The post Living Democracy appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Thank you and Merry Christmas to everyone who’s responded so positively to the writings and films I’ve been posting on Our Permaculture Life – on this Blog, on Youtube and Facebook,

After decades of ‘just doing it’, I was encouraged a year ago to start writing about our permaculture way of life and have received such amazing feedback both in person and online. It is so uplifting to know so many people are interested in living a simple &natural way of life.

I so enjoy receiving the comments you write, and participating in discussions about the various topics. I’d love your suggestions too (please fill in the v.quick survey below).

The ripple effect of our actions, our words, our thoughts – our work and the way we choose to live – is profound. It’s so important to be thinking about change – exploring the possibilities and taking positive, practical steps.

16 POPULAR POSTS FROM ‘OUR PERMACULTURE LIFE’

1. My Permaculture Garden – a 30 minute tour of my award-winning garden, plus list of species.
2. Morag’s Simple and Successful No Dig Garden Method – a step by step guide (film coming soon)
3. How to Make Comfrey Tea – a super easy natural homemade fertiliser
4. Worm Towers – a quick and easy way to turn food waste into garden fertiliser – without digging or turning. and Worm Tower Film Clip – a superbly simple way to put your foodsraps back in the soil
5. 7 Ways to Use All of Your Pumpkin Plant – simple abundance
6. City as Farm: City Dwellers Love to Grow Food – weaving food growing into the cities
7. Ingeniously Simple Idea to Harvest Compost Worms By 8 Year Old Boy – innovative thinking from my young home educated son.
8. Temporary permaculture for renters – 11 ideas for growing abundant food without owning land
9. Live simply: 14 Ways to Save Money and Avoid Debt – practical and common-sense advice
10. Save over $23,000 a Year and De-stress with a Few Simple Living Strategies
11. Five Easy Steps to Make Cheap Beeswax Wraps & Reduce Cling Wrap Use – make your own beeswax cloths in minutes for less than a dollar.
12. Five Simple Ways to Improve Your Soil – having great soil is the basis of healthy plants and food.
13. Did you know our clothes are poisoning us? More Reasons to Choose Simple Natural Fashion for Earth Care and People Care – it’s good to know the backstory to where many of our ‘things’ come from
14. 27,000 Trees A Day to Wipe Bottoms – What’s Your Wipe of Choice? – taking a closer look at a  very common household consumable
15. Why I Let My Young Children Leave School To Learn At Home… an introduction to the way I home educate my children
16. 9 Ways to Simply Use Chia: an easy ‘superfood’ to grow at home – great ways to grow and use chia, and some yummy recipes too.

PLEASE SEND YOUR SUGGESTIONS AND FEEDBACK

I’d love to get your feedback and suggestions about the topics you enjoy most and those you’d like me to write and film more about. Either leave a comment at the bottom of this post or click on this survey monkey link – it should take less than a minute to complete.

The post 16 Best Posts on Our Permaculture Life : Practical Simplicity for Everyday Life appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

I do hope you enjoy this conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Robina over the past weeks offering children’s permaculture programs – Patterns in Nature and Design with Nature, and organising a community screening of her film, SOS: Save our Seeds which documents community seed saving initiatives throughout New Zealand.

I am also really excited about sharing more permaculture conversations soon. So many wonderful people to explore ideas with…..

The post Permaculture Lifework: Morag Gamble and Robina McCurdy in conversation: part 2 (12 mins) appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

The post Social Permaculture and Community: Morag Gamble in conversation with Robina McCurdy (9 mins) appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

One of the most transformative experiences for me was spending about a year at Schumacher College in England, as a student in 1992 and as a guest scholar on a course called Design for Life in 2003 with Janine Benyus (biomimicry). The course I ran was also a Permaculture Design Course. Schumacher College is essentially a green university – I love it!

Back in 1992, I so was incredibly inspired by learning at Schumacher College with people such as Fritjof Capra, Vandana Shiva, Helena Norberg-Hodge and Satish Kumar.  Immediately after taking courses at the college I made a pilgrimage around the UK to places such as Findhorn, Scotland and the Centre for Alternative Technology, Wales.

I had also arranged with Helena to volunteer in Ladakh with her at the Ladakh Project (Local Futures). While in India, I also visited Vandana’s Navdanya Project (since evolved into Bija Vidyapeeth or Earth University). My mind was exploded and my heart sang with possibilities.

A few years later, I visited Fritjof Capra a few times in Berkeley California. He introduced me to the Center for Ecoliteracy which he founded and the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center  – places rethinking education and supporting teachers to change. Creating opportunities for children to experience connection with nature and to be exposed to ecological systems thinking has been at the forefront of my work since. (Fritjof had also been a regular teacher at the Esalen Institute.)

