What has happened to our expectations to grow food?

Every day at the moment governments are making announcements about budgets, taxes, welfare, childcare, big and small business incentives, superannuation, mental health, hospital spending etc etc but never, ever do they broach the subject of self-sufficiency or self-reliance as goals for Australians. It is politically incorrect to expect people to get out and grow their food, join a community garden and become skilled in relying on themselves. However, the simple act of doing this would, to a large extent, overcome many of our national woes.

I enjoy learning about the ancient and more recent history of civilisations and their foods. Up until almost the 21st century, almost every person on earth either grew some food or had relatives that did. Stop and think about that for a moment….. your parents and / or grandparents no doubt fitted this statement and had vegetable gardens and fruit trees in the back yard. In only one or 2 generations people have started to rely on others, unknown and as far away as the other side of the world, to provide nourishment for their families. At the same time, there has been a huge increase in obesity, depression, stress-related, chemical-residue related  and diet-related illnesses.

Interestingly, growing food has become a middle-class activity, seen as something you do in your spare time, after you have bought all the accoutrements that modern-day food gardeners seem to “need” such as raised garden beds and soil (as though the soil in the ground is not good enough these days!).

I am reading a wonderful book, given to me by my fabulous neighbour, Jilly, who recently blew in, in full wet weather gear, in the midst of the coldest and wettest day this year. We sat by the fire and talked for 2 hours, sharing interesting snippets about books, gardening and life. We seem to get together only about once a year but Jilly’s amazing knowledge of plants, history and everything in between keep me inspired until our next coffee. I now look at the old lino pattern on my kitchen floor as steeped in history, instead of annoying!

The book is called “The Nature of Gardens” and is a collection of essays brought together by Peter Timms. It sounds dry and just another intellectual, middle class look at garden design etc but I assure you it is not. I recommend it to anyone who has read this far through this blog piece!!

The first essay and my mother’s stories of life during The Depression have brought me to my laptop to write about the recent past’s expectation that you grew as much as you could and the poorer you were, the more you grew. If your job was not well paid or not permanent, you at least knew your family was going to eat well. This essay points out the interesting fact that when workers in the mines and in the coal and steel industries went on strike in Newcastle, NSW it was prolonged affair and they would not relent. This was possible because these same men all had food gardens so, even with no income, their families ate well. In fact, the free time afforded them because of the strikes meant that jobs in the garden and around the house could be done, and vegetable gardens better tended than usual. This is called resilience and is sorely lacking today.

If I had one day to rule this country, I would insist that welfare would include assistance for you to learn to grow food and even an insistence that you join a community garden where you would gain not just hands-on know how but broaden your social circle and gain a sense of community and self resilience. I know from experience how beneficial food gardening with others is to every single person who joins a community garden. But I also know that insisting people do something is not the best way to get them to do it! People who are transient and those who have short or long term rental are given a place to base themselves by belonging to a community garden. Once you get into a community garden then, even if you move, you take with you the confidence to find another, wherever you go. It is like having an extended family; always there and ready to nourish your body and soul.

At the Cygnet Community Garden we donate fresh vegetables weekly to the Uniting Care Food Aid in the same street as the community garden but I want to offer to walk with the recipients, one at a time, to the community garden and invite them, quietly and without preaching to them, to come along. This is my new goal….. if you have any helpful ideas of how to make this small gesture work please feel free to share them with me.

Cabbages and Convicts

We see history all around us; monuments to lives lived and lives lost. Cities brimming with entrepreneurial enterprise has made them what they are and the history of their eras is in every building, every business, every museum, every suburban street and every bridge. The everyday lives of people in our collective histories are in our minds as lives of families, villages, farms and armies, punctuated by events and remarkable individuals.

It is with quite some mental adjustment to live in a state (almost like another country, in reality) where convicts formed a great part of the white man’s history. Shipped to the other side of the world for crimes as small as stealing bread to feed a child and as big as murder, men and women thrust together in gangs built the infrastructure and were the manpower involved in businesses and life in Tasmania, at the very bottom of the world.

Today a great number of its inhabitants are descended from convicts and this itself is a deep and sometimes hidden side of family history. It was recently quoted that as many as 80% of those Tasmanians descended from convicts have never been outside Tasmania, even to this day. This makes for a far different place from the rest of Australia and a place where I feel a foreigner in some regards.

