Me threshing grain in Ladakh, India in the early 1990s – here I learnt the importance and significance of local food.

The film touches on many of the issues caused by and impacting upon our current unsustainable food system including climate change and peak oil, and points to the relocalisation of food systems as a key strategy for working toward a more ecologically sustainable, healthy and socially just society.

I made this film in 2008, but I find the issues all are still very current and the examples of ways forward possibly even more pertinent now. I will be following up each of the key themes introduced in this film in the short films I am making each week and posting on my youtube channel: Our Permaculture Life. You can subscribe there so each week you’ll get another short film about permaculture, ecovillage living and sustainable local food systems.

PEOPLE INTERVIEWED

Fritjof Capra (source: www.fritjofcapra.net)

There are interviews with:
• Dr Fritjof Capra – Author, Physicist, Educator, Activist
• Morag Gamble – Permaculture/Community Food Educator, Designer, Writer
• Evan Raymond – Advisor, Climate Change Adaptation
• Kirsten Lyons – Associate Professor  Social Science (incl. Food Politics)
• Les Nichols – Community Supported Agriculture/Farmers Market
• Anaheke Metua – City Farmer/Farmers Market Organiser/Weaver
• Sequoia River – Farm Shop
• Isabella Siodmak – Natural Health Practitioner, Natural Attitudes
• Chris Bond – Chef

COUNTRIES VISITED

The film includes footage and images taken over a 15 year period in 15 countries by Morag Gamble and Evan Raymond:
• Australia
• Bulgaria
• Bahamas
• China
• Cuba
• Denmark
• Germany
• India
• Indonesia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• South Korea
• Turkey
• United Kingdom
• USA

Maple Street Cooperative – my favourite local food store.

ABOUT THE FILM

This film was made in 2008 with the support of the Maleny Film Society and launched at the 2008 Maleny Film Festival (hence the many examples from Maleny). Since then, it has been screened around the world by community groups looking to cultivate change in their local area, and in schools to raise awareness about local food issues.

Directed by: Morag Gamble and Evan Raymond
Editorial Director: Gregor Gamble

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The wonderful Costa Georgiadis of ABC’s Gardening Australia led a huge group of people through the verge garden with his fabulous commentary of why verge gardens are the bees knees – it’s got me thinking about what more I can do along the street at my place. Always wonderful to see him and get a big beardy cuddle.

Costa espousing the benefits of having a salad garden on the verge.

Gardening extraordinaire, Barbara Wickes, president of the cottage garden group The Perennial Poppies, coordinates the extraordinary effort it takes to get the Giant Kitchen Garden displays ready for the expo each year.

After Costa’s ramble through this amazing demonstration garden, he sent the crowd across to the Kitchen Garden Stage where I talked about my favourite incredible edibles. I had a table full of cuttings from my garden that provide an abundance and resilience in subtropical gardens – a diversity of perennial and self-seeding plants and a selection of common but overlooked edible leaves.  (The video of this will be ready soon.)

Me launching into the Incredible Edibles talk.

The Giant Kitchen Garden is like a meeting of old friends – I caught up with Roman Spur of Spurtopia, the Yandina Community Gardens, Northey Street City Farm, Robin Clayfield, Brisbane Organic Growers and many more… Jerry Coleby Williams also led a great wander through the verge garden.

ABC Gardening Australia’s Jerry Coleby-Williams talking about verge gardens.

Here are some of the people I met along the way and some garden features on display…

I was delighted to hear the latest news from Roman Spur of Spurtopia – new baby girl and new house (bought from savings – no debt).

I caught up with Cath Manuel of Soil to Supper, then saw part of her no-dig garden presentation.

Beautiful kales.

The display garden demonstrated how you could set up a street side stall to share verge garden produce in the community.

These are great to help increase homes from microbats in urban gardens.

Showing the potential for a verge garden – from children’s play spaces, herb, vegetables, flowers, fruits, upcycled pots, interpretive signage, habitat logs …

An interesting pot of strawberries….

Looking down the main street of the verge garden displays.

The bug hotel in the centre of the verge garden roundabout.

The boot flower garden.

The stiletto palette garden!

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How do you get thriving permaculture garden while you’re renting?  There are particular challenges, but there’s also a whole lot of great ideas for creating abundant temporary gardens and flourishing community spaces.

In our 20s, Evan and I lived in rental houses for years before we moved to Crystal Waters ecovillage.  We grew a fair bit in pots, in the yard and along the footpath, but we also became avid community gardeners and helped to organise a food box system for the other foods we needed. Our sense of permaculture gardening embraced the community – the city farm, friends places and verges (amazing macadamias and tamarinds).

