Garden Notes for Relocalisation

The miracle bulb

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 01:35:00 +0000

We grew a year supply of garlic in just over 30sq m of ground. Our quarter acre equates to just over a 1000sq m, and as this is one of our most significant crops – medicinal and flavour punching – it really isn't much ground to use for half the year. The 30sq m of garlic was spread over 4 separate patches.

In our house if we feel a cold or flu coming on we munch on a raw clove of garlic before bed. 49 times out of 50 this treatment works. We rarely if ever get sick and we never have to take pharmaceuticals.

After four years

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 09:03:00 +0000

Our garden is really kicking on this year, and I'm here to tell you (nothing new) organic food gardening has everything to do with the soil and its diversity of inputs. We used sheep poo and blood and bone with our winter's compost this year and the fruit trees and veggies are loving it. We have also had unusually warm and wet weather for this time of year.

One of our hens went broody a month ago. Here are her joyous fruits (in a small ravin proof coop for now)...

This spring we've been eating from the garden the following: leek, onion, silver-beet, spinach, borage flowers, coriander, cabbage, broccoli, parsley, eggs, potatoes, broad beans, stinging nettle (pesto), asparagus, parsnip, fennel, lettuces, kohlrabi, sheep's sorrel, mints, peas, calendula flower, european sorrel, rosemary, carrots, mallow, mustard greens, wild radish, kale, and i even tried my first garden spider raw, which was quite lovely.

We don't actually require much animal protein to live on. Thanks spider, thanks chooks.

No Car! Suburban garden design (winter 2011)

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 04:24:00 +0000

NB: Driveway becomes an orchard, and eventually the continuation of the quarter acre food forest.

I did this little sketch coming back from Tassie a month or two ago to prioritise the jobs that needed doing before spring. We now have bud burst and most of these things have been done, although still waiting for the Nothofagus that we ordered a month ago.

Moon planting experiment

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 12:17:00 +0000

I know very little about planting by the moon, except for avoiding any planting after a full moon for about a week. So I decided to conduct an experiment. I planted about 50 onions on the eve of the full moon (yesterday). You can't see them in the below peg because they're still so small. I also planted leek, coriander, parsley, lettuce, cabbage and kohlrabi in this patch.

And then today I planted 10 more onions in a nearby patch (between garlic and a green manure of broad beans and oats). The patch was prepared in the same way as yesterday's. I only planted 10 here though because I don't want to waste the seedlings, or the ground space, in case they do badly.

Both plantings were with onions from the same company, they were the same size and of the same health when they went in. We'll wait for three months (I've set myself a reminder for the 15 October) and see what happens.

Daylesford Community Food Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 06:00:00 +0000

I set up a new blog, Just Free Food, on behalf of the Daylesford Community Food Gardeners, of which our household is part. Many of the 'gardening notes for relocalisation' are taking place over on that blog, but I will be updating our family food garden here as well, from time to time.

Rainbow over TreeElbow

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Tue, 24 May 2011 09:59:00 +0000

The citrus mound

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Fri, 13 May 2011 23:23:00 +0000

This would have to be my most favourite part of the garden at the moment. Young oranges, grapefruits, a lemon and a loquat are planted as a copse with an understory planting of broad beans, calendula, nasturtiums, rhubarb, and edible self-planted floras such as mallow and chickweed. The photograph doesn't capture the incredible display of orange calendula flowers, that from the house, we look out onto, and which bring us unmeasurable delight.

From the home garden out – a survey as mindmap

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 05:12:00 +0000

Today I surveyed all the plants that feed and fuel us in our garden; that allow us to continue our four year boycott of supermarkets. I then made a drawing showing our household economy-ecology, extending out into the community and the commons.

Click for bigger.

This map demonstrates why the war on weeds is so antithetical to everything in the world, except of course to corporate profits.

Our recent SWAP cuts the ribbon on the SOI

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 10:39:00 +0000

Joel FitzGerald, with a capital 'G', came and stayed as the inaugural SWAP (social warming artists and permies) in the Shed of Interrelation.

