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.

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.

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.

What? The common Pawpaw Ointment is mostly petroleum jelly?

Call me naive, but I assumed that the pawpaw ointment I was using was made up of….well mostly pawpaw, not 96% petroleum jelly. Recently I took a closer look – the only ingredient I found on the container is ‘Carica papaya 39mg/g Fresh Fermented Fruit’  and a little note on the side saying ‘Contains Potassium Sorbate 0.1mg/g as Preservative’. Nowhere does it say petroleum jelly. I thought ingredients, especially main ones, needed to be listed. 

(Note: In Australia what most people call papaya, we call pawpaw.)

A-ha – only 39mg of pawpaw for every 1000mg. I should have read closer and delved deeper. Pawpaw ointment has always been put forward as a natural product so I didn’t suspect. When I first started using it back as a teenager, you could only get it in health food stores. Now the little red tubes are available just about everywhere. It’s promoted as a great all round natural healing ointment that is antibacterial and antimicrobial – good for lots of day to day issues.

Australians seem to be addicted to this stuff. So many households have it and I imagine many women (and men) would have a little tube in their bags. 

As it turns out, there are lots of other pawpaw ointments around that do not contain petrochemical by-products –  but I was using the little red tubes and tubs of ointment made close by in Brisbane. 

I know for sure that many you have already discovered this piece of information, but if you haven’t, now you know. I must admit, I’m feeling pretty silly. For 30 years I have used it on little cuts and scrapes, on nappy rash, chaffing, insect bites… I never knew it was mostly petroleum jelly –  a non-renewable hydrocarbon made from crude oil! How did I miss that? 

What is Petroleum Jelly?

Petroleum jelly is a by-product of the oil industry and can contain petrolatum and mineral oil. Apparently almost all skincare products in the US have Petroleum Jelly/Petrolatum/Mineral Oil because it’s a cheap filler. It’s also used in hair care products to give shine.

It coats the skin like plastic. It’s a barrier to lock moisture in or out – preventing the skin from breathing, excreting and absorbing. It slows the skin’s natural development and can contribute to premature ageing. 

Highly regarded scientist and eco-activist, David Suzuki, warns against using petrolatum on his website and explains why the EU restricts its use in cosmetics: (http://davidsuzuki.org/issues/health/science/toxics/chemicals-in-your-cosmetics—petrolatum/). His site says that :

‘petrolatum can be contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Studies suggest that exposure to PAHs — including skin contact over extended periods of time — is associated with cancer. On this basis, the European Union classifies petrolatum a carcinogen, and restricts its use in cosmetics. PAHs in petrolatum can also cause skin irritation and allergies. ‘

Additional research done by the Environmental Working Group  (www.ewg.org/skindeep/2007/02/04/impurities-of-concern-in-personal-care-products)adds that:

“Many of the cosmetic industry’s chemical safety assessments reveal that common petroleum-based cosmetic ingredients can be contaminated with a cancer-causing impurity called 1,4-dioxane.”

While the pawpaw ointment company in question claims to use pharmaceutical grade petroleum jelly (petrolatum) that is not carcinogenic. They say it is also hypo-allergenic and completely safe for all the family. This said, it still is from the petroleum industry and personally, I would much rather put natural products on my skin given the choice. I ignorantly thought I was. 

What now…?

In actual fact, I most often reach for a big leaf of Aloe vera from my garden for burns, rashes, cuts and so on. I also strap on a chunk of Aloe gel and let it soak in – for animals too. It is wonderful and totally fresh and potent. Not so great in my bag, but my own comfrey ointment is great for this.

Since I’ve been making my own comfrey lotion (using beeswax, olive oil and comfrey leaves from my garden) I’ve not been using the pawpaw ointment that much any more, but I’m keen though to learn how to make it and use some of those pawpaws that are ripening in my food forest.