ETHOS FOUNDATION 

Back at home, I have been persistently passionate about creating similar opportunities here in Australia for locals and for people around the world who would love to come together to:

• connect with nature, community and self
• deepen our understanding of the ecological paradigm
• explore thinking and ideas that will help guide us towards a sustainable future
• experience a different, more connected way of living and thinking
• learn very practical skills for living simply and sustainably
• nurture young leaders in sustainability
• offer nature connected education for children

After many years – helping to start Northey Street City Farm, the Australian City Farms and Community Gardens Network, school garden projects,  Local Futures study circles, offering permaculture education in 20 countries, I am now focussing all my efforts on creating a space for head, heart and hands learning, predominantly based here at the ecovillage.

This is what my organisation the Ethos Foundation, a not-for-profit charity, is all about. I have created programs such as Nature Kids, Young Ethos Scholars, and Permaculture Life and will be offering a few Permaculture Design Courses (PDC) each year. I see the PDC is an amazing door to a more sustainable way of life.

Ethos Foundation Permaculture Design Course – August 29 – Sept 9

I hope you can join me from August 29 – Sept 9 for an excitingly practical, intellectually stimulating and incredibly relaxing time here at Crystal Waters, where I have been living for the past 18 years. This course integrates my learnings from Ladakh, Schumacher, and all the other centres. I will be joined by indigenous leader Wiruungga, the amazing Robina McCurdy from New Zealand’s Tui Community. We’ll visit Maleny’s amazing coops including: Maple Street Organic Food Cooperative and the Maleny Credit Union. We’ll explore the ecovillage at Crystal Waters, the wonderful neighbouring Baranbali Farm, and visit school and community gardens in the region.

More information about the course will be uploaded to this website very soon. Please contact me for more information.

Films about amazing centres for learning:

Here are a few of the places which significantly influenced my thinking over the decades:

Schumacher College England

(with Vandana Shiva and Satish Kumar, Polly Higgins, Stephan Harding, Terry Irwin)

Earth University, India

Centre for Alternative Technology, Wales

Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, California

Local Futures (A short version of their recent film, The Economics of Happiness)

Esalen Institute, USA

The post Education as if the earth mattered: Green Universities, Permaculture and Centres for Positive Change appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Each week my permaculture livelihood brings something different, interesting and challenging, and connects me with different communities and places. I always learn something new – about a plant, about a way of seeing the world, about an innovative technology… I love my work. This week I learnt from one of the mums from India that they mix Ajwain seeds with tulsi – the sacred basil I grow. Among other things, it can be used to sooth coughs and ease asthma. I am going to explore this plant more.

One of the beautiful smiling children I had the pleasure of working with this week with her mini-wicking hanging garden she made at my workshop at Brisbane Square Library this week.

I arrange seeds in their families and put pictures of the plants next to them for the pre-readers. I get many young people helping me to set up, and many of them who like to just get their hands in the seed bowls and feel them.

Rachel – historian, planner, earthship enthusiast and PhD researcher – interviewed me this week. Her work is focussed on Off-Grid living and with me she mostly explored the questions of why I live the way I do and what influences were in my life to bring me to these decisions. It was great to have the chance to think about and articulate this. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting her and hearing about her research too.

 CHILDREN’S PERMACULTURE WORKSHOPS

I have an absolute ball with the children’s programs and am always delighted at their enthusiasm and knowledge. Together this week at libraries across Brisbane, I led free gardening sessions for almost 100 children.  We made mini-wicking gardens and planted them with cuttings of permaculture plants from my garden. We made newspaper pots for perennial cuttings and egg carton seed trays for a diversity of seasonal annuals. We made origami seed envelopes too. We explored ecological systems thinking, permaculture design ideas, edible perennial propagation and seed saving, working toward a zero-waste system, simple living ideas, and ways to protect wildlife and nurture diversity.

This girl is delighted with her cuttings of garlic chives, turmeric, pelargonium and cranberry hibiscus to take home for her garden. She has made and decorated a mini-wicking pot out of a 3L milk bottle to help her get these plants started.

This little girl is taking home some Brazilian Spinach, Sacred Basil, plus the ever popular Turmeric and Garlic Chives too.

At one of the seed stations, the children are selecting a range of seasonal vegetables, flowers and herbs to propagate in their egg carton seed tray.

My little display at the workshops of upcoming workshops and articles about our garden. I am really looking forward to a Nature Kids program next week and a PDC from August 29 – September 9.

