This post shared with the permission of one of our members, Helen, highlights some of the discoveries and inspiration from a recent garden visit to Roscoe and Liz’s on mumirimina country (Lindisfarne).
Thanks Helen for the wonderful words and photos.
Thanks to Permaculture Australia who have compiled this handy guide, you can find a broad range of study options in Tasmania, further afield or online.
Partial Scholarships available to support your permaculture journey.
Up to two partial scholarships of $200 each are available for this upcoming part time Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course in Launceston commencing 13 Feb 2021.
Available to current financial members (excluding committee and their immediate family).
To apply, tell us in 2-3 paragraphs why you are a suitable scholarship applicant, and how you will use your new PDC skills to benefit the community.
Applications close Tuesday 26 Jan.
Good luck!
Growing from an idea raised at a local permaculture group event, members Robyn and Andrew started Waste Not Produce.
Waste Not Produce is a stall at the (then) weekly Margate Market selling excess produce from their own and other local gardens. Robyn and ANdrew donate their time and all proceeds from sales go to small local organisations, and so much good food is saved from going to waste in the process.
When their first venue at Margate Market stopped running Robyn and Andrew looked for new options to sell from. It didn’t take long and they continue spend a day harvesting or collecting from donors each week and another to set up and sell from their latest location the following day.
“Gardeners are happy that any excess garden produce will be used and locals love to get fresh produce, particularly if they don’t garden themselves. And community organisations are benefiting from the cash. It’s simple, and lovely. We enjoy it, and have met so many amazing people. We consider ourselves very fortunate to be able to do this.”
Recently Robyn shared this update:
“I’ve been collating the funds raised by Waste Not Produce/Waste Not Books, raffle and sausage sizzle over the last three markets at Woodbridge Hall and I’m very happy to report that we have donated a total of $1,966.90 to the Woodbridge School Association!
This has been a combined effort, with so many people giving garden produce, time, donations, providing moral support, buying produce and leaving the change…. many thanks to all concerned, up and down our beautiful Channel AND further afield.
We will be taking some fresh produce over to Mez at the Cygnet Community Hub this Friday 4th December to donate to local charities there, so if you have any garden surplus that you’d like to donate for that purpose, please let us know beforehand.
We will also be at the CYGNET CHRISTMAS GARDEN MARKET at THE CANNERY on SATURDAY 12th DECEMBER from 5pm. All funds raised at this market go to the ‘Community Refugee Sponsorship Initiative’ – providing comprehensive support to refugees wishing to move to the Huon Valley.
Please contact us if you have garden surplus to contribute to this market. The more we have, the more we sell and the more we donate.
Robyn Payne ph 0400 998037 and Andrew Geddes ph 0419 484010
Email – robyn.miles58@gmail.com
‘Waste Not Produce’”
By Alexia Thomson & Karen Hewitt
2020 has been a year of surprises – including a global gardening boom as COVID-19 made visible the fragility of our food supply systems. Many have turned to growing food to provide for our families, reduce our food miles and to boost mental health after far too many online meetings.
But what about those who have little or no topsoil, destructive pets, are renting or less mobile? Raised beds are a great option to make food gardening more accessible, and in order to promote them and begin fostering food security in the region, Transition Tamar (in conjunction with the West Tamar Council and in partnership with Tamar NRM) held two free workshops at the end of October and mid-November down at Windsor Community Gardens in Riverside to demonstrate the process of building raised beds and which easy-care seedlings participants could start their food-growing journey with.
Transition Tamar are part of the global Transition Network and a local group of Permaculture Tasmania, and only began organising early this year to work towards increasing community awareness and resilience in the face of climate change, biodiversity loss and the problems that are associated with them.
The community group will eventually have four showcase teaching beds down at the Windsor Community Gardens – the new beds (collaboratively designed, built and filled in conjunction with the West Tamar Council), are an affordable model for the home gardener to reproduce, whilst also complementing the design of existing pre-fabricated beds onsite.
