No wonder it’s stayed in cultures around the world for thousands of years, it’s delicious. And what a beautiful golden colour!

I don’t know about you, but when I’m not drinking coffee I do love a good turmeric latte! This plastic-free July, I decided to experiment with making my own from the garden.

Especially in winter for subtropical Australia, now is the time to be digging up your turmeric in the garden. You’ll know it’s ready when the leaves are starting to die off.

Without further ado, here’s how to make your own homegrown turmeric latte:

Ingredients:

• A root of turmeric
• A bit of ginger
• Milk/mylk of your choice (homemade or bought)
• Honey/stevia/maple syrup/preferred sweetener
• Cinnamon/any other spices you like

(As you can see, I’m a big lazy with the quantities. I just go with what looks & smells right.)

Method:

1. Grate turmeric and ginger into a mug
2. Heat up your milk/mylk and pour it in
3. Add a dash of something sweet
4. Sprinkle a bit of cinnamon – yum!

It’s that easy! This way, there’s no need for packaged turmeric mixes.

I find that the fresh ingredients are so much stronger – and are much healthy microbiotically.

What’s your favourite DIY recipe for a hot drink in winter?

To learn more about growing a permaculture gardening simply and easily, check out our course The Incredible Edible Garden and learn how to design your own permaculture landscape in our Permaculture Design Course.

Hi! Welcome back to my garden, it’s Morag Gamble from Our Permaculture Life and the Permaculture Education Institute. And it’s almost the end of plastic free July.

 And every day, we’ve been talking about a different way that we can

actually get rid of single-use plastics in our life. And one of the things that often comes into our home are packages and even packages of healthy foods and beverages.

So I wanted to talk about Turmeric, because Turmeric is something that I absolutely love to have in so many dishes. But also I’ve been really enjoying it, particularly at this time. Well, it’s winter here, Turmeric Lattes. So I spoke earlier in one of the previous sessions, and I’ll put a link below about how to make your own milk from either sort of nuts or seeds. And you can blend that with your own Turmeric that you get from your garden. So it’s the best time to be digging up Turmeric as well. You can come out and get sections of Turmeric, wash that off and just grate that or pound it into your drink and you can get some ginger as well. Some just fresh ginger, so ginger Turmeric some kind of seed, or nut milk that you make yourself.

Maybe a little sloop of honey, and if you’ve got a sprinkle of cinnamon it’s absolutely delicious. So you know, lots of things we can grow in our own garden, and make ourselves and just simply by shifting a little bit about what we’re doing. Get rid of so many single-use plastics.

So join me tomorrow for the last plastic free July tip in this whole series, and don’t forget though you can always check them out. I’ve got all of them put up onto youtube. You can go and check out all of the different ones there. So I’ll put the recipe below for my Turmeric Chai Latte, and if you’ve got another recipe too that you use for making beautiful wintry drinks out of fresh Turmeric. Pop them down below and share them as well. That would be fantastic! All right, I’ll catch you tomorrow for the last day of plastic free July, bye!

The post Make your own Turmeric Latte appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

How about ditching the bin bag unless absolutely necessary, and then choosing a compostable (not degradable, because these often aren’t as good as you think) bag.

Maia and the Permayouth, invite young people (11-17yo) who want to learn about permaculture and sustainable ways of living to join in. Check out the Permayouth website and get involved: https://www.permayouth.org/

What have been your best tips for cutting the waste that ends up in your bin?

To learn more about growing a permaculture gardening simply and easily, check out our course The Incredible Edible Garden and learn how to design your own permaculture landscape in our Permaculture Design Course.

Hi! I’m Maia from the Permaculture Education Institute and also from Perma Youth. And this is one of the last plastic free July videos. 

So today I’m going to be talking about bins. So one of my friends Eleni, who lives in Crystal Waters Eco Village as well. She has this thing that she does every time she puts something in a bin. So you ask yourself, can I reuse repair or recycle this? And then you ask yourself, can I turn this into something else? Can I live without this, and is it necessary? And if you can’t answer any of these questions, then it goes in the bin. But this is just a good way of filtering out things that you should and should not put in bins.  Also, another thing you can do is, not use bin liners because most of the time you don’t really need them, unless there’s something sloppy in there.

Which you can just either put it in your garden, the compost Bokashi bin or just wrap it up in paper, and put it in the bin if you really don’t want to put it outside. And then after that you just put it in a big bin, and then take it down to your bin. If you really do need to use a bin liner, then you can use compostable bin liners. But don’t use degradable ones, because they just break down into tiny little micro plastics. Microplastics are really bad for the

environment, because when they get washed into the ocean, they can accumulate in marine animals and then subsequently end up in us when we eat them. So it’s best not to use degradable bin liners. When you are going to put something in the bin, just remember to ask those questions and also think about whether you really needed it in the first place. And whether next time you go out shopping, you could not buy it. And also think about how you’re dealing with the rubbish from your household. So remember, there’s only a few days left of plastic through July and come back tomorrow for another tip about how to reduce your plastic consumption.