My travels by foot and kayak into the depths of its beautiful environments often leaves me speechless, for more than just the scenery; cabbages loom large! Before roads could reach these areas, boats and ships plied the seas and rivers, carrying tons of logs destined for England and the British Navy who needed timber for ship building, carrying minerals mined for manufacturing the construction of life in Tasmania and in Britain and carrying convicts to do the work. Do you ever think how they fed the convicts doing this toil, stationed in the remote wilderness?

I have been on the edge of the wild, south-west Tasmania world heritage area, mesmerized by sea eagles, grebes, dolphins and seals, by mountain ranges draped in soft sheets of cloud, by forests full of the fresh scents of wild Tasmanian plant life and then I am told that where I am standing was once cleared and planted with 5,000 cabbages to feed the convicts. Further on I am told that after serving time and gaining a ticket of leave, a convict had a very successful import / export business right here, shipping out timber etc and bringing in supplies for a town that grew to 500 people, mostly convicts. All this, where I thought was pristine wilderness at the bottom of the world.

There is a group of 3 islands just off the beach at Dover. I have paddled my kayak around one of them on a glorious summer’s day, feeling the sun on my back and revelling in the joy of being out in wild, southern Tasmania. Again my head is abruptly sent spinning when I am told that here too, on the next island, thousands of cabbages were grown by and for the convicts.

I would like to learn more about feeding the gangs of convicts and about the individuals who were the gardeners and farmers; about how they chose a site, how they managed the soil and what seeds they used. Some Tasmanian families probably are still growing cabbages and other vegetables from those seeds. I’d love to meet them and hear their stories. I’d especially love to have some of the seeds, the seeds of civilisation in Tasmania, and sow them in the Cygnet community garden.

Rainy day musings and icy strawberries

It reached 7C for a short time, on my verandah today, with rain and hail lashing the windows first on the front of the house and then the back. The dairy cows in the paddock just beyond my lounge room window huddled under the oak trees that hang over the fence from my garden. As 8 sourdough workshop participants left my house, with bowls of dough to bake, thunder crashed and the wind howled like in an episode of Midsomer Murders, just before the first murder! Since then it has been a great day to be inside enjoying the warmth of a fire; after all, this is 43 degrees south; plumb in the middle of the roaring 40’s.

On such days it is nice to wander inside your head and hear what you have to say! It is also nice to listen to live radio or podcasts and hear what other people are saying about topics that interest you, all over the world. I listened to a lovely thing about a man who climbs trees and his expedition to Morocco to climb Atlas Cedar trees, under threat from over-grazing and an extremely dry decade. He took a hammock up 50m to the top of one tree and slept there. I love the bit about the tiny spider that let itself down its silk, next to him, and we both wondered about how that spider got up there and how long is its silk. It was enlightening to hear that fencing has been erected around some areas to keep sheep out. Is nowhere safe from destruction?

I listened to another about the inside of the heads of adolescents and what research is revealing. I wish I had known some of this when my sons were growing up!

My favourite, and the one that got me sitting here writing, was about vertical and roof gardens in Sydney and how the council even has an officer for such things whose job is to promote green spaces up and over as many Sydney buildings as possible. There is a lot more to it than you think so, if you can, have a look at the photos and listen to it here. In fact it was such a good, in-depth discussion that it brought a tear my eye to think that, amongst all the bad stuff we hear about these days, our very own large, Australian city of Sydney is reaching for some outside the square stars. Or maybe, finally, such innovative thinking is becoming mainstream in enlightened areas….. sadly not so here in the Huon Valley Council zone of Tasmania, however!

As I sat in front of the fire doing a bit of yoga and then started preparing dinner, I listened to myself. I said a lot of things and most of them were about 2 topics; relationships and food! If you can get them both right, you will be very healthy and very happy. I nipped outside during a patch of sunshine to pick some parsley and mint to make chermoula for my fish tagine and my eye was caught by a skerrick of red under a leaf; a luscious, late, deep red strawberry. The sky darkened again and it felt more like evening than 2pm but I stood and savoured that rich strawberry flavour, probably the best for the whole season. It felt so good, all over.

And to think that a moment before, I was listening to a woman picking strawberries out the window about 10 stories up a building in Sydney, with a smile in her voice. Snap. There is so much more to food gardening than just the food.

