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Market Gardening: The Happy Farmer

rod

Is it possible to run a market garden using permaculture principles in the middle of the desert and make it viable?

On the outskirts of Alice Springs in view of Tjoritja, the MacDonnell Ranges, with the red desert sands stretching for thousands of kilometres from his back fence, Rod Angelo runs a market garden. Known as The Happy Farmer, Rod supplies fresh greens to the residents of Alice Springs, and he makes his business viable by turning waste streams into inputs that would otherwise cost money.

The climate in The Alice is unforgiving to growers. Miss just a single one day of watering and you will have to start again. With temperatures regularly over 40 ºC during summer, growing food is an art and requires dedication and local knowledge in equal measure.

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Passive House: Huon Hemp Haus

huon-haus

The earthy Huon Hemp Haus in southern lutruwita/Tasmania was designed to be energy efficient, sustainable and to stay warm over the long chilly winters.

The popularity of passive-solar hemp homes is booming in Tasmania, where residents are drawn to hemp’s warmth and its ability to continue to sequester carbon after the build is complete. It’s becoming so popular that in tiny Police Point in far southern Tasmania, with a population of just 82, there are now three hemp homes.

One, the Huon Hemp Haus, belongs to Rebecca Scott, a self-described climate refugee who moved from Victoria to Tasmania two and a half years ago. She’d already built her own off-grid straw-bale home in central Victoria in 2012, which she loved, but she felt the need to move to cooler climes.

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Fermenting At Home: Tempeh

tempeh

Making tempeh is one of those projects that demonstrates how amazing home-fermented food can be when measured up against its pasteurised, store-bought alternative.

The aroma of a freshly grown batch of tempeh is incredible – floral, aromatic and mushroomy, and will differ depending upon the ingredients you use to make your tempeh. Making it is remarkably simple, provided you have the ability to keep a tray of tempeh at a stable temperature for around 40 hours. That is because the spores of the fungus Rhizopus oligosporus need a nice warm environment in which to grow and colonise the material that you are inoculating.

Very much an artisanal process, because every legume or grain that you use to make tempeh – and the options are very broad and varied – will grow in a slightly different manner. So not only is it important to be disciplined about hygiene and keep a keen and watchful eye on the process, it’s also important to understand that not all batches will be successful and to not be put off if one fails.

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Field Guide: Foraging Wild Food

foraging

Engaging with wild food sources is reconnecting with the old stories of our ancestors and finding a sustainable way to interact with and learn from your surroundings.

Foraging, or at least the idea of harvesting wild food from the land, is now in the mainstream. In the face of the interconnected challenges we’re confronting, we want to empower ourselves with the knowledge and skills that bring self-reliance and equip us to care for our families and communities. We now feel the urgency, and have the opportunity, to create new narratives and move towards coexistence based on shared values of compassion and understanding for all species.

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Cover Crops: Living Mulch

Wasabi greens

One way to support good soil is to keep it covered using an organic mulch. We’re all familiar with mulches like straw or woodchip, but the benefit of growing a living mulch also needs to be considered.

Healthy gardens are built on healthy soil. Without it, it’s impossible to create the living and sustainable foundation an abundant garden needs. Mulching your garden provides plentiful benefits. Not only does it retain soil moisture and protect precious top soil, it helps minimise weeds and fosters an active soil ecosystem of microbes, fungi, bugs and earthworms to support thriving, happy plants.

In annual garden beds, it can be useful to have the flexibility to remove mulch at different times of the year, like in early winter or spring when you want sunlight to hit your soil and warm it up. In perennial beds or under fruit trees however, a more permanent mulch can be really useful. This is where planting a living mulch can be a clever solution.

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Growing In Small Spaces: Fruit Trees

fruit-trees

Returning from the backyard with an armful of freshly harvested fruit is a true pleasure. While sprawling acres make fruit tree growing easy, don’t think you have to miss out if you’re short on space.

The backyard orchard is a goal for lots of gardeners and the vast array of fruit tree varieties often leads to questions about how to fit it all in, especially if you only have a small piece of land to grow on. Luckily, there are some clever ways to squeeze more fruit trees into tight spaces without compromising on harvest or tree health. Choosing dwarfing varieties, clever planting methods, growing in pots, making use of vertical space and trellising can all help create an abundant fruiting garden in even the smallest yard.

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In The Garden: September-December

map of aussie

Moon planting

The moon’s phases and its associated gravitational pull has a significant effect on the behaviour of tidal oceans, so it’s easy to understand how the moon can have a similar effect on the moisture in our soils and plants. By planning what you sow to coincide with the phases of the moon best suited to the type of vegetable and how you’re planting, you’ll give yourself a higher chance of success as well as increase your yields.

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Save Your Seeds: Lettuce

lettuce

Lactuca sativa – Lac, latin for ‘milk’ referring to the white sap, and sativa for ‘cultivated’.

Origin

The origin of cultivation dates from early days in the temperate parts of Caucasus (Azerbaijan and Georgia), in Kurdistan, Kashmir and Siberia. The Romans grew a pointed, narrow-leafed Cos just like the Rabbit’s Ear lettuce that we know today. It was only in the 16th century that the head lettuce was described for the first time.

Cultivation

Lettuces need to grow fast with adequate water in hot Australian summers. They’ll do better and are more tender grown under a shade cloth or a bush than in full sun. To ensure that Romaine lettuces heart up, it’s best to grow them close to each other. Tender hearts can also be obtained by binding the leaves together as they grow.

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Ways With Waste: Travel Composting

travel-composting

Just because you’re enjoying a well-earned break, it doesn’t mean you need to stop your good composting habits.

Now borders are open, a road trip across Australia is once again an option. It’s sometimes all too easy to leave our good recycling habits at home when we hit the road.

Of all waste types, food is both the easiest and the most challenging to recycle. Easy in that all it wants to do is decompose and it will do it over time whether we want it to or not. But the biggest challenge when you’re on the road is finding somewhere to empty your bucket of scraps.

Keep, Meet, Greet

Because of the increased awareness over the last decade, composting while on the road is actually pretty easy. All around Australia there are community gardens and gardeners who are willing to accept the scraps you’ve been collecting. Keeping your food scraps out of landfill while on the road can actually be part of the adventure, taking you to gardens and connecting you to people you may not have otherwise met.

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Indigenous Knowledge: Lomandra

lomandra

This large tussock-like plant, which grows in clusters along streams and in areas where there is plenty of moisture, is one of eastern Australia’s most versatile native grasses.

Spiny-headed mat-rush Lomandra longifolia, whose botanical name literally refers to ‘long foliage’, has many uses. Aboriginal use of native plants is often threefold. It may be valuable in the manufacturing of tools, weapons and utensils. It may also provide an ingredient that has medicinal value or be a valuable and versatile source of sustenance.

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