ALS members Blogs

There is nothing quite like a feijoa – they are simply the most amazing fruit. Fragrant, pungent, sweet yet sour, gooey in the middle and grainy round the edges. The original yum in a small green torpedo. They also tend to appear as a surprise in large quantities when ripe, probably because they’re so darn hard to see on the tree. If you’re planting them, plant them in a high-traffic area, lest you miss their amazingness until it’s too late in the season… Feijoa fruit and flower (why it was still vaguely flowering in Autumn I’m not quite sure) Why you can end up with a glut – feijoas are hard to see, when hidden by their foliage (there are actually 36 feijoas in this photo. Ok not really, but there could be!)… The feijoa is also known as pineapple guava or guavasteen. Wikipedia says it’s native to South America...

Title: Urban Food Forest Garden Workshop 11/12 SydneyVenue: Alexandria Park Community Centre / SydneyCategory: Forest Garden WorkshopDate: Nov 3 2012 - Nov 4 2012Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Join Dan Harris Pascal for a hands-on workshop in understanding, designing and installing an URBAN temperate forest garden system. Forest Gardens are perennial polyculture systems   which mimic the structure and ecology of a forest ecosystem. Further, they can be designed to produce diverse yields from the different layers within the forest.By careful design, the polycultures in the forest garden can produce more food than when the plants are grown separately. This is achieved by 'guilding' plants together so that the products and functions of one plant meet the needs and requirements on another. Further, a forest garden seeks to support and provide for the needs of beneficial birds, insects and animals which reduce our work and increase yields when they take up residence...

Ditto for Permaculture Day and kudos on this post. Its really all about the different ways that people react to threats…being reactive (zombie nay sayers who make the fortresses with the guns cache) and proactive (those who choose to study up, “do” and make a real difference to their immediate environment to help reduce the threat to their own and their communities way of life). When you think that most of the world lives in cities in apartments and whenever they are faced with “CLIMATE CHANGE DISASTERS LOOMING IMMINENT” they get scared and can’t see any way of surviving this sort of doomsday prophacy because they have no means to provide for themselves. They don’t know their neighbour (let alone trust them) and so its a terrifying proposition that has a fear reaction. Once people are able to put a bit of distance between themselves and their fear/threat they are...

Title: Joel Salatin: Pastured Beef and Pork: MasterclassVenue: Jamberoo Valley Lodge / JamberooCategory: Joel Salatin Masterclass SeriesDate: Feb 19 2013 - Feb 19 2013Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Join Joel Salatin for a unique one-day masterclass sharing his innovative beef and pork production systems at Polyface Farm. Learn how to set up your own small-farm enterprise for 'beyond organic' mob-stocked beef (with integrated eggmobiles) and pigearator + forested pigs, using cost effective, ethical, DIY systems! Joel will share his family's hard-won knowledge on how to start small and succeed in producing ethical, 100% pastured beef and pork that is of exceptional quality, and which can be part of a profitable, regenerative farming enterprise, built from the ground up. This masterclass will look closely at Polyface's beef and pork operations from start to finish, including but not limited to: Polyface's 'Salad Bar Beef' systems, which improve the land while producing great 'beyond...

Yesterday Ashar and I went mushroom foraging at our local pine forest, just to see what there might be after a rainy day in Autumn. And look what we found! Slippery Jacks. Yum.Slippery Jacks are usually found in pine forests. Or at least that’s the only place I’ve ever seen them. We found these on the forest’s edge, in the grass, near a quiet road. They are slippery on top and have this fantastic pore-structure beneath, which is sturdy yet spongy. They are found across the world in pine forests, and have all sorts of local names, my favorite being ‘sticky bun mushroom’. Once you have your Slippery Jacks, you need to peel the brown sticky part off before eating them, as it’s not so digestible. I also read that it’s best to take the spore/sponge part off, and in the interests of wanting my 3 year old to...

Title: Joel Salatin: You Can Farm: MasterclassVenue: Jamberoo Valley Lodge / JamberooCategory: Joel Salatin Masterclass SeriesDate: Feb 17 2013 - Feb 17 2013Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Join Joel Salatin for a unique one-day masterclass exploring how to set up a thriving, profitable and ethical small farm, using Polyface Farms' innovative techniques. This masterclass is perfect for beginner farmers, wanna-be farmers, tree-changers and landholders ready to get serious about regenerative agriculture, as well as existing farmers looking to broaden their on-farm offerings.This masterclass will look at how to succeed in a diverse small-farm enterprise, focusing on: Getting started: what you need to know and how to approach the first 5 yearsSetting up, budgeting, farm design and planning for successWhole farm water design including dams and passive-feed stock watering solutionsIntegrating different animal systems for maximum effect, fertility and yields Integrated nutrient cycling and on-farm compostingPeople power - internship and apprenticeship schemesDirect marketing,...

Nick was asked by International Permaculture Day 2012 to video his take on permaculture, so here it is. Recorded stealthily during naptime, to avoid the otherwise ever-present soundtrack of a joyful 3 year old. This International Permaculture Day we’re heading to the city to run an Earthbag bench workshop, but there’s a lot of other things to see and do this weekend, in over 17 countries! Check it all out at International Permaculture Day 2012… Like this:One blogger likes this post.Original link...