Maia checking out the community garden at Maleny Neighbourhood Centre’s community garden – one of the many local community gardens where I run regular free permaculture workshops.

Not all renters move regularly of course and some landlords are happy for you to create an flourishing edible garden. My grandparents rented the same house for about 40 years. They always had a lovely vegetable garden out the back. Generally however, renters or not, people do move more often now. Almost half of the Australian population moves every 5 years. In Australia, government statistics show that people in their 20s and 30s move multiple times in that 5 year period.

So, whether you are a renter or just a regular mover, here are some ideas for you…

Mesclun Greens Pot

Create a fabulously productive salad bar in a pot. Densely seed up a pot with a mix of things like lettuce, rocket, mizuna, endive, coriander, asian greens, spinach, basil and mustard greens. As soon as the leaves grow big enough, start snipping a leaf here and there – a pot full of nutrients, colour and flavour. To keep the plants thriving, regularly water them with a natural fertiliser – diluted worm liquid is great.

Lettuces, radishes, rocket, basil, mustard greens all grow so quickly. Very soon you will be plucking fresh leaves for your salad bowl or stir-fry.

For getting things going in your temporary pot gardens, I recommend using a few bigger pots rather than lots of little pots which dry out so quickly. Using self-watering pots or mini-wicking gardens is also a benefit.  Here’s a few ideas to try:

Herb Garden in a pot

In large pots you can also grow a wonderful diversity of herbs together.

Try themes – teas, asian spice, pizza pots…

• For a nice tea – try mints and lemon balm.
• For an spice pot – try chilli, lemongrass, coriander, vientamese mint …
• For a pizza and pasta pot – grow sage, rosemary, oregano, parsley, chives, mini basil and thyme together.

Mix of basils and tomato in a large up cycled pot.  (source www.yougrowgirl.com)

Fruit tree guild in a pot

If you are in a temporary garden, it’s still wonderful to be able to have fruit trees, but you most probably want to be able to take them with you when you move.

Even the smallest garden can support a dwarf fruit tree or two in a pot. So many fruit trees are now available in dwarf varieties and they do really well. However, you do need to remember that these plants are entirely dependent on you for their water and nutrients – they cannot send their roots off in search of more food and water. Plant the fruit tree in a big pot  – remember that in 2 years you’ll need to trim roots and add fresh potting mix, so choose a shape of pot that you can slide the tree from.

Some good fruits plants for pots – dwarf lemon, pomegranate, acerola, finger lime, kaffir lime, jaboticaba, dwarf apple, dwarf mango, dwarf avocado (need another to cross-pollinate though), tamarillo, strawberry … just to name a few.

You could also try a multi-grafted tree to get a few different varieties on one root stock – for example mandarin, orange and lemon.

Make sure you mulch the pots well and add complementary plants such as nasturtiums (edible leaves, flowers and seeds), herbs to repel insects, flowers to attract pollinators.

Nasturtiums add great colour. It attracts pollinators, is a living mulch and has edible flowers, leaves and seeds.

Worm farm in a pot

In the middle of a large pot, sink a mini worm farm. You can feed the worms directly and the worms take the nutrients to the plant roots for you. You can simply use a large lidded yoghurt container with holes drilled in the base. Bury it in the centre of the pot, put in a little soil, add a handful of worms then start feeding them.

Use grow bags or sacks

Fabric grow bags are an interesting lightweight and affordable alternative to pots. I have a collection of old sacks and chicken food bags that are good for this, but I have also seen grow bags for sale. These grow bags are better outside than the balcony as they seep.

Old potato sacks can be reused as grow bags – chicken feed bags also work.

A type of grow bag available – shopping bags also work in this way.

Not pretty – but a simple concept. If you need to buy in soil anyway, why not use the wrapping it comes in.

Potato tower

A temporary potato garden can also be made in a tower of wire netting. A potato tower is a great way to grow backyard potatoes in a small space without digging up the soil. Keep adding compost and mulch as the plants grow. When the tops die back – undo the tower and harvest the spuds.

Sprouts and Microgreens

You can have a constant source of greens all year round even if you have no garden at all. Right in your own kitchen you can have a mini desktop garden. Microgreens are the shoots of vegetables such as lettuce, beetroot, rocket, celery etc that are picked just after the first leaves have developed.  I love sprouting too – particularly mung beans, alfalfa and buckwheat.  They are so quick, easy and nutritious.

Turning your scraps into food for the soil

In a small space it is possible to set up a worm farm, compost bin or tumbler. They are compact and can move with you when you need to.  Collecting your food scraps and sprinkling it with a bokashi mix can really reduce the smell and activate your scraps for composting.  Have you considered a community compost system.  The city of Sydney even has some helpful guidelines on how to manage one.