The SoI is made largely from reclaimed, upcycled materials and is a small garden room built to host friends, peers, poets and artists to come and stay, contribute to our/their food and energy needs by working within our relocalising systems.

Joel brought with him valuable composting knowledge which has been keenly taken on and practiced since. One of his jobs in Sydney is working for councils, fixing methaney composts. Before his stay our composts would cook at a slow 35-40 degrees celsius. Now they're baking at about 60 degrees, fast tracking much needed fertile soil building. He also set a slower compost, collecting a pharmacopeia of barks and wild plants based on a biodynamic recipe. This will be an enhanced compost ready for the spring, he told me, as we set out to forage for the materials to build it.

Collecting bark (above) and plantain (below) for the compost.

We collected mushrooms, stinging nettle, chicken and horse manures to make a tea so as to mist each of the layers as we stacked green and brown materials (nitrogen and carbon) simultaneously. The misting with both the tea and rain water create an even moisture throughout the compost which help generate humidity.

Two important things I learned about composting from Joel was keeping the pile small, so as to concentrate the heat, and the fine misting to help generate the humidity. These two things alone seem to account for the temperature hikes I can now get in my composts.

At the end of the build we bulked up the last layer of straw,

before putting the pile to bed for the winter.

Last weekend Joel returned with his girlfriend, Emma, and the SoI's cherry was well and truly popped.

Building a greenhouse from scratch

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 06:40:00 +0000

I was asked to make a greenhouse for Zeph's school, so I thought I'd document the process and share it with you.

With stakes and string lines we set out the site.

We hammered in the stakes and leveled off the tops.

We measured the hose and cut six arches the same length.

We popped the hose over the stakes and created a dome.

We fixed horizontals using a spacer to speed up the process.

We then began to apply the clear laserlite sheets.

The weight of the timber and laserlite flattened the dome.

Which was fixed with a central post and some angle bracing.

Thanks to Shay, Joe, Gabe and Zephyr for your help, and to Paul, the boys' teacher who said it was OK they stayed out of class to help. Yes, a rare and wonderful school.

I made a smaller, but similar structure at home last autumn using reclaimed materials. It's much smaller so you couldn't conduct a class in it. Nonetheless, any size greenhouse is helpful in cool climates, to keep food production going through the winter.

A twist on home-brew

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:20:00 +0000

I'm a fairly green home-brewer, in both senses, I'm only onto my fourth ever brew. But despite this I have a tip that doesn't seem to be common knowledge. If you buy twist top beer, save the bottles and the caps. They can both be reused again and again, cutting waste and expense. I can now confidently say the caps work as I've started to drink my first brew and have experienced the pleasure of my ales being released under pressure, with a twist of the wrist.

Our third year summer produce garden

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 04:48:00 +0000

All the effort we put into the soil over three years, although especially over the last winter and early spring, is now coming to fruition.

We're eating various beans and berries, zucchini, lettuce, tomato, leek, potato, parsley, chives, basil, garlic, plums, apples and wild herbs and vegetables such as mallow, plantain, rocket and sheep sorrel. This patch was planted by mixing up multiple companion seeds and sowing direct in the spring.

Click for bigger.

Our first SWAPs harvest chook bedding from self-renewing indigenous grasses

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 03:29:00 +0000

Meg recently worked with Su and Liz in the office at Melliodora and the conversation of WWOOFs (willing workers on organic farms) came up. Melliodora is not a registered wwoofing farm or garden, however regular travelers do come to learn more about permaculture, exchanging their labour for food and board just like ordinary wwoofs. One lunch break the gals got talking about a more appropriate acronym for the working travelers at Melliodora and Meg responded with MIAWs. Pretty soon they had collectively joined the dots – Melliodora Interns and Workers. Simple.

