Pip_CoverBanner_Issue_4 (minimised)

The Lost Art Of Mending

Have you ever had to throw out a piece of clothing because it got a stain you couldn’t remove, or a hole you couldn’t mend? In our efforts to reduce our burden on the planet many of us…

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Towards A Permaculture Diet

A permaculture-designed diet is healthy, local and sustainable, with much of the food grown in our own gardens, farms and communities. When we choose to eat what’s in season, and to eat locally grown foods, we reduce or…

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Merri Bee Organic Farmacy

Bee Winfield and her partner Stewart Seesink have transformed their eleven hectare property, at Nannup in the south-west of Western Australia, by building soil. Bee’s been obsessed with compost since she was a teenager, and is still making…

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Life With Bees

Without the pollination services that bees provide our tables would begin to look very bare. Bees are responsible for one-third of the food we eat. In Australia around two-thirds of European-introduced horticultural and agricultural crops are entirely dependent…

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Save Our Soils

All terrestrial life depends on soil, directly or indirectly. Although our understanding of topsoil has grown by leaps and bounds over the past decades, we are still losing this invaluable resource at a frightening pace.

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Native Bees In The Permaculture Garden

Bees are under threat worldwide. As we urbanise our environments we remove bees’ natural habitat – we create flowerless landscapes when we substitute concrete and lawn for flowering trees and shrubs. And agricultural practices, such as monoculture, remove…

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Atamai Village: A Resilient Community

Resilience means the ability to adapt and respond positively to challenge and change. Small villages have been the most enduring form of human settlement across continents and across centuries and presumably will continue to be so in a…

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Editorial

I am so happy to bring you issue four of Pip Magazine, with its bee friendly focus.

I have learnt so much about bees and their lives, their needs and…

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Create A Co-Op: Own Where You Work

Co-operatives are re-emerging as a global movement, as workers around the world – faced with rising unemployment and a slow transition to a sustainable economy – employ themselves in jobs they would rather be doing. Co-op laws provide…

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Permaculture Around The World

PROJECT BONA FIDE OMETEPE ISLAND, NICARAGUA

Project Bona Fide is an internationally recognised ten and a half hectare permaculture demonstration and education farm situated on the stunning volcanic Ometepe Island…

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Introducing Permaculture To Children

Permaculture theory and design are concepts traditionally communicated in an adult forum. Children may pick up snippets of information living within and around a permaculture system, perhaps learning more as they grow older. However, children can reveal themselves…

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Permaculture’s Next Big Step

The permaculture movement appears to have reached a crossroads. As a holistic design approach based on systems thinking, ecological principles and energy literacy, permaculture has the potential to have a transformative impact on how we sustainably operate our…

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Pip Picks

THE ART OF FREE TRAVEL: A FRUGAL FAMILY ADVENTURE, CYCLING FROM DAYLESFORD TO CAPE YORK

by Patrick Jones and Meg Ulman (New South Books 2015)

In late 2013…

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Jeff Nugent

WHAT’S YOUR BACKGROUND IN PERMACULTURE?

I did my PDC with Bill in 1983 in Stanley, Tasmania, when I was thirty. Everyone loved the course. I was studying Environmental Science at…

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Perennial Abundance: Ten Edible Perennials

Edible perennials are at the heart of a successful permaculture garden. These plants live for several years, are abundant, and bring diversity and resilience to the garden. They perform many functions in the system, and dramatically increase the harvestable yield.

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Save Your Seeds: Lettuce

Lettuce is self-pollinating, so it is an excellent choice for beginner seed savers and those with urban gardens with neighbouring vegetable growers. The flowers are pollinated before they open, so there is little chance of varieties getting crossed….

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Book Reviews

A YEAR OF PRACTICULTURE: RECIPES FOR LIVING, GROWING, HUNTING & COOKING WITH THE SEASONS

by Rohan Anderson (Hardie Grant Books 2015). Review by Robyn Rosenfeldt

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Permaculture Design Process

For us at Good Life Permaculture, permaculture design incites deep excitement of what’s possible, but it also humbles us: landscapes and people-scapes are vast, complex, ever-changing and unique. I think that’s why we hold onto permaculture so strongly….

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