What I wanted to say

International Permaculture Day celebration at Myuna Farm

On Sunday May 6 permaculture people all over Australia, and indeed internationally, celebrated Permaculture Day. Our small group celebrated at Myuna Farm, a working farm and education centre in Doveton. It is the site of a great range of community garden allotments as well. e had a stall and a seedling give away to inspire people. We had a great location for our stall and the opportunity to meet many families with young children as many children celebrate their birthdays there. We had some great visitors as well: Georges (PDC 2010) and John (PDC 1992). It was a cold day but the warmth came from people to talk to and to work with. Thanks to all from GSEPG who helped out on the day and who donated plants and seedlings for the display and to give away.

Plants to grow in shady gardens workshop

On Saturday we had our "Plants to grow in shady gardens" workshop and garden tour with Amy. Very useful, educational and enjoyable. Amy's blog has a list of plants suitable for a shady garden. Amy's garden is amazing with many unusual food plants. We also had a wonderful afternoon tea with muffins, rhubarb jam and clotted cream and Cele's delicious sausage rolls.

How Do I Invite You to Grow Food?

Just watching this video from Peak Moment TV called 'How do I invite you to grow food?' It's a few years old now but still very relevant. The interview features Janaia Donaldson speaking with Jenny Pell, Permaculture Designer in Seattle as well as founder and president of Permaculture Now!

"I want to live in a community that has a midwife and a cheese maker, and a shoemaker and a bee keeper. I want that intergenerational skill sharing to become common." 

I so agree!
Have a look and let us know what you think in the comments.

Information display and seedling give away at the Endeavour Hills Community Market

On Saturday we took to the streets, aiming to bring the permaculture message to the people who were attending the Endeavour Hills Community Market. It was an early start, setting up the stall but there was so much good will and collaboration that it all went great. The market organisers are giving us the site for free. Thanks to Meg, Ali, Cele, Bob and Carmel the stall looked wonderful and gained a lot of interest. We gave away a seedling to everyone we spoke to and added 12 new people to our email group.  Cele’s display looked great – we had to stop people wanting to buy everything then and there. Meg’s enlarged photos were a big hit with the passers-by as they were very colourful and really showed what we were on about. Really love Meg’s bookmarks as well, and Ali's herbs and eggs. I think the best part about it was we were having fun and it showed. There were some stopping by who expressed gratitude that a group like this exists - I must say I feel the same.


Meg getting everything ready...


Cele organising her display.


The finished display.


The seedlings we gave away.
The next market will be on the 3rd Saturday of May and we will be there.

International Permaculture Day

International Permaculture Day is coming up on Sunday May 6 with celebrations all over Australia. As the website says:

Permaculture is a design system for creating sustainable human environments. It is about designing households and communities that are productive, sustaining and largely self reliant and have minimal impact on the environment.
International Permaculture Day – is a day where a range of Permaculture events occur across Australia and around the globe

Greater South Eastern Permaculture will be celebrating the day at Myuna Farm. Have a look at what we are doing here.

This is the official video from last year's event:

Retrofitting the Suburbs

On Thursday last week I had the pleasure of hearing David Holmgren speak at the Wheeler Centre on Retrofitting the suburbs for sustainability. It was an event that definitely made the participants think about what we could do.


Here is the video of the talk, only 20 minutes but packed with thought provoking insights.


A longer version (10 parts) of the talk is on YouTube, but this is some years old now. The video above is the updated version for the Wheeler Centre event: Part 1 http://youtu.be/2cjhQWdbqE4

An interesting book (just out, February 2012) on the topic is Making your home sustainable A Guide to Retrofitting by Derek Wrigley