Urban Permaculture Tour

Today we visited some urban Permaculture systems.

One of these is sustainability and community education centre in Byron Bay called the Island Quarry.

It is based on the site of an old bluestone quarry that hit a spring and closed down. The spring now fills an amazing body of water.

Owned by the commonwealth it is managed by a not for profit in trust an experiment that is quite unique to the world as far as they can see. This means at this stage there is an incredible amount of work that must go into integration of the council approval and applications processes.

It has been a long road for them, and they are building for the long term. A 25 year management plan is in place. Slow, small solutions have allowed this place to continue progressing through considerable challenges.

Now they are an avenue for considerable energy through work for the dole schemes, dept of corrections programs, and mutual obligation agreements. The ongoing community work is done by volunteers, where it serves as a place to foster connections and meet likeminded people. Several projects have seeded and germinated there and then been planted out in other places.

Interesting to see a charcoal maker in place to convert their considerable store of salvaged trees into a usable product. I’ve spoken a little bit about this biochar process before.

Expect to hear more about it - lots of potential in our context.

Changing the Pace:

We also visited a home scale garden that has been grown and tended by Wally for over 25 years!

He is over 90 now and still gardens six days a week (he takes a day off from work for the Lord). Growing beautiful broccolis, luscious lettuces, pineapples, tomatoes and more.

Enough for his wife, himself and most of his neighbours too in their ¼ acre block.

In a twist to the conventional home garden he fertilises it with his own composted humanure. A fine example of the principle of using biological resources.

Here is his composting chamber:

Giving amazing growth really considering the salty coastal sand that is the soil around his place.

He credits persistence in the garden, there is no lack of challenges on his block but he keeps at it and the results shine through.

This year birds have been a particular problem for him when he is out the front they duck out the back.

Gavin is an absolute inspiration, a testament to good design. In seven years he has completely regenerated the once paddock of his steep north easterly aspect block to a vibrant, massively productive Permaculture paradise. He has also built a beautiful house, travelled and worked internationally on numerous projects including tsunami relief and rebuilding in Aceh and is raising three kids. Fruit trees of all shapes, sizes and stages of maturity fill his designated zone he said he had to contain himself or it would have kept going down the hill. His home absolutely inspired me to check out Daily’s nursery in Kyogle. Fruit trees suit my kind of investment style, a lot of energy at the beginning and then consistent returns for a long, long time.

Organic Gardening Training

Organic Gardening at the Permaforest Trust in Barkers Vale

The trust maintains two main gardens; the commercial garden and the kitchen garden. These are both located on northerly slopes in the top ten “certified organic acres”. The soil is a heavy clay. They are both well fenced to keep out kangaroos and the bandicoots.

There are extensive systems in place for their management.

We worked on the top bed of the commercial garden; a green manure crop of lab lab had begun to flower and now was the time to turn it into the soils to prepare them for garlic which is to be planted in shortly. It was raining very heavily, but after just hearing the importance of sticking to a crop schedule we weren’t going to let that stop us.

We worked three pitchforks until the clay got too much for one of them and slowed our pace to just two.

While someone was turning it in, others with hoes pulled the beds back together. They have a tendency to want to slide down the slope. Terraces have been built in the kitchen garden to stop this and allow the topsoil to build without being washed away.

Once this was done, some dynamic lifter was added in the form of chook poo.

This raised an interesting point of disconnection for me. In the theory classroom we were told that the true store of enduring wealth is in the soil. To then actually go in the field and spread the cheapest, battery hen sourced, uncertified manure around felt a little out of touch.

As with all the things I hear, I pick out the gems, the bits that I know are special and apply them. We faced a similar issue on my own share when we had the opportunity to buy very cheap, high quality compost from the Lismore tip to build up some beds the caveat was that it had plastic through it.

I made the choice then to stick to my gut and not jump at the cheap fixes and lures along the way. We have been building our soils at home slowly, from natural organic, happy and healthy inputs. We know that the food that grows has its foundation that, which to us is priceless.

Update: Tryton Waste Services has been improving it’s processes and is now delivering excellent compost that is virtually free from plastics. We have bought some to try on our place.

After the beds were prepared we were shown the irrigation technique used. Three cut dripper pipes are run along the bed and mulched over. The cut faces up so the water spills over the sides. This is attached to a tap so each bed can be watered independently along the main line based on its needs. The new plants need shallow, regular watering. As they reach maturity, less frequent but deeper soaks are needed.