The post How to reduce plastic with your bins & bin bags – ft Maia Raymond appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Do you ever have apple cores & peels, or make kombucha? Then you can make your own vinegar to clean sinks, walls, floors, windows, rinse hair and more!

To learn more about growing a permaculture gardening simply and easily, check out our course The Incredible Edible Garden and learn how to design your own permaculture landscape in our Permaculture Design Course.

Hi! Welcome back, it’s Morag Gamble from Our Permaculture Life and the Permaculture Education Institute. And every day, we’re here talking about something to do with getting rid of the single-use plastics in our life. Or actually, just generally plastics. 

So every day, since the start of July we’ve been talking about something different. I’ve missed yesterday, I know I had a mass class on talking about eco villages. So I might put the link below too, if you wanted to check out what’s going on with that. About ways of creating, thriving neighborhoods. But today, I wanted to talk about something different and that is ways of cleaning. So often, our cupboards get cluttered with different sorts of bottles, for cleaners all different sorts of things from the bathroom, to the kitchen, to generally everywhere and even our own body. So how can we actually find some simple cleaners that we can make at home and actually create no plastic? In terms of having plastic bottles of all different sorts of things. So one of the simple things that we can do and I know that you know particularly at this point in time if we’re wanting to do a deep clean, to do with covert. Then you may be wanting to think about something differently, but generally cleaning around the house really effectively can do windows and bathtubs, and sinks and hair, and even be out in the garden as some kind of fertilizer as well and that’s Apple Cider Vinegar. So I make this Apple Cider Vinegar, do you ever have after you’ve finished your apples the cause or maybe sometimes you might peel them. But something will keep those cores and keep those peelings, and pop them in a jar. Now I’ll put a link below, on how to make the Apple Cider Vinegar. I made a little video about that before, but I just wanted to talk about how actually by making your own vinegar. You can actually make your own cleaner, then you can use this, for making salad dressings or in the morning if you want.

You know, if you like to actually have a little bit of Apple Cider Vinegar at the start of each day, it’s the same thing. 

So we can use it to clean our house, to fertilize our garden, to drink, to rinse our hair, do all sorts of things. So one little thing that we can make ourselves, and we can keep it in whatever jar that we’ve got, absolutely easy! Another thing that you could do, is make your own Kombucha Vinegar. Now if any of you are into making Kombucha, you have probably ended up making Kombucha Vinegarat one point in time or another. And they’re the ones that are up on your shelf for too long, and they go past it. When you smell it, it’s definitely vinegar. So same thing, this is vinegar you can use for all those purposes that we’ve just mentioned, in cleaning around the home. So you know, that’s a really simple way to get rid of all those extra cleaning bottles and also save yourself a huge amount at the same time. And remove things from the waste stream. 

So join me again for the only few days, until the end of July and that’s the wrap-up of this series. You can catch all of the links to them if you scroll back through this facebook page or also I pop them over on to my youtube channel. Which is Our Permaculture Life, so Morag Gamble Our Permaculture Life. You can check out on youtube and subscribe there.

There’s videos of all sorts of things to do with Permaculture. All right, well I’ll catch you again tomorrow and another few more tips. And I’d love to hear what you’ve been doing this plastic free July as well. So put some comments down below, and tell me some of your favorite ways that you can actually reduce the single use and just general plastic.

The post Make your own Multi-purpose Vinegar appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

They may cost more up-front, but when we calculate the overall cost in the long term, and to the planet, it is certainly a good investment.

Make it a shared gift from your family or look for quality second-hand items that you can restore. A few well-made adaptable essentials is so much better than a clutter of short-lived, single-purpose products.

To learn more about growing a permaculture gardening simply and easily, check out our course The Incredible Edible Garden and learn how to design your own permaculture landscape in our Permaculture Design Course.

Hi! Welcome back, it’s Morag from Our Permaculture Life and the Permaculture Education Institute and it’s plastic-free July. And every day, since the first of July, I’ve been exploring different ways that we can get rid of single-use plastics in our lives. Different ways that we can do everyday, things in the garden or in the home that can help to just release us from those things. So that we’re having less waste in the world.

