Permaculture News, Information, Forums, Courses and Worldwide Reports

Ornamental Plants That Are Edible and/or Edible Plants That Are Ornamental

June 23, 2018 by Jonathon Engels & filed under Biodiversity, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, General, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Plants

When I first began growing food and working with ideas of permaculture, I lived in the tropics where many edible plants leaf out large and are exceptionally stunning. Moreover, the places I found myself building gardens tended to be free-for-alls, where anything goes and HOAs didn’t interfere with what people planted on their property. Last year however, after twelve years abroad, I moved back to the US. Where often people […]

First Community Food Forest in the City of Melbourne

June 22, 2018 by Jacqui van Heerden & filed under Alternatives to Political Systems, Bio-regional Organisations, Community, Community Projects, Design, Development & Property Trusts, Education Centres, General, Networking Sites, People Systems, Permaculture Projects, Retrofitting, Social Gatherings, Urban Projects

The Kensington Food Forest began with a dream, to provide healthy nutritious organic food for our local community, to build resilience around food security. Kensington is an inner city suburb in Melbourne. We wanted to grow our own food to reduce pressure on farmlands, reduce food miles and the subsequent use of fossil fuels in transportation as well as keeping chemicals off our plates and creating community. After doing my […]

8 Abundant “Fodder Forest” plants, and how to use them

June 14, 2018 by Kate Martignier & filed under Animal Forage, Design, Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Livestock, Plant Systems

This morning when I went to feed the animals I thought I’d start with collecting some pigeon pea for our horse, Trippy, and see what I could find for the pigs in the fodder forest while I was there. Our fodder forest is a small beginning in my long-term goal to reduce and ultimately eliminate our dependence on fossil fuel-based agriculture. It’s an area roughly an eighth of an acre, […]

Win-Win Situation. Retrofitting Farm Dams to Increase Freeboard and Increase Wildlife Habitat and Productive Edge

June 14, 2018 by David Spicer & filed under Aquaculture, Dams, Design, Earth Banks, Earthworks & Earth Resources, General, How to, Material, Permaculture Projects, Retrofitting, Surveying, Water, Water Harvesting

The first thing I look for in a dam retrofit other than the spillway, is the freeboard. The freeboard is the height of the dam wall above the spillway. The freeboards presence is critical to the safety of the dam. After looking at the spillway and the freeboard, I would look at the batters of the dam wall bot. inside and outside. What degree slope are they? Can you build […]

Planting by Schedule & Plagiarizing Instinct

June 10, 2018 by Jonathon Engels & filed under Food Plants - Annual, General, Plant Systems, Plants

With a recent transition from the wet-dry tropics to Zone 7b in temperate USA, this year’s planting schedule has been more on my mind than I’m accustomed to. My wife Emma likes to joke with people that we’d just stick anything in the ground down there and it would grow, but in a lot of ways, that was true, not a joke. Other than paying attention to the rain and […]

What to do with bad soil

June 8, 2018 by Anya Zelinska & filed under Community, Eco-Villages, General, Permaculture Projects, Plants, Soil

After watching the sun set and the full moon rise atop my neighbour Sergey’s hill which overlooks the entire eco-village, he walks me back to my tent hidden in the midst of young pine trees upon the insistence of his mother (“You need to walk the young lady all the way to the door of her tent, you hear me?”). His cat Murka (Moor-kah, meaning purr-cat) follows her human grandma’s […]

Killer Natural Plaster Recipe

June 7, 2018 by Matt Prosser & filed under Building, General, How to, Material

In this article I’m going to share with you my killer recipe for a final plaster that I have used and evolved over the last eight years. The final layer is what you will see day to day, so it’s worth making it nice. If you’re interested in a recipe that is non-toxic, made from easy to find natural materials and has a beautiful finish then read on. I first […]

Flexitarianism

June 7, 2018 by Matthew Livingston & filed under Animal Processing, Animals, Consumerism, Fermenting, Food & Food Support Systems, Food Plants - Perennial, General, Plants

DISCLAIMER: These are my thoughts and experiences on what can be a deeply cultural, charged and personal topic: diet. There is a lot we don’t know, especially when it comes to what a sustainable diet is. For one, most studies have been centred in high-income Western countries (Jones et al., 2016); it’s also still largely unclear exactly what a “healthy diet” should consist of, nevertheless what a truly sustainable society […]

Texas Food Forest and the Results of Good Design.

June 6, 2018 by Jack Spirko & filed under Animals, Bird Life, Design, Earthworks & Earth Resources, Food Forests, Land, Swales, Videos, Water Harvesting, Working Animals

Five years ago we moved to our current property in North Texas. While the general area is not particularly challenging, the property itself was. The three acre property has anywhere from 11 inches (28cm) to as little as 3 inches (7.6cm) of soil, sitting atop a limestone slab. Note: not rocks but solid slab. An insane place to build a permaculture property but we set to making it happen. In our […]

Battery Technologies for Off-Grid Living

May 31, 2018 by Mike Haydon & filed under Building, Courses/Workshops, Design, Energy Systems, General, How to, Retrofitting, Waste Systems & Recycling

There are so many battery technologies out in the marketplace, and it is highly likely between me writing this and you reading it there will be another new fandangled world’s best battery that has hit the market. What Elon Musk has done with Tesla is to create a market awareness of wanting to install home battery storage and reduce our impact on the environment from burning fossil fuels. This has […]

Slip Straw, Earthen Floors, and Tadelakt: A Recipe for a Perfectly Natural Home

May 24, 2018 by Tobias Roberts & filed under Building, Design

Slip straw is an easy and energy efficient way to build lightweight homes or walls. It uses materials that are almost always locally available and also offers quality insulative properties. To build with slip straw you will need an abundant supply of straw, clay and some sort of wood to make forms. The straw you use should be from some sort of grain such as rice, wheat, barley, etc. Hay, […]

Permaculture and Music Fusion at Maungaraeeda

May 24, 2018 by Maria lloyd & filed under Community, Courses/Workshops, Events, Resources & News, General

To close off a second day of CelebrATE at PRI Sunshine Coast, we strapped on belts to become human marimbas, a musical instrument similar to a xylophone. This was the second musical workshop of this permaculture celebration, a jam session with all of the participants. We had to lean back to stretch out the keys between two people, each playing half the instrument and coordinating to connect the high and […]