Title: Joel Salatin: Pastured Poultry MasterclassVenue: Jamberoo Valley Lodge / JamberooCategory: Joel Salatin Masterclass SeriesDate: Feb 18 2013 - Feb 18 2013Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Join Joel Salatin for a unique one-day masterclass exploring the pastured poultry systems of Polyface Farm. Learn how to set up your own small-farm enterprise for 'beyond organic' free range pastured layers, pastured meat birds and turkeys using cost effective, ethical, DIY systems! Joel will share his family's hard-won knowledge on how to start small and succeed in producing the highest quality eggs, chicken and turkey that is of exceptional quality, and which can be part of a profitable, regenerative farming enterprise, built from the ground up. This masterclass will look closely at Polyface's pastured poultry operations from start to finish, including but not limited to: Pastured egg production systems: the eggmobile and the feathernet systems; construction, management, pasture rotation & integrations with salad bar...

This Sunday Nick is leading a free earthbag bench building workshop as part of National Permaculture Day in Sydney. Do you want to come along? Earthbag is a really excellent, low-impact building technique used for building strong, solid structures; be they benches, garden beds, or homes. We’ve cut our teeth on an Earthbag dome at Milkwood Farm, and now we’re ready to pass on the knowledge. So we’re starting this weekend. Earthbag dome building workshop at Milkwood Farm. Lots of whackin' of bags of earth, with a great result! Earthbag bench building! These three pics via EarthbagBuilding.comIn short, earthbag construction involves filling long bags with earth (with or without a small amount of cement added, depending on the job), then pounding them flat, laying wire ontop of them, and then repeating the process. In a short time you build up a very strong structure with impressive tensile strength, which...

Ok perhaps I’m having a rabidly bright-green moment, but i rekon this artwork is pretty cool. An in-kitchen wormfarm, with built in chopping board! Nutrient cycling beneath the bench… Yes, it’s conceptual, but still… if I was an apartment dweller, I’d be considering building a DIY version based this concept (the worm farm part, anyway)! The project is Parasite Farm by Charlotte Dieckmann. It was produced in collaboration with Nils Ferber and Alexander Giesemann took the photos. Like this:10 bloggers like this post.Original link...

Title: Serious Summer VegiesVenue: Alexandria Park Community Centre / SydneyCategory: Serious Backyard VegiesDate: Nov 24 2012 - Nov 25 2012Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Do you want to grow seriously great vegetables in your backyard this Summer? Are you finding that it's a little harder than you thought to get your beloved seeds from their packets all the way to a super, plentiful harvest?Join Michael Hewins, Milkwood Farm's market gardener, for 2 days of hands-on knowledge, tips and tricks on how to grow truly awesome backyard vegies using organic permaculture techniques. This course will cover: Vegetable garden design, placement and retrofittingCreating great garden soil using DIY, organic techniquesRaising great seedlingsPlanting techniques for different plant familiesWhat different vegetable varieties require to grow really wellBackyard nutrient cycling strategies to ensure enough plant foodIntegrated Pest Management Michael has a heap of experience in growing many types of annual vegetables in temperate and sub-tropical environments,...

The further we get into mushroom cultivation, the more I realise just how useful and amazing fungi is. I’ve also found that it’s sometimes a little hard to find info that relates to growing edible mushrooms in Australian conditions. Finding local knowledge is crucial! Luckily, Will Borowski, that friendly expert who teaches the Mushroom Cultivation courses we run, has lots of resources that relate specifically to growing culinary mushrooms in Australia successfully. Which he’s kindly shared with us, so we can learn too…Fungi Down Under – the Fungimap Guide to Australian FungiLog-Grown Shiitake Mushrooms: An Australian Growers’ Manual – Parsuram Sharma-Luital & Rowan Reid – originally published by the Otway Agroforestry Network Of course not all the mushroom cultivation  info we have needs to be Australia-specific, so we’ve got the rest of the world’s fabulous resources to draw on also – three of our favourites are…The Mushroom...

Title: Serious Spring VegiesVenue: Alexandria Park Community Centre / SydneyCategory: Serious Backyard VegiesDate: Sep 8 2012 - Sep 9 2012Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Do you want to grow seriously great vegetables in your backyard this Spring? Are you finding that it's a little harder than you thought to get your beloved seeds from their packets all the way to a super, plentiful harvest?Join Michael Hewins, Milkwood Farm's market gardener, for 2 days of hands-on knowledge, tips and tricks on how to grow truly awesome backyard vegies using organic permaculture techniques. This course will cover: Vegetable garden design, placement and retrofittingCreating great garden soil using DIY, organic techniquesRaising great seedlingsPlanting techniques for different plant familiesWhat different vegetable varieties require to grow really wellBackyard nutrient cycling strategies to ensure enough plant foodIntegrated Pest Management Michael has a heap of experience in growing many types of annual vegetables in temperate and sub-tropical environments,...