Gangster Gardening

Humbled by this real life story I feel I am spinning my wheels and not going anywhere, while in the food desert of south LA, this man is making it happen. What I so much want to do is unite people in a desire to bring food gardens to the streets and so to the gardens, homes and kitchens of Cygnet. The whole point is to make people healthy and responsible for themselves because in doing that, the whole planet will benefit. And, when it comes down to it, that is what I care about most.

 

Sure, I have a cute little patch of ground at the Cygnet Library that is a fabulous start and which I am unashamedly proud of. Everything to do with the effect that this patch has on our community is positive and, at times, quite remarkable. Linking food growing to the library connects people on neutral territory; with no age, sex, political or social barriers. Accidentally we have found a brilliant way of influencing everyone who reads as the library system of Tasmania is a model that should be adopted everywhere.

This man, however, is influencing those most in need of change and often these are the people who don’t or can’t read. These are people who don’t have a garden, don’t know about chia seeds, fish oil, organic carrots or detoxifying your liver. While I am doing superficial stuff in a rustic, gourmet little town he is turning gangsters into gardeners and giving people their health so they can make choices and move away from the fast food nightmare.

In a few weeks I am taking a tentative step into the equivalent of his world, here in Cygnet, when a group of mostly women, who have lived here all their lives, some of aboriginal decent but all suffering many health issues, come to my garden. Some probably can’t read. Over a couple of hours we will look, touch, smell and pick a few things then go in to my kitchen and make some soup which we will eat with some home made bread. I have no concept of how this will pan out but I hope that, in some small way, it sows a seed in someone’s mind. And I sure hope that I feel inspired to continue on trying to connect people and their food, through gardening.

Farmers as energy producers: World Bioenergy 2014 conference

An email I just received has highlighted the dichotomy of 20th century progress vs  21st century progress. Australia has sadly just voted in the former, while many European countries, including Sweden, are leading the way in the latter. The information below shows just what can be done and is worth reading. I did not know any of this before. We are very lucky that one of the 4 Australians going to this conference lives in Cygnet!

While we should be hearing from government and media the good facts on development elsewhere of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and the jobs and benefits that can come from this, it is unfortunately rarely the case.  Granted ABC radio carries the occasional story, and the regional press, but by comparison with coverage of football, movies, fashion, or pop celebrities, it is as nothing.

Consequently, Sweden is not a country we hear a lot about in regard to its achievements in reducing national and per-capita greenhouse gas emissions by development of renewable energy, public transport and energy efficiency. We don’t hear about the simple and effective carbon tax implemented in 1991, we don’t hear about the 2003 legislation banning landfilling of municipal waste, and we don’t hear that now biomass is the greatest source of the country’s final energy (the combined total of energy utilised across electricity, heat energy and transport fuels), significantly exceeding either fossil or nuclear energy.

We don’t hear that in this country, that is double the population and the size of Victoria, that the per-capita GHG emissions are only about 6 tonne CO2-e, about half that of Europe (11 tonne) and a quarter that of Australia (about 28 tonne). We don’t hear that almost half of all new cars sold in Sweden are able to run on the low emission fuels of ethanol, bio-methane or biodiesel. We don’t hear that of Sweden’s final energy (energy actually utilised), renewable energy currently makes up over 46%, with 34% of this from biomass, 10% from hydro and only 2% from wind.

And we don’t hear of Sweden’s target for cessation of imports of fossil fuels of any type by 2030. This includes coal, fuel oils and fossil-sourced transport fuels. Already in Sweden’s largest cities of Stockholm, Goteborg, Malmö and Uppsala, municipal fleets run on upgraded biogas, and city buses are running on either 100% ethanol, or biomethane, or in some cases, a methane-natural gas mix.

In early July the World Bioenergy 2014 conference takes place in Sweden. No Australians from state or federal government departments are likely to be there (none have attended this biennial conference since the first in 2004), or from conservation groups, energy companies, consultancies, universities or manufacturing industry. However this year Australia will be represented by three or four people. These are the writer of this piece (who has got to the last four), a local government councillor from Tasmania, and a person involved with community, farm forestry and landcare in northern Victoria.

