Sweet potato can survive not being watered in Western Australia

I just completed a job that has been left waiting for at least a month: repairing the retic for the sweet potato out the front.

I'm feeling very pleased with myself :) Sweat dripping down my face as I was working  lol... put a tap on the end of the dripperline for easy flushing next time (even a pregnant or new mother could do it ;))

The amazing thing is that the sweet potato has done so well - clearly the best source of carbohydrate for Western Australians. Hands down.

Winter 2012 sweet potato - only part of the harvest!

It does really need water to produce a good yield, but tubers will stay in the ground with no water for at least 6 weeks and leaves will not wilt. The ultimate test of resilience in my book since the last few weeks in Perth have seen some extreme heat - around 40 degree Celsius some days. And no rain.

Double Yolkers: Insects and Sustainability

Chickens just love insects!

I've come to love insects too!

Insects love doing something I think of as 'up-cycling'... take some offal, or worse (!)... and feed it to insects to create high protein, high fat food for chickens.
This is so much better than bought food.
Why? Well, whenever our chickens get a lot of really awesome food... they have twins!! Awesome!!

Double yolker!

Bow before your leader...

My favourite is black soldier fly larvae, an excellent alternative to a worm farm although you can do both!

Ringo the chook hanging out like a junkie near the black soldier fly larvae composting unit (foreground).

Of course, insects can also be fed to other animals and I'd like to suggest... bartered to people with chooks or fish.

I can't get enough of them! Black soldier fly larvae can be cleanly frozen and delivered whenever you visit ;)

Shiitake logs, beeswax and turning poo into food

Last weekend was a real joy as I was able to convert a sad event, a neighbour's tree being chopped down, to a good thing - new mushroom logs for us. I popped over and had a chat with the lady, who I'd never met before and made a new friend and got two free logs.

I got the idea from reading Mycelium Running, a book that still excites me when I talk about it!

Check out Paul Stamets' website

I have understood for some time that we should always try to use a resource for the highest purpose possible. High quality 'waste' goes to the chickens versus lower quality material being composted. This way, we get a second or third yield, in this case eggs, from our 'waste' stream and keep the energy flowing.

Happily there are some organisms that we can eat that are fairly low on the food 'chain' which might surprise some people!

Detritivores are creatures who like to eat muck filtered from the water - classic examples are mussels, prawns and, the classic Australian favourite, marron. People grow these critters by sprinkling duck poo on their ponds, which in turn grows algae and boom! Food from poo, which just makes my day.

Permaculture gardeners should all be familiar with Black Soldier Fly Larvae as the best way to compost and produce high protein, self harvesting feed for chickens or fish.

Mushrooms are a whole other 'kingdom' in the same way that plants and animals are very different, so are fungi and plants. Fungi are ancient amazing organisms which are skilled survivors in highly competitive environments and in some cases, could well save your life. Read Mycelium Running if you have cancer or a troubled immune system.

The thing that fascinates me is the way that mushrooms can convert a log which would otherwise be left to decompose or burnt - into high quality food. Or better yet, poo into food. The old fashioned way was to simply get some horse manure into a compact garden bed, allow it to hot compost, then roughly chop some mushrooms into the mix and tamp it down. The new way is to mix in extra nutrients, hot compost or sterilise and then inoculate with cultivated mycelium growing on dowel or agar. Of course, you have to match the type of mushroom to your growing media.


Months ago I purchased Rowen Reid's Shiitake mycelium on dowel which arrived in a snap lock bag similar to the ones used for school lunches!

One fascinating thing that I noticed before I started my wood work was the rather wide ant 'highway' trekking to the logs and their sweet sap. This sap sits close to the surface of the bark and is sent around from the leaves to feed the rest of the tree and often, soil biota that have symbiotic relationships with the roots.