Now one of the things that I wanted to talk about, was some of the things that we choose that are really long lasting and really high quality. I don’t know about you, but when it gets to my birthday and someone asks me, my family asks me. So what would you like for your birthday? And I think, I don’t know, I don’t really need anything or want anything. But actually this year, I kind of thought actually what I would really like would be a really good set of knives. Because typically I’d only ever just bought the relatively cheap ones that you can get in standard stores. And you know, the thing is, they only last for a couple of years before they’re just so blunt. You can’t sharpen them on this bit, it starts to fall apart and they just don’t chop very well. And the whole joy of cooking is really not there. So I saw up in one of the local shops in my local town. It’s a place where they’ve collected all the different things together like all the natural organic sheets and organic towels. And locally made cups, and australian-made knives, and pans and all different sorts of things and they were having a sale. I thought okay, now’s the time to do it.

So I found a selection of knives that I really liked and I like these ones, because they are australian knives. They’re made out of one bit of steel, they’ve got 25 years of what’s it called guarantee on them. So like they’re a lifetime purchase and they’re just so well balanced. And so I came home and with my kids, we chose them too and they’re just so well balanced and we really enjoy cooking up using these. Now the thing is that, normally you know I wouldn’t go and buy expensive products. But the idea is that, if it’s only maybe two or three times more to get that than this. And that’s every couple years, I have to throw it out and this is going to be pretty much a lifetime thing possibly. Something that I could hand on to my children that is a really good purchase in terms of thinking about our resource use. So you know there’s plastic bits to this, but I’m not just talking about plastic today. It’s like all the different sorts of waste that we create, when we choose things based on price alone. We often choose things that maybe don’t last, as long can’t be fixed and end up to be disposable.

So it’s like a disposable knife, as opposed to a sharpenable knife that lasts a really really long time. And so, I ended up getting a sharpener as well. But since I’ve had them since my birthday, I’ve not had to sharpen them at all. So that’s great, I’m really enjoying that. The other thing that I’m enjoying is this whole idea of having the natural non-stick of a cast iron pan. So I’ve recently decided to launch into being a cast iron pan person. Because I was a bit sick of like handles that kept moving, like the plastic handles. And you’d screw them up as much as you could and then they just keep coming undone or a hop. And anything to do with the non-stick surfaces. I’ve really tried to avoid it for a long time, in terms of cooking any sort of things. Particularly in these pans, because it comes off and it’s not really meant to be any good for you. So I really like this because it’s a natural non-stick. And so after you’ve seasoned the pan, I just sort of oil it with a rag from an old piece of cloth.

And just keep that hung up and then pull that out. This is what I do, all different sorts of things from the tofus.

This egg bakes and then because it’s got the metal handle, you can just stick it straight into the oven. So like a frittata or something, you can even cook scones in here or a cake. So it’s like, one pan can do all those things and it’s also guaranteed for a lifetime. It’s meant to be something you can hand on and I like that it’s Australian made. In Australia designed, in Australia using Australian steel and and it was purchased from a local shop. And again, it’s a bit more expensive to get that. But as you can see, it’s the one pan that covers all those different things and it’s going to last me a lifetime. It’s not something that will flake off any non-stick things and have to be thrown away as well. So again, taking the opportunity of a birthday or some kind of special event like that. Actually I do have an idea about what I’d like you to give me on my birthday. It’s not about it being a kitchen thing necessarily, but just anything to do that’s a functional present. I think as we were building this house, we used to give each other like a door handle or a nice tap for the kitchen. You know things that would actually be productive around the house. And that we’re meant that we could get something that was a little bit higher quality. Because it was part of a gift and then every time you’re cooking or turning the handle, or getting a drink out of the tap. There’s kind of this extra meaning imbued in that. So I know many of you do this already, but really what I’m trying to encourage you to do is just to make the choice. To pick the most longest lasting, the most locally made, the one that has the least waste potential of being just a throwaway disposable product if you can. And you know sometimes, it means just saving up a little bit or looking for maybe a secondhand one and restoring it. But just thinking differently about our purchases, because it is so easy and so convenient. Just to pop down the stores and get a new something, or other. Because they’re cheap and they’re mass-produced. But that doesn’t make them a good choice and so, I encourage you to think about that.

Anyway, catch me again next time tomorrow again, live for another chat. About something to do with getting rid of the waste, and that particularly the single-use plastics.

The post Buy things that last …and last! appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

We got this robust second-hand heavy-duty juicer and we can now make whatever kind of nut butter mixes we want, and puree whatever surplus fruits we’ve frozen from our garden as ‘ice-cream’. Yumm!

Feel free to share and add your suggestions too.

To learn more about growing a permaculture gardening simply and easily, check out our course The Incredible Edible Garden and learn how to design your own permaculture landscape in our Permaculture Design Course.

