permaculture Archives - Our Permaculture Life

Designing for Water Resilience

Morag Gamble — Tue, 07 Jun 2022 05:48:57 +0000

Creating a regenerative garden or farm, and a robust food system depends on designing for water resilience. This is the focus of the Permaculture Education Institute‘s permaculture masterclass #41. I have invited my good friend and collaborator, Natalie Topa join us this month to share her amazing work in designing for water resilience in some of the most challenging situations. There are deep lessons in what she has to share that can be adapted and applied in all different contexts. Her work is inspirational!

For two decades, Natalie has been supporting communities devastated by hurricanes, drought, floods, conflict, and wars. Water is at the core of human resilience whether in humanitarian emergencies, recovery, or long-term development and community planning. In this presentation, Natalie takes us through work she has led in various contexts to support community and household water security – from harvesting greywater to passive water harvesting design at a catchments scale.

ABOUT NATALIE TOPA: Natalie Topa is a regenerative and circular educator and designer who has worked hands-on in Africa, the Middle East, and South East Asia and focused on resilience in forced displacement for almost 20 years. She is the creator of the Sponge Village concept and a hands-on designer and advocate of passive water harvesting, soil building, agro-biodiversity recovery, indigenous food, and seed systems. Natalie is also the founder of Utopa Design and a member of United Designers International.

Click below to watch a recording of the session

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Living Democracy

Morag Gamble — Wed, 18 May 2022 15:22:59 +0000

Welcome to this episode Sense-Making in a Changing World – being released at a critical moment in history here in Australia – the cusp of the Australian Federal election.

A few months ago I interviewed my amazingly talented friend Tim Hollo, author, musician, climate activist, community leader, Director of the The Green Institute Founder of Green Music, catalyst of so many community initiatives, AND currently a Greens candidate for the seat of Canberra in our current Federal Election. (I knew he was going to be way too busy for such a long and relaxed chat in the weeks leading up to election day).

Almost 2 years ago I called a group together here in Australia informally called “Leadership in a Changing World” and it is through this that I came to meet and know Tim, and deeply understand the depth of his scholarship, compassion and action.

I wish for our governments at all levels to be filled with people with the heart and thinking that Tim shares, and the practical skills and ideas too – what a different world and kind of democracy we would be experiencing

Please take the time to listen – even if you are not in Australia. This is not campaigning – it is deep and thoughtful exploration about what Tim calls Living Democracy – actually the title of his forthcoming book published by UNSW Press .

In his book, he offers bold ideas and a positive vision for the future. While it might be the end of the world as we know it, it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. In fact, around the globe, people and communities are beginning a whole new journey.

Often we can feel disempowered in the political process, but political will is what we need to bring the changes necessary, and Tim encourages us that the power to change lies within all of us, and change will happen not by working individually, but by working together in communities to re-imagine our local areas that begin to seed change everywhere through transformative collective action.

I wish Tim all the best at the election this weekend, and wish us all a climate safe and just future.

Whether you’re a concerned community member, or someone who is already active in social or environmental campaigning, this book will inspire and inform you, and get you fired up to co-create a common, more equitable future. A living democracy. Hollo presents lessons for communities, organisations, political parties and individuals, and a recipe for combining all these ingredients into transformative collective action.

This show is hosted by Morag Gamble, founder of the Permaculture Education Institute.

Before we begin, I’d like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the unceded lands from which I’m speaking with you, the Gubbi Gubbi, and pay my deep respect to their elders past present and emerging. I’d like to recognise their ability to care for this land, the waters, and biodiversity for so many thousands of years.

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Listen or watch below.

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How to grow a food forest in one year

Morag Gamble — Tue, 17 May 2022 22:31:29 +0000

Can you grow an abundant food forest in one year? The answer is yes. Chantal Tulliez recently took me on a tour of her 600m² garden in Pomona — not far from Noosa in subtropical Queensland.

In the space of 12 months, Chantal has transformed a garden that was filled with gravel, road base and grass into a beautiful living, diverse and healthy ecosystem that is providing a bounty of food. Here’s how she did it, and how you can do it too.

Knowledge is key

Chantal is a veteran of Permaculture. She completed a Permaculture Design Course 35-years ago, but never had an opportunity to use her knowledge until now.

More recently, she refreshed her knowledge by completing my online permaculture gardening course, The Incredible Edible Garden and joining a local Permaculture group.

With her mind brimming with ideas, she started putting them into practice.

Start with the soil

To begin her garden, Chantal focused on improving her soil, adding manure, organic matter and lots of mulch — up to 30cm deep in some parts. The mulch pathways created a barrier to stop grasses and ultimately changed the ecosystem of the soil.

Capture and collect water

Water was a huge focus for Chantal. She used swales and berms to passively capture rainfall and added two tanks to improve the garden’s resilience during the dry season. A pond in the centre of her garden also plays a prominent role for wildlife and water-loving plant varieties.

Grow varieties that suit your climate

In her previous garden, Chantal grew European fruits and vegetables. This time, she went straight for what works best in her area, focusing on perennials that would help establish her gardens quickly. In this way she could help activate the ecosystem she was creating while building her food forest.

