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

The post Think Global: Eat Local – a short film by Morag Gamble 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.

Reduce plastic: Grow your own veggies, or buy fresh, local package-free vegetables from markets.

Image: www.sustainablecoastlines.org

Five really good reasons to go on a plastic diet too:

• EVERY piece of plastic ever produced still exists on earth somewhere (apart from the small amount that has been incinerated).

• In the first 10 years of this century MORE plastic was produced than the entire last century.

• Australians send 1 million tonnes of plastic waste to landfill each year.

• 8 million tonnes of plastic enter the oceans each year where it entangles and is ingested by wildlife. 

• 90 per cent of all seabirds alive today have eaten plastic (only 5% had plastic in 1960). A CSIRO report estimates that 99% of seabirds will have plastic in their gut by 2050.

A red-footed booby on Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean. © CSIRO, Britta Denise Hardesty

1. Attempt to refuse single-use plastic during July.
2. Remember it’s not going to be easy! It is a challenge, not a competition so don’t worry about being perfect.
3. Collect any unavoidable single-use plastic you buy. Keep in a dilemma bag and share it with us at the end of the challenge.
4. It’s up to you regarding how long you participate. You might decide to go plastic-free for a day, a week, a month or longer! However long you choose will still make a contribution.

We are joining Plastic Free July to challenge ourselves to reduce our plastic use even more and of course to sustain those changes.

1. Getting rid of plastic wrap – make your own beeswax cloths
2. Grow your own fressh package free foods – make a no-dig garden
3. Purchase bulk foods and take your own containers
4. Shop at Farmers Markets
5. Make your own pasta and sauce.
6. Make your laundry detergent 
7. Avoid products with microbeads. 

A great way to visualise the many ways we can cut unnecessary plastic from our lives.

The post 5 Reasons You Should Try the Plastic Free Diet too appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

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.

The post Temporary permaculture for renters – 11 ideas for growing abundant food without owning land appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Watching our son leap excitedly from display to display at the science centre, seeing our daughter engrossed in water vortices at the World Science Festival and our little one find independence with a tribe of community garden kids has been part of our wonderfully exciting and inspiring weekend. We all learnt so much.

Enjoying a great weekend in Brisbane – immersed in science and community food

We headed to Brisbane for the weekend. I was leading two free community workshops on Saturday about creating an Abundant Subtropical Garden, and the kids wanted to explore the World Science Festival – the first time in Brisbane, the first time actually out of New York.

One of my Saturday workshops was at Rocks Community Garden. This community garden is a real inspiration and I will write more about it soon. I loved that the local kids and ours all formed a magnificent tribe and created a great cubby area in the food forest.

Exploring ways with the community gardeners to add diversity to the food forest area at Rocks Community Garden

I loved the playful sculptural elements in the Rocks Community Garden.

The tribe of kids at the gardens making cubbies, exploring the gardens and tumbling in piles of compost!

The kids’ cubby in the making. The floor is going in.

Our country kids get up early, I mean really early – before the sun comes up and they usually speak at a volume which I refer to as their ‘paddock voices’.  Not great for a quiet inner urban street on a Sunday morning!

Thankfully the Farmers Market at Northey Street City Farm, the only certified organic market in Brisbane, opens at 6am. We spent hours down there roaming the markets and the gardens before the Science Festival re-opened. Maia and Hugh went off on a photographic expedition and took some great shots. Monty was mostly impressed with the playground, and the fresh sourdough!

I picked up some more beeswax at the farmers market to make some more beeswax cloths and comfrey lotion. I loved the rich colour of this beeswax from Mt Mee.

Hugh’s pictures of the farmers market were of the bananas and carrots – his two favourite things.

Maia’s photographs at Northey Street City Farm included bee houses, plants, chooks, worm farms, art installations….

Upcycled bathtub worm farm in the city farm

Mine!

There were so many hands on experiments at the Science Street Fair that simply engrossed the kids.

The mobile solar powered flower for the live music.

Body mechanics at the Science Centre

Perception and illusion – the walls of this tunnel moved, but I was sure the bridge was. Like Hugh, I held tightly too the railing!

The post Hands On Science, Real Food, Urban Agriculture, Nature Play, Permaculture Abundance – all in a weekend. appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

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.

The post Free food, wild foraging, edible weeds and urban homesteading: some good reads appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Long ago I abandoned the regular use of cling wrap.  As well as the environmental impact, I was concerned about the leaching of harmful chemicals into our food. I prefer to store food in lidded glass bowls, or in a bowl topped with a plate. I do have a selection of BPA-free containers – originally bought for lunchbox use, which are often used. But right now, I am loving beeswax infused cloths to wrap food.