WORM TOWER WORKSHOP

During the week I also ran an workshop for adults at the Forest Heart Nursery in Maleny about worm towers.  The nursery is now the proud caretaker of a new colony of compost worms. Thanks to Hugh for breeding the worms.  My eight year old son, Hugh, is now launching into his second enterprise – worm farming (his first is Hugh’s Bike Shed) to supply locals who want to set up worm tower systems. (have a look at this previous post for more worm tower information)

Chopping a length of pipe for a low-set worm tower (I have used the full length of pipe in my garden).

It’s important to drill lots of hols for the worms and castings to move out of the tube into the garden. We used a 6mm drill bit here and spaced the holes about 5cm apart through the section that is underground. I don’t put holes above ground to prevent flies from finding the compost.

Extracting the compost worms from another worm farm to place in the worm tower. Mound it up, the worms go away from the heat and light. Scrape off some material and the worms go deeper. Keep doing this until you are left with a bundle of worms.

In goes the pipe – nice and level in all directions (I’m a surveyor’s daughter!).  The soil and mulch will be brought up around the tower and the pot will be placed on top.  Inside the pipe we made sure the base soil was loose, we placed some moist coco-peat at the bottom as a bedding We topped it all off with a handful of mulch to help keep the temperature stable and to prevent flies from landing on the food scraps.

ENTERPRISING CHILDREN

Yesterday the kids and I were busy making things for this weekend’s Crystal Waters Monthly Market. We have an abundance of lemons and limes so they decided to make marmalade. They researched and trialled a few different methods and made 24 jars of delicious preserves to sell at the market.  I have asked them to write these up – so hopefully you’ll see these recipes soon. Maia has decided to join Hugh in worm farming and they’ll have worms for sale too. It’s going to be a fun day with lots of friends and neighbours meeting at the village green.

Some of the delicious lime marmalade Hugh made.

Some of Hugh and Maia’s worms ready to be bundled up.

The post Working as a permaculture designer and teacher. appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

About 8 years ago I made a short film called Think Global: Eat Local – a diet for a sustainable society that wove together projects and ideas from research I’d done over 15 years in 15 countries in a 15 minute film.  The focus was local food systems, and I shared examples from around the world and particularly my local region.

You can tell the filming was finished in Queensland summer with the cicadas in the background of some interviews, but despite that, I think the content is still just as relevant today.  I am working on getting a full quality version onto my new Youtube Channel: Our Permaculture Life, but in the meantime, here is the film in 2 parts (apparently easier to upload that way back in 2008).

Think Global Eat Local: A Diet for a Sustainable Society – part 1
Think Global Eat Local: A Diet for a Sustainable Society – part 2

Much of the inspiration for my work in local food, simple living, sustainable communities and relocalisation has been inspired by the many months I lived in Ladakh in 1992 and 1995. I volunteered with the Ladakh Project and for Helena Norberg-Hodge – who was in my early 20s and continues to be a major inspiration to me. (Her films are: Ancient Futures and The Economics of Happiness).

This is an old slide image of me with Amale (my Ladakhi host mother) 21 years ago – taking a break from harvesting. I helped to trial the farmstay program in Ladakh in 1995 which continues today. The Learning From Ladakh 2016 program is open for August intake. The lessons I learnt in Ladakh have shaped the work I do, the way I think and the way I live.

Me threshing grain in Ladakh in 1995 as part of the Farmstay trial program of the Ladakh Project.

The post Permaculture and Local Food Films appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Here’s a lovely article “Community Gardens – Valuing Shared Spaces” just published in Natural Artisan Magazine.  It includes an interview with me about the wonderfully positive impact these shared gardens bring to communities and those involved.

Grab a cuppa and enjoy ….

If you scroll to pages 14-17 on the magazine below, or click this link to see the four-page article. https://issuu.com/thenaturalartisan/docs/the_natural_artisan_-_winter_2016/14

Speaking at the Northey Street City Farm Winter Solstice Fair Food Forum last weekend – with Emma Brindal, Dick Copeman and Thor Svenson. The gardens were just thriving with people, music, great food and such a fabulous eco-community vibe.

I will definitely be including an exploration of community garden design and development in our Permaculture Design Course coming up from August 29 – September 9. I hope you can join us.

The post Urban Food: Community Glue: Community Gardens – Sharing Simple Sustainable Living appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Growing your own fresh produce is such a healthy and satisfying way to simplify your life, and save thousands a year. I typically grow so much that I need to give much of it away – mostly as cuttings at the workshops I give, to help other people’s gardens become more abundant.

By simplifying my life and avoiding unnecessary daily purchases, I am easily saving over $23,000 a year in just a few areas of my life.