Just last week we were contacted by two lovely Swedish girls, Erikka and Maria, to see whether they could come and work in our garden. Errika had come to visit Melliodora the week before and had stayed with us as a guest. Despite not having our 'wwoofer' shack – the Shed of Interrelation – finished, we heartily agreed, and were so delighted to have them stay that it's got us moving again on setting up our garden exchange program as a wwoofing-type-experience-cum-artist-in-residence, particularly committed to rebuilding the relationship between ethics and aesthetics in a new era of permaculture.

This morning, after we had farewelled Maria and Erikka at the bus stop, I came up with the acronym SWAPs – social warming artists and permaculturalists – and that's exactly what Erikka and Maria were, or rather are, and that's exactly what we, Artist as Family, like to practice. The girls are on a permaculture study trip to Australia, and while they were here demonstrated an inherent understanding of how essential the interrelationships between bodies of knowledge are – especially between the arts and sciences – and especially if we are going to become more resilient to energy descent and climate chaos. Specialisation just isn't going to cut it.

The first job our SWAPs carried out was harvesting indigenous poa tussocks for our chooks' winter bedding. Here's Maria (left) and Erikka on dusk, savaged by mosquitos but tenacious and happy in their hand-scissor cutting work.

The cut grass was then laid out on the driveway (that no longer requires car access) to dry, temporarily becoming a giant dog bed for Zero.

Elsewhere in the garden, after a week of torrential rain (and flooding in the area), the heirloom climbing beans reach for the sky.

As we no longer travel by air, those who are still flying (for the right reasons – for reasons of social warming and exchange, not indulgence and exploitation) bring the world to us. Thank you Erikka and Maria for being our inaugural SWAPs, thank you for the warmth and ease and love that you brought to our town.

Our 12 Months of Garlic

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 07:02:00 +0000

Today I harvested our garlic and bundled them into twelve portions, or monthly rations for the year ahead.

Then strung them up to dry in the 'cellar'.

My first home-brew of beer, a heritage lager, has been cellared for two weeks now. You can just see some of the caps of the 60 stubbies behind the drum of local olive oil.

Here's the cellar from the outside, which is still just one quarter complete.

Rain changes everything

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 06:18:00 +0000

Following on from yesterday's post... yes, the rain did come:

The swales filled,

rain drove across the cellar door,

the neighbour's excess storm water was directed around two beds,

the newly planted seeds were bedded in,

the broad beans lapped up the heavens,

and my giant eucalypt pods were painted wet, among the grasses and berries.

Companion planting

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 06:30:00 +0000

Zeph and I got up early this morning and hit the garden. There was the promise of large amounts of rain on the horizon and we still had loads of soil to move in order to finish the new beds and plant them out. We worked for an hour in the balmy morning before our companion Meg put the porridge on. After breakfast we sorted seeds into companion groups, planted them in a random dispersal method about 30cm apart, and put a plank path up the middle of the larger of the two beds before adding a thin layer of pea straw.

In the large bed we planted the following companions: cucumbers (Mexican Sour Gherkin), sweet corn (Golden Bantam), sunflowers, beans (Lazy Housewife, Snake Yard Long, Borlotti, Kidney, Yin Yang, Cherokee, Flageolot), pea (Greenfast), borage, eggplant, watermelon, pumpkin (Delicata), and zucchini.

In the smaller bed we planted: dill, corriander (Delfino), carrots (Nantes, Chantenay), onions, and leek (King Richard).

And next to this bed, potatoes, corn and broccoli are already booming in the horse manure and composted soil we built over winter.

I gave Zeph the option of staying home from school until morning tea if he wanted to keep working in the garden. He accepted and we did some more mulching and pulled up green manure to lay beside the raspberries.

Strawberries, raspberries and then fruit trees line the swales to ensure they get a steady supply of water passively throughout the summer. They fill up with rain and our bath water.

I took Zeph to school and picked up some new garden stakes and chicken wire to fence off the new beds from chooks, dog and straying soccer balls.

NZ Leading the way in expanding the commons

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 20:22:00 +0000

Last quarter moon phase, beets and Zero

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 03:14:00 +0000

We've just harvested our first beet for the season, grown in the greenhouse over winter. We grated it raw over a fresh weeds salad a few nights ago. Delicious! We know our soils are getting better when our root vegetables start kicking deep.