We finally ran out of our huge pumpkin harvest, so needed to buy one from our local organic farmer at the Crystal Waters monthly market on Saturday. I’m so pleased he doesn’t sell chopped pumpkins with plastic wrapping – just whole pumpkins in their natural wrapping (skin). Even with extra dinner guests on Saturday, we couldn’t finish the entire pumpkin so I wrapped a beeswax infused cotton cloth around it to keep it fresh on the bench (too big for the fridge).  The beeswax wrap easily moulded to the shape of the pumpkin with the heat of my hand and will rinse off when the pumpkin is finished with it.

The eggplants are also huge at the moment – I used a smaller beeswax wrap for this.

I had seen these cloths in my local organic store for sometime and decided to give them a go. I love them and think they are a fabulous alternative to plastic food wrap.  I want lots more – to wrap the children’s lunch items, to wrap cheese, to wrap the sliced end of sourdough bread and more.  This week’s project is to make a whole lot more at home which will be a far more economic option. I have lots of funky cotton fabric offcuts I can chop up and a tub of organic beeswax I can use to infuse. I’ll post some photos soon of how this goes.

The beeswax wraps help to cut down food waste too. They still let the food breathe but slow the rate of decomposition. Beeswax has been used for centuries to seal preserved foods, to wrap cheeses – it is one of nature’s natural preservatives and has anti fungal, antiseptic, and antibacterial properties.

Other ways we have decided to reduce plastic wrapping is to avoid buying pre-bagged fruit and vegetables – for example bags of potatoes, apples or carrots, especially avoiding anything in cling-wrapped trays. It’s just as easy to take a basket and select individual items. Buying directly from growers at farmers markets or through a box scheme can help to reduce packaging too.

I’m being very mindful of what items we are buying in and seeing if we perhaps could grow more in our own garden or substitute it for something else.  Our local farmer grows the best un-bagged carrots – they’re huge! I’m happy to support his amazing efforts, but we definitely need to grow more potatoes and garlic.

Beautiful local carrots – and these are just the baby ones! The tops of carrots are totally edible too.

I’m also exploring ways to diminish other plastic wrapped items we commonly use – for example pasta and tofu. It is time I dusted off the pasta maker and learnt the art of tofu-making. I’m good for rice, quinoa, pulses, chia and the like. I can take home-made cloth bags to the local organic coop store and buy these by the scoop.  I particularly love getting the wholemeal Australian rain-fed rice.

Little by little we will reduce the waste going into our bins and therefore into the environment, and reduce our reliance on energy intensive production of plastics. Each step along the way is bringing so many more benefits too, such as wasting less food, buying less processed food, saving money, and eating more healthily. I think this is a really worthwhile household challenge.

The post Plastic-free food wrapping: simple and natural alternatives to reduce waste appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Even though I am committed to being a conscious consumer, our family still creates far too much waste. We grow lots, we take our own containers to stores, we visit local farms, markets and coops. We compost anything biodegradable …. but still it troubles me how easy it is for us to fill the bins – garbage and recycling.

Harvesting fresh salad greens just before lunch is such a delight.

We’ve been challenging ourselves to wean off plastic packaging and reduce waste.  Here’s our basic plan…

• Step one – Celebrate and recognise the positive steps we’ve already been able to take.
• Step two – Do a waste audit and look at where most of our wastes are coming from.
• Step three – Decide which of those products we actually need to purchase.
• Step four – Find ways to make or purchase those products without the wrapping (start with the easiest ones to replace).
• Step five – Keep seeking alternatives for the others.

Interestingly, the more we explore these options, the simpler our purchases are becoming, the less we buy and therefore the less we spend. Also most noticeably, the healthier our food is.  Being a conscious consumer supports positive frugality, voluntary simplicity and healthy living.

To celebrate some of the steps we’ve already been able to take to reduce waste …

Growing our own, and purchasing food at farm gates and farmers markets

We grow lots of vegetables, herbs and fruits here in our garden at the community gardens we’re involved with.

Large fennel bulbs are great in lunchtime salads. At the moment, I’m waiting for the seeds to ripen for harvest.

Abundant brassicas and edible flowers at the Moving Feast garden at University of Sunshine Coast.

We have four types of mulberries growing – this is the Dwarf Red Shatoot vareity (immature fruit)

Just down the road too is an organic farmer who opens his farm once a week selling fruit and veg. We take our own bags and basket. Also a few hundred metres further up the road is a biodynamic farmer who offers farm gate sales.

Once a month a farmers market happens at Crystal Waters and the farmers come to us.

This farmers market is happening tomorrow. We always look forward to it. It’s a great time to catch up with friends from around the village and valley, and for the kids to play freely and safely around the village green.