The post Did you know that Pawpaw Ointment is made of 96% petroleum jelly? appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Some of the bags of clothes waiting to head up to the charity stores in Maleny.

Living like a backpacker

Back in the early 1990s, Evan and I were travelling around the world a lot with our backpacks and lived amply on a handful of simple clothes. However, since we’ve had kids and settled a bit more, things have accumulated. As much as I promised myself this would never happen, it did. It was definitely time for a big clear out. I’m pretty sure what I’ve kept would be able to fit into a backpack again.

I love wearing sarongs here in the subtropics – they are lightweight and easy to store and care for.

Special souvenirs of musty space-fillers?

Not only were my own clothes filling up the wardrobe space, but clothes I had kept from when our children were little – things I thought were special souvenirs of their baby days. What they had become really were musty, stained and old (storing things in humid subtropics is difficult). I have kept just a few really special items and packed them very well.

Getting up my nose

All these surplus clothes were collecting dust which I was really starting to find was getting up my nose – literally.  Today, everything got washed with soapnuts and eucalytus, and the entire wardrobe and room was wiped down with diluted vinegar. It feels so fresh again.

How did I sort through it all?

Basically I just made one big pile on the floor  in the middle of my bedroom and methodically went through each piece.  It took me half a day to sort, wash and clean out all the dust from the back of the wardrobe  – a big commitment of time, but one that is going to save me lots of washing, sorting, putting away etc. later.  

As I went through the clothes I placed them in nine different piles and bags: 

• Keepers –  I went through this pile a couple of times to refine my choice to pick natural fibres, ethical items and ones that are biodegradable.
• Storage box – a selection of a few things for different seasons and some favourite skirts which will be good when I lose a few kilos (!?)
• Gift bag – almost new children’s clothes that are suitable for friends with young children.
• Hand-me-down pile – some retro pieces of my clothing that now fit my daughter
• Charity store bag – all the good quality clothes that were left
• Upcycling box – a few pieces I liked that had fabulous fabric, but no longer a good style are awaiting redesign (when I get a new sewing machine pedal – Monty was experimenting with scissors recently).
• Rag bag – too bad to fix but good for rags.
• Worm pile – too bad to fix and fully biodegradable.
• Rubbish – too bad to fix and not good for rags or worms. (thankfully this was the smallest pile)

My small selection of clothes for storage for another season.

This is all that is left in my wardrobe –  a couple of skirts, shirts, singlets and long sleeve tops – and my favourite jacket with all the pockets for collecting seeds while I’m out and about.

The post How I downshifted my wardrobe by 80 percent. appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

I just discovered a neighbour of mine in this ecovillage has started making organic tempeh – free of GMOs.  I love tempeh and I have been meaning to make some for ages, but unfortunately it has only stayed on my wish list so far. I fell in love with it in Indonesia when I was teaching permaculture over there in 1999 (and the many times I returned), particularly the fresh local village made tempeh.

Tempeh is a good way to eat beans and grains because they usually lose a lot of their lectin and phytate contents in the fermentation process. I really enjoy it added to a big cook up of our homegrown veggies and spices.

The texture and taste of my neighbour’s tofu was amazing – not like the hard and sometimes slimy tempeh in supermarkets. I had thought that was OK (because really I wanted to like it), but now I know where to get the ‘real’ stuff, I’ll be putting in a standing order! Luckily I have lots of plants and food in my permaculture garden to trade with them.

What is tempeh?

Tempeh is typically made out of fermented soya beans but can also be made out of other things such as things such as mung beans and chickpeas, but also grains. Partially cooked whole soybeans are aged overnight in an incubator at a tropical temperature with a starter culture. During that time a thick, white mat of mycelia, a kind of fungus, covers the tempeh and this binds the beans together as a ‘cake’. 

A local fresh source …

Every Monday the tempeh maker and his family invite people over to their place for a falafel and baclava feast – a lovely opportunity for people in this community to get together informally and chat.