Speaking of soils, Meg, Zeph and I have been turning over new beds, collecting horse manure and composting throughout this last quarter of the moon cycle – traditionally a good time to attend to the soil, but not to plant. Today marks the new moon first quarter, time to get our corn and potatoes in.

And here is the newest member of the Artist as Family – Zero. Companion and household love-bundle mainly, however we hope to employ him in rabbiting duties to contribute to our feral food supply system when he's older. Catching rabbits is something his parents are extremely good at we're told.

Weed notes (as video-poem)

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 08:46:00 +0000

With this new work I think I've created another bridge between the pragmatics of our household's transition away from anthropogenic waste production, and the poetics of it.

First workshop at Tree-Elbow

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 11:38:00 +0000

My first Eat your Garden workshop went very well. We started in the house showing the systems of waste regeneration and growing we have put in place.

And then braved the cold to talk about soil structure, composting, root and stem pruning, chooks, planting green manures, crop rotation, and so on and so forth.

I was fortunate to have six keen and happy students and Meg made a honey cake for us, which of course was a highlight.

Eat your garden

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 03:25:00 +0000

I'm taking my first workshop in our garden tomorrow called Eat Your Garden! I've prepared notes for a beginner's course in creating an ecological system in your backyard to supply your own food (based on permaculture principals). Here's the first page of notes for my students. Click for bigger.

And here's the google doc I've created for you to freely use and share. If you have any suggestions for improvement or things I've left out (suitable for a 4 hour crash course), please comment below.

Weedy recipes #1 – cooking with dock

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 08:12:00 +0000

Here is my simple dock soup recipe that I dedicate to my friends in weeds-expertise, Diego and Alexis.

1. Forage for dock, wild fennel and other wild plants such as warrigal greens.
2. Wash and cut up stems and leaves of dock, mallow, wild radish and/or mustard greens.
3. Chop up a few cloves of garlic, one onion, or if you find three-cornered garlic (onion weed) chop that up as well.
4. Place olive oil in soup pot and heat.
5. Cut a lemon in half and smell it freely.
6. Throw the garlic and onion into hottish oil.
7. Caramelise until smokey brown.
8. Throw in a few washed and cut potatoes.
9. Cook for a few mins on a high heat then pour in water.
10. Throw cut up dock and company into pot.
11. Add salt and let boil hot for 10mins or so.
12. Put heat down to simmer for an hour, and add lemon juice, wild fennel seeds or any other spices you enjoy.
13. Serve with your favourite bread.

Also, here's a simple dock vegetable dish:

Clean stems and leaves and cook in boiling water for several minutes. Strain off water, drizzle a little lemon and add pine nuts. Toss and serve. Yum!

Chook Tractors

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 03:26:00 +0000

Oil-free cultivation and conditioning of soil for a relocalised food supply and happy chickens.

To assist the chooks I turn over the sodden clay with a shovel and let the girls do their thing. They gently break up the sticky particles while manuring the ground at the same time. Once each area of compacted clay is conditioned then the cultivation area becomes a no-dig garden where we just add manures (green and brown) and compost to the top layer.

Weeds and Swales

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 06:54:00 +0000

I've been employing two helpful, completely free strategies this winter – digging more swales and eating more weeds and wild plants.

Foraging for over 50% of our greens this winter is joyous and has become a daily ritual; walking Zephyr to school; teaching him about edible weeds and bush tucker; 'nibbling' to experiment and learn together. I estimate that between 60-70% of the autonomous flora, or what others call 'spontaneous flora', is edible in these parts. Probably a fairly universal percentage.

Similarly, harvesting winter rains passively, without having to pay for expensive synthetic storage systems (tanks, pipes, valves, etc) is a wonderful and easy thing to set up. There's a little toil in the digging of the swales on contour, but this work is deeply rewarding, especially when the swales fill up with beautiful rain, which then slowly and deeply absorbs into the soil, ready for summer's use and the bounty that follows that we haven't had to irrigate.