At a rough count, Chantal was growing at least 35 varieties of edibles – all within a year.

Feeling inspired?

Join The Incredible Edible Garden Course today to get your edible landscape thriving. We start with the soils, explore how to set up resilient, low-cost, low-maintenance gardens and food forests full of diverse abundance. This is a self-paced online 6 module program that you can start anytime and keep forever. There are over 95 lessons and 12 hours of video content. CLICK to find out more

Watch my garden walk-around with Chantelle

Subscribe to my YouTube channel

More great garden tours coming soon so make sure to click the notification bell too when you subscribe.

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Permaculture Futures – International Permaculture Day 2022

Morag Gamble — Wed, 11 May 2022 03:17:22 +0000

Watch below to the recording of the fabulous Permaculture Futures Session held on the 1st of May in celebration of the 5th International Permaculture Day. A series of 4 sessions were hosted by Permaculture Education Institute with a number of leading permaculture practitioners around the world – 3 panels and a global cross-pollination sessions

The second panel I had the pleasure of hosting was Permaculture Futures with David Holmgren, Maddy Harland, Brian von Herzen, and Permayouth exploring permaculture regeneration in degraded landscapes, refugee and marginalised communities – explore the possibilities.

Click below to watch

If you would like to watch the other sessions from International Permaculture Day, you can find them here: Session 1: Growing Permaculture and Session 2: Permaculture Regeneration

Chat log to be uploaded

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Growing Permaculture – International Permaculture Day 2022

Morag Gamble — Tue, 10 May 2022 05:51:40 +0000

Watch the Growing Permaculture Panel from the 2022 International Permaculture Day event hosted by Permaculture Education Institute . On May 1, we hosted 3 panels with many leading permaculture practitioners around the world and a global cross-pollination session. Over 2000 people attended these sessions. It was a wonderful celebration of permaculture.

The first panel I had the pleasure of hosting was Growing Permaculture with Huw Richards, Costa Georgiadis, Hannah Maloney, and Maia Raymond exploring permaculture in the garden, in life, in community for regeneration and planetary wellbeing.

Click below to watch

Chat logs to be uploaded

Perhaps you’d also like to take a look at Session 2: Permaculture Futures and Session 3: Permaculture Regeneration.

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Becoming a permaculture professional – living and working a permaculture life

Morag Gamble — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 13:29:06 +0000

What does it mean to live your life as a professional in the world of permaculture? There are many ways of course, and in this episode I am delighted to welcome Andy Goldring to the Sense-Making in a Changing World podcast to share his story. Since 1999, Andy has been the CEO and Coordinator of Permaculture Association (UK) . He has dedicated his working life to coordinating permaculture programs and events and helping to make permaculture far more widely accessible in the UK, and connecting globally.

Click below to watch the podcast episode on youtube.

Permaculture is about designing for one-planet living and creating a new culture, a new story, of a positive future. Andy shares about many of the programs he’s involved with that are actively working toward this.

Hearing Andy has made permaculture his profession is so inspiring. It is becoming increasingly obvious that this work – reimagining, redesigning, resilience, restoration, regeneration, reconnection – is so essential. The world certainly needs more people diving into permaculture education and leadership whole heartedly, making it their livelihood as well as their way of life.

MORE ABOUT PERMACULTURE ASSOCIATION AND ANDY GOLDRING

Find out more about the Permaculture Association and all their programs here. You can follow Andy on twitter or LinkedIn.

AUDIO PODCAST LINK

Watch the listen to the podcast here:

BECOME A PERMACULTURE PROFESSIONAL

Are you seriously considering stepping into permaculture as a career? Take a look at the Permaculture Educators Program – a combined permaculture course for designers and teachers with a global community of learners. The only place you can do these two certificates together online, and in such an in-depth, supported and flexible way.

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Living close to the land – permaculture neo-peasantry

Morag Gamble — Sat, 26 Jun 2021 04:57:16 +0000

Join my conversation with friends, Meg Ulman and Patrick Jones – 2/5ths of Artist as Family, on Episode 47 of Sense-Making in a Changing World podcast. Meg and Patrick are living close to the land in a rural Victorian town and share wonderful insights to the many dimensions of their way of life. You can listen in here or watch on Sense-Making in a Changing World youtube below. I am so happy to share this conversation with you. I have been a long admirer of their creative and radical approach to permaculture.

ABOUT ARTIST AS FAMILY

Artist as Family are Meg, Patrick, Blackwood (Woody), and back in the day, Zephyr and of course Zero (their dog).

Before covid, my family had the great pleasure of visiting their home in Daylesford, Australia in Djaara Mother Country. They live on a quarter-acre permaculture plot which is home to their School of Applied Neopeasantry at Tree Elbow University. Artist as Family is a practice – a unique form of performance art, comprising how they live, get their food and medicine, and move around; performing modes of life making they call permacultural neopeasantry.

Meg and Patrick teach a unique skill set of radical homemaking, community economy making and other accountable living skills to volunteers and online through various videos, talks and blog posts.