Caloundra community gardeners separating the worm castings and collecting worms for a new worm farm

Growing on the verge

Verge gardening is growing in popularity. People are taking their gardening endeavours to the streets and claiming some public space in common areas for edible landscaping. It’s a way to grow food together and build community. A nearby town, Buderim, has a great example called Urban Food Street, so does Sustainable Chippendale in downtown Sydney.

Join or form a community orchard group

Cities can be places of abundance with fruits and vegetables growing in many of the underutlilised spaces. Public parks and community gardens can become community orchards – places where people can grow, tend and share locally-produced fruit. Some cities such Seattle are actively encouraging this. Often the harvest from one backyard fruit tree can be too much for a person or family, so sharing a range of plants makes good common sense. The Urban Orchard Project in Melbourne links over 200 households to do just this.

A gorgeous community food forest Evan and I stumbled across walking about Ljubljana, Slovenia many years ago.

Join or form a community garden

If there is simply not the space or right aspect at your place, consider joining a community garden, growing on the verge or helping at a local school garden. There are so many resources to help you on the Australian City Farm and Community Garden Network website

I love gardening with other people. I learnt so much this way. Big jobs just seem to disappear amongst the laughter of working with friends in the garden. Sharing the work, sharing the produce, sharing ideas, sharing knowledge created greater abundance and a sense of amazing possibilities of what we could achieve together.

Some of the lovely participants from a recent workshop I led at the city farm – some just beginning their gardening journey. City farms and community gardens are great places to learn.

We started Northey Street City Farm over 20 years ago now – and as a small community group we not only filled a public park with herbs, vegetables, fruits and perennials – we regenerated a segment of urban stream, planted a woodlot, developed a bush tucker corridor, created a vibrant community hub that continues to thrive today with an organic farmers market, permaculture nursery and fabulous education programs. There are no fences – people can wander, smell, taste, feel, enjoy and learn from the space.  Now there is also market gardens and an allotment garden section – no fences still! Fabulous.

Our involvement in setting up the permaculture educational gardens at Northey Street City Farm inspired the way we developed our garden here at Crystal Waters – which we offer too as an educational space.

These are just a few of the many many ideas for growing food in small spaces and temporary situations. Please share your favourite temporary permaculture ideas.

Living a simple life and having a thriving edible garden helps us to live a healthy life, reduce our impact, diminish the waste we produce, scale down the debt we are in and simply connect to nature, the seasons, our community and our selves.

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Firstly, my garden – there is so much abundance there if you include all the edible leaves, flowers, roots, fruits and shoots. Secondly, I source a fair amount by trading with friends and visiting local farmers, markets and my local food coop.

Wild foraging is another way of getting package-free food – it’s fresh and it’s free. Everywhere there is actually so much food. Street trees, parks, river banks, pathways, community gardens and abandoned spaces. Around here there are wild raspberries, dandelions, nettle, chickweed, wild amaranth, purslane and so much more.  

One of my favourite parts of workshops I run is walking around the garden foraging for food. We smell, taste and collect things that usually get overlooked – I talk about how to grow, harvest and cook the unusual foods.  I’ve also organised workshops too where we go on a wild forage for weeds and feast on our findings for lunch. 

My garden is designed as a forager’s garden. I delight in discovering my dinner. It is full of so many plants – perennials, self-seeding, herbs, flowers, fruits, roots, shoots – and there is always a surprise.

Since my garden is such a source of foraging abundance, I haven’t been wild foraging for a while but I am re-inspired to head out to the wilder parts after coming across a great book yesterday about foraging for wild food in the city. The Thrifty Forager: Living off your local landscape by Alys Fowler 2011, and a new edition in 2015.

Alys Fowler (image source: litfest.ie) is author of several books (Slow Gardening, Abundance, The Edible Garden, The Thrifty Gardener, Garden Everywhere and The Thrifty Forager). She also writes a weekly column on gardening for Guardian Weekend magazine.

In the introduction to The Thrifty Forager, Alys addresses straight up the fear that people have of foraging for food – “Is it clean?”  She answers this by questioning whether supermarket food is any cleaner, suggesting that it is possibly more polluted.  She encourages people to become “competent foragers – knowing the land management practices of where the food is being picked – knowing what and when to pick, observing the landscape and watching for changes”.  She believes that what she picks from around her is far more beneficial to her and her surroundings that anything she buys about of a package.

When I lived in Brisbane, we were always foraging. We harvested Macadamias from our street trees, tamarinds from another road lined with them, fallen mangoes, lilly pillies from parks everywhere,  and lots of other bush foods.

