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Compost-powered Shower

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Whether you are a gardener with a passion for compost making, or a child who has felt the warmth of a pile of grass clippings, you will be familiar with the heat created by decomposing material. Our aim is to capture and use this heat to create hot showers.

A few years ago we were inspired by Jean Pain’s compost hot-water system and, as we frequently have extra people on the farm (particularly during our two week live-in PDCs), we needed another shower with good hot water. So began our compost-powered shower journey.

Hot showers for all

Since our original trial we have made about a dozen compost heaps to power showers, the best of which gave us five months of continuous hot water. It is joy to stand under a warm shower knowing you are benefitting from the energy and compost cycle, and watching the run-off flow onto the citrus.

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Noticeboard

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and opportunities. We in the permaculture community have a key role to play in both mending the present and creating our preferable future.

To be part of this future we need to take stock of where we are as a design system. That’s why Australia’s permaculture community of practitioners is coming together in March on the shores of Bass Strait in beautiful Penguin, Tasmania, for APC12. Here we will reflect, take stock and re-imagine permaculture’s role in a future that can be different from the usual depressing, business as usual scenario, and energise ourselves for the tasks ahead.

APC12 will be a space for us to meet, re-connect, affirm each other, debate, learn, argue, inspire and re-energise ourselves for the hard work we all do to make the world a better place.

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Hugh Gravestein: Builder

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HG Eco-logic Constructions is about building quality and beautiful homes that work for our clients, the people who will live in them. Our focus is on creating a climate – in both house and site – that is comfortable, and is achieved through passive energy and efficient design.

We have a team of designers and tradespeople committed to creating quality energy efficient houses that complement the landscape.

What is the main philosophy behind your building work?

The main philosophy is to build and integrate a quality home into the environment, with the aim of reducing energy consumption through design, construction and landscaping.

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Pip Picks

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David Holmgren’s book Permaculture: principles & pathways beyond sustainability (2002) is still in demand around the world. With editions now in ten languages, it is reaching more people than ever. The new e-book format allows people to carry it with them anywhere. Another advantage of this format is that the website links (and there are many) have been updated; with a web connected device you can look up the references instantly. And the footnotes are linked throughout the text. This e-book will enable people in countries where postage costs are prohibitive to finally get hold of David’s book at an affordable price.

The e-book is available in e-pub format for $19 from www.holmgren.com.au

We are also selling printed copies in our shop at www.pipmagazine.com.au

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Claudia Echeverria: Eco-Social Entrepreneur

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Claudia Echeverria is a teacher and facilitator based in the Blue Mountains, near Sydney. Her work involves various disciplines, groups, partnerships and businesses; heart, hands and nature are the common themes.

Claudia is the founder and designer of, and environmental educator at, Wild Wovenforms Eco-design Studio; and the founder and director of, and teacher at, Kundalini Yoga Radiance – yoga, sacred art and sound therapy. Recently she’s been establishing her office based on concepts such as natural architecture, integrated environmental design and regenerative landscapes.

Locally Claudia has: been joint coordinator of Permaculture Blue Mountains; volunteered in coastal bushcare, growing food at the Katoomba Organic Community Garden; and organised several monthly sustainability talks, mainly focused on growing food, natural building and eco-literacy. Recently she began ‘Talking country’, a cultural awareness series in collaboration with her teacher Uncle Des Dyer elder from the Darug nation, inviting people to walk the land on Aboriginal sites, and helping them understand about local culture and bush tucker, Dreamtime stories and the ways of traditional custodians.

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Declutter Your Life

declutter-life

The garden is a good place to start doing permaculture. But Bill Mollison would be shaking his head in dismay if it stopped there, behind a little fence: ‘Poor bastards’, he’d be saying.

From the beginning, permaculture has been something to apply to every area of life: architecture, economics and community building. So why are permaculture books almost entirely about land use? Give Bill a break; he’s been roughing it on the road, too busy spreading his message to get good at the nesting side of things. He gave us a blueprint, a set of design principles that work, no matter where you use them; now he’s waiting for us to write the next generation of permaculture books. Like everyone else, most of your joys and sorrows come from your home life and relationships. Home: that’s the place for your best permaculture.

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Permaculture Around The World

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Not far from the north-western coast of Italy, near the French border, is a beautiful and fascinating ecovillage created out of a crumbling medieval village. The Torri Superiore Cultural Association was founded in 1989 to restore and re-inhabit the abandoned village and create a cultural centre.

Torri was an early adopter of permaculture in Italy, and continues to lead permaculture education programs. The restored stone village is surrounded by farming terraces, many of which the Association manages as permaculture gardens and orchards. It also tends free range chickens and produces many homemade products such as bread, pasta, olive oil, honey, jam, yogurt, ice-cream, culinary herbs and herbal teas. To produce the olive oil, the Association worked with neighbours and the local community to restore the old water-powered olive press in a nearby town.

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House of Cupboards

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When Sunny Wilder (architect) and Nicholas Coyle (furniture designer/maker) moved their thriving timber furniture making business from Melbourne to Pambula, on the far south coast of NSW, they wanted to build a house that combined their skills and included a lot of storage. ‘We have always liked the idea of prefabricated houses, but have seen that they are limited by their size and scale if they are the type that arrive fully finished on the back of a truck. Most prefabricated houses of this type also require easy site access and crane hire, which is not always suitable for tight urban spaces or remote areas. And prefabricated houses usually lack the timber detailing, warmth and individuality of an architecturally designed house’, says Sunny.

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Natural Farming In The Family

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Symphony Farm, at Tilba on the far south coast of New South Wales, is an integrated beef, pork, chicken and egg farm, run by Mandy and Graham Thompson with their five children, Brohdan, Denham, Huon, Heath and Sarah.

Mandy and Graham were raised on farms, and realised early on that conventional farming practices are not what people, animals or the planet need. Mandy’s father was inclined towards natural farming practices on the family’s diverse thirteen acres, and it was here that Mandy learned the benefits of recycling systems, compost and closed loops: ‘everything was balanced and healthy’, she says.

Graham was also introduced to the benefits of natural farming practices, for the health of people and the land, at an early age. Working on conventional farms as a teen forced him to question if there wasn’t a better way to grow food. Now he follows his instincts when dealing with problems on the farm, and farms without chemicals.

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Nat Wiseman: Wagtail Urban Farm

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Steven Hoepfner, Brett Young and I set up Wagtail in 2013. After completing an internship with Allsun Farm (near Gundaroo NSW) in 2011, my partner and I started looking for land in Adelaide to start up a small urban farm. Steven joined an urban farming interest group I’d set up, and mentioned he’d been offered land in Mitchell Park, about ten kilometres from the CBD. Along with Brett, we decided to start Wagtail together.

What inspired you?

The idea of trying to make a livelihood from growing vegetables in the suburbs; to see if we could make it work on a small scale and learn from our mistakes before we started something bigger.

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