Hi! Welcome back, it’s Morag Gamble from Our Permaculture Life and the Permaculture Education Institute. And this series of lives is all about plastic free July and ways that we can simply within our home and our daily life. Actually think about ways that we can get rid of the single-use plastic but not just about the plastic, it’s about how those things then kind of ripple into other parts of our lives. Or how that influences the type of foods we eat or that we share with our family. Or the types of appliances that we use, and how we fix and make things. And so, it’s kind of like a portal to talk about a whole lot of different things, which are a lot of the values. Which are kind of embedded within the whole Permaculture way of thinking, the Permaculture way of life and Permaculture designing for our garden as well. 

So what I wanted to talk about today, was actually some of the things that we make at home. Things that the kids really like. So one of our most popular things is a cut, it’s some kind of nut butter to put on the beautiful bread that gets baked here within the eco village. And so, our kids really like peanut butter but I really don’t like buying the plastic peanut butter with the sugar and the oil, and all those sorts of things. I actually really like just plain straight peanut butter, that comes straight from peanuts, nothing else. So there, our local coop does do the peanut crushing on spot. But we also decided to invest in a champion juicer and not a brand new one, a second-hand one. So we looked on gumtree and then we actually even found someone here in our local neighborhood who was wanting to get rid of one. So this thing is so heavy it’s really substantial and you can make all sorts of things with this. So these have really powerful motors and can chomp through you know fantastic things and make paste. So anything to do with nut butters, these are great. So you just feed the nuts through the bottom and out they come out the other side. You just put them through, so you can make a mix. You could do your own almond macadamia, sunflower chia hemp seed peanuts, whatever you want to put in it. Whatever diversity or combination which I think is just brilliant! So it does that another thing. So that kind of deals with ours and then we can use our own jars and whatever nuts we can find the most localized sources and be in control of that. Which is another thing that I really like about this approach, is you can kind of determine what it is.

What are the ingredients you can make those ethical choices yourself, and find ways to do it cheaply as well. 

So ice cream is something that our kids like, and you know most kids do. But I really don’t like one, buying the plastic contained tubs of ice cream as well as the what’s in the ice cream inside as well. So we have some bananas growing, and whenever you get banana season there’s always a surplus. So we freeze them, and then simply by putting the bananas through this makes the most beautiful ice cream you can ever imagine. It’s not cream, it’s just fruit pulp. So if you’ve got some dried mango or whatever fruit it is you’ve got, you can pop it through at the same time. And it comes out beautiful, and so you can just put it straight into a bowl with a spoon. So there’s no waste at all. So you can pick up one of these ones second hand, and an old one is absolutely fine because they last forever. I think we got this for a hundred dollars, which is way cheaper than some of the rubbish plastic things that break within 12 months. So it’s actually that idea too, of picking appliances that you know going to last and that can be repaired. So this thing must be 20 years old at least and it’s still going strong. And I know that if something happens with it, I can take it up to our local fix-it cafe. And the people who are there will be absolutely fine, to be able to do some work on this. And so, there’s lots of things embedded within this whole conversation that I’m sharing with you around is sort of the plastic free July. And I really encourage you to think about what are some of the things that you just commonly use in and around your daily life that you could just tweak a little bit. And so many things could ripple out from that.

So join me again tomorrow for another live, either here in my deck or somewhere in the house or garden. Talking about a simple tip to try and get rid of some of those plastics, that kind of litter our lives and litter our world.

The post DIY Nut butter and ice-cream with Morag Gamble appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius) is a perennial herbaceous plant native to the Andes. I grow it around my garden and dig it up when the tops die back in winter.

Slice and dry it at 50-60 degrees for a simple and delicious dried apple alternative. Eat it raw, juiced, cooked or dried. How do you prepare yours? Each day I’ve been sharing a simple plastic free July tip. One more week – what suggestions do you have?

To learn more about growing a permaculture gardening simply and easily, check out our course The Incredible Edible Garden and learn how to design your own permaculture landscape in our Permaculture Design Course.

Hi! Welcome back into my garden, it’s Morag Gamble from Our Permaculture Life and the Permaculture Education Institute and as part of plastic-free July. 