They are bloggers, unschoolers, fermentors, writers, public speakers, goat-herders, gardeners and video makers who also make music, but mostly are a family who belong to a fabulous community and a beautiful small patch of sacred forest, and therefore describe being much more than the sum of their parts.

ARTIST AS FAMILY LINKS

You can follow Artist as Family as they head off on their new cycling adventures around Australia here, watch their wonderful series of practical videos on Youtube, and feel great inspiration from their Instagram sharings.

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Imagine the future – the best version of us

Morag Gamble — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 13:44:18 +0000

Join me and Dr Millie Rooney as we dive into her explorations of how people imagine the future in Australia, and the new stories people are dreaming of. It’s a great pleasure to share this Sense-Making in a Changing World podcast episode with you, and to catch up with my friend Millie. Click below to watch, or you can also listen to the audio version here.

Millie is the National Coordinator for Australia reMADE, a vision-based collaboration of everyday people and community leaders working to build a country where people and planet come first. As a kid she spent hours collecting toothbrushes outside supermarkets for Gulf War refugees and, although wasn’t allowed to watch movies for fear of scary themes like ‘divorce’, was aware from a young age of scarier things like ‘war’. As a result Millie’s dream was to become a butterfly dancer on stilts, catch the eye of a journalist and make it to the front page of the paper so that there could be some good news for once. Is it any surprise she ended up involved in Australia reMADE?

Millie grew up in Canberra on Ngunnawal country and although now calls Tasmania home, she misses the dry scrappy dirt, the warble of the magpies and the smooth, flat bike paths.

Millie has worked as an environment officer at both the Australian National University and the University of Tasmania. She has constantly worked off the principle of ‘delight not fright’ which has resulted in Celebrate Sustainability Days, visions for student-led campus transformation and an award winning student sustainability internship program.

Millie’s PhD was an exploration into the social norms that determine our ability as Australian’s to share, or not, with our neighbours.

Some of the programs of Australia ReMADE helping us to re-imagine the future.

Other interesting links Millie suggests you look at:

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Permaculture Teaching Farm – Podcast with Suzie Cahn & Morag Gamble

Morag Gamble — Fri, 28 May 2021 21:35:15 +0000

I had such fun with this episode of Sense-Making in a Changing World. I am joined by my great friend Suzie Cahn, a leader from the Irish permaculture world, creator of a permaculture education farm, and active in permaculture education globally. She is an adventurous teacher who’s worked with communities from Mongolia to Belize.

Back in 2008, Suzie and her husband Mike established Carraig Dúlra – social enterprise, community education, nature connection and permaculture hub in County Wicklow and is exploring her Irish indigeneity through this lens.

Suzie and I met at a climate change conference in Findhorn Scotland a few years back and just clicked. She coordinates a Climate Justice Centre in Ireland piloting community-led approaches to Climate Action and is active in ECOLISE (the European network for community-led initiatives on climate change and sustainability). She deeply involved in the transition and permaculture movements .You can hear her speak about her many threads of interest in her own podcast Cailleach (actually, you’ll hear this episode there too – we did the beautiful multi-functional permaculture thing and interviewed each other!)

Together we explore how we came to being permaculture teachers and what shapes our thinking and our approaches as educators.

To listen to the audio version of our conversation go here.

More information about Suzie’s place.

Carraig Dúlra is a 3.8 acre smallholding in Wicklow that has been designed and developed in collaboration with many volunteers, students and tutors and now contains (from Permaculture UK site):

1.5 acre native woodland

0.5 acre food forest and apple orchard

different types of organic annual gardens:

the circle garden

a herb labyrinth insectary

a traditional market garden

an allotment sized garden

large greenhouse with perennial polycultures and annual beds

a mixed material (round poles, cob, straw bale), naturally built round barn with a reciprocal roof

a washhouse/sauna cabin

pond and swale systems

indoor kitchen, clad with forestry waste timbers, and up-cycled dumped kitchen counters and cabinets

outdoor cooking area: with cob oven, biogas generation, rocket stoves and BBQ

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One Acre Permaculture Farm Podcast with Brett Cooper and Morag Gamble

Morag Gamble — Tue, 25 May 2021 14:41:07 +0000

Join me in this episode of Sense-Making in a Changing World, to hear my conversation with passionate one-acre permaculture farmer and teacher, Brett Cooper from Limestone Permaculture in Stroud, north of Newcastle in NSW.

CLICK BELOW to watch the my podcast interview with Brett below on youtube, or listen to the audio here. Listen in & be inspired by the transition story Brett shares – from city to country, from full time job to permaculture way of life & livelihood – motivating, uplifting and enabling!

Aerial view of Limestone permaculture – one acre farm

Brett and his family moved from the city and busy full time jobs and health issues to this quiet country property. After a well considered transition, some great planning and lots of dedication to their vision, they now source their entire income from their beautifully designed small-scale permaculture farm with 11 sources of income – including food, courses, tours, accommodation, consulting and importantly – the gift economy.

Brett and Nici

Also, have you seen the film about their farm by Happen Films. You can also check out their other resources on Facebook.

One Acre Permaculture Farm before and after

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