The most energy-efficient way to access the conference city of Jönköping (pronounced Yernsherping) is by train from Stockholm. The first part of this four-hour journey is in an electric intercity train cruising smoothly at about 160 km/hr and tilting on the curves. If you don’t know when to look you would miss seeing the new biomass and waste-fuelled combined-heat-and-power (CHP) plant just south of Stockholm at Södertailje. One of many in planning or being constructed, this is fuelled by chipped forestry thinnings and residues and municipal solid waste. As well as putting 88 megawatts (MW) of electricity into the national grid it provides up to 200 MW of district heating into southern Stockholm’s apartment buildings and industry.

The train passes through a number of cities of under 100,00 population, each of which has power and heat coming from woody biomass, or from combustible non-recyclable municipal wastes, or with separate furnaces designed to be fuelled by each but supplying a common turbine-generator setup.

The oldest of these CHP plants is where you change trains at Nassjö to the train on the spur line to the conference city of Jönköping. This small CHP plant built in 1984 was Sweden’s first purpose-designed woodchip-fuelled plant. It supplies this small city of 20,000 with all its electricity and heat needs, and the ash from the furnaces is spread back in the forests where the fuel of woody residues came from. In smaller and larger cities, the putrescible (wet organic) wastes including sewage go into anaerobic digestors, which might produce only upgraded biogas for transport fuel or to go into the natural gas grid, or only heat and electricity, or both. At Linköping, one of the cities we pass, upgraded biogas fuels a regular freight train service.

The 3-day conference at Jönköping is widely known as possibly the best of its type in the world, attracting up to 1100 people from up to 60 countries. Presentations cover the full array of bioenergy technologies at all scales, that utilise one of the many feedstocks to produce electricity, heat and transport fuels, and other products, and cover all aspects of economics, environmental benefit, policy and sustainability. This year there is a parallel conference on bio-refineries, and so the products being talked about will include industrial chemicals, including substitutes for most petrochemicals.

Jönköping is a great place to have this conference for other reasons. Conference participants can visit the modernistic Torsvik waste-to-energy plant located 13 km outside the city. This annually turns 160,000 tonnes of sorted combustible municipal waste into 30% of the city’s electricity and 50% of its peak winter heat needs. Within the city they can visit the anerobic digestor that converts the population’s putrescibles wastes into upgraded biogas for the municipal fleet and private vehicles. Or they can take an afternoon bus tour to the nearby city of Växjö, rated as ‘Europe’s greenest city’, with its per-capita GHG emissions of under 3.5 tonne. Here over 80% of the municipal population’s domestic, commercial and industrial energy needs, including transport fuel and cooling, are sourced from biomass and waste streams produced in the municipality. Other afternoon excursions go to other bioenergy plants of all types, from small pellet producers to anaerobic digestors converting cow manure to biogas.

While I realise that not all of this biomass in Sweden is coming from farmers (much is coming from urban housholds), in Australia farmers would be a major source for much of this, just as they are in Germany and many other regions (i.e., China and India).
So to help fund the people going to the conference I have entered a project called ‘Farmers as energy producers’ into a competition to win $10,000. I ask all who have read this to go to the website http://www.greatstateofag.com.au/coles-seed-fund/farmers-becoming-energy-producers and vote for this entry. While three of us are presently going I hope it becomes more, and I am looking for others from among renewable energy groups, the Greens, EPA, Sustainability Vic, or local government.

The Singing Swans are born!

Cygnet Sailing Club’s 150th Regatta…. Everything, from the tiniest rowing and sailing boats, through every shape, size and age boats to these gorgeous ships will be in Cygnet this week!

This morning the autumn mist sat on the hills, the sea was glassy calm and the weather mild as we set off rowing our skiff, 6 women, some who built her too. We started to sing! Our ideas and courage grew as we rowed…. we formed The Singing Swans… one of the group is going to teach us sea shanties and we will sing our way up and down the Tasmanian waterways, every Monday morning!!

Life is good. Again. At last.

Re-inventing the art of sock making, in Tasmania

I have seen Mongrel Socks in a local shop in Cygnet but had no idea about the story behind them until now…... I bought some for my mother last winter and she LOVES them.

A couple of pre-World War Two era knitting machines, a cappuccino steamer and some experimentation can make a business.

Helen and Laurie Timms used to sell woollen socks in Hobart that had been made in Launceston at the Tamar Knitting Mills.

When that factory closed down, rather than buy socks from interstate, the Timms decided to have a go with making the socks themselves to sell.

