MY HOME BREW OVERFLOWETH

Inspired by our Permaculture Course Dylan decided to make his first solo home brew. Dylan informed me you have to enjoy a good quality beer whilst brewing and he chose a local Moo Brew.I lent a hand and the beer sensed that I was not a beer drinker and decided to exit the saucepan, but luckily a quick reduction in heat meant not to much was spilled, hopefully not the best bits! Our fears were put to rest when a test showed that this beer was going to be a strong one, the best bits remained and with avengeance!

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SLEEPERS AND DOMES

The dome is practically finished! Just a few foot holds for kids to climb on the roof and soil to be filled in around the bottom so they don’t smash themselves when they tumble off the roof. We ended up bringing in sand for the final render as the landfill just wasn’t cutting it. The plaster already began to cobweb crack as we were finishing it off, but I really like that, I think it makes it the more beautiful. Nader developed the ‘reptiling’ because he had until that moment being working against the crack, trying to work against nature, but one day he sat up in the middle of the night and realised why not work with it, you can’t crack a reptile because it is one.

The whole course was peppered with poems and wisdom that Sheefteh remembered her father telling her as a little  girl, and this is one that resounded with the whole group.

No matter how hard you try you cannot wake someone who is pretending to sleep, but whilst in their faux slumber they will be listening and watching with half an ear and half an eye.

Do you remember pretending to sleep as a child?

Many of the people in the group were interested in green issues, many had studied permaculture and it has always been something that just leaves you feeling chilled when you speak to someone who just refuses to believe in something like climate change and what’s more belittles you for your ideals. I had a run in with a “green” developer recently who laughed uproariously at climate change and the suckers who would pay extra for a green building, practically rubbing his hands together. But as Rumi says, you can’t make someone who doesn’t want to know listen and it can just leave you feeling helpless. It is better to do what positive things you can with those who are interested and perhaps the sleepers will come around in the end. What a lovely thought. Can it be true?

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LITTLE HELPERS – MARCH IN THE GARDEN

Making a new guerrilla garden in the nature strip, Melbourne, Australia

Little girl planting marigold seeds in guerrilla garden, Melbourne, Australia

Extended nature strip guerrilla garden, Melbourne, Australia

Little next door neight bour "helping" in the garden, Melbourne, Australia

Little next door neighbour planting out nature strip garden, Melbourne, Australia

Chickens digging in the driveway

Isa Brown hen digging by a sage plant

Freshly laid eggs and flowering roquette

Baked eggs in puff pastry with fetta and roquette from recipe in Delicious Magazine

Potato plant and orange French petite marigold

Seed potato in the ground

Seedlings from the Digger's Club

Zucchini vine near the no-dig garden

Timber palette planter box on wheels

Seedling trays on our bedroom window sill

Oriental, white and Australian garlic from the Digger's Club

Digger's Sunshine sunflowers

Zucchini Tromboncino climbing up washing line

 

 

We are slowly extending our garden into the unused corners of the garden. The chickens have helped us weed the driveway  and the little girls next door helped me plant out a second nature strip garden. I found a lovely Easter reciped for baked eggs in Delicious Magazine and it was lovely to be able to use our own eggs and roquette, but not our own fetta…yet. Hehe, I don’t think I’ll be able to get a goat just yet.

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PUMPKIN PENDANTS – FEBRUARY IN THE GARDEN

Vines taking over the back fence

Basket of garden produce

Cherry tomato plant tied up with old socks

Eggplant flowers

Freshly picked green beans

Native raspberry growing in the driveway

No dig garden bed

Plastic bottle protecting young seedlings

Sunflower leaves

Zucchini tromboncino ready to be picked

Cluster of pots around the wattle tree

Investigating the corn

Picking our first black beauty eggplant

Vines taking over the back fence

Zucchini chips

We were away a bit in January and the pumpkin and zucchini vines took the opportunity to take over everything, although we’re not complaining with zucchini chips and beautiful beans in our tums. We were proud to fill our first basket of produce from our very own garden. It probably didn’t need to be all piled into the same basket, but it just felt much more satisfying walking around the garden piling it up higher and higher!

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