Every day around about four o’clock I’ve been either in my home or in the garden. Talking about something that we can do, to actually help get rid of the single-use plastics that are not only clogging up our own homes, but the planet too and the oceans. So today, I wanted to talk about something in the garden and it’s something that we can grow and make. That can help us to reduce a lot of the packaging for treats and things, because this plant here underneath the ground is the source of amazing treat. So this is the remnants of the Yacon plant, and once it starts to die back like this, and looks like it’s pretty much finished. That means it’s time to actually dig down below here. So come down and have a look down here. So what you do is, you pull back the mulch and scratch away and you can kind of see that the whole ground is sort of lifted up here. And then just start to pull away bits and pieces. Look here, there’s one that I’m going to try and get out. So this is what we’re looking for, it’s the roots, the tubers, here we go. So that’s what we’re looking for. So I’m just going to rinse off the dirt off this. Now each plant of these would have maybe, 10 or so of these roots underneath at least. And so what you can do is, you can just skin as you can. See, I’ve already started to peel that off. You can scrape that off or peel it off if you like. But it’s actually fine just to wash the dirt off, and use it like that. Now there’s so many things that you can do with this. So you can just slice it, and eat it raw. You can juice it, you can cook it up and add it to anything like stir fries. Or probably, I wouldn’t add it to soups because then you lose it. It’s like a crunchy flavor, it’s really nice like a water chestnut in a stir fry. That’s probably one of my favorite ways to use it, cooked. But the other way to do it that I wanted to talk about today is actually drying it. Because another name of this is Peruvian Ground Apple.

There’s a sweetness to this, that when you eat it raw I’m just going to see if I can. When you eat it raw, it’s like eating crunchy apples. It’s really delicious! If you pull it out of the ground, and leave it for a couple of weeks.

I’m just sweetening it up, even gets more sweet. But what I’m going to do with this is, chop it into sections pretty roughly like that. And then put it onto a drying tray and at 50 to 60 degrees for several hours until these kind of dehydrate. And get sort of dry and rubbery a little bit, like dried apple that’s what it tastes like. It’s absolutely delicious! 

So you can have all of these growing all the way around in your garden, and you’ve got your own particularly here in the subtropics. Where we don’t have Apricots, we can’t grow apples or pears, or all those lovely things that make dried fruits from. But you can, with this. So that’s a wonderful thing to do. So I think,  if you have it just reasonably thick like this and if you dry it not too hot. So just fit. So I’m still eating, I’ll just finish chewing. If you do it too thin and too hot, you lose all the nutritional value. If you chop them nice and thickly and do it slower at 50 or 60 degrees over a longer time. Then you’re going to keep actually much of the nutritional value of that even as a dried product. And then, you can store them for ages in and on your shelf. I found some at the back of the shelf that I’d obviously missed that were over 12 months old and started eating them, and they’re absolutely delicious. So then you can use that either in cooking or just as a snack, or as a lunchbox treat. Now the thing too, about the sugars of this is a different type of sugar. It’s insulin, which is actually a type of sugar that doesn’t get absorbed into our body and it gets processed much more slowly. So it’s really good for diabetics as well. So that is a wonderful lovely treat that you can grow underground in your garden, and it’s so easy. All you need to do is, get a little section of the plant. Let me see, if I can find it here you want to come down again and see. Let’s see if I can get a section, there we go! Just a little bit of the crown like that. You can see how it’s got a little bit of a growing shoot there. You just plant that in the ground next year, and then you’ll get another whole lot. So on this, I’ve probably got well over a hundred starts. So what I can do is go, and just plug these around the garden where I want them. And then next year when it’s time, when I notice they’re all dead again, I can harvest them again. It’s one of the absolute, easiest pest-free low-maintenance, abundant plants you can grow and it’s great! Like I said for sweets, and for raw juices. And also for cooking in stir-fries.

So join me again tomorrow, for another live back in the garden or in my house. There’s only another week of lives until plastic free July ended. I hope you’ve enjoyed this series. You can go back through either my facebook page, or either onto my youtube channel. And see all the ones that I’ve been doing since the 1st of July if you want to catch up, and have a look. So if you’ve got any suggestions for things you’d like me to cover in the last week of plastic free July, please drop a line down below or other recipes that you may have for. 

The post Dried Yacon as a sweet treat appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

To learn more about growing a permaculture gardening simply and easily, check out our course The Incredible Edible Garden and learn how to design your own permaculture landscape in our Permaculture Design Course.

Hi! It’s Morag Gamble from Our Permaculture Life and the Permaculture

Education Institute. And welcome back for another live today in plastic-free July. 

