Read issue 4 as a flipbook

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…

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…

How does permaculture tie in with our understanding of health? Can it realistically be seen as a ‘health promoting movement’?

UNDERSTANDING PERMACULTURE

When David Holmgren and Bill Mollison developed permaculture in the 1970s it was an attempt to reduce the growing environmental and social crises of modern life. Their concept emphasised designing low consumption, low pollution and highly productive human…

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…

Fifteen years ago, permaculture grew roots in Timor Leste after the Timorese people’s incredible and tragically brutal passage to gain independence from Indonesia.

Permaculture was introduced to Timor Leste by…

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…

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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With so much focus on the plight of honeybees in the media these days, beekeeping has had a huge resurgence. Beehives are popping up in every suburb, in every city of the world. Everybody wants to help the bees!

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Botanical name: Taraxacum officinale

Parts used: flowers, stems, leaves and roots

Description: a rosette of rough-toothed leaves from a single taproot. A…

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…

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…

Well-designed food forests and forest gardens are a versatile food production solution that, in addition to producing food, are able to provide for a wide range of animals and fungi that create the connections between the plants in…

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…

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…

Earthbag building (or ‘super adobe’) is a technique credited to Nader Khalili, an Iranian-born architect and humanitarian. The technique uses polypropylene bag (the kind of bag your chook food comes in, before it is cut into lengths) as…

DIGGING DEEPER INTO SOIL

18 October, 2015, Samford, QLD

Be inspired by and learn from renowned thinkers and soil advocates.

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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…

You may shy away from the idea of eating cane toad leg stir-fry; Emma Lupin will not. As a Northern Territory resident for the last seven years, Emma has channelled all her efforts into learning the ways of…

Botanical name: Symphytum officinale

Other common name: knitbone

Origin: Europe

Description: A non-woody herb…

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…

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…

Undertaking a permaculture course is a very rewarding experience. Not only will you gain skills and knowledge, but you may end up viewing the world in a new way. You will also interact with a group which is…

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…

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…

The Cayuga duck breed may have originated in South America, but was first ‘discovered’ on Lake Cayuga in New York state around the mid-1800s. It is thought to be a hybrid between an American black duck and a…

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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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….

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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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….