Abundance

"Abundance" is a term I'm hearing a lot lately.  Mostly through watching the lovely Geoff Lawton's ongoing series of permaculture videos.  

If you've watched these you'll know what I mean ;)

The other day my eldest was out picking beans, carrots & beetroot to prep for preserving / freezing and I could hear her yelling "Mummy! Help!".

Thinking she'd managed to get her beautiful long hair tangled up in something (again), I rushed out into the garden to find her struggling to carry what she'd picked (again).

Funnily enough the same thing happened when she recently harvested radishes, broad beans & silverbeet... then again the other day when she picked tomatoes, eggplant & zucchini.  Fortunately the girls took a large enough basket when they picked the peaches as I'm not sure they'd have survived being dropped and then the roll down our steep drive!

This time her basket had so many beans in it most had ended up falling in with the root veggies when she tried to pick up her haul.  Of course, being only 5, she then tried to pick up the beans and dropped half the beets & carrots she'd managed to fit in her little arms.

Here she is posing with half of her haul before taking it inside.  Her little sister came to the rescue with another basket, a bigger one this time, to retrieve the spilled beans from the root veggies & I grabbed the rest of her beets and carrots.  After snapping this of course :)

I realised then exactly what Geoff keeps banging on about when he says an "abundant landscape".

We have abundant annual veggies, we're pretty good on the perennials too, soon we'll have the same situation with fruit & berry crops.  We are surrounded by wildlife and our garden literally hums with insects.  Our soil squirms with life.  The sheer greeness and colours of all the indigenous plants and companion plants in our garden make us grin when we walk out the door.  Our small, under 1/4 acre property, has life in every square inch.

All of these things nourish us physically and emotionally.

Our abundant landscape however also nourishes us at a deeper level.  The pleasure we gain from caring for the soil, encouraging wildlife, sowing, growing, harvesting, eating and preserving our own food nourishes us emotionally too.  As does taking an active part in our communities.

Our home and life is abundant in food, but it is also abundant in enjoyment, fun, happiness, love and respect.

So, Geoff, if you ever read this mate, time to drop the phrase "abundant lives"  into your next narration because that's what permaculture has given my family and we thank everyone who has helped us on this journey.

Happy new year everyone and may you all be blessed with abundance in 2014!

Loving our Soil - Improvement and Reconditioning (by the Perma Pixie!!)

One of the duo of fantastic permaculture teachers I have is Taj, aka the Perma Pixie.

Like me, Taj has a huge, huge respect and love for that which gives our glorious planet life: soil.

As she has just posted some brilliant posts regarding soil on her blog and I haven't installed a RSS feed yet to here, I thought I would share a little bit of her post so you guys can get a taster.  Then you can pop over to the
Perma Pixie website and check out more.

Enjoy!

As a follow-up to my post Soil Soul, I will talk a little now about how to give a little back to our degraded, damaged soils. Only 10% of the earth has soil that can be used to grow food, and it's dwindling fast!

There are a few ways that we can make the soil delicious again... and the keyword here is: 

Organic Matter!

By this I mean natural material, full of carbon and nitrogen. Broken down organic matter is one of the surest ways that we can improve our soils and support the soil food web. This means COMPOST! 

Whats that again? COMPOST? 

All those food scraps that go to landfill, all those half eaten plates of food you see wasted at cafes, all those boxes of cardboard, newspaper, grass clippings, hay, leaf litter, manure... all those half eaten meals, apple cores, broccoli stalks... All of this can actually go towards building healthy soils!

Read more here...

Human Farms...?

Are states and countries just human farms?

Throughout history, a ruling class has existed in almost every civilisation from the ancient Chinese and Egyptians, to our present day governments.  Some argue that this ruling class exists only once societies get to a certain size and agricultural innovation makes it possible for an individual to produce more than they need to survive (consume).

Something for Free

You know that saying, "nothing is ever free" (or if you're Scottish - "ye'll ne'er get sumin fir nothing!")?

We'll, today I just want to say that that might be true, but sometimes just a little input can give you a great return :)

The other day I joined Freecycle for the first time in order to have a quick scope and see if there was any chance somebody had any old irrigation equipment etc they no longer needed.  My garden has been sorely under-watered this year and it's been a very unproductive summer as a result.

There was no irrigation equipment, but I noticed that someone was looking for a clothing rail and as we had one sitting in the garage gathering dust, I thought I'd offer it to her on the off-chance it was still needed.  It was and we arranged for it to be collected on Wednesday morning.

When the lady turned up, her lovely daughter in tow,  it took us about 5 minutes to realise that we had loads in common in our lives and also in our view points on the environment.  The quick visit to pick up the clothes rail, turned into a 4 hour long natter, with several coffees and lunch into the bargain!

Another quick visit, this time to her house on Friday, turned into another marathon as I explored her garden and compared notes.  I arrived with cream cakes for morning tea and left with a bag of zucchini and fresh home laid eggs several hours later.  Since Friday, we've used these gifts for creamy tagliatelle and lemon zucchini pasta, scrambled eggs, macaroni, and a rhubarby bread and butter pudding.

