ALS members Blogs

Just reporting back from the awesomeness that was SEED CIRCUS in Redfern yesterday… my goodness. Thank you to the 300+ folks who came from all over to learn and to swap and chat and help us eat through our glut of apples. Crikey there were a lot of you! I think my favorite part of the day (ok equal favourite with the workshops) was the incredible diversity of the swapmeet. There were boxes of braided garlic, antique scarf collections, nepalese bell pepper seeds, cupcakes, books (from self sufficiency manuals to vampire bodice rippers), and just about everything else…  Michael and Gi preparing 200 thank you bags of seeds and such (thought this would be stacks but we ran out by Midday…) Milkwood apples, ready to swap… The inaugural swappers arrive… First seed saving workshop kicks off – cucurbits and friends Swap it! Whoohoo Plant swap heaven Beautiful amaranth Seed ball making workshop. We went for...

Right! The workshops are up: seed saving, city foraging, tortilla making – yep, it’s all happening at our Seed Circus this Sunday at 107 Redfern St… And then, of course, there’s the ongoing swapmeet – a day of fearless barter of absolutely everything. What will you arrive with? What will you leave with? These are big questions. We’ve got a car full of dried apples and preserved everything, ready to go. So, what are you bringing?We don’t have enough swapmeets these days. You should come along just to practice your swapping skills, if nothing else. It’s not scary at all, and you don’t even have to talk to anyone, if you don’t want to. Don’t worry, this is not an iniquitous den of people pressing pickles apon each other with long and tortured stories of their origin. The idea is that there are long tables of awesome things. You...

Two good years. Two full Spring to Autumn seasons stacked with sourdough, rabbit ravioli and crazy beautiful desserts. And a quietly grounding presence for our entire farm crew, and for every student lucky enough to share a taste. Tragic (no, really) though it is, I must share with you that Rose, the permachef whom we do love so, is off to seek the next chapter of her fortune. To design and run a new inner-city eatery in Brisbane, to be exact. I hope those Brisbanites figure out how good they’ve got it coming to them…  Rose’s sourdough croissants. She didn’t have enough to do that day… And on, and on. Fresh food, treated with love, cooked with care, and eaten with gusto by us all… Rose probably wouldn’t want me to make a big deal about this. Every time we threw back our heads when dinner was served and yelled...

Title: Natural Beekeeping: Apr 2014: Milkwood FarmVenue: Milkwood Farm (2) / MudgeeCategory: Natural BeekeepingDate: Apr 5 2014 - Apr 6 2014Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Join Tim Malfroy 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.Warré beekeeping is a bee-friendly method that 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...

Title: Natural Beekeeping: Dec 2013: Milkwood FarmVenue: Milkwood Farm (2) / MudgeeCategory: Natural BeekeepingDate: Nov 30 2013 - Dec 1 2013Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Join Tim Malfroy 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.Warré beekeeping is a bee-friendly method that 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...

Title: Natural Beekeeping: Feb 2014: SydneyVenue: Alexandria Park Community Centre / SydneyCategory: Natural BeekeepingDate: Feb 22 2014 - Feb 23 2014Time: 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.Warré beekeeping is a bee-friendly method that 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...

Title: Natural Beekeeping: Nov 2013: SydneyVenue: Alexandria Park Community Centre / SydneyCategory: Natural BeekeepingDate: Nov 2 2013 - Nov 3 2013Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Join Tim Malfroy 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.Warré beekeeping is a bee-friendly method that 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...

Title: Natural Beekeeping: Sept 2013: SydneyVenue: Alexandria Park Community Centre / SydneyCategory: Natural BeekeepingDate: Sep 14 2013 - Sep 15 2013Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Join Tim Malfroy 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.Warré beekeeping is a bee-friendly method that 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...

Title: Intro to Permaculture: Feb 2014: SydneyVenue: Alexandria Park Community Centre / SydneyCategory: Introduction to PermacultureDate: Feb 1 2014 - Feb 2 2014Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Join us for 2 days of permaculture design theory and action. You will leave this course with a solid grounding of how you can apply permaculture principles in your home, garden, apartment or farm. You'll also be in an informed position to further your journey into permaculture 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 rapidly changing world, we are all looking for solutions that can aid our community's stability. We're talking systems for living, architecture, food production, land management and community: Effective ways of growing healthy, organic food in urban environments Regenerative farming that can both...