It was there a few days ago, that on the table I saw the tempeh they had prepared as a taste test.  My three year old son absolutely loved it and asked if I could get some for his kindy lunchbox. How could I resist such an earnest request?

I picked up a couple of blocks up today – it was still warm. Fresh tempeh! 

This is how I prepared it.

How to make simple and delicious tempeh – for meal protein, or a snack.

Ingredients: 

• Tempeh
• Cononut Oil
• Chilli
• Fresh Ginger Root
• Garlic

Method:

1. Slice tempeh into 4mm slices
2. Heat fry pan and add the following – 2 tablespoons of coconut oil, a sliced chilli, 5 mm ginger root – grated finely, a crushed and chopped clove of garlic, a sprinkle of himalayan salt.
3. When oil hot add the tempeh to the pan. 
4. When brown on one side, turn over and brown the other side

The freshly fermented tempeh.

Chopped and cooked with a 2 tablespoons of coconut oil, grated ginger, sliced chilli, crushed garlic, and a sprinkling of himalayan salt.

After a couple of minutes, they were brown on one side, so I gently turned them over for another minute or two before moving them to a towel to absorb the excess oil.

I laid it out ready for my family to come back home from their outing.

Then I realised that it didn’t quite looked enough, so I cooked up the other half.

… and in the few moments after they walked in the door, it was gone! Even my picky food critic son loved it – so it must be really good. Now I have to make some more at 6:30am so that little Monty can have some in his kindy lunchbox.

A goal of mine is to grow some grains and more legumes in my permaculture garden to make my own tempeh!!! I’ll let you know how I go when I get to this point, and I’d love to hear your experienced of making various sorts of tempeh.

The post My neighbour’s tempeh & a simple vegan recipe for delicious tempeh slices appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Pesto – more than basil
Pesto is usually associated with basil, and yes I agree, it’s a wonderful flavour, but you can also make pesto from all kinds of garden greens or better still, a wondrous blend.

Today in my foraging, I harvested three types of basil, parsley, rocket, welsh onions, society garlic, cranberry hibiscus and sorrel. I blended these together with some toasted ground sunflower seeds, the juice of a lime and some olive oil and created an amazingly simple, but superbly flavoured pesto that can be used for all kinds of things, such as:

• pasta (veggie spirals are great with this)
• bruschetta (it’s great on the organic wood-fired local sourdough bread)
• soup
• salad
• dip

Extend the harvest
Often when the basil is on, it’s on! Making pesto is a great way to appreciate this abundance. I typically make up a big batch, then freeze in an ice cube tray. It’s a great way to extend the basil harvest.

Super greens for the kids
Also, because you can include any number of leafy greens, it is actually a great way to get your kids to eat an enormous dose of very nourishing greens.

MY GARDEN PESTO RECIPE

Here’s what I use for a really lovely texture of smooth pesto. As you can see, it’s more of a ratio I am suggesting here rather than exact ingredients. There is huge flexibility in the types of greens. It varies soo widely between seasons and regions!

Ingredients

• 2 cups leaves from your garden (basil or mixed greens – garlic chives, welsh onion, rocket, parlsey, mizuna, kale, spinach, silverbeet, pumpkin, sorrel, cranberry hibiscus, Brazilian spinach, nasturtium, and ‘weeds’ too like chickweed … )

• 1 lime/lemon, juiced

• 1/4 cup raw or toasted ground seeds/nuts (I use a coffee grinder)

• 1/2 cup olive oil

• 1/3 cup parmesan

NB: The leaves and flowers of the garlic chives replace the garlic in typical pesto recipes. It tastes great!

Method

Basically I just toss all the ingredients into a food processor and buzz until smooth, then spatula it all into a mason jar. It’s important to tap it down to ensure there are no air bubbles in the mix (will oxidise/go brown where there are bubbles) and I top it off with a little oil to keep it fresh. I store this in the fridge for about a week or two, but it doesn’t usually last that long though.  If you want to store it longer, it’s a good idea to freeze it.

