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.

The inspiration…

My son, Hugh, was inspired to find a simpler and better way to extract worms from a worm farm. He was selling worm tower kits at the local market and was getting tired of the long process of separating the worms from the castings. He knew there had to be a better way …

Hugh’s method of collecting worms had us harvesting an abundance of worms so rapidly.

The typical method – too slow for Hugh

We had taught Hugh the typical method of separating worms, but he found it was fiddly and took too long. The standard method is up-ending a worm farm on a table or other smooth surface and mounding it up like a volcano. The worms move away from the heat and light towards the centre. Bit by bit you gently scrape away the castings, wait, scrape some more etc… and you are eventually left with a bundle of worms in the middle.

The typical method of separating castings from worms. Mound it up, scrape it off …. repeat a few times…

This method is still good for collecting the castings for your garden since you are rescuing most of the worms to put back into the farm. If however you are particularly wanting to extract bundles of worms for whatever reason – to feed to chickens, for fishing bait, for a micro-enterprise as Hugh was doing – I’ve not come across a simpler way.

Hugh’s ingenious idea…

You’re not going to believe how remarkably simple this method is, and just how effective it is. I love that Hugh brought his creative thinking to a challenge he was facing and found a solution. This method he has developed is a standout – it revolutionises the process, making it so easy and convenient. Essentially, he decided it would be much easier to entice the worms to come to him. Check it out how he does this in our short 3 minute youtube clip (link above).

Please share….

Please share our little video and spread Hugh’s positive idea. Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/moraggambleourpermaculturelife to get notice of each new movie I make. You can also subscribe to this blog so you get notice of each article and film.

The post Ingeniously Simple Idea to Harvest Compost Worms By 8 Year Old Boy: Film #14 with Morag Gamble appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

You can make them as simple or in-depth as you like. Of course, these activities are not just for the holidays – we love to do these things every week. In fact, they form the basis of many of our home education ‘lessons’.

Rock hopping at the upper Mary River.

You don’t need to know anything about the plants, animals, lizards, insects or weather to step outside and begin exploring. Nature is out your doorstep – all you need is to be open to wandering and wondering.

Silent Spring author, Rachel Carson, wrote another inspirational book, The Sense of Wonder.  In this book, written over three decades ago, she shares an her philosophy about the importance of sharing the wonder of nature with children. She says “wonder …leads to curiosity … leads to information …leads to responsibility … leads to action”.  This simple power of discovery and connection is such an antidote to indifference.   

You don’t even need to know what you are looking for, just some curiosity, patience to sit and watch what is going on around you, and an ability to notice things. Draw and jot down your discoveries. Share your findings with each other, and through apps like Bowerbird (Check out other citizen science sites in my previous post: http://our-permaculture-life.blogspot.com.au/2016/09/raising-earthcarers-1.html).

Bring your questions back inside and do some research – in books, on the internet, or find people who can help can.  People who are passionate about their topic are so keen to share it, particularly with young enthusiasts.

There are great lists out there for nature play activities, for example.

Nature Play: Fun Outdoor Activities for Kids 

Nature Play Passport Missions 

We’re going to have a go at these fun, open-ended activities over the next few weeks…

Become a Naturalist (a person loves to study nature) 

Head out on a field expedition or nature quest at different times of the day, to different places with your family and friends. Be a nature detective – step outside, what do you see, what do you hear, what can you feel, what do your wonder…?  

Make a nature adventure backpack – binoculars, magnifying glass, small field guides, pen knife or scissors (for taking a sample from a plant), notebook, pencil case (pencil, eraser, ballpoint, felt-tipped pen, colour pencils), clips (for holding pages), hat, sunscreen, water. 

Draw what you see – a leaf, a seed, a weed, a flower, a tree, a bird or group of birds, an insect, tracks, scats (animal poo), clouds … Make a note of what insect calls, bird calls, other animal sounds you can hear. 

You could go into your backyard, down the street, to your local park, to a local forest, beach or countryside… For a quick expedition perhaps just take a notebook and a pencil.  Make a point of always recording your notes and drawings

(Kids – always make sure someone knows where you are heading).

Bees in the kitchen garden

Become an Astronomer (a person loves to study the stars)

Go outside at night and for some wonderful star gazing. Can you see the milky way? What constellations can you see? Do you know which ones are planets? Can you see a shooting star – why does it do that? How many satellites have you spotted? Do you know how to tell the direction from the stars? Take a picture of the night sky and leave the shutter open for 30 minutes or more (you’ll need a tripod). Learn more about the stars and constellations (get a free app eg: SkyView) 

Night sky at our place by Columbian WWOOFer Alejandro Cappa.