These first two workshops looked at some of the many value-for-money and simple sleeper-bed designs, what soil mix to fill beds with and which easy-to-grow foods a beginner food gardener was pretty much guaranteed success with. Along with how to take care of plants going forward, the workshops were designed to be “one-stop shops“ to support householders starting on reaping the many benefits of growing their favourite foods and savouring the sweet taste of home-grown gardening success.
Early in the New Year, workshops demonstrating Wicking Bed construction and gardening for the summer months will run, to hopefully be followed up in Autumn with some preserving and/or mushroom growing workshops.
You can follow Transition Tamar’s Facebook page to be kept up to date with all their events, as they begin to realise their Vision for “Launceston and the Tamar Valley region to become a connected & resilient community through sustainable living, localised food production, circular economy and regenerative development.
At the end of November we joined Lisa on the foothills of kunanyi, nipaluna, on muwinina country (South Hobart). It was a wonderful opportunity to learn more about productive use of marginal spaces.There was so much to take in and here are just a few favourite elements of the visit.
Lisa welcomed us and recapped the known history of the land they are currently stewarding. She recalled the amount of advice received against settling in their location because it is a steep. south facing block that for two months of the year barely gets any sun on much of the garden area.
Clearly, Lisa and her partner Ant love a challenge and by gosh they have they risen to it!
Located on the sunniest part of the block, the house was originally from the North West Coast. The previous owners had it cut in half for transport and then reunited it on site in South Hobart. The roof is now home to solar panels that make the most of all the sun it receives year round.
(The practice of relocating houses is much more common on the mainland than Tasmania. Heather has previously written about her family’s house relocation here.)
Worm farms and weed fertiliser production occurs beside a pomegranate tree in a space that was once devoted to a clothesline and since removed.
And their washing? It is dried in the carport area, inside the house on raised lines or, if needed, our intrepid mountain dwellers strategically use a clothes drier during the daylight hours so it will be powered by their solar.
The margins beside the stairs up the slope are also home to scented herbs, flowers, shrubs and vines. Lisa keeps some of their gifts in her pocket when leaving home as their scent provides a bit of a nature boost during longer days working in an office or less delightful smelling places.
Throughout the walk and talk Lisa chatted to us about
– Gardens for wildlife
– Food forests
– Gardening in raised beds and how to keep them hydrated
(read more about the ollas in Helen’s linked post below)
– Top bar bee keeping
– Using green houses to extend your growing season
– Incorporating quail and chickens into your system
– Utilising our “waste” and that of others to nourish our soil
Lisa explained that when they first moved here, there were many canes of one kind of delicious raspberry. These produced fruit for two months of the year. By changing things up and diversifying raspberry varieties, their berry harvest period has been effectively extended to 6 months. Of course there’s also the added interest to their dessert bowls!
Lisa’s Zone Two includes a food forest and their happy chickens and quails.
Many leafy greens like kales, mizuna, mustards etc have made themselves comfy in the food forest. They self sow themselves there and this frees up more space in the annual beds for other veggies.
For specific shade tolerant vegetables and tips on growing them this post covers lots of what Lisa chatted about throughout the tour. I’ll add mention of Lisa’s tamarillo trees (not to be confused with tomatillo) and her chillean guava shrubs (ugni molinae) as food forest options that that can do very well in part shade and even less sun.
No get together is complete without a catch up cuppa, chat and the sharing of surplus which the group enjoyed before heading home with full arms, heads and hearts!
Massive thankyou to Lisa for organising and hosting a wonderful visit to her permie patch! You can read another perpective on this visit from PT member Helen here.
Permaculture Tasmania (PT) was one of several informational stall holders at the Clarence Climate Action Community Expo on Saturday 17 Nov.
The event, that brought together around 100 people, was a first for Clarence and judging by the number of positive responses and lingering attendees, it won’t be the last.
After a pretty special Acknowledgment of Country from Janice and Jamie from Seedmob, the engaging lineup of speakers were informative and diverse in topic.
