A Bountiful Garden All Year Round
A highly productive vegetable garden that produces lots of food all year doesn’t just happen, it comes about through intentional design. It’s achieved by selecting appropriate plants and using particular gardening techniques that extend the harvest season.
Gardening Calendars And The Importance Of Timing
A gardening calendar…
How To Grow Asparagus
Often the first vegetable in the garden to herald the arrival of spring, asparagus provides a delicious welcome to the coming season. While it can take some patience, there is little that comes close to the taste of your own asparagus plucked straight from the…
Made With Heart: The Journey Of An Eco-Build
After years being active in co-creating the Bend eco-neighbourhood, it finally was time for Peter Ascot and Serena Kean to build a home on their own block within it. They wanted a beautiful home for their family of five – one that would function well…
How To Make Dairy Staples
Making your own dairy basics at home can not only save you money on your grocery bill and avoid plastic packaging, but allows you to experience the flavour and freshness of homemade food that will far surpass anything you can buy from the store.
Source the…
Reclaiming Wheat: How To Make Wheat Your Friend
Wheat has been an important food for humans for thousands of years. Along with corn and rice, it’s a global staple that makes up a huge part of the diet for billions of people. So why has wheat fallen out of favour in recent years?…
Shulz Organic Dairy: Making The Change
Simon Shulz is taking a stand. After watching the War on Waste back in 2017, Simon realised that as a producer of milk, he was directly contributing to the problem of single-use plastics. He decided then and there to do something about it and three…
Slow Flowers
Just as the slow food movement made us more aware of local and seasonal produce, the slow flower movement is doing the same for blooms.
Tara Luca is a sustainable flower grower from the Northern Rivers area in NSW. Tara and her family live and work…
Embracing Community At Bend Eco-Neighbourhood
You’d go a long way to find a purpose-built, permaculture-inspired, organically certified econeighbourhood like Bend. With those credentials, you might expect a remote location, miles from anywhere, but Bend is located in a major town on the NSW Far South Coast, near schools, shops, a…
Permaculture For Refugees
Permaculture for Refugees, formed in 2016 by a group of dedicated permaculture teachers, arose from a deep conviction that permaculture would be desired, valued and effective for refugees in camps and settlements.
Understanding that refugee settlements and camps were often unresponsive to the needs of their…
Visible Mending
Visible mending is trending at a time when there have never been so many clothes in the world. In the past two decades there has been a transformational shift in the way most people buy, use and dispose of clothes, leading to exploitation and waste,…
Wheelie-Bin Compost Toilet
Composting toilets are natural, self-regulating waste treatment systems. They use no water, no chemicals and produce no polluting discharge. The design of a composting toilet allows for a simple and odourless decomposition, resulting in nutrient-rich compost.
Composting toilets look like any regular toilet and are increasingly…
DIY Bathroom Basics
It’s not uncommon for bathroom benches and shower recesses to be filled with plastic bottles: bottles for shampoos and conditioners, hair treatments, face washes, toners, moisturisers, deodorants … and that’s just the basic products! Then there are all the other lotions and potions that promise…
Natural Beekeeping
Growing in popularity globally, natural beekeeping offers an api-centic approach to beekeeping, mimicking the bees’ wild environments and honouring the natural rhythms of the colony.
Though there is some overlap with traditional beekeeping, natural beekeeping differs in several important ways, from the design and construction of…
Kids’ Patch
Plastic pollution and old fishing lines are a serious problem for sea life, so when 12-year-old Shalise Leesfield learned it was killing thousands of sea animals each year, she set out on a crusade to clean up local beaches and save lives.
‘Two years ago, I…
Permaculture Around The World
Ecovillages, in their myriad forms, are places we can all learn practical skills for regenerative culture, and many thousands of people visit ecovillages each year to learn permaculture and related skills. The Global Ecovillage Network (www.ecovillages.org) has networked thousands of ecovillages and eco-projects around the…
Pip Picks: Things We Like
Finally! We have milk being sold in reusable glass bottles. Milk from Shulz Organic Dairy is available from selected retailers and farmers’ markets across VIC, NSW, SA, WA and TAS. The full list of stockists can be found on their website.
The full-cream non-homogenised organic milk…
Noticeboard
The next Australian Permaculture Convergence is being organised by Northey Street City Farm in Brisbane’s Windsor. The Convergence will kick off with a permaculture festival on Sunday, 19 April that will run in conjunction with Northey Street’s bustling organic market. The festival will showcase community…
Brains Trust
I grew a green manure crop to add nitrogen to the soil (using broad beans), but last time I did this, I planted summer tomatoes straight after digging the broad beans in and it was the worst tomato crop I’ve ever had. What went wrong?…
Letters To The Editor
Email your letters and photos to editorial@pipmagazine.com.au. We’d love to hear what you think of Pip and if you’ve embarked on any projects as a result of our articles. Each issue, one published entrant will receive a limited edition Pip Magazine art print, printed with…
Animal Care: Summer Chook Care
The most critical considerations when looking after your flock over the coming summer months are the provision of shade and cool water. It’s also a good idea to keep your chickens’ stress levels as low as possible and avoid handling them.
The Summer Hen House
The chicken…
Warrigal Greens
Warrigal greens Tetragonia teragoniodes is a trailing leafy groundcover native to Australia, Eastern Asia and New Zealand – hence its other name, New Zealand spinach. In Europe it is now an invasive species, which belies its historical use as a great source of vitamin C…
Permaculture Plant: Yarrow
Yarrow Achillea millefolium is a tough, perennial herb with multiple permaculture uses.
It is a low-growing, spreading, rhizomatous plant with fernlike leaves and clusters of small flowers making up a larger composite flower.
In permaculture systems, yarrow is commonly used as an understorey in food forests and…
Save Your Seeds: Dill
Anethum graveolens var. esculentum. Anethon is the Greek word for dill. Graveolens means strong smelling and esculentum means edible in Latin.
Origin
Dill is an annual whose distribution is widespread due to its medicinal popularity. Being native to such diverse climates as Central Asia, Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan,…
In The Garden: November – February
November: Basil, beans, beetroot, cabbage, capsicum, carrot, cauliflower, chives, coriander, cucumber, English spinach, kohlrabi, leek, lemongrass, lettuce, marjoram, mint, onion, oregano, parsley, parsnip, pumpkin, radish, rosemary, silverbeet, swede, sweet corn, tarragon, tomato, turnip, thyme and zucchini.
December: Asian greens, beetroot, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower,…
Book Reviews
After his stint on River Cottage Australia in the rolling hills of Tilba in South Coast NSW, Paul West moved to the city. His latest book shares his love of growing food and preparing it for friends and family, all in an urban setting.
West wants…
Editorial
I’m writing this in the spring sunshine enjoying the signs of the garden coming to life. I have roosters, chickens, guinea pigs, birds, bees and a dog for company. I always like to get away from my desk when I write the editorial so I…