, most of them good) that our erosion control Zuni bowls are consistently full of water. And they make fabulous tiny oceans for setting sail?Arr, marooned on a energy-dispersing rock apron, curses! Like this:6 bloggers like this post.Original link...

So here we have it ? two weeks of our recent urban Permaculture Design Certificate, in 160 seconds! And what an amazing two weeks of learning and thinking and designing and digging and tasting and doing it was? Over the two weeks the PDC students worked their way through an intense curriculum of permaculture theory as well as plenty of hands-on, active learning. By the end of the course, each student had completed a functional permaculture design for a place they personally knew well, as well as a real-world community scale design? It was a really diverse bunch of people that came together for two weeks and we?d like to thank everyone for making the most of the experience and working together so darn well! A PDC is an activating, game-changing experience for many people, and you all did a marvelous job of holding it together in the face of...

We have had just over 150mm or 6 inches of rain over the last five days. Prior to this it had been hot and dry with a couple of days around 40 degrees. So these last five days have been lovely. Some people complain about the rain but I love it. It is cool and refreshing, soothing to the soul.I love how the earth comes to life after rain. How my parched backyard has sprung back to life overnight. What was dead grass is now green, the rock hard soil in the garden is now soft and crumbly again. If you listen through the sound of the rain on the roof, you can hear a chorus of frogs in the background.Today we had light rain until late morning. We had been out for a small drive to get a coffee and as I was driving I had an urge to...

Permaculture and Regenerative Agriculture are fortunately two fields that have lots of great resources. Books, DVDs, you name it. But where do you start? Which to read first? I thought I?d share our most-thumbed favorites. We have this crate of books that travels to each Permaculture Design Course as the ?student library?, and those books mostly line up with the ones we use on the farm, either for reference, for inspiration, or for discussing with students and wwoofers?So here?s some, but not all, of the titles we love:Whew! And that?s just the start of our library? so much goodness to learn from in there? Should you like to browse our library, you could come to a Milkwood Permaculture Design Certificate course (or any of our on-farm courses actually, where the library resides), or come learn + work at our farm as part of our Wwoof program. Check your...