The process itself is simple:
1. Trim the log so that any cut surfaces are fresh and not contaminated
2. Drill holes around the circumference of the log
3. Put in a dowel plug to each hole
4. Seal any exposed wood and holes with beeswax

Keep moist and in the shade.
They say you should shock them into fruiting by dunking them in cold water... I'll keep you updated on whether you really have to torture them or not!

Wicking Beds

I've got so many topics I want to blog about! Today I've chosen wicking beds, as I know that my good friend Theo is excited about them and it is very topical as we here in Western Australia are coming into summer.

We will want to design our spring & summer gardens to conserve our scheme (town) water. Did you know that around 50% of our tap water comes from ground water and that we have got forests and woodlands dying from drought? I only recently put two and two together and it has mostly cured me of my desire for long showers. I simply imagine the tree roots sucking on air above the clay bottom of their home aquifer.


The concept of wicking beds is to stop the water from running away and store it in such a way that plants can access it passively. This is in contrast to systems like hydroponics and aquaponics which rely on electricity to keep the water flowing past the plant roots.


There are as many ways to implement a wicking system as there are permaculture designers and practitioners! Speaking of designers, my favourites are Milkwood's Kirsten and Nick -you can see how they made their wicking bed here.


I've got one trial so far and it has worked extremely well. I'm happy to recommend it as possibly one of the easiest ways to grow food in pots.

I started with one of the food grade 5 litre oil containers below (thanks for these Andy!). I find the large size is best for plants to grow vigorously and that they are more productive this way.

I cut off the top to turn it into a pot - easy enough with an angle grinder but some people don't like to use the electricity!  I then cut slots in the base using the angle grinder to allow excess water to drain away, these are up about 5 centimetres from the ground. You can see the bottom has a slight ridge in the centre to allow them to be stacked like this. If you were using another container you can just as easily put the drainage in the side.


The image below is of the finished product with some mint I've successfully grown from seed! Mint seed is tiny, so I'm very happy with this result.

The plants have doubled in the last week or so and are loving the spring weather. They will do better in this pot than any other as they are thirsty!

I'm looking forward to mint with watermelon or apple and cos salad. Yum.!

Here's to simple gardening that is good for us and the earth.

Wild Foods

I get really excited when I see lovely fruit growing over the fences of public spaces. In Perth Western Australia I can get lemons almost all year round, oranges in July-August and perhaps most addictively mulberries in October.

I'm so pleased that last year I took the time to make a few notes to remember where and when... most importantly... to go foraging!

You can see the map of one of my 'stomping grounds' (the places I often visit or spend time in) above. I created this very quickly and easily using Google maps. I made a point of listing the name of the food plant and time of year to visit. In the map above you can see the Lillypilly... an unusual fruit to keep it interesting, although for people who have grown up in Perth they will most likely recognise it. You might know the fruit as 'Chinese Apples'.


At the moment I am very much looking forward to making batches of mulberry jam. Last year we had recently returned from our holiday in Europe and I was very happy spending my spare time gardening and walking in the sunshine. I picked a lot of mulberries when I came across them!

I turned this windfall into jam, jelly or syrup - reserving small quantities of the best perfect fruit to freeze whole for fruit smoothies. Ripe mulberries may need a lot of lemon or store bought pectin (jam setter) to help make a jam, but who wants jam all the time when you can have syrup poured over your yoghurt? Lemon juice and sugar come highly recommended in all cases.

In creating your own wild food map, Google is a great tool to start with and bear in mind that you may be able to build a map with your local community (UK example).

Self Regulation

I'm confronted by the desire to manage myself. I'm talking about cycling to work, catching public transport, reducing waste and composting.  

Last week I found myself wasting chicken food I'd gotten for free, it had gotten too old. Some days I drive to work simply because I have woken up too late to get a park at the train station. Worst of all, last night the aquaponics began overflowing due to a build up of healthy plant roots in the grow bed! Luckily I happened to hear the fish jumping and was able to save them!

So I'm not going to beat myself up, which can lead to becoming less motivated to act rather than more! I've decided to treat it as a challenging game, with sophisticated nuances and interesting players (my friends and family).