What this means is that:

1. I don’t need to earn that amount (and can spend that time with my family, volunteering in my community, developing new skills, writing, riding, being in nature…) or
2. I have more freedom to spend the money on more interesting things, or things that will last…. or
3. Perhaps go on a journey and worldschool our kids.

I’ve found that reducing our daily cost of living can be a simple, yet powerful series of actions that can help us live a more sustainable, low-impact and relaxed way of life.

I feel happier like this – more connected to myself, my community, the place I live, the planet and global society. I feel better too knowing that I have not contributed so much waste and pollution, or impacted so much on other communities. This is important to me.

Slowing down and exploring our own backyard – finding dragonflies, turtles, waterbirds, waterlily and other interesting plants, insects and animals.

So how do I simply save over $23,000 a year:

Go Shopping With a List – save $5000

I find it’s too easy to fill shopping baskets with spontaneous buys especially when I don’t take my list or I shop when I’m hungry. I’ve noticed my register bill almost doubles. I also avoid shopping at big stores that encourage over-purchasing. Even shopping at small ethical stores, I have found this saves me around $5000 a year.

Eat a Simple Dinner at Home – save $5000

I love to cook and kindly my kids say my meals are really good  – they even go so far to say they prefer my food to meals out (phew!). We eat simple, tasty and healthy meals together at home and enjoy the laid-back vibe. Eating out with a 3yo can be ‘not-so-relaxing’.  Some days (for no particular reason) we set the table really nicely, put on some music and make it a special meal. Taking a family out for dinner weekly can be costly. I think we easily save over $5000 a year by eating at home, and taking food with us.

Maia loves creating colourful little table decorations from garden flowers, old jars, socks and fabrics scraps. Delightful!

Pack Lunch and Snacks when we go out – save $3000

Go on picnics and local outings – save $3000

A favourite local outing is a picnic at the river. It is even something we do on special occasions. We pack up our little basket with little goodies and a thermos, sometimes even a bag of potatoes to through in a riverside campfire – yumm!  By reducing the number of expensive outings and choosing to entertain ourselves in our local environment I estimate saves us over $3000 a year.

We all love heading to the river, exploring, having a picnic and cooking potatoes in the fire.

Make a Coffee Thermos at home – save $4000

We love coffee and I think we still spend way too much on coffee when we’re out.  By taking our coffee thermos from home I estimate we could save around $4000 a year  – wow, oh dear, that’s huge.  Perhaps I should just drink my herb infused waters instead – which I already carry everywhere!

Grow fresh greens – $3000

By cultivating some super-easy home-grown food –  fresh salads leaves, bunches of greens, a range of culinary herbs, bundles of cherry tomatoes and delicious snow peas, not only is your food far fresher and more nutrient dense, I’ve worked out that we easily save over $3000 a year. If we took into account all the food we grow and the eggs, it would be much more.

I grow at least 20 different types of greens for teas, salads, stir-fries, soups, curries and other meals. This is super spicy red mustard spinach and one of the open-hearted oak-leaf lettuces behind.

The self-seeding tomatoes are so delicious and abundant. I don’t have to do anything and there are many many kilograms every year.

Other ways to save money by living simply

• Assess needs against wants – check in with yourself. I find I can often easily put things back on the shop shelf if I stop to think about it. Stepping out of the consumer lifestyle can be very liberating. It helps to avoid big shopping centres too. It’s hard to come out having bought just what you needed, and quite often items are not as good as expected.
• Choose good quality items that last – It’s better to spend money on something that will last a long time and is fixable, rather than on cheap disposable versions.
• Choose good quality second hand things – there is so much scope here! Furniture, cars, bikes, computers, musical instruments, clothes…
• Declutter – finding a clarity of mind in clear spaces, spaces not filled with ‘stuff’ we own.

Voluntary simplicity

Choosing to live more simply, moving away from the work-spend cycle and finding a broader definition of richness and wealth, is often known as downshifting or voluntary simplicity. This way of thinking and living embraces the notions such as:

• bigger is not always better,
• focus on quality rather than quantity,
• see that accumulating more stuff does not make us happier, and
• a simpler life creates far less impact on the environment and society.

Did you know that every year, the average Australian family produces enough rubbish to fill a three-bedroom house, producing about 2.25 kg of waste each per day. Cool Australia 

I also strongly believe that we do need to “Live simply so that others may simply live“ as Gandhi said.

By embracing voluntary simplicity ideals, it is embracing an ethical life, that values other people, other communities, other species, other ecological communities… This is certainly connected to the third ethic of permaculture.

