Keeping warm in winter

This blogging business is keeping me up way past my previous bed-time with the sun. In the last 6 weeks, I have been enjoying going to bed when it is dark, but now as the days are getting shorter and as daylight savings is coming to an end, I don’t think the new sun setting time of about 6pm is going to work for me. It has made me much more aware of how as a collective, we are so dependent on energy- for light particularly when I’m in darkness- but also of course the fridge issue, for cooking, hot showers, cups of tea AND keeping warm- for the approaching chilly mountain winter. How to do all of these things in an earth friendly way without supporting these mega awful industries and contributing to the decline in ecosystems throughout the world?

I guess I’ll find out soon enough!

I’ve been thinking about the staying-warm-in-winter issue and how to utilise the materials around my magical little home, there are bricks, besser blocks and large glass window panes. All which could create a thermal mass from my beautiful northerly aspect. A little pot belly stove has been also suggested for cooking and staying warm too- maybe with some copper pipe that could feed into the caravan to keep me toasty and snug in my little safe haven too. Hmm.. lots to think about for the moment!

Sheree x

The Raised Vegie Patch and design

I’m a bit crazy and want to grow everything… so this is how I have designed my current garden. So I’ve started, and am about ¼ of the way through. I’ve currently put together 4 raised garden beds and one baby banana circle for my baby Cavendish bananas.

As previously mentioned I live at the dream do-it-yourself plot, with excess plumbing, timber and other materials lying around everywhere, so I have used timber sleepers, logs and bricks to use as the edges for my garden. I’ve realised that I should have brought all the materials for building the edges inside the garden before putting up the fence and netting, but I will struggle getting tangled in the yet completed mess that is the entry way to the garden for now.

So, for the beds, I first gently forked the soil to aerate it a little, then sprinkled a layer of gypsum, dolomite and chicken manure. Following, a layer of weeds and grass, then a layer of wet newspaper, then a layer of soil mixed with cow/horse manure and a little of that 5in1 organic fertiliser. I then planted in this layer and then mulched around the seedlings, leaving enough space for oxygen to get in and react with the nitrogen and carbon layers equally.

One of the problems…I think I have a lot of weed seed in the soil that I’ve used as the secondary layer however, as there is a large mound of mostly top soil at the entry to the garden, which I am slowly moving when constructing the beds which was covered with goats weed, lantana, tobacco and bracken… I’ll just deal with them later… Or should I have put the newspaper on the top?

May my seedlings grow and flourish and the weeds stay a lovely carbon-ous layer.

Sheree x

Amazing little miracles in the garden

A nice little surprise when I went down to the patch this morning, there was a bird inside. Maybe a little frightened for not quite figuring out how to get back out from the now netted garden, but after encouragingly showing the bird the way out, off he/she went. I’m just hoping this is one of the friendly sort I want to encourage in my garden, to eat the bad bugs and to share the responsibility with the bees to help pollinate some flowers and veg. Unlike the brush turkey, carelessly kicking his way through my seedlings to find those banana roots and chokos... I’m still not quite sure who ate the sprouting choko, but I will just blame him for now. Who, by the way I haven’t seen since I relocated my babies to the protection of the garden. Maybe I should sleep there too!! Lotsa bumps in the night tonight, shakily questioning “who’s there?” “………………………………….”.

I came home earlier this evening after another day at school with about 40 minutes of light left. Just enough time to plant out my latest garden bed with some desperate little seedlings that survived the turkey’s wrath. Not the happiest little guys, but all the more now for being in the ground I’m sure!

Today was the last good planting day for green leafy plants for this moon cycle- as my new buddy Greg from Blue Knob markets told me on Saturday. He advised I put the seeds I wanted to sow in the fridge the day before planting (“I don’t have a fridge”), so they think it is winter, and then out of the fridge- “it’s spring, let’s grow!” Amazing little beings! With all their genetic make-up in the tiniest little bundle- like chamomile seeds, or big fatty bundles- like the gourd. How amazing they are! And then to provide us with food too! Gotta love them.

May all our seeds germinate and provide an abundance of food for all!

Toilet Business

The unfortunate flooded toilet about 50 metres through the bush with the leeches was a bit too much for me when I first arrived. It was bad enough in daylight, let alone struggle down the hill after dark. So on day 3 it was time to build a new composting toilet. Actually, I don’t think I would ever have adjusted to this old toilet.

Luckily for me there is already a toilet-looking building right next to the caravan, which is actually for storing solar batteries that I am yet to obtain, so for now it is the outhouse. Using all scrap materials around with the help of a beloved friend we got building.

We have used:

-A Pickle barrel

-Toilet seat

-Bricks

-Shade mesh

-A ceramic Dish

Tools:

-Hand drill

-We (not me) drilled 3 holes in the bottom of the barrel for drainage- from urine and food scraps (theoretically this should be a dry composting toilet, but it is very hard not to wee sometimes).

-Then a couple of bricks were placed in the bottom of the barrel, with a layer of shade mesh on top- this is to allow air to circulate throughout the composting system, as well as stopping particles falling through.

-The barrel was then placed on a number of bricks to keep it off the ground and for enough space to slide the ceramic dish in and out to empty the liquid. Making sure it was nice and sturdy.

-For the top we used some more mesh and the open lid of the pickle barrel. The mesh insures that there is air circulation and is secured so my little animal friends don’t discover my ‘waste’ which will become my compost in the garden.