To do this, the Timms needed some knitting machines. So they bought two old models from the Tamar Knitting Mills.

"We got friendly with the manager and we used to sell the socks they made on the machines," says Laurie.

The Timms bought two of the machines, one made in 1927 and one in 1930.

"Took us two years to get the second one going and it turned out to be a very simple small part," says Laurie.

The machines chug away in the Timms' shed in Cambridge now, making a pair of socks in 10 minutes, producing the socks a string, like sausages.

When they took the machines the Timms knew nothing about making the socks.

"We thought 'How hard could it be?' and it was really, really hard," says Helen.

The socks they make are made with pure wool with some nylon in the heel to make them long wearing, but other than that the socks are pretty much just the same as when the machines were new, close to 100 years ago.

Once the socks are knitted, there's a bit of sewing around the toes and the socks are steamed, to shrink the wool so the socks don't shrink when you buy them and wash them.

The steaming is done by hand, using a coffee machine they bought in Hobart.

The name of the Timms' company, Mongrel Socks, has come to have two meanings.

"The name for the product came about because of the nature of the multicoloured knit, so it's a real mixture, a mongrel," explains Helen.

"But actually it has turned out to be much more descriptive of the machinery. It's given us merry hell."

Despite the problems the Timms had in the first two years, and the fact that replacement parts have to be improvised or custom made, they have no plans to modernise the machinery.

There's little point, explains Laurie, as the newer machines work in rather than same way anyway, only using computer programs and perhaps working a little faster.

But the Timms don't plan to mass produce their mongrel socks.

"Tasmania can't compete on mass produced items, so we really have to target niches," says Helen.

It did take the Timms a bit of searching to be able to find a Tasmanian wool supplier, becase all the best wool was sold overseas before local producers could get it.

But they've currently got a local wool supplier, producing certified Tasmanian, non-mulesed merino wool, adding to the Tasmanian nicheness of the socks and small business.

Interview with Helen and Laurie Timms by Jo Spargo, featured on Your Afternoon.

In case you don’t have a garden….

but you have a can….. and no can opener…. this could be VERY useful next time you go camping!

Liquid feeds from your garden

I find that a regular dose of weak liquid feed helps tiny seedlings grow into strong plants.  I also use liquid feed for my citrus in large pots, for ailing plants, occasionally for fruiting plants like tomatoes and in my hothouse. But which one to choose!

Worm juice

Simply made by watering the worm farm, collecting the liquid, diluting it to a very weak tea look and watering the foliage and soil of young seedlings. My worm juice making device is a terracotta water filter from the tip shop. It lives on an upturned oil tin, in my hothouse. The worms are fed in the top section, with weeds and trimmings from the hothouse. I water it from time to time and this collects in the bottom. I then use the tap to drain some into a small watering can, and water my seedlings in the hot house. No fuss. No carrying of heavy buckets. The job takes 2 minutes.

Bad weeds

Onion grass, weeds carrying seeds, couch / twitch – pack densely into a barrel. Fill with water. You can also hang a kg or so of old manure in it (in old pantry hose or hessian) and add some wood ash and comfrey leaves if you want to. Cover well. Wait 2 weeks or more. Sure, it will smell when you take the lid off. Just before rain is forecast (so it washes the smell away) dip into it and dilute 1:10 in a watering can. Use this on established plants, shrubs and trees. Great for citrus, but don’t be tempted to make it stronger. Rather, use a weaker solution, more often.

Seaweed

Put some kelp or other seaweed in a bucket, fill with water and cover with a lid or something. I use a hessian bag. Keep it in the garden, near your vegetables. Dilute 1:10 and water transplanted seedlings, young fruit trees and anything in pots.

Stinging Nettles

A tonic for any plants looking a bit unwell. The silicon in nettles strengthens the cell walls and helps return vitality (also wonderful for people!) The amount you put in a bucket is determined by how much you have. The more concentrated you make it, the more you dilute it. I stick to about 1:10 for all these liquid feeds. Don’t be tempted into thinking more is better!

Comfrey

An undervalued resource in gardens. Make as for stinging nettle tea and use weekly on all your summer fruiting vegetables, such as tomatoes, cucumbers etc.

When I don’t have anything much at hand, I use Seasol or Marrawah Gold in place of the seaweed and Charlie Carp in place of the weed and manure brew. Charlie Carp makes use of the feral carp from the Murray River and this is a practice I applaud.

