Category Connect

This article is about the little network that could. A low-key, flexible organisation made up of permaculturalists, community gardeners, teachers and Northern Territory Department of Education staff working together to make growing and cooking organic, local food a key part of daily life in the Top End. Throw in a bit of resilient communities’ action, and sustainable design and practice, and we are really getting somewhere!

There are many joys of living in the Top End and many challenges, and often these are the opposite sides of the same coin. The climate is more like that in South-East Asia than in most of Australia. Top Enders, like most Australians, love eating at Asian restaurants. However, if you look closely at those Asian dishes you are more likely to find broccoli, celery and potato in them than snake gourd, winged beans or sweet potato. Hence the challenge: to share with Top Enders the information and skills to help them grow all sorts of amazing foods, and to cook with them.

There have been dedicated permaculturalists in Darwin for many years. However, in the last ten years we’ve seen an amazing increase in the number of keen permies and local foodies. Partly because of another challenge – remoteness, and the huge amount of ‘food miles’ and extra costs associated with buying food. But also because of broader community interest in growing food more locally and sustainably.

A critical mass was reached when Rosemary Morrow taught a Permaculture Design Course (PDC) here in 2008.

Produce swaps are community driven events where growers come together to share excess seeds, plants and produce; they involve no direct exchange, or any form of payment. They are also places to meet and exchange ideas and information and, consequently, encourage and inspire local food growing.

WHY SWAP PRODUCE?

For me produce swapping is permaculture in action, it is: ‘earth care’ by encouraging local food growing; ‘people care’ by bringing community together over good wholesome food; and ‘fair share’ by providing growers with an opportunity to share their excess, without having to organise a place at a market or an honesty box at the front gate.

I design practical, productive gardens, help people get the most out of their existing gardens, and sell organic and heirloom seeds through my market stall.

What are you passionate about?

It’s a cliche these days, but empowering people to live more sustainably is what drives me. I love learning about others’ dreams and visions for how their garden could work, and applying design skills and gardening experience to help them turn it into reality. I get a huge buzz as I see people gain the confidence to get growing.

What inspires you to do the work you do?

I love the Arthur Ashe quote, ‘Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.’ I don’t have all the answers or experience, but I sure want to share what I can. Permaculture offers us a set of principles and ethics so that we can take effective action and overcome the sense of powerlessness that so easily arises over environmental issues.

Have you ever had the overwhelming feeling that our wardrobes, or in many cases, floor-drobes, are an unbalanced ratio of what-wedo- wear to what-we-don’t-wear?

It seems that so many of us have wardrobes that consist of 25% clothes we actually wear while the rest is jeans we’d like to fit into again one day, our formal dress, the sick-as frock we got on sale but will never have the chutzpah to wear, the T-shirt that we wore on the first date with our lover, the shoes that went with that outfit but never with another, or the slacks we wore once for that interview.

These first-world conundrums, where excessive clothing is an increasingly modern ‘drama’, struck my friend Sara and me as an opportunity to facilitate a community event that was not only enjoyable but raised awareness about recycling and reducing landfill — and Swapsies was born.

I grew up on a city herb farm in Brisbane, my dad’s business. While I had heard about permaculture plenty of times, I first understood what it meant when I was eighteen and spent time with the Brookmans at the Food Forest, in South Australia. They made a massive impact on me and I love them to bits as they showed me what a good life really looks and feels like.

In 2008 I finally did a permaculture design course with Rick Coleman from the Southern Cross Permaculture Institute, and it rocked my socks. It joined so many dots in my head, and both humbled and empowered me to commit myself to this thing called ‘permaculture’ in a significant way.

To me, permaculture is an established yet cutting-edge approach to living well. It has nothing to do with having to revert to caveman ways, and everything to do with designing and developing stable systems that offer more security than the bank can ever hope to.

Castlemaine in Central Victoria has a long history of permaculture and it’s no accident that Growing Abundance (GA) emerged here. GA is a great example of people in a country town combining to grow and share sustainable food. Each element of GA performs many important functions, and each function supports others. GA is part permaculture group, part Transition Town and part social enterprise.

Put another way, GA is more than the sum of its parts. When different projects combine in complementary ways special things happen: people rediscover an enthusiasm for their fruit trees, they meet their neighbours, they learn new skills, and tonnes of fruit that might otherwise go to waste gets harvested, eaten or preserved.

By 2009, after years of dry weather, our reservoirs were almost empty, and the bush fires of February 2009 had a major impact on the environment and communities. The fires, drought and the news of global warming were distressing and pointed to our fragile existence.

GA emerged after the fires, partly from a workshop on community gardening and partly from discussions about Transition Towns.