-To use the toilet, I swap the mesh and barrel lid for the toilet seat from the flooded toot and awkwardly use a chair to hop up and down as I have just utilized existing infrastructure, but you could build a platform to use the toilet ‘squat style’, or build some steps from besser blocks or bricks- making sure there is still access to empty the liquid from the dish, which I’m still trying to perfect the timing for, before it overflows. Also, what to do with this product? I’ve just been putting it back in the compost, as it is not just urine.- I will wait until the compost is about ¾ full, and then I will change over barrels, leave the compost for 3 months or so, and then use it in my vegie garden. Much of the literature states that 12 months is the minimum time required for any pathogens to be eliminated through the composting process of human wastes, however using my own ‘manure’ I know what has gone through my body and the state of health in which I am in and therefore will use the compost at the time it is ready. I’ve also added vegie scraps to my pile, so hopefully these will be ready at that time too! Having a predominantly vegan diet, there are limited bacteria in comparison to that of a meat eaters poop.

(Sawdust everywhere in this picture, I use this and leaf litter as a carbon layer added to the compost)

The humanure handbook by Joseph Jenkins enables us to explore a whole other world of composting marvels. From simple bucket systems to more sophisticated models.

May all our toilets provide food for our gardens to grow so we can pick fresh leaves from our garden.

Sheree x

Pot-in-the-pot plants

As I sit in the dark trying to figure out this technological business eating my soup by candlelight, I’m really wondering why my pot-in-the-pot fridge is not working properly… maybe I should go back a few weeks…

I moved up to the Nimbin region back in February to learn a little bit more about Permaculture, by studying at Djanbung Gardens. I wanted to give it a go living on my own to focus on my health and wellbeing, and found an amazing little spot to live. By looking online at the work exchange website- helpx.net (a phenomenon like wwoofing- you work in exchange for accommodation and in most cases food- who needs money??), I found a beautiful patch of land- 5 acres on a local community just outside of Nimbin. It needs a lot of loving as no one has lived here for 5 years- to begin with- no running water and no power… I’m still not up to the power phase yet, but enjoy candlelit dinners and early nights- going to bed not long after the sun and wakening with it too! It’s just a little caravan and awning- with a kitchen sink and a gas stove and old shed, an unfortunate flooded composting toilet, an old garden bed frame with poly pipe and lots of timber and old building materials around. It’s a do-it-yourself dream, with lots of potential on a northern slope surrounded by rainforest bushland.

I’ve spent the last few weeks here sweating, tearing and tearfully cutting down some small trees that had taken over the vegie patch- along with the tabocco bushes, lantana and bracken fern, as well as all the grasses and billy goats weed- which by the way have been fixing nitrogen into my new beloved patch. With the help of some bonita meninas we put up a fence and finally I threw, well, more like struggled for half a morning to put up some bird netting over the poly pipe frame- I have some dear little friends that also live around- wallabies, pademelons, and my favourite nemesis- the brush turkey- who on a number of occasions destroyed my seedlings that were peacefully growing just outside my front ‘door’. As I was planting out some of my new formed raised vegie beds yesterday- as it was the first day of the astrological planting calendar- great for planting leafy veg- I was hoping that the holes in the bird netting were big enough for my insect friends- wasps and bees to come and pollinate my patch.

So back to the pot-in-the-pot fridge. Why are you not working for me? I have just finished reading ‘No Impact Man…’ by Colin Beavan, who had the same dilemma with the Nigerian invention. Maybe not enough water between the pots? Or is there not enough draught for you? I have seen this work and helped put one together at Djanbung… so what am I doing wrong? The pot fridge works when the water between the two pots, mixed with sand is evaporated- resulting in a drop in temperature. The big problem for me is that all my leafy veg last at the most 2 days! And as I like to support the amazing local growers and farmers in this region- I like to shop at the Lismore organic market on Tuesday mornings and my local market at Blue Knob on Saturdays- So for 4 days of the week I’m sorted with food- but 3 days, I’m either picking through the slime of greens, or whipping up to the Nimbin Organic shop to get my veg. Which also sells local, organic produce, but I really do enjoy meeting all the amazing local growers. From tamarillos, to $1 kg bananas, to finger limes and sunflower sprouts… gotta love the fresh food! So the urgency for my vegie garden to get up and roaring is strong. No longer will I be picking through the slimes of spinach and coriander!

Meanwhile, making myself a pot of chamomile tea I got from the lady with all the herbs she grows herself at the Blue Knob market, and as I add some more water to my pot-in-the-pot fridge, the solution to my dilemma is to grow my own. But of course I was always going to!

Sweet dreams my beautiful earth. May we all pick fresh leaves from our vegie garden.

What this is all about

I’ve just decided that I would love to share with everyone the simple joys we can get from the beautiful world around us! So this blog right here is all about my life I live to be lighter on this earth- for all the little micro-organisms under my toes, to the polar bears on the melting Arctic. As I have moved to the very happening Rainbow Region in NSW and setting up a beautiful home for myself (and the thousands of leeches) while studying at the nearby Permaculture College- Djanbung Gardens- I’m learning loads al about this stuff. I’m learning about the plants and animals and fungi and bacteria to make our plants grow and for the food we eat.. plus learning a lot of interesting things about each other, beloved Mother Nature and myself. I believe that we can create a world to live in peace and harmony together- all the little creatures- both supportive and appreciative of the beauty in the world around us.