Supporting local artisan makers

For some time now we’ve not needed to buy loaves of packaged bread. The local bakery, Crystal Waters Sourdough Bakery, makes beautiful wood-fired organic sourdough bread. His flour comes in paper or cloth bags, and he sells his loaves in brown paper bags. You can, of course also choose not to take a bag. Recently my kids have become interested in learning how to make this bread – watching the process through the bakery window so intrigued them. Les the baker saw them there and kindly invited them in over a couple of weeks to teach them and shared some of his starter too.

Crystal Waters Sourdough Bakery

Shopping at a local food cooperative

I appreciate the shops where it is an option to choose packaging and bring my own containers.

My local organic food coop in Maleny sells lots of things in bulk – honey, olive oil, tamari, tahini, peanut paste, apple cider vinegar, dishwashing liquid, seeds, grains, pulses … chocolate!  I take my collection of jars and homemade bags with me to refill. I love going into this little shop – it’s so friendly and welcoming.

The wonderful Maple Street Coop (image:http://www.maplestreetco-op.com/about)

Making teas and icy poles at home

It’s small, but there is quite a bit of wrapping associated with teas and coffees. My garden is full of herbs and bush foods that are fabulous teas – particularly blended with a little spoon of honey.

One of my favourite garden teas – tulsi, lemongrass, lemon myrtle with some honey, ginger, coriander seeds and cinnamon.

The kids love a cool icy treat on a hot day. Instead of packaged manufactured ice blocks and ice-cream, we make our own little icypoles from biodynamic juice or our own freshly squeezed citrus.  At the market too, other local kids have a stall selling mango ice-cream – just frozen mango pushed through a Champion juicer – yummy! Always a favourite.

Ice cream from just frozen mangoes – nothing added.

I feel lucky to live in a place where accessing local, fresh and unpackaged whole foods is an easy task.  But I know there are ways, wherever we are, to cut back on waste. For example, if I still lived in Brisbane, I’d be shopping at the weekly Northey Street Organic Markets and signing up for a box of produce from Food Connect. Reducing waste with food packaging is just one aspect of diminishing waste in our lives – what can we also do in our offices and schools, our clothing, sports and hobbies?  There are so many ways to become more conscious consumers. Each week I am attempting to make some changes in a positive direction until I have reached zero waste – and then continue to work toward going beyond zero – creating abundance.

The post On being a conscious consumer – simple ways to reduce waste appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

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

The post Think Global: Eat Local – a diet for a sustainable society. Our film. appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

We can become caught up in day to day actions – I know I do with three children, a big teaching garden and lots of interesting projects always on the go. It’s important though to remember to take a step back, take some deep breathes and look at the bigger picture – rethink why we do what we do, look closely at what change is needed, and how we can realign our work and life to contribute more positively to this.

Taking part in this online course is a way to start 2016 with this positive approach and see how perhaps I can be of greater service and use my energies even more effectively this year.  I just began listening to the first and second lectures yesterday I am absolutely engrossed.  I love being immersed again in the world of Fritjof Capra’s clarity of thinking and perception.

Image: www.fritjofcapra.net

From the first lecture I took some notes. I thought I’d share just this little snippit…. Fritjof asserts that all the problems we face in the world today are interconnected and that we are suffering from a crisis of perception. There ARE solutions to the major problems of our time, some even simple, but finding the solutions requires a radical shift in our perceptions, thinking and values.  Fritjof believes we are in such a shift – but that the realisation has not dawned on key decision-makers who continue with a peace-meal approach.  What we need rather are systemic and sustainable solutions – we need to build and nurture sutainable communities – designed to respect, honour and cooperate with nature’s coherent ability to sustain life….

My notes are so copious and the lectures have only just begun. My mind is abuzz with ways to refine, improve and add to the the programs we run here at the Ethos Foundation​, through SEED International, and in my personal life and work.

When I first studied with Fritjof Capra in 1992 on a 5 week program at Schumacher College​ it changed my life and set me on my current trajectory. The framework of thinking that is presented here in Fritjof’s new online course is the latest version of his thinking – a way of ecological thinking that has inspired and guided my life and work for the past 24 years. I returned again to Schumacher College in 2000 for a 2 week Capra Systems thinking reunion course which renewed my clarity and focus.  I can feel already that this new online course is going to do the same.

I have met with Fritjof and his amazing wife Elizabeth in Berkeley a couple of times and interviewed him for our short film Think Global: Eat Local – A diet for a sustainable society which Evan and I made in 2007. Only a small segment of the interview was able to be included in the 15 minute film, so we hope to release the whole interview shortly. We hope also to be able to visit him again soon.

I wish Fritjof all the very best with this new program.  If you are interested in joining his next online course, which begins in April, take a look at www.capracourse.net

Here is part one of our 15 minute film: Think Global: Eat Local – A diet for a sustainable society.  It features projects and people we visited in 15 countries over a period of 15 years.

Here is part 2:

The post A new worldview for sustainable communities: learning with Fritjof Capra appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.