I wanted to talk a little bit about the skirts that I make. Now normally, I don’t really talk much about fashion you know me. I’m just normally in the standard or thicks and I’m always in. But a lot of people ask me about these skirts that I wear and I actually, consciously pick things that I know that I can compost at the end of their life. So you know, all these sorts of things are cotton fabrics. So I can just stick them in my worm farm or as mulch somewhere in the garden afterwards. And the thing is too that when I make them as these wrap skirts, they don’t have any buttons, or zips, or anything like that. That becomes a waste in the garden. Although you know, it’s also totally possible as well, to pull those things out afterwards. I’ve been known to stick in some sheets, that have the elastic around the fitted sheets into worm farm ones. That got past being usable and I stuck them in there, as sort of a blanket for the worm farm and they eventually ate it all. And I came back a few months later and just pulled out the elastic, and I could dispose of that. But the rest of it went into the system, so I wanted to let you know basically how they were made. So essentially, it’s just one piece of fabric and I select something that you know if I’ve been traveling into a country. And they have amazing fabrics. That’s the one thing that I bring back home. So I have lots of collections of things from recent trips. To Africa, or into Indonesia and so that’s what I bring home. So these ones from Indonesia are basically Sarongs, and so that’s it! I just wrap them around and use them as this is wrong, no tie, no buttons, no zips, nothing. Just wrap it around and tie it up and that’s it! So that’s super simple, and then these ones here. What I’ve done is, I took the pattern off one of the skirts that I actually found in Uganda. And so essentially, it’s just one piece of fabric that is almost like, a semi. I don’t know if I can show you this. I might have to draw it. So it’s almost a semi-circle and then it’s got just the wrap around with a tie here like this.

So what I do is, once I’ve got one I just chop out the next one. And then I make the length of the bit around the waist enough. So that I can overlap it by about that much, so that when you’ve wrapped it around you can do a measure with a piece of string or something. Wrap it around and hold it there and see if you can get like overlap that way and that way. And then that’s the length of the circle in the middle. And then, you just go out from that and as long as you want him. So it’s completely adaptable to whatever shape or size you are. And then also because, there’s enough overlap if you kind of been to a big party just undo their tie a little bit. Or you know, been throughout the month as well as, throughout the year. So it’s nice to have that adaptability and then out of the off cut section, I just stitched together the strap. So this strap here is made up of numerous bits of the leftover bits of fabric, which then make the tie. So like I said, it’s just one piece of fabrics. All you need to do is do the hem at the bottom. But if you plan it well too, I’ve actually used the edge of the fabric. So that   I don’t have to hem it, it’s just the natural sort of binding on the edge of the fabric. So that’s one edge  and then just trim it up the side. so I just fold it over again and put a stitch along there. And then stitch on the top, it’s so super easy. Now I’m not a master sewer by any stretch of the imagination. But what I do appreciate is that when I was 16, my mum gave me a sewing machine and a series of lessons with the seamstress down the road. Now I think that’s such a brilliant thing to do. So you know, I’ve done a similar thing with my daughter when she was actually started a bit early. I think when she was 10, she got her first sewing machine and she started making things firstly for her guinea pigs. Like little guinea pig costumes and then she started making bags. And now, she’s making clothes for herself and it’s a great thing to be able to mend and  make clothes like that. It makes the type of things that you have stretched so much longer. Or to be able to adapt things that you find in their coop shops, maybe to be able to fix those up and it enables you to step out of that kind of fast fashion world. And as we know, that’s kind of the ones that have so much waste embedded within it too. And also, I mentioned before about all the microfibers and the plastic clothing. So if we can step out of that by getting in, and making our own clothes. So I have this blue and red one, I have an orange one, and I think that’s about all I’ve got at the moment. So I’m about to make another one, out of this one here. So this is the next one that’s coming and I really like the colors and the patterns in this one as well. So that’s kind of also why I just have a one standard color of top with leggings underneath. Because then, any other color of wrap doesn’t matter. It goes with all the same, so it’s a simple wardrobe. It’s a very functional one, and like I said the other day it’s really simple. To be able to, you know, I go and garden in it. I can teach in this and I’ve even been to Westminster, dressed in these clothes as well. So you can kind of dress them up and dress them down. And it’s just really wonderfully adapted.

So join me again tomorrow for another live talk about I’ll be out in the garden. Actually, tomorrow there’s something that I’m going to be digging up and I wanted to talk about how you can use that, to actually get rid of something that often comes in plastic into our homes. So I hope you’ll join me for that, and I’ll put a few more links below as well. About the Permaculture courses and programs and resources that I have, that are available for free. So I’m sorry, I missed you yesterday because

I was actually working on editing and releasing a podcast. With Frichoff Capra and the Perma Youth, so we had this Science elder with two young

women who had a conversation together. So I’ll also put the link to that below.

The post Make your own Simple Wrap Skirt with Morag Gamble appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

To learn more about growing a permaculture garden simply and easily, check out our course The Incredible Edible Garden and learn how to design your own permaculture landscape in our Permaculture Design Course.