There are several other growth experiments going on at the trust. One that seems very successful is the banana guilds. They are a working model of sustainable companion polycultures. A large hole is dug in the ground.

Around it an arrowroot boarder is planted and banana plants and papayas. The bananas only do one season before suckering off a new baby.

These are all big biomass producers and their output is thrown into the middle where it breaks down into premium, soft, fertile soil. Here you can plant watermelons, pumpkins, warrigal greens or other similar ground crops. After 10 years when the hole is full a fruit tree is planted and thrives.

They form a beautiful protected and lush microclimate.

Mulching Fruit Trees

Mulching and Weeding the Fruit Trees.

There have been two large piles of woodchips at the front of Avalon for a few weeks. Slowly they have been shrinking. Today I joined in and collected two rubbish bins from other jobs around the block and made two trips filling them.
This gave me enough mulch for:

These trees are the citrus located at the top of the ridge; they are well established.

This poor lemon has been attacked by termites - Still going though!

These Trees are in the Orchard. A zone that has had a swale dug into it. This swale catches water runoff from the path down the side of the house and gives it time to soak into the ground where these trees can use it.

A huge white mulberry that fruits.

While at the Permaforest, Tim (our facilitator) mentioned that for the first metre while the trees are still young the grass is hyper competitive. Once the trees are away, they are able to shade out the grass but until then it is important to give them enough space.Some were immensely overgrown, while try to pull out the grass with my hands I was cut. There are still a few more to do. Some spots are so thick that gloves become essential.

This one is still to go.

Weeding, like cleaning gets exponentially more difficult the longer it is left. Thankfully with a few exceptions we have a full eucalypt canopy here. Growth here is quite healthy and even the areas we have left to nature seem quite balanced and happy.

Lismore

Composting for 30,000 people.

Here at the largest worm farm in the southern hemisphere. It is a trial joint-project between the Lismore city council and Triton. The council implemented a system of green bins, Recyclables and landfill. They then deliver the green waste collection to the complex.

The project started 15 years ago.

There are problems with some contamination. In the first year 12% of the input was contaminated. People were throwing moldy veg from the supermarket, plastic bag and all into the bins and into the system. Others were putting everything everywhere once the landfill bins were full.

Through a system of feedback, public education and integration of new biodegradable starch bags this has been reduced to 2% in the highest grade 4mm product that is sold today.

And it is rich!

This operation is large scale. We didn’t get to see it under a microscope.

That was the domain of a smaller scale business called Soil Food Web. Working with composting teas brewed on site they were doing research into the life forms that can number in the millions in a single teaspoon of soil.

They are off the grid. A stand alone solar system powers the lab and the pumping equipment.

When analysing healthy soils biology is intimately connected with the chemistry.

With the decline in availability of abundant oil and its family of products; the culture emerges that encourages a return to biological resources.

They zoom to up to 400x and count, by hand and eye the levels of three key families that live in healthy soils.

This level of work gives measurable information on the nature of what we do when developing soil health. Then give vital feedback when determining what to do next when healing land.

The cure-all is compost. Through a process of continuos aeration of a compost starter, molasses, oats and many other experimental ingredients that feed bacteria and fungus levels a super rich life juice is created that can inoculate large areas of land with benifitial soil organisms that balance the system.

To bring all this home; the marketplace.

Every Tuesday the Tweed Regional Organic Producers Organisaion (TROPO) holds an organic farmers market in the Lismore Showgrounds.

It is a friendly co-operative with a place to openly communicate the needs of the market amongst the growers.

There are two retail distributors allowed in the marker. One is there with the understanding he brings what the local market cannot provide, the other to take excess food at the end of the markets to be resold at another regional market up the coast.

Food is fresh, the greens picked only hours ago.

All store holders are certified, and display that at the stall. Questions about the produce can be asked directly to the person that grew it. They were happy to answer and told us about their gardens and their life as a grower.

Wholistically balanced soil is fertile and healthy. Healthy soils grow healthy food.

The Work Journal

As part of my Qualifications in Permaculture I have to meticulously record all the details of the work that I do. The course is competency based and differs from the old “listen - study - exams” model.
We are briefed on an actual project, shown an example and do the work. This way we gain actual practical experience and are able to assessed on the spot.

For this bush experience system to gel with the existing structure, the course is auspiced by a Registered Training Organization / TAFE. The facilitator needs to have comprehensive records so that they can present evidence to them in case of an audit.

For my own integration I am going to rewrite my notes, include any photos i’ve taken and publish them online here.

An example of Activity Based Training is Composting.

You can find it in the gardening category along the top.