The post Morag Gamble’s super pesto recipe using simple garden greens (8 mins) appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

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

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

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

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

16 POPULAR POSTS FROM ‘OUR PERMACULTURE LIFE’

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

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

Amaranth is an amazing food – quite overlooked as a powerhouse. It’s simple to grow, simple to cook and super delicious.

Here’s seven good reasons to add it to your diet:

1. HIGH IRON: Did you know that one cup of cooked Amaranth grain (actually a seed*) can provide you with much of your daily iron needs? I was amazed when I read this.  Having been a vegetarian since early childhood, finding new ways to keep my iron levels up is always interesting news to me.
2. HIGH CALCIUM and Magnesium – also high in manganese, vitamins B and E, zinc and potassium.
3. HIGH PROTEIN: Amaranth is one of the most protein rich plant based foods. Its seed has 20% protein. 
4. HIGH LYSINE: Amaranth offers the highest source of vegetarian Lysine. Lysine, an amino acid, is a building block for protein, and it helps with calcium absorption and collagen production.
5. GLUTEN FREE: Amaranth is gluten free. It can be ground as a flour or cooked as a psuedograin.
6. HIGH FIBRE:  A diet high in fibre keeps the digestive system healthy
7. EASY AND FAST TO GROW: Did you know you can get up to 100,000 seeds from one plant!  Amaranth is super easy and fast to grow. It takes less than 30 days before harvesting small leaves and just 50 days to maturity. It can cope with heat and dry conditions a lot better than any other leafy green. It grows easily in many contexts and self-seeds readily. You can eat the young leaves, but older ones are best cooked and used like spinach. I add amaranth leaves to all sorts of meals – stir fries, soups, quiches, omelettes, frittata, curries etc. (Typically people have cooked amaranth leaves to reduce their oxalic acid content.

I love the look of amaranth in the garden – it’s flowers are amazing.

The post 7 Reasons to Grow and Eat Amaranth – A Simple Ancient Superfood appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

27,000 trees a day to wipe bottoms.

Worldwide, around 270,000 trees are either flushed or dumped in landfills every day. About 10 percent of this is toilet paper.  Also the production of each toilet paper roll uses about 140 litres of water.

Only 5% recycled toilet paper used.

Most toilet paper is made from virgin paper. In Australia, only 5% of our toilet paper comes from recycled paper. 

• 13 trees
• 2.5 barrels of oil (average car would use this in 2-3 months)
• 4100 kilowatts of electricity (average household use per year)
• four cubic metres of landfill
• 31,380 litres of water  (roughly a household’s annual water use)

That’s significant.

But if you are choosing recycled loo paper, be sure to pick one that doesn’t use chlorine bleach. Before being pulped and processed, recycled paper is de-inked. Chlorine can be used for this. Chlorine-based chemicals however can react with paper fibres and create toxic compounds such as dioxin and organochlorines.

What toilet paper should I use then?

More and more sources of eco-loo paper are becoming available. New small ethical subscriber-based companies are starting up supplying homes with bulk orders of toilet paper made from non-chlorine bleached recycled paper or bamboo and sugarcane paper (the softer option for sensitive bottoms). Bamboo grows so much faster than trees!

There’s also people exploring fibre crops, such as hemp, and abundant agricultural and industrial byproducts ranging from wheat straw to garment scraps, sunflower stalks, and rags – all logical sources of tree-free pulp. 

How many trees are there in the world?

Here’s some of the sites I visited while writing this tonight.

• http://www.nature.com/news/global-count-reaches-3-trillion-trees-1.18287
• http://www.1millionwomen.com.au/blog/just-how-sustainable-is-your-toilet-paper/
• http://planetark.org/
• http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6403
• https://au.whogivesacrap.org
• https://pureplanet.com.au/

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