So, not only have I had two great days and lots of nutritious, yummy food, but I now have someone to bounce ideas off, a possible business partner and a what looks like a budding friendship for both me and my daughters.

Not a bad return I think :)

Talking about Sustainability and our Forests

A little while ago a satirical graph on the use of the word "sustainable" made it's way around the internet via the National Association of Scholars.  It made me laugh because, as a student of sustainable land management at the time, I'd already become conscious of the fact that the word was being bandied around left, right and centre, without much thought to what it truly meant.

Land Clearing and the Review of Native Vegetation Clearing Guidelines

Just a quick round of thank you: Southern Dandenongs Landcare, Jordan Crooka, Bruce Lindsay of the Environment Defenders Office and Yasmin Kelsall of the Victorian National Parks Association for the detailed talk last night.  

It would appear that by reducing the situations in which a permit is required, making it easier to obtain a permit, using a risk based approach and also changing the language used that the new guidelines will have the overall effect of discounting the importance of local habitat for increased biodiversity.

Passionvine Hopper AKA Fluffy Bums!

This insect is really starting to pick up in numbers in the garden at the moment, with young nymphs and adults being seen in large groups on any stressed plant.
  

Only part of the large colony living on our fig tree

Revegation Practice and Glyphosate

Recently I raised some concerns on fb regarding the current practices used for revegatation work along creek banks in my local area.

Basically, the practice is to use a glyphosate based product to spray the area to be replanted, and perhaps repeat this at intervals.  Once cleared, the young plants used in the revegatation process then have a better chance of becoming established.

What concerned me about this, other than the fact that I believe the use of chemicals in such a way is not a sustainable practice and is in fact somewhat contradictory to the idea behind the revegatation process, was that we may be doing more harm than good.

December in the Dandenongs

The volunteer tomatoes that popped up everywhere in September are fruiting

Bye bye bee bee, bye bye!

Recently our wonderful, garage dwelling, feral bees ran out of space and a drone cut a hole through the interior wall into the garage.  Bees not being the brightest, they then congregated around the rear window to the garage hoping that somehow the glass would disappear and they'd be able to go on their merry way. 

With nothing to do but wait for a mating flight, one drone decided to create a new exit and gets berated by a female worker for leaving the back door open

Unfortunately, we didn't enter the garage for a couple of days and it was cool and wet overnight.  As the bees only knew of their main entrance to the nest, they couldn't work out what to do and few hundred of them died from exposure over night before we realised what had happened.

We covered up the hole they'd made with copper slugga tape as it was all we had to hand, then covered the window with a tarp and opened the door so the surviving bees could make their way out.  Which they did, slooooowly, over the day.  My DH then had the sad task of sweeping up the deceased.

Just to show that they're not fast learners, a couple of days later the exact same thing happened and again we lost a few hundred bees.

Fortunately, I know David the bee man! :)

Ode to The Digger's Club

Oh, Digger's Club you are the best,
By far a step above the rest,
So I just renewed my membership,
After a slight lapse in it.
Unlike others we won't mention,
You always pay attention,
To your members far and wide,
And keep them on the happy side.
Despite having lapsed for months times two,
You didn't hesitate, no, not you,
You give, and then, you give some more,
With a better deal than before.
A welcome gift you did bestow,
That's hard to rhyme when not in prose,
But I'll try and give it a go,
Some seeds from the tom-a-to.
Then just because that is your way,
Another gift made my day,
A book that is pure platinum,
All about the solanum.
So, thank you Digger's, Clive et al,
I promise you that I shall,
Renew my fees when they fall due,
So I may be as loyal as you.

Not a Digger's Club member yet?  You really should be ;)

Pumkins and lemon trees...

I've written this post for Margaret of Stone's Throw Cottage, who is making a fantastic effort removing environmental weeds and enhancing her already wonderful garden by planting some delicious edibles! :)

Margaret has the perfect location for a forest garden.  She has many established trees in an upper canopy, several fruit trees in the middle layer, different levels, a slope, sunny areas, cool areas and lots of native vegetation.

She has decided to clear away a big area of environmental weeds (Wandering Trad and English Ivy) and replace this with indigenous plants for attracting wildlife, providing habitat for local species and also increasing the biodiversity in her garden.

Yesterday, I saw her and her partner (well, mostly her partner!) struggling to rid an old veggie bed of a bad infestation of Wandering Trad, both being desperate to plant out some pumpkins.  When I suggested that they relax, take their time, and plant the pumpkins under the nearby lemon tree instead they thought I'd gone a bit bonkers.



They wouldn't be the first! :)

So Margaret, get yourself a cuppa and let me explain...

Bonk...bonk....

Those of you with a wildlife pond have no doubt been hearing the fantastic noise of the Eastern Bango Frogs (Limnodynastes dumerilii) calling for some time now.  The wonderful sound of the frog has given it a very evocative common name in the Dandenongs, the Pobblebonk.

L. dumerilii subspecies dumerilii
the most widely spread subspecies
and common in Melbourne suburbs

Other people's brilliant photo's from End of the Line

You just have to check them all out :)

 John Weeks!