The three ethics at the core of permaculture are:

1. earth care
2. people care
3. fair share

The post Save over $23,000 a Year and De-stress with a Few Simple Living Strategies appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

I recognise that I have a tendency to saying ‘yes’ to just about everything that sounds interesting, positive and worthwhile. This past month for me has been so wonderfully busy, that I think I have actually found new levels of capacity.

I love being down at the University of Sunshine Coast Community Garden. I’ll be there again in the morning.

These past few weeks I have led a workshops most days of the week – permaculture, sustainable living, community gardening…

I do need to remember to be gentle with myself and I thank my family for being onto this – they read my energy levels before I do, and the kids especially encourage me to delight in the present moment.

With a little one around, I am always reminded to slow down, get outside and play.

I am a mum with 3 children under 10, two of them homeschooled. I run an education and design business from home and a not-for-profit foundation. I love to cook things from scratch and tend our edible landscape. Our house is often open to the public so I need to keep it looking relatively neat.

In busy times, doing all this can sometimes be a stretch – we don’t have cleaners, gardeners or childcare – but somehow it all works and I love it. The kids are thriving. I feel nourished by my work. Evan and I love feeling productive and active in our communities of practice. We all spark off each other’s enthusiasm for what we do.

I value simple living. That doesn’t always equate with a ‘quiet life’, but for me it’s a ‘good life’.

This is how I stay calm, relaxed and focussed when the simple life sometimes gets a bit too busy….

Be Organised

1. I actively plan my time.
2. I have become a supreme list maker – so things to remember are not swirling around in my head.
3. I always carry a notebook and jot down ideas and new things to do – lots of mindmaps.
4. We plan our family’s week together to make sure everyone’s needs are being met and keep a shared calendar.
5. I aim to get everything ready the night before (lunches, clothes, workshop resources) so our morning can be relaxed and happy.
6. I have found my quiet niche – the time when everyone else is asleep – no TV, radio, music – just me and my myself. At this time, I can clearly and effectively think, plan, write, focus, create…
7. When things do get busy, I let go of some non-essential expectations I have of myself (e.g: writing every day).

I love riding my bike!

Stay Healthy

1. I eat well and usually take homemade food out and about.
2. I carry a glass jar of water infused with rosella, lemon myrtle, tulsi, turmeric and ginger (vitamin C, relaxing, refreshing, immune-strenghtening) and sip throughout the day.
3. I take a nap cuddling with the kids (I do this at their bedtime) – that extra hour or two makes all the difference especially to be able to do my ‘quiet-time’ shift at night.
4. When I need to ‘veg-out’ I avoid the telly or shops – instead play, talk, make, read, walk, think, write….
5. Ride my bike, or play tennis, walk and bounce on the trampoline with the kids.

Baking with the kids – we always love to experiment with healthy sugar free ideas.

Connect

1. I potter in my edible garden – planting, tending, harvesting – noticing the little things along the way.
2. I cuddle the chooks and talk to the birds.
3. I spend time outside in fresh air and amongst the wildlife (I make my office on the front verandah – birds visit, kangaroos pass by, waterbirds visit lake below and I cast my eyes regularly to the hills and national park across the valley).
4. We sit and eat meals together and check in with everyone, tell stories, joke around.
5. We play music and dance together after dinner. (We have a great big box of instruments.)
6. I lie down outside with the kids and watch the clouds or stars, chatting about their questions and big ideas.
7. I love to play with the kids – whatever story they make up. I’m often a horse for little Monty!
8. I ring my parents (interstate) and have a long chat.

Paint, create, get messy and have some fun!

Cuddling chooks always brings a smile.

A slow stroll through the garden, smelling the flowers and noticing the small things always helps me to refocus and slow down.

Stay Positive

1. I spend time in community gardens with wonderfully positive and engaged volunteers
2. I acknowledge the positive things that are happening and think about how I am contributing, and can add more value to that.
3. I regularly reflect on what is important, try to keep things in perspective, and keep the bigger picture in mind.
4. I am conscious to not complain about being busy. I make it so. There is a good level of busy-ness.
5. Smile – and the world does smile back.

Be Mindful

1. Mindfully do housework. When I wash the dishes, I am just dishwashing (or daydreaming out the window) not thinking about the next thing.
2. When I go to bed – I empty my mind, slow my breathing, relax my body before drifting off to sleep. Sometimes I set my self a challenge – to come up with new ideas in my dreams – but usually I aim to just ‘be’.
3. I remind myself to breathe – especially when there’s a need to finish some work and the kids also need my focussed attention.

 

Flowering rocket and in the background, mustard spinach – it’s great to just sit and watch what happens around these flowers – so much life!

The post How to stay calm and relaxed when even the simple life gets a bit too busy. appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.