Recently at Milkwood Farm, Craig Sponholtz led a course in Applied Watershed Restoration, and taught us all a bit about how to tackle on-farm erosion control with human-scale solutions. One of the things we constructed as part of the workshop was a media luna, a simple but effective rockwork structure that can be used to subtly manipulate sheet flow in a number of ways to prevent erosion… This media luna was constructed at the toe of an eroded  gully we selected for this workshop, which had other rockwork erosion control features installed above it. The media luna itself is actually a double-ended one (so to speak) and in the shape of a subtle ‘S’ – one end of it is dispersing sheet flow, the other end concentrating sheet flow, as the situation requires… The effect of this rockwork feature should hopefully result in the water running down this gully becoming...

Last weekend I went on a rare road trip to see Michael Ableman speak down at Mulloon Creek. While I was there I squeezed in a quick peek at Mulloon’s free-range egg operation… I was also lucky enough to stay on farm with our good friends (and comrades in permaculture farming aspirations) Cam and Jessie Wilson, who are bringing up their young family in this beautiful valley, as well as milking, planting, designing and doing… Laying hens, guarded by maremma shepherd dogs, on their daily pasture with eggmobiles behind The eggs are graded and packed into a variety of sizes before heading to the shops Cam Wilson and Michael Hewins outside Cam + Jessie's yurt and garden And what a happy home this yurt is - note rayburn stove for extra happiness (and plentiful hot water - double happiness)... Pekin ducks who provide the family with a great supply of...

The first frost has arrived and the last tomatoes and capsicums harvested. The last course has been hosted and the cups all put away. Tis officially the end of the year for our seasonal courses and crew at Milkwood Farm. At this time of year our focus shifts from welcoming many students, woofers and friends to the farm on a weekly basis over to clearing things up and bedding the farm down for winter. The market garden is being planted in green manures, and the shelves of preserves are groaning. What an incredible year! This season at the farm has been unprecedentedly sensational. We went from a small business that was run by just Nick and I to a social enterprise with a farm chef, a market gardener and a process manager, as well as an urban course co-ordinator. At the end of the season we are now a strong...

Title: Intro to Organic Market Gardening 9/12 MudgeeVenue: Milkwood Farm (2) / MudgeeCategory: Organic Market GardeningDate: Sep 22 2012 - Sep 23 2012Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Learn how to start a market garden from scratch. Take bare ground to thriving, intensive vegetable production in one season. Suitable for those keen to grow enough great vegetables to feed their surrounding community, in urban or rural areas.This jam-packed 2 day course will teach you how you can establish a small, effective and profitable market garden using organic techniques and permaculture principles, just like we've done at Milkwood Farm This course will cover: Garden design, planning & basic layoutTools, resources and other considerationsBed preparationPlanting techniques for different plant familiesMaintenance, seedlings, harvestingNutrient and biomass strategies This course covers the nuts and bolts of starting up a small market garden operation, from tools, seeds and planning through to what to expect from harvests in your...

Title: Organic Market Garden Masterclass 9/12 GundarooVenue: Allsun Farm / GundarooCategory: Organic Market GardeningDate: Sep 9 2012 - Sep 11 2012Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Learn the nuts and bolts of how to run a thriving, diverse organic market garden, taught by long-term, established and successful market gardeners. Suitable for those with some prior gardening knowledge who are keen to make a livelihood from growing great vegetables.Join 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 great organic vegetables for profit or community gain. This course will cover: Garden design, planning & layoutCrop rotationBed preparationPlanting techniques for different plant familiesMaintenance, seedlings, harvestingNutrient and biomass strategiesIntegrating animal systemsMarketing, value-adding and box schemes This course will involve both theory and hands-on components, with students getting a chance to understand how Allsun Farm works...

Title: Intro to Permaculture 12/12 SydneyVenue: Alexandria Park Community Centre / SydneyCategory: Introduction to PermacultureDate: Dec 1 2012 - Dec 2 2012Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Join Milkwood Permaculture's Nick Ritar for 2 days of permaculture design theory and action. You will leave this course ready to sink your teeth into a bunch of permaculture projects and be in an informed position to do further research and learning in ecological design. This course will give you a comprehensive overview of how to apply pro-active, sustainable design techniques to your immediate environment - whether you live in a small apartment, a quarter-acre block, or a rural property.In a world out of balance, we are all looking for solutions that can lead to: Effective ways of growing healthy, organic food in urban environments Regenerative farming that can both feed a family, earn an income and build soil fertility Retrofitting techniques for existing houses...

An Egg Mobile is a movable chicken house designed to house laying hens at night, who by day cluck around on open pasture. Joel Salatin made them famous at Polyface Farms, but who invented the concept I do not know. Egg mobiles are different from chicken tractors in that they are designed as part of a free-range chicken system where the hens can venture well beyond their house to the limits of whatever fences them in (commonly electric netting in a farm setting). They are a darn fine idea. Recently I was at Allsun Farm and I was reminded of their egg mobiles, whose design I love. The chooks get shut up in their egg mobile each night, and let out in the morning after they’ve done their laying for the day. This design has nesting boxes on the sides with exterior access for egg collection, a floor that lets...