All the very best things in life are uncapitalised.

Edible weeds

noreply@blogger.com (Permapoesis) — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 11:14:00 +0000

I thought I'd share my notes and pictures with you from a recent edible weeds course I took with community friend, Alexis Pitsopoulos. Alexis is incredibly knowledgeable and is a great teacher. Most of these weeds are pretty universal, especially in cool to temperate climates.

This is not such a great pic of a dandelion, however it is important to note the flower is on a single stem. The leaves look very similar to hawksbeard (see below). The root can be used for coffee or as a vegetable. The leaves in salad. Wine from the flowers.

Dandelion (taraxacum)

We have loads of sheep sorrel in our garden. I cursed it until I tried eating the leaves. Now it's a best friend. Great in salads or soup. Normally grows in the garden where the soil is a tad acid.

Sheep sorrel (rumex)

Often feared as they are confused with deadly nightshade, but this black nightshade is very good eating. Cook leaves as a vegetable. Berries are good raw or cooked.

Black nightshade (solanum nigrim)

Mainly used as a medicinal plant although groundsel can be eaten too. Leaves cooked as a vegetable. The young leaves have been used in salad, though inadvisable since the plant is a cumulative toxin. It is often used as a poultice and is said to be useful in treating sickness of the stomach, whilst a weak infusion is used as a simple and easy purgative. NB I fried some falafel and added some groundsel leaf, stem and flower heads right at the end. I threw in a pinch of salt. Amazing result! In fact I preferred the groundsel quickly fried to the falafel.

Groundsel (senecio vulgaris)

Known as soursob, shamrock, wood sorrel or oxalis the leaves, flowers and roots can be added to salads. Oxalis contains Oxalic Acid, so should be eaten in moderation. The flowers are delicious.

Wood sorrel (oxalis)

This bitter wild lettuce is like cos. Eat young leaves raw, older leaves in soup/smoothies.

Wild lettuce (lactuca)

Wild roses or briars make ripe rosehips in the winter well after the petals have dropped. You can add ripe rosehips to stews and soups. Boil and strain to make a sauce. Boil to make a health giving tea. Rose hip tea is refreshing, pleasantly tart and contains vitamins A, B, C, E and K, pectin and organic acids. Besides battling colds, the nutrient rich tea boosts your health in other ways as well; it helps strengthen the body's resistance to infection, reinforces digestive function, combats all kinds of illness with fever, flushes out the kidneys and urinary tract and relieves mild rheumatic pain.

Wild rosehips (rosa)

The leaves of storksbill can be cooked as vegetable, but the entire plant is edible with a flavor similar to parsley if picked young.

Storksbill (erodium)

A primitive sage, lyreleaf sage or wild sage is not medicinal, but the fruit can be eaten. Apparently it makes a good incense.

Wild sage (salvia lyrata)

You can soak fumitory in cold water and wash face as a tonic and cleanser.

Fumitory (fumaria)

Young leaves of acanthus can be eaten. The flowers and fruits (cheeses) can be cooked as vegetable.

Acanthus (acantha)

Sow thistles are bitter but very nutritional. All aerial parts can be eaten. Young leaves in salad; cooked greens.

Sow thistle (sonchus)

Slightly slimy mallows are soothing medicinally. Roots can make a healthy tonic tea. Young leaves can be eaten raw; flowers and fruits (cheeses) can be cooked as vegetables.

Mallow (malva)

Wild fennel (apiaceae)

Flatweed (hypochaeris radicata)

Dock weed (rumex)

Hawksbeard (crepis)

Milkweed (silybum adans)

Wild radish (raphanus raphanistrum)

Plantains can be be used for salads and soups, but only very young leaves. Also have medicinal properties.

Plantain (plantago)

As you can see, I still have to complete my notes, and I will add to them over time, especially notes on application (cooking) of weeds.

And these are two that should never be eaten:

Hemlock (conium) – highly poisonous

Privet berries – poisonous