Hi! It’s Morag Gamble from Our Permaculture Life from the Permaculture Education Institute and welcome back for another live. Usually, I’m out in my garden, or maybe somewhere in my kitchen, or lounge room talking about something to do with how you can reduce the plastic use in your life. But what I wanted to do today here from my office, is talk about some of the resources that are available. That you might like to dive into either some books or some online references, that will help you to kind of look at the many other ways that you can get single-use plastic out of your life this plastic-free July.

So one of the ones that I wanted to mention and actually, I should say that I asked my daughter in the Perma Youth Group for a bit of advice on some of their favorite resources for this too. So some of the ones that they mentioned were stories of stuff obviously. Now, if you look up storystuff.org, there is a huge resource there. Of films and information, and graphic material too that can help you not only to understand yourself, but to explain to other people some of the things that we could get rid of. And also, some really compelling arguments why this is not just a little issue, but it’s a really major issue in our world and for the planet right now.

So storystuff.org is a really good one, and of course particularly those of you who are watching from Australia. The war on waste series is just absolutely fantastic.So if you just google war on waste, you’ll find Craig Rue Castle’s brilliant series. But also, a whole lot of materials that have been developed to support that, to help you to find really great ideas of what to do. And to give you more of the backstory as well, of what’s happening within a whole range of different sorts of industries. And there is also on the ABC Education site, a really good collection of activities. So if you’re still at home doing homeschooling, that might be something you want to dive into and explore with your children.

Now some of the books that I just put like there’re so many, so how do you pick? But some of the books, my really good friend you see, Rhonda Hetzel has written some great books. That really helps you, to dive into looking at how you can live a more simple life. So she has down to earth there we go that one and the simple home. So they have so many great things, about how you can live more simply and more packing less packaging. And then, there’s also low to life from another friend of mine Alex Stewart, who not only talks about I’m just simplifying life. But also getting rid of all the toxins and so essentially, by starting to think about how you can live a less toxin field life. It also means that you are getting rid of plastics because it generally comes back to actually making things from scratch as well. There’s a really great book you may have seen these books, Grown and Gathered by Martin Lentil. And they have so many different tips in here, of how to make things from scratch as well. So that’s a really good one to look at. If you think well, how do I do all this stuff and I not getting stuff made in and packaged, and sent to me. So they have brilliant recipes in there, and also this book is just brilliant as well. There we go, the Weed Forages handbook and this again is another Australian book. And it goes through all the different plants that you can find in and around the landscape, that you can just eat for free. And they also give you some really good tips on how to do that foraging as well. So there are some other of the things that I thought might be helpful to you. So the story of the War on Waste, the Weed Forages handbook, Grown and Gathered Botox Life, the Simple Home and Down to Earth.

So I’ll put the links below, and hopefully some of those are really useful to you, maybe you’ve got some of them already. If you have some that you use, that you find really helpful stick them down below as well.

I’m sure everyone would love to hear about what it is that you use as your inspiration. Or for cooking, from scratch or all those sorts of things. Or great references that you’ve got online that you have found, all right?

Well I’ll catch you again tomorrow, for another live talk about ways that we can get rid of a single use plastic.

The post Books and Online Resources with Morag Gamble appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

To learn more about growing a permaculture garden simply and easily, check out our course The Incredible Edible Garden and learn how to design your own permaculture landscape in our Permaculture Design Course.

Hi! It’s Morag Gamble from our Permaculture Life and the Permaculture Education Institute, and welcome back it’s plastic free July. And every day I go live at around four o’clock, to talk about something you can do to help get rid of some of the single-use plastics. That kind of filled up our lives and looked at different ways that we can use our garden as well to make a difference for that.

So one of the things that often gets wrapped in plastic, are things like salads, and sprouts, and all that kind of stuff. So it’s so simple to get some things happening in your garden. And even if you don’t have a garden, I wanted to show you something. That you can do today, that’s so simple. That you can easily get fabulous, super nutritious greens within the space of a week. So many of you, I’m sure, know about chia. Now chia is this tiny little seed, and you can buy it in most stores now. So you probably even have some in your cupboard, great things to sprinkle on cereals, or to grind up into baking goods. Or you can add them into smoothies, or mix them with coconut milk. To make chia pods, all that kind of stuff is really fantastic protein. Now did you also know that you could plant them so you can plant them. And then very quickly they turn into sprouts really quickly, and then you can get little microgreens. You can just snip them off, and eat those as a salad green. Or you can let them come up a little bit bigger and just be plucking off the leaves. I often sprinkle them around the garden too, and then wait until they get really big. And then have the little, get the seeds off them as well. So I just wanted to show you a very quick thing. So even if you don’t have a garden, or you have even a tiny balcony and you’ve got a windowsill you can grow them. So I went sort of searching around bins down at the community, looking for some of these tetra pack type of things. So you can chop them down, put some soil inside, and then just sprinkle the seeds across the top quite thickly. It’s really good. I don’t know if you can see that, and then get a little bit of extra soil. Sprinkle that over the top to cover it over, there we go! Can’t see the seeds anymore, and then a little bit of water, to water that all in. So if you just give them water, maybe twice a day, depends if it’s in a sunny spot.