I'm borrowing this one because it's the Safeway wall being painted.  Gone is the ghastly green!  Hopefully they'll let them extend it next year and cover the whole area :)

Katie & Sarah



I walk into town several times a week using this route and my kids always get excited when the see the cows and doggies on the walls - you can imagine how excited the bunting made them :)

Wow, what a superb day at the End of the Line Festival!

Just some quick pics of the day.  :)

Part of the Marketplace - this was a great area with music, artists, stalls and a brilliant KungFu display by Dom McKay and his students

And of course, the marketplace was also home to 2 Fat Ladies Weave a Garden (they called themselves that, not me!!).   Southern Dandenongs Landcare's very own Vicki Boyle and friend Marita Hanigan definitely improved the look of this chain link fence with their art work.  Great job Vicki & Marita.  Next time though, the kids definitely stay with you! :)

This is the main stage (more often known as the Cameo's outdoor cinema) and it was a great area to enjoy listening to Rob Moss.  Fantastic voice and definitely an enjoyable spot to take a break from the senses overload.  Note Baba Desi making, our local wizard, was in fine form despite his advanced age and the heat!

Here's some of the littlies jumping around like dinosaurs to Alice Makes Music.  It was great to have this kids area for them to have downtime and get in the shade.  Well, I say downtime but all the jumping and attempting circus acts or listening to exciting stories with Christopher from the Dreaming Space had them exhausted!

Here's Alice entertaining our bubs

It's almost time for the End of the Line Festival

I am so excited about the upcoming, inaugural, End of the Line Festival on Saturday 24th November!

Organised by Brent and CJ Dakis, 2 local artists and proactive, enthusiastic and generally brilliant people, it promises to be one local event that will be hugely successful and I predict will most definitely grow in stature in the coming years.

I know they've both put their heart and souls into this, working incredibly hard to convince both the Belgrave Traders Association and the Shire that such a festival will be a huge benefit to the area.

So please, check out the fantastic website for info on the exhibitors, musicians, artists and others involved, then make sure you're there on Saturday 24th November from 10am.

Help Brent, CJ and everyone involved make the End of the Line Festival an event they can be proud of! :)

Southern Dandenongs Landcare Group AGM

A quick message from the SDLG regarding their AGM, this Sunday 2-5pm at Selby Community House.

Join us to hear local conservationist, Betty Marsden AO., on the history of the Save the Dandenongs League and the work done by volunteers to preserve our Hills environment – vital work which continues on many fronts. This is a unique chance to meet and speak with Betty, community elder and local environmental champion.

Afternoon tea provided :)

Here I am, getting involved in politics again...

McDonalds in Tecoma... what can I say? I have nothing against McDonalds and in fact quite enjoy caramel sundaes. Do my kids eat there? Rarely, perhaps a couple of times a year, generally when travelling long distances. Have I been involved with the campaign? I signed the petition before the vote went before planning last year, but other than that no. Do I want a McDonalds up the road? Absolu

tely not.

My objections are that the site now owned by McDonalds is by a busy junction that already has traffic issues and is used by school children crossing. The store is planned to be open 24 hours, in what is still (despite it being the main street in the town) a quiet residential area. The building designs used by McDonalds are rarely in keeping with what would be appropriate for the area, something that is generally carefully considered in the planning process for a residential building. And Tecoma and Belgrave already have how many takeaways...?!

The Shire were right to turn down the original application based on community objections, but VCAT unfortunately had no choice but to accept McDonalds' appeal. That's the problem with the law - if you meet the requirements, and McDonalds did, then your application should be approved.

Although that said, what is there left that we can do? Should we get even angrier and start to protest aggressively? Should we start assuming it's all part of a wider conspiracy, like some of the commentators who have appeared on camera recently sounding, frankly, a bit crazy and not helping the cause in the slightest.

Nope.

The new councillors (and returning Cllr. Samantha Dunn - congratulations again Sam!) need to consider what can be done to amend zoning and planning rules for areas such as this to protect them in future. They were right to turn down the application in the first place, but now they need to ensure that one McDonalds doesn't open the flood gates for more inappropriate developments. If we can be strict with residential zoning, then we can be strict with commercial zoning bordering the residential areas.

NO McDonalds in The Dandenong Ranges needs to try even harder to open a dialogue with McDonalds and do what they can to get them to listen to our concerns and address them. Peacefully, calmly and with respect on all sides.

However, for the most part, this is now down to McDonalds. You know what we do NOT want, you know what our concerns are and you know that the eyes of Australia, if not the world, are on you.

Now is your chance to show us all that McDonald's Australia does listen - they you can be flexible; that you can build restaurants that are sustainable and appropriate to a location; and perhaps most importantly, that you can become a welcome part of a small community.

What do you say Maccas - are you up to it?

Woohoo!

The cicadas are singing - it's (un)officially summer! :)

Companion Planting from SGA

This dropped in my inbox this past week and I thought it was worth sharing because a) it's comprehensive and b) it's free :)

Companion Planting