I begun searching the blog-o-sphere for wisdom. How to get results, set a good example and be happy with my efforts? This is challenging ... so let's make it interesting!

I know that one of the Permaculture originators, David Holmgren, has had some experience with us flawed humans. Check out the diagram below at 4 o'clock!

Source

The bible is full of observations and suggestions about how we manage ourselves so that we do what we know is right. We have been dealing with these issues for most if not all of human history.

In the professional world, the most productive people are highly organised, apply self-regulation and select how they will spend their time to get the most 'bang for their buck'.

So where does that leave me? I feel the answer includes not 'rushing' around. Rather, embracing the idiom - 'a stitch in time saves nine'. In being conscious of myself I can:

• Reduce over-stimulation by computer or TV
• Get enough sleep
• Wake 15 minutes earlier (or more)
• Generate a routine & spend time at home

A routine you say? Years ago, Mum gave my husband the 'hot tip' that I do better with routine... and can do anything within it. It's true; when I was at high school I did 6 high school subjects, no sweat; while at uni I held down two jobs, did full time uni, helped run the Christian union and had a boyfriend. Whew! But I had a routine! At some stage, I lost the routine and it felt like everything was falling apart, including my confidence.

I feel it all comes down to being calm and clear thinking! This allows for effective decision making and a 'balanced' life. As an adult now, I finally 'get' it and have certainly got my confidence back and feel as though I should be able to do almost anything... so back to the routine.

Being deliberately slow in changing my routine will make it easier (see 9 o'clock), I'll begin by tweaking my schedule as follows:

• The mornings of my days off will be treats for the chickens with blended fruit we haven't eaten or greens 'weeds' from the garden. I should enjoy this process!
• 2 minutes of aquaponics cleaning on a Saturday morning - risk management!
• Bins and composting on Tuesday nights (before rubbish pick up the next day)

I trust I will find myself living with more integrity and that I will be better equipped to make a difference in our world.

Over and out

Systems Thinking: We are all Environmental Managers

I'm lucky enough to work in an exciting field: tree declines in Western Australia.
During the last 6 months I've been able to have numerous discussions with some brilliant minds and this posting will capture some of this thinking.

I've also been reflecting on being a self-taught learner (autodidact) - which I feel is a very valuable thing to be, if I can claim that status? I admire this sentiment from Margaret Mead: "I learned to observe the world around me, and to note what I saw." The way I see it, we must pay attention, put two and two together and remember what we have learnt.

My big boss took me to the window the other day and pointed out the line of dead trees - Tasmanian Blue Gums. They'd simply run out of ground water. Plenty of other vegetation had survived, but these were the thirsty crowd.

I thought about that, suddenly putting two and two together... humans are using water that the trees have historically counted on to get them through droughts, possibly tipping them over the edge.

Water is important. I looked it up - we humans in Western Australia are using up to 50% ground water in our 'tap' water... leaving that much less for the plants. Bearing in mind we don't draw from every aquifer.

Having been interested in environmental matters for some time, it occurred to me that this was the first time I'd taken the 'lack of water' issue seriously - previously I was always thinking about human need/use. I felt ashamed but then began to realise that this is probably true for most environmentalists. I bumped into Jarred, pastor and peace activist, on the train and he couldn't believe that we use so much ground water. It is interesting to see that for most of us, water is 'out of sight and out of mind', but it can be reconstructed as not simply a commodity but life itself for the various ecological communities we live amongst.

Some weeks have passed since I experienced this paradigm shift. I was discussing this with a guest lecturer who I was lucky enough to hear speak on world food security from a plant pathologists point of view. He mentioned coal seam methane extraction and associated fracturing of the aquifers. Certainly, this is a permanent degradation of the previously separate bodies of water and fossil fuels - to farmers' detriment.

I trust that I can remember this lesson and be a systems thinker and not just a consumer.