Become a Meteorologist (a person loves to study the sky/weather)

Go cloud watching and look for weather clues.  Learn to read the clouds. What can you tell about the weather by the types of clouds – is wind, rain or a storm coming. Draw the clouds. Research about what the different types are called and what they mean. Get a field guide about weather and clouds – such as Cloudspotter. Use your imagination too – write a cloud poem, tell a story about the pictures you see, can you see an animal, a face…? 

Become a Geologist (a person loves to study rocks)

What kinds of rocks are there in your area? Make a rock collection. Sort them. Find out what they are made of (look in your rock books or online to help with rock ID). What does that tell you about the deep history of your place? Can you find fossils? Can you draw with your rocks? What games can you make up a game with your rock and pebble collection.

The post Natural Activities for School Holidays appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Image: National Film and Sound Archive

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LISTEN TO THE PODCAST: Morag Gamble on Permaculture Education: Living a full life, simply and in conjunction with nature’s principles. 

I teach practical permaculture to kids ….

…high school students…

… and adults.

At home in our garden.

I was inspired to live a simple abundant life after volunteering in Ladakh, in the Himalayas in 1992 and 1995. My experience there had a profound impact on me.

For 18 years I have lived in a permaculture ecovillage with a vibrant community and beautiful natural environment.

We designed and built our home in affordable, ‘buildable’ modules – before this, we’d built a coffee table!

Our edible landscape surrounds the house and provides an abundance of vegetables, fruits, herbs, flowers, medicinals, mulch and habitat for a diversity of species. It’s a super low maintenance system filled with self-seeding plants and perennials.

• Her path to get to where she is at based on strong ethics, environmental activism and natural health upbringing from her parents.
• Her early teenage year with activism and being connected to nature
• How growing up with the awareness of nuclear war potentials and oils shortages influenced her messages
• Her father’s teachings to look for positive solutions
• Being influenced by Fritjof Capra, author of TAO of Physics,
• Her adventures in England that introduced her to permaculture foundations and teachings
• Her head and heart filling up with possibilities
• How she transformed her ideas and inspiration into the reality of her life in Australia
• Her life on the amazing Crystal Waters village community (you need to hear all of this to believe it) with 83 households working together in a true permaculture community
• WWOOFers that come to the village and the WWOOFing that helps teach her kids so much about the world
• When your green you grow, when your ripe you rot
• Her son’s homeschool project of solar powered transportation for their community
• How she learned so much more about successful permaculture after she left the university
• What she feels is needed to start successful polycultural systems
• Her connected pods that create her home which expanded as her family did
• The story of how their home was built by themselves and what that means to them
• How she can forage for food just outside her door
• Why she considers her home an ecological system that looks after itself 

• Some real treats in her garden that demonstrate how many edible parts there are in any garden
• What the biggest products that come from her garden are besides food for her family
• What she does with the recycling depository in her carport
• How her children are already living and speaking permaculture
• How she is un-schooling her kids and the benefits of this method

As well as:

• How she is learning to accept that some of her ideas have not reached their time yet
• Why she thinks her project of Northey Street City Farm is her biggest success
• Why feeling the pain and injustice of the earth being destroyed and cultures being dismantled actually drives her to seek out better solutions
• Her final piece of advice is to be open and listen to learn

The post Why Do I Live A Permaculture Life… appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Seedballing is an ancient technique from Egypt, China and the Romans and renewed in the 1940’s by the late, Masanobu Fukuoka, who is considered the founder of Natural Farming, and an inspiration for permaculture Fukuoka used seedballs extensively to rehabilitate damaged lands and practice no-till farming. 

The mix we use is:
5 parts clay
1 part compost
big handful of seed

We mix the clay and compost together with the seeds until a firm ball can be made. I try to keep the balls just bigger than a 10c piece and allow them to dry before distributing them.

The idea is that the seeds are protected inside the seedball from birds, rats and other seed-eating creatures until the rain comes and moistens the clay. The seed makes the most of this moisture and then the compost nutrients help it to continue to grow.

