Category 24

Brains Trust

Brains Trust

Much of Australia’s eastern seaboard has experienced devastating floods over recents months. And while most of us are all too aware of the work required to clean, restore and even rebuild homes and buildings, Pip has received plenty of questions about the impact floods can have on our plants, soils, food crops and animals.

Some of my plants look like they might not recover after they experienced flooding. Is there anything I can do to save my favourites?

Unfortunately, no. As well as nutrients, healthy soil is providing the roots of your plants with oxygen through air pockets within the soil structure. But once soil has been immersed in water for any period of time, all of the air and oxygen is forced out and the root system begins to wilt and die. As well as any unknown contaminants that may have moved into your yard with the floodwaters, the roots systems will not recover, so you’ll need to remove all of the plants and start again.

5 Staples For Every Garden

silverbeet

There are not many things more satisfying than pulling a lemon off your own tree, picking some salad leaves to have with dinner or even unearthing potato treasures from your soil. There are some things that are a must- have in your garden that will help feed your family and now is a great time to try your hand at growing some of them. Whether you live in a house, share house,

apartment or acreage, these five edible garden staples will help feed your family all through the year and all of them are just as happy in a pot or tub as they are in a garden bed. Harvesting your own produce to use for your next meal is a great way to make sure your food is nutritionally dense, full of life and has the added bonus of saving you money.

International Projects

school-nature

The School of Nature (Escola da Natureza) is set within the Piracanga ecovillage, on the coast of Bahia in Brazil. It is a school of permaculture and ecological practices set up to promote – and immerse people in – planetary regeneration and engage children in nature- based experiences.

Since 2011, the school has been regenerating 10 acres of degraded land (within the 100-acre ecovillage), transforming it into a food forest while becoming a reference centre for ecological design and small-scale technologies. The School’s ‘Campus Floresta’ is dedicated to the development of immersion experiences including where people stay, the programs offered and the exploration of ecological awareness and action. Visitors are welcome to learn and volunteer at both the ecovillage and the school.

Pip Picks – Things We Like

sun-seeker

Sun Seeker – SUN-TRACKING APP

This comprehensive sun-tracking app is the perfect companion when planning your vegie garden, greenhouse or considering solar panels. Using GPS, a magnetometer and gyroscope, the app will tell you the corrct solar position and therefore the exact path the sun will take across your yard at any time of the day or year. As well as various other handy features, it shows the sun’s direction in hourly intervals (in a flat compass or augmented reality 3D view), seasonal sunlight hours and sunrise calendar.

$14.99 www.apps.apple.com/au

Pip Noticeboard

dirt

A community science participation program at Macquarie University offers soil metal testing for would-be vegetable growers who want to make sure their soil is free of contaminants before they start planting into it.

Dubbed VegeSafe, the program aims to inform growers about metal and metalloid contaminants in their garden soil and provides participants with both a formal report and, if contamination is high, advice on how to deal with the findings.

VegeSafe accepts soil samples from all over Australia, it is the only service of its kind in the country and, while it’s technically a free service, the university encourages people to send a donation in with the sample to support the work of the program.

For our feature on the remarkable work worms can do around your home, including breaking down soil contaminants, head to our in-depth feature starting on page 68.

Editorial

robyn

Wow, what a time we find ourselves in. Now more than ever it is feeling like the world is in crisis. From recent flooding, to war, to the pandemic and just the general effects of global warming and climate change. It feels like we are reaching a tipping point.

But in the grips of all these crises we’re repeatedly seeing the power of community and how the support and generosity of everyday people to their fellow humans is what is making a difference.

Don’t get me wrong, we need governments to create change on a large scale, but it is at the community level that the most immediate effects are being felt.

In the recent floods, it wasn’t the governments and emergency services that made the biggest impact on saving those stranded on rooftops, it was individuals with boats who went and out and tirelessly saved people one by one from rising floodwater, often with only minutes to spare.

As we mention in our Harvest High feature on page 64, in Brisbane it was a local backyard grower who was able to add fresh produce to shelves of her local corner store after flooding caused her suburb to become cut off as an island. In Europe, it was the Polish families taking in the Ukranian refugees and providing them with shelter, when they arrived lost and with nothing.