Another really useful book I have for finding out what to look for is the Weed Forager’s Handbook: A guide to edible and medicinal weeds in Australia by Adam Grubb and Annie Raser-Rowland. 

There’s also Food for Free by Richard Mabey. Collins 2012, which lists over 100 common foods you can find out and about. 

excerpt from Food For Free

At the same time that I found The Thrifty Forager, I saw The Rurbanite: living in the country without leaving the city (2013) by Alex Mitchell (also author of The Edible Balcony, and a columnist for the Sunday Telegraph). I related to being a ‘rurbanite’. This is how I felt as a city farmer – getting Northey Street City Farm set up 20 years ago. I remember actually being referred to as an ‘Urban Peasant’ in a newspaper article with a picture of me in my overalls with a garden fork over my shoulder.  

The Rurbanite is a good read for people who want to live grow food, keep chickens and bees, live simply, but stay in the city. There’s a growing band of urbanites – the urban homesteaders, the city farmers, container growers, curbside gardeners, urban food foragers and guerrilla gardeners. With 75% of the global population expected to live in cities by 2050, growing food in the city, and connecting with and nurturing the natural and wild spaces in the cities is becoming more and more critical.

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Around Southeast Queensland I have a range of permaculture and sustainable living workshops coming up soon. I’ve just created a new page here on my blog to let you know where you can join in and come and say g’day. The program includes:

• Nature Kids Programs at Crystal Waters
• Sustainable Living programs at Northey Street City Farm and Rocks Community Farm
• Permaculture Education at Northey Street City Farm
• Live Well programs at Brisbane City Council
• Living Smart Program with the Sunshine Coast Council.

New Blog Page: Workshops with Morag

Nature Kids at Crystal Waters

Most of the introductory sessions are free and the more in-depth daylong and weekend sessions with lots of hands-on action have a small fee attached. You can be assured you’ll take lots of plants and ideas back to your home and garden from these sessions and many take-home products.

There are many more session coming. I will keep updating this page.  Coming soon – more workshops at Crystal Waters, new sessions at Yandina Community Garden, continued program of sessions at the Moving Feast Garden at University of Sunshine Coast…

Practical Permaculture sessions at the Moving Feast Community Garden at the University of Sunshine Coast

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In making Think Global: Eat Local our aim was to celebrate local food systems in communities around the world – farmers’ markets, food box systems, food coops, community farms, community gardens, school gardens and home gardens.

Meeting with Cuban community gardeners in Havana.

While exploring the ways many communities are meeting their food needs locally, the film touches on many of the issues caused by and impacting upon our current unsustainable food system including climate change and peak oil. The film points to relocalisation of food systems as a key strategy for working toward a more ecologically sustainable, health and socially just society.

Working with the community to collaboratively design and construct a new community garden in Balcova, Turkey.

Leading permaculture classes for young Korean student activists.

Over a fifteen year period, we collected includes footage and images of local food systems in fifteen countries including: Australia, Bulgaria, Bahamas, China, Cuba, Denmark, Germany, India, Indonesia, Scotland, Slovenia, Spain, South Korea, Turkey and the USA. The footage and images were taken as part of our action research over 15 years into systems that promote sustainability, a core part of our international permaculture adventures.

Exploring urban agriculture zones in the middle Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.

Children tending to their Peace Garden on Eleuthera Island, The Bahamas

I remember the premier screening so well – I was heavily pregnant with Hugh and it was just five he as was due.  Climbing up onto the stage to introduce the film was quite a challenge!

We received support from the Maleny Film Commission, and arm of the largest Film Society in Australia, to make this film. So while we maintained an international focus throughout the film, there is a strongly local Maleny thread too (Maleny is in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland).  I found out about this small grant from another mum at the Maleny Playgroup – that was such a hotbed of creativity – all those fabulous mums joining forces and doing projects they could while their kids were really little.

The links here are to the youtube versions my brother uploaded for me some time ago. It’s not high resolution for screening, but OK for personal viewing.  If you’d like a copy send me an email.  I still have some DVDs remaining and I am planning to get it onto Vimeo in better resolution soon.

The film has been screened in many parts around Australia and internationally as a short introduction to the issues to stimulate discussion. It has been particularly popular with schools, local action groups, transition groups environment groups and the like.

You can watch it here in 2 parts. (NB: you can tell that we did the final couple of interviews in Queensland summer – the cicadas are ever-present during the daylight hours! I’ve always wanted to re-record those bits, but new projects beckon).

PART 1: THINK GLOBAL: EAT LOCAL

PART 2: THINK GLOBAL: EAT LOCAL

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Planting out the organic corn and snake bean seedlings in the new garden bed.

Organic Farmers Market at Northey Street City Farm – every Sunday from 6 – 10am

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