Alternative economies was the PT stall theme for the day. Katie and Gemma from the Eastern Shore/Hobart Local Group chatted to folks about different opportunities available in communities to share resources, skills and time for getting things done – without depending solely on dollars for everything.
There was no shortage of examples:
Community Exchange Network Tasmania (CENTs)
Repair Cafes Hobart Repair Cafe
Tool Libraries &
Libraries of other things Hey Fritz
Seed Banks Cygnet Seed Library
Produce & Surplus swapmeets / Crop Swaps
Work Exchanges ~ wwoofing / help-xing
Gifting
~ Little Free Pantries/Produce Stalls
~ Buy Nothing Groups or Good Karma Groups
~ Street or Little Libraries
PT would love to hear of local Tasmanian examples of alternative economies you have seen or participated in that help build individual and community resilience where you live or work.
Tag us on Facebook, drop us a line – or even better a pic and a line, so we can share the inspiration with our members!
Do you love sharing useful and motivating info/news?
Are you switched on to social media (IG or FB fluent)?
Do you know your way around newsletters or Mailchimp? Or perhaps you enjoy writing copy for eNews or the web?
Or have you had experience with WordPress websites? Or would you like to gain some?
Perhaps you excel at connecting groups, sharing info and keeping people in the loop?
If any of the above contributions caught your imagination and you have 1-2 hours/week to volunteer, read on….
PT is on the look out for at least 2 awesome committee members. We’re looking for folks who can help share the communications load (and love) more widely.
Permaculture experience is desirable but having some understanding of permaculture’s breadth, beyond the garden, is a great starting point too. More importantly you are keen to learn, share information and skills, and do good things!
Interested? Email permaculturetasmania@gmail.com and tell us a little more about your particular interest/skills and provide a couple of examples (where relevant to your area of interest).
Then let’s chat further!
It was great to meet and catch up with everyone who attended the Permaculture Tasmania (PT) Annual General Meeting at RESEED on Saturday 19 September. The AGM Meeting video, Minutes and Reports are available to members through the members portal.
News from the day includes welcoming Melissa Thurling and James Cleave to the PT Committee.
Melissa joins us as Secretary (commencing in early November) and James’ ongoing work on our website development and tech support at events has been formalised as he officially joins the PT crew. We look forward to further introducing Melissa and James to the membership.
AGM proceedings and discussions on the day highlighted that our volunteers are committed to providing members with ongoing value in 2021 and beyond. Amidst challenges of covid times, this will include the invitation to our membership for greater input on PT’s direction going forward.
For now the role of president remains vacant. Details about the role are available here if you are keen to get involved with bringing about these changes. And we are thrilled to have a nominee available in the new year if the role remains vacant at that time.
We shall advertise for expressions of interest in committee roles assisting with communication through social media, our website and newsletter so stay tuned 🙂
If you missed the RESEED taster tour that followed the AGM you can still catch it on our YouTube channel here.
Two enjoyable afternoon discussion sessions – alternative economies (led by Nick Towle and Robin Krabbe) & permaculture and climate change (led by Nick Towle and Caroline Smith) provided thought provoking ideas, lively discussion and resources for follow up.
An enormous thanks once again to Nick, Michelle and the awesome team at RESEED for hosting us, providing an incredible homemade lunch and refreshments offering, all within covid safe guideline! What legends.
You can read more about RESEED here.
Meet Hobart/Eastern Shore local group members, Sam and Emily, featured in the most recent of PIP magazine #17. Even more recently Sam and Emily hosted a property tour for group members who were interested in seeing a permaculture design making its way from paper to reality.
Sam and Emily walked us through the many elements of their permaculture design, created with them by Good Life Permaculture, for their suburban property. They discussed implementation of the design and the different challenges and solutions used to over come them.
Eastern Shore Local Group member (and long time blogger) Helen has written about the visit with photos included. Here is the first of three posts Helen has written for her blog. Happy virtual visiting!