Making holes in an old bench for a new tool….

I am not anti-technology at all; otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here at my laptop writing this! I have all kinds of nifty gadgets and as many cables cluttering up my life as everybody else….. BUT there is a craze at the moment that I don’t like. It is the noisy kitchen machinery craze.

Everyone has a fan-forced oven and a rangehood and everyone is getting vitamixes and thermomixes, which whizz up everything in a matter of seconds and will even cook it for you. But these things are all soooooo noisy, even if only for a few seconds or a minute or two. I do not like noise. I love peace and quiet, especially when I am enjoying myself preparing food in the kitchen. I really love the gentle sound of grinding spices in my stone pestle and the hands on action means I can get the spices just how I want them, whilst getting some small amount of arm exercise too! Why go to the gym when you could be grinding spices instead?? (Looking at that photo I have now found the washer I thought I had swept up with the sawdust I created whilst drilling holes in my old bench to bolt down the new addition….)

Moreover, neither the vitamix nor the thermomix GRINDS things, it just cuts them up really small. Grinding has some health benefits, over cutting and the result of grinding is a much more natural food for our gut to deal with.

I also have a fruit, vegetable and wheat grass juicer which lives permanently attached to my kitchen table. It is really solid and an absolute delight to use. Being always there means I can grab an apple or 2, a couple of carrots and handful of wheatgrass and in a couple of minutes I have a fresh juice. It is really easy to clean too.

 

 

Well, now I have something new! A Retsel Little Ark seed, grain, coffee and spice mill. I am not going to grind kilograms of grains to make flours but rather do smaller jobs, like make fresh oatmeal, grind and blend spices for the market…… and grind coffee.

I am planning on doing all kinds of exciting things with this mill so stay tuned!!

And it makes a pleasant, natural sound as I turn that very long handle, well designed for human use. Again, it is  also excellent upper body exercise and the results are gut-friendly!

So, while I cook, whether I want to listen to wonderfully interesting podcasts or hear the birds outside the window or a friend knocking on the front door, it will all be lovely and quiet in my kitchen.

Life is yours to define. Get there fast then take it slow.

Is this what “inner transition” means?

What kind of brain do you need to make these? And how about the bird; she is definitely thinking outside the square! Thanks, Sally, for the email full of these ideas and more.

   

 

 

Today I listened to a wonderful podcast about curiosity; who has it and why, what it does to our lives, our brains and our children. You can listen to it here.

Inner Transition, the next stage of CIVIL-isation

Many towns and villages in the UK are already well progressed in their transition endeavours. You can explore the fabulous world of Totnes and Incredible Edible Todmorden, where whole populations have embraced a change of lifestyle which will enable every one of them to live comfortably and participate fully in a world with less stuff and more connections.

But what happens inside people when their external lives are transitioning? What internal state do we need to achieve in order to even begin contemplating transitioning? How do those who are ready help those who are not, to get ready? Is there something inside us, beyond transition, that will help us maintain and adapt, into the future?

These are some of the questions now being explored in some of the more advanced transition towns of the UK, in particular by a woman called Sophy Banks.

People who are stressed or displaced or faced with trauma all display a similar range of characteristics. This has been known for a hundred years or more. What is disturbing is that research shows that a great number of people worldwide are showing these symptoms even though their lives are not typical cases. It seems that just living a consumer lifestyle and working for a large corporation brings out the fight or flight mode in many people; making them defensive and argumentative. Moreover and even more worrying to me, is that when people are in this hectic lifestyle situation, their brains are actually incapable of broadening and their range of thoughts actually shrink. Decisions and opinions become black and white and their focus narrows.

For any change to happen peacefully, creatively and quickly people need to be open to all ideas, able to discuss and converse without animosity and to be able to see beyond today and themselves, to the future for humanity and the earth. The longer it is before the majority of people are participating in transition movements, the harder it will be to get the attention of those people still at the narrow, protective, argumentative, power-hungry stage. Their brains simply will not accept anything outside what they already have to deal with and they often feel threatened and unable to take action (which sadly seems to include members of most governments, who increasing are behaving in a very uncivil manner and refusing to take much needed action).

I think inner transition is akin to the Dalai Lama’s notion of inner peace and to the calm of