You can read more about seedballs on a previous posts: Muddy hands, happy hearts: seedballs for healthy soils and diversity and A Wonderfully Easy and Fun Way to Seed a Garden: Seedballing with Nature Kids

You might want to explore more about this no-till approach to farming. A good place to start are the books by Masanobu Fukuoka: 
– One Straw Revolution
– The Natural Way of Farming
– Sowing Seeds in the Desert: Natural Farming, Global Restoration, and Ultimate Food Security

The post Film #9: How to Make Seedballs – Create a Self-Seeding Garden and Regenerate Landscapes appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Here are a few images from the action today with a year 11 geography group on a 3 day camp (43 students). Wonderful to have our homeschooled kids participating too…

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Take a look at these pictures drawn recently by my little boy who turned three in April. He only recently started taking an interest in drawing and now he loves it –  I mean page after page after page.

This series of drawings was done in one sitting. Each picture has an amazingly in-depth story. I understand what they all mean because I sat with him and listened to his active commentary while he was drawing, or sometimes I asked him extra questions when he’d finished. I was astounded at the depth of detail he was describing, and the absolute focus he had on places in nature and the wildlife that surrounds him (real and imaginary!).

Birds feature a lot – here Mr Bossy Boots the seagull (who Monty met on a beach outing) and a bush turkey from our garden. There are over 160 species of birds at Crystal Waters.

Monty loves playing in mud and watching other animals play in the lake below our house. The sticks and mudzone are an obvious feature for him.

He has grown up in an ecovillage spending a lot of time outdoors, in natural spaces, down at the river, around lakes, in the permaculture garden, at community gardens, playing in muddy puddles, watching wildlife  – that is his daily reality. These pictures represent some of what he thinks about.

Rocks for rock hopping in the little river near our place.     One of the sections of river I think he had in mind…

This drawing Monty did as he told the story of a large creature called Jaca who met a little beetle and a snake (his story).

A Sea Urchin. Monty loves going to the beach to fossick in rock pools. (He also loves David Attenborough shows and the Octonauts).

The baby sea urchin looking for it’s mummy.

An underwater creature – perhaps in the lake below our house.

Monty is super excited about Grandad’s boat – a wooden trailer sailer he is restoring. We hope to go sailing in it later this year in the Gippsland Lakes.

 

The night sky out here is INCREDIBLE. Monty loves going out to see what we can see, and to say ‘Hello Moon’. He sings to it.

My little nature boy (it’s actually hard to find a picture with his clothes on that I can share here!) – the river is his favourite place.

He loves the beach and ocean too.

The post An Insight Into the Mind of a 3yo Nature Kid Through Art 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.

My daughter, my eldest, just turned 10 and she asked for a sleepover with a small group of friends. She wanted to rock-hop at the river, make crafts, play in the garden and take a walk around the ecovillage. It was so much fun, and so relaxing as a parent to help her organise this. We all had a great time – sharing with her friends the sorts of things she often does on her weekends.

Maia’s 10th birthday party included a walk around the ecovillage, rock-hopping, a sleepover, and a great menu she planned and prepared.

Maia planned her own party menu. I helped her prepare the food, but she actually did most of it herself. 

Maia’s sleepover menu ideas.

After a bit of refining, here’s what we ended up creating:

 

AFTERNOON TEA

We swapped the fruit on Maia’s list for mandarins and bananas because we have so many of them coming ripe in our garden right now.

Monty is super happy with this bounty.

DINNER

Dinner soup was made from a pumpkin harvested 5 minutes before cooking it with a load of fresh herbs and greens. The organic sourdough wood-fired pumpkin bread was cooked that morning in the village. Delicious. It all disappeared completely!

The pumpkin bread was definitely the favourite at the party – warmed a little on the hotplate.

Maia wanted her ‘cake’ to be a raw vegan cheesecake made from cashews, honey, cinnamon, vanilla, coconut milk, with a date and almond base. She made it in mini-cupcake versions and popped them in the freezer (they couldn’t wait for me to prise them all out, so they were served straight from the muffin tray!)  I love how adventurous she is in her tastes and cooking. A few of the girls thought this one was a bit odd – perhaps a bit too rich maybe.

Maia’s raw vegan mini-cheescake creations.

BREAKFAST

The pancakes were made from wholegrain organic spelt flour, our eggs and local raw milk from the share herd we are part of. We decided not to have soy ice-cream after reading the ingredients. Instead, local cream with maple syrup and our bananas was so yummy.

MORNING TEA

A stack of mandarins, homemade spelt seedy crackers and hummus dip, raw bliss balls, spelt shortbreads, nuts.

There were no left-overs (except for more mandarins and bananas) for our next group of visitors (an hour later) who’d just arrived from Singapore. They’d come to talk with us to explore ideas for developing ecovillages in China…but that’s another story.

 

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