You might want to water them a little bit more, if it’s kind of just semi shade you don’t want to sort of drown them in that. So just use your common sense to how much you water them. Generally I sort of, if the water’s coming out the bottom that’s a good sign. So what I’ve done with this tub here, is I’ve actually put a hole. I don’t know if you can see, I’ll just get rid of that extra water. So you can see, there’s a little hole here to make sure that things don’t get flooded. You might want to actually have a tray that’s got a little bit bigger size than the one I’ve got here. And then, that can just be on your windowsill and literally within a few days. You’ll see them coming up, and then they’ll probably be this big within a week and you can be starting to harvest them if you want to actually spread these out into other pots. You can use this as your sort of your seed raising, then grab clumps of that, and then take that. And put them into different pots, and then they can get bigger and bigger. So you can do that, or just keep them small like this anyway. It’s a really simple idea, using something that’s kind of a waste product from and also chia seeds. Which are really easy to access, and you can just have that growing in and around your home. And also, helping to prevent your need to bring in plastics from having really good salad greens.

All right I hope that’s useful. Catch me again tomorrow, for another quick tip on how you can get rid of plastics this plastic-free July.

The post Grow Salad Greens from Chia Seeds with Morag Gamble appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Talking about something we can do to get rid of the plastics in our life, it’s plastic-free July.

So having flowers in the home is such a beautiful thing. You know, particularly flowers for the table or you know be visiting someone to take them some flowers.

To learn more about growing a permaculture garden simply and easily, check out our course The Incredible Edible Garden and learn how to design your own permaculture landscape in our Permaculture Design Course.

It’s a really important tradition and a way of showing gratitude, and a way of showing love. So there’s a way to not have to use plastic-wrapped flowers. And often those flowers that we buy are from places that are grown with lots of chemicals and things that we maybe don’t want to be giving to our loved ones. I absolutely love going out into my garden, and looking at what’s flowering at the moment. I always try to encourage my garden to be having something that’s playing. Because it’s important for the pollinators and it’s important also to be able to come out and eat the flowers for extra nutrition. But also to have something we can bring inside. So this is just a little posey that I made today for the table,, for the dining table and it includes things like pineapple sage. We’ve got these beautiful fuchsia-colored lagos spinach. We’ve got coriander flowers, mustard spinach flowers, radish flowers. Did I say coriander flowers, I think I did. So you know that just goes in the middle, and this is another one of those jars you know the preserving jars. And my daughter, she went for a walk the other day. She found this beautiful little acacia flower, the waddle flower and she brought that home and put it in a jar. So that’s been in just a little sort of icon in the middle of that table, for the last a couple of days it’s almost finished.

So I thought I’d get another one and often when I go and visit friends, I might make a big bouquet of that. Includes big beautiful leaves of the red mustard spinach, or a gorgeous kale leaf, as well as a lemon myrtle branch as well. And so people can make tea out of it. They’ve got herbs, they’ve got edible flowers, maybe there’s some seeds they can collect. So it’s this beautiful bouquet, that’s actually edible and functional and plantable, as well as being a gift of love. So I encourage you to to go out into your garden or see what flowers are in and around your neighborhood that you can use, as a way to make a bouquet for your home and as a gift. All right, I’ll catch you again tomorrow, for another quick tip about how to think differently. About how we get our stuff, so that we don’t have to bring so much single-use plastic into our homes, in our communities and start. Once we start to think differently about how we do this, it changes a whole lot of things. It may seem like a little action, but the ripple effects of this collectively is quite amazing.

So I’ll put down some links below, to some information about Permaculture if you’d like to find out more about that. And please feel free to share all these lives. They’re both going to be here in this live page, but also later on go up onto my youtube channel. So you can go back and have a look at all the different tips since july 1st. So I’ll catch you again tomorrow. We’re doing this every day until at the end of July. And if you’ve got some ideas too, about how you’re making a difference in your life. With getting rid of single-use plastics, share them below. I’d love to hear and send post pictures as well about your bouquets.

The post Edible Flower Bouquet with Morag Gamble appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.