Title: Intro to Permaculture: Oct 2013: SydneyVenue: Alexandria Park Community Centre / SydneyCategory: Introduction to PermacultureDate: Oct 5 2013 - Oct 6 2013Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Join us for 2 days of permaculture design theory and action. You will leave this course with a solid grounding of how you can apply permaculture principles in your home, garden, apartment or farm. You'll also be in an informed position to further your journey into permaculture 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 rapidly changing world, we are all looking for solutions that can aid our community's stability. We're talking systems for living, architecture, food production, land management and community: Effective ways of growing healthy, organic food in urban environments Regenerative farming that can both...

A guild, in permaculture terms, is usually used to define a harmonious assembly of species clustered around a central element (plant or animal) that acts in relation to this element to assist its health, aid our work in management, or buffer adverse environmental effects (Mollison, via Jacke). Dave Jacke has taken this concept further and identifies a range of different types of guilds that generally (but not exclusively) can be applied to aid forest garden design process. Like many permaculture design elements, these guild types at once simple, and deeply complex… Resource-Sharing or Resource-Partitioning Guild This type of guild is a group of plants that inhabit the same community niche (ie have the same general needs), but which also find a way to partition resources so that their competition is minimal. I think we humans have a lot to learn from this guild type in how we relate to each other, but let’s leave...

‘Packed with minerals and protein, and easy to grow at home’… too right. Home mushroom cultivation is a good idea, for everyone. You don’t even need a window in your house (though we do hope that you have one), let alone a window sill or outdoor area to grow nutrient dense, protein rich, organic mushroomy goodness… Check out these gorgeous mushroom cultivation posters by Victor Paiam… So now you have no excuse. Before beginning, do check out our posts on growing shiitake mushrooms which has all sorts of excellent ebook resources in it. And also our post on growing oyster mushrooms in a bucket (actually two buckets, one inside the other) as a great space-saving strategy for homestead mushroom production… oh and you can grow them in laundry baskets also. And while you’re at it, support artists producing excellent, useful work about skills we all need. You can buy Victor Paiam’s posters...

Our Urban Permaculture Design Course is coming up fast in July, and is shaping to be pretty special. Leading the learning will be the awesome Hannah Moloney, supported by Nick Ritar and none other that the co-originator of Permaculture, David Holmgren. The great thing about this teaching team is the breadth of experience and enthusiasm they bring to share with students of urban permaculture design – Hannah is a long-time urban community cultivator, Nick’s focus is the small farm / urban permaculture resurgence, and David Holmgren, well, he’s David Holmgren. Need we say more. But we will.  Hannah in her most recent rental home garden in Hobart, Tasmaina We’re really proud to be working with Hannah Moloney as the lead teacher. Hannah has been working in community renewal and practical permaculture for over 10 years, and is a positive force to be rekoned with. One of the things we like best about Hannah is her ability...

Blood sausage is a central aspect of harvest day. Large-ish animal harvest day, that is. And it’s one of the central acts of honouring the animal’s life, as well as getting close to the act of the animal’s death, because it’s something you must make the same day you slaughter. Blood sausage is a central dish of whole animal eating – it doesn’t get much more thrifty than this. Doesn’t get much tastier, either, if done right. And it’s not very technical to make, if you’re up for it… **please note – this post contains photos of people making blood sausage, from start to finish** We made our first batch of blood sausages from our pigs that we home-harvested, but you can make blood sausage from any animal, really. The point is that it’s mostly fresh blood. and spice and sometimes cream or egg. Blood Sausage has as many variations as there...

Yesterday’s dawn saw me waiting by the road with a large suitcase of heirloom rainbow carrots. I don’t normally take the train to Sydney with this kind of load under my arm, but I’m happy to report that it is (just) possible to transport 25kg of vegetables in this manner. Actually the suitcase was stacked with nicola and ruby lou potatoes as well as the rainbow carrots. We’re pitching in for TEDxSydney’s crowd farming project, which is aiming to crowd-source all the food for TEDxSydney on May 4th. And I had to get our veggies down to the Big Smoke without our truck. So train it was… The suitcase haul, and Michael, who grew them all They fit! Just. Wait’n for the train… actually a bus now replaces part of our trainline, but we still call it the train… Nothing like a carrot to flag the bus to stop… Huzzah!...

Apples! They be everywhere. Red ones, yellow ones, green ones. Big and small. Round and wonky. Crunchy and soft. There’s only so many we can eat. Time to get creative, and try out the fancy new steam juicer while we’re at it… Drying Last year we took a global drying approach to apple preservation, and that worked well. 2 loads a day, 8 hours a load. With our trusty apple slinky and the awesomeness of the Excalibur (see this post for details), we were still munching dried apples in November. Which is a good thing, because apple season around here doesn’t start till February.Preserving This year we’ve been getting funky with a pressure canner, which allows for faster turnaround times for preserved fruit than our dear old vacola units. But the result is prettymuch the same – jars apon jars of preserved fruit, stored for winter pies and desserts and breakfasts with...

Last week we built a home. A round, load-bearing strawbale tiny house with a roundwood reciprocating living roof, to be precise. And when I say ‘built’ I suppose I mean that we got it mostly done. It was amazing to be a part of. I’m going to go into the construction of this building piece by piece, but for this weekend, here’s an overview of the process from bare ground to where we got to, 4 days later… The ‘persuader’It is not going to rain… it is not allowed to rain… Last post in – heave hoMud slinging timeFirst coat on the inside… 2 coats on the outside And all in 4 days… not bad at all… A massive and muddy THANK YOU to Sam Vivas from Viva Eco Homes for being such an excellent teacher, and to all the crew and students who worked their proverbials off to...

Title: Seed Circus: 5 May: Sydney NSWVenue: 107 Projects / RedfernCategory: Seed CircusDate: May 5 2013 - May 5 2013Time: 11:00am - 4:00pm Description: Roll up, roll up! Do you want to learn about seed saving? Or foraging for edible weeds?Do you want to swap your way from a scarf to chilli sauce? How about swapping your way from bean seeds to bicycle parts, via seed potatoes?Join us at the inaugural Seed Circus - a day of learning, swapping, eating and meeting interesting people. Come when you like. Go when you must. Chomp on free organic popcorn inbetween, and learn to make seedballs while you're there...Seed Circus kicks off at 11am, and we'll all be there till 4pm... at 107 Redfern St, Redfern. FREE for everyone.Workshops include...11am - Seed Saving with Michael Hewins: zucchini, pumpkins and other cucurbits - learn how to save them properly!12pm - City Weed Foraging with Diego Bonnetto (a...

Title: Advanced Permaculture Principles: Sydney: July 2013Venue: Alexandria Park Community Centre / SydneyCategory: Advanced Permaculture PrinciplesDate: Jul 13 2013 - Jul 14 2013Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm Description: Join us for a rare chance to spend two immersive days with David Holmgren; ecologist, writer, world-leading thinker and co-originator of Permaculture. This course is for folks who are ready to extend their working knowledge of biomimicry and permaculture design theory as applies to human habitats, with one of the greatest minds working in ecological design today.An advanced permaculture principles and planning tools course, for anyone ready to take the next step in effective, hands-on permaculture design skills... This course is designed for: permaculture students primary producers designers landscape architects community workers teachers homesteaders social entrepreneurs future farmers ...and anyone else looking for the opportunity to extend their knowledge of how good ecologcial design can build and enhance sustainable living, community, farming and/or monetary systems.Melliodora, David Holmgren and...

Nearly time for our next Intro to Permaculture course! It’s coming up fast on the 13 – 14 April in Sydney. Nick teaches this course as a two day intensive that aims to give students a solid grounding in permaculture theory as applies to the everyday. It’s all about taking the big ideas, concepts and advantages of biomimicry, and applying them at home…  Soil class Permaculture Design Certificate student design for a wicking bedWe’ve seen this course push a lot of buttons for people over the years. It’s so excellent to help people re-discover the concepts and principles of nature that makes our planet the abundant place it is, and then help them figure out how to apply those principles to backyard garden design. Or perhaps their small business structure. Or their kitchen. Or their community. The Intro to Permaculture course is definitely a starting point to many new paths of ecological...