Category 27

NETWORKS IN ECOSYSTEMS – Mimicking natural ecosystems at your place with self-supporting designs

ecosystem

An ecosystem is a community of organisms interacting with each other and with their physical environment. It functions as a complex, self-sustaining natural system that meets its needs without waste.

‘The ecological imperative’ states that humans are part of ecosystems, and must acknowledge their interrelationship with and interdependence upon such systems. Permaculture follows this imperative, to integrate and transform human societies so they can live in sustainably designed and highly productive ecosystems. In such systems self-interest is aligned with the common good. For these reasons permaculture is often called ‘the cultivated ecology’.

Networks in ecosystems provide the relationships of reciprocity; the giving, taking and sharing that makes life possible. And it’s our ethical task to design ecosystems that optimise the number of productive species, use energy and matter effectively and move towards ecosystem stability and perpetuation.

When designing systems in our own lives, our ecological aims should be to preserve genetic diversity, respect the right to life of all species to contribute to ecosystem structure, allow ecosystems to evolve under changing conditions and to use species and habitats sustainably so the essential life- sustaining processes can continue intact. Because if we don’t have ecological design aims we run counter to basic, and often unknown, laws of nature with serious consequences – it’s like taking the bottom out of a pyramid, destructive effects multiply and affect other connected systems.

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ODE TO OAKHILL – The rundown churchyard transformed into a supportive food justice farm.

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A once vacant and decrepit vicarage in Melbourne’s inner-north suburb of Preston is now home to Oakhill Food Justice Farm, a community space and urban farm empowering members with knowledge, skills and stronger social connections.

Situated 9 km from the CBD, Oakhill Food Justice Farm is the second such initiative of not-for-profit organisation Sustain. In the past 17 months and with the help of staff and volunteers, Sustain has turned a run-down churchyard into a thriving hub which educates, feeds and nurtures its community.

‘This place-making initiative demonstrates the power of urban agriculture to create beautiful places of nurturing and healing for people, plants, soil, birds and bees,’ says Sustain’s executive director Nick Rose. ‘Oakhill is central to Sustain’s mission to expand urban agriculture across Australia.’

The initiative is a great example of what’s possible when access to appropriate land and facilities can be combined with adequate funding. While volunteers play a large and important role at Oakhill, funding enables the recruitment of skilled staff, allows the farm to offer educational programs to kids, a paid-internship program to youth and means its community- focused goals can be reached more efficiently.

According to Nick, more than 1000 people have visited the Oakhill urban farm site and engaged with it in a variety of ways, and he says the potential and positive impacts are growing on a weekly basis.

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GIVE AND TAKE – Take a wander through Brisbane’s thriving crop swap community.

fresh-produce

Rising living costs and broken supply chains have seen a resurgence in backyard food growing and with it, a return to local food swapping and increased community resilience.

Exchanges come in many forms. Be it a monthly crop swap at the local park, a roadside stall, mailbox seed library, skill sharing or swapping produce through social media, there are many different models in use. Whatever form it takes, the common theme is that no money changes hands. Instead it’s about exchanging homegrown produce, reducing waste, sharing local knowledge and, most importantly, fostering a sense of community.

Many people realised that growing your own food isn’t as easy as planting something one day and harvesting great produce down the track. And after spending hundreds of dollars on soil, raised garden beds and seedlings during the pandemic, only to end up with tiny tomatoes or a handful of half-eaten leafy greens, many reached out to growers in their community for advice and found it at their local edible exchange.

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BONE BROTH – How to extract the most nutrients from your homemade health tonic.

broth

There are so many benefits to making bone broth, and they extend further than the many health benefits. The flavour of homemade broth is far superior to any stock you can buy, it’s considerably less expensive and you’re using more parts of an animal that would otherwise be wasted.

As the perfect way to use up bones like chicken or fish carcasses, as well as some tired-looking vegies in the bottom of the crisper, most of us are used to making stock as a versatile base for many dishes. But taking things a step further and creating bone broth, which with a bit more cooking time releases more nutrients from the ingredients, is better for you, your tastebuds and your hip pocket.

Bones contain a long list of vitamins and minerals which are released when bones are broken down in the cooking process. This is why time is the important difference between making a flavoursome stock compared to a nutrient-dense broth. Assuming you’re using bones from ethically raised animals, you’ll need to simmer beef or lamb bones for a minimum of 24 hours to create a high-quality bone broth, at least 12 hours for chicken, and somewhere around eight hours to extract the most out of fish bones.

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PASSATA DAY – The long-held Italian tradition of preserving the flavour of summer.

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As people look to have more control of food production, a long-held custom for Italian families in Australia has become more mainstream. ‘Tomato day’, ‘sauce day’ or ‘passata day’ – whatever you’d like to call it – is a day for reconnecting with all generations for the annual passata-making tradition.

To the uninitiated who have Italian neighbours, the gatherings of young and old in backyards for a day in February or March could seem quite mysterious. There are cauldrons, smoke, old men barking instructions, younger men lugging around crates and bowls filled with blood-red juices, women getting on with work and the scent of freshly picked basil. If the neighbours poked their heads over the fence, they would see rows and rows of clean bottles being filled and lids fastened, all ready for the final step. Fires are stoked and watched carefully before much laughter, food and exhausted merriment signals the main work is finished.

This custom of making enough bottles of passata to last until the following year has endured in Australia, even with the passing of the original postwar migrants. When they first came to Australia, these preserving traditions were done through necessity.

Each season had its own rhythm for these Italians: summer meant the warm-season vegetables would be pickled; late summer meant sauce making; autumn was wine, mushrooms and green olives; winter was black olives and salami-curing time, while spring was the time to plant all the vegetables that would provide the ingredients for the preserves ahead.

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COMPOSTING 101 – How to choose the best system to suit your space and lifestyle.

compost

Growing great vegies all comes down to the health of your soil, and you can’t have healthy soil without compost. There are many different ways to create compost at home; which is best depends on your situation and what fits into your space and lifestyle.

Having healthy living soil full of organic matter and microorganisms is essential to growing nutritious food. Compost you buy in a bag or from a nursery is never going to be as high quality as what you can make at home. And by making your own compost, not only are you creating rich organic matter to maintain healthy soils, but composting is a sustainable solution to your food-waste problems and an inexpensive way to deal with any green waste around your home.

Compost can get a bad rap. When some people think of compost, they think of a pile of smelly rotting vegetables with flies buzzing around it. This isn’t true compost.

Regardless of which system you choose, true compost is a healthy balance of carbon and nitrogen – it smells sweet when the ratio is right – and it’s turning your food and green waste into rich and nutritious compost to build and maintain soil health.

There are many different ways to create compost. There’s hot compost, cold compost, compost tumblers, compost bins, a compost pile, bokashi systems, even worm farms.

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THE NEW PLENTY – Meet the house designer championing the notion of ‘enoughness’.

the-new-plenty

As overconsumption continues to drive the climate crisis, one Tasmanian building designer is quietly trumpeting the idea that less is actually more.

Jane Hilliard is on a mission to claw back the overconsumption rampant in the building industry. Swimming against the metaphorical tide that promotes ever- expanding McMansion-style developments, Jane champions the concept of ‘enoughness’ in her professional life and in her everyday life, too.

In Jane’s own words, enoughness is about ‘working out what you need to be happy and healthy, without taking more than your fair share.’ And when our homes are created with this in mind, the positive impacts radiate.

Jane is the founder and head designer at Designful. Based in nipaluna/Hobart in Tasmania, Designful creates beautiful, humble homes and small buildings for those who want to focus on mindful design. Dotted across urban and rural landscapes, the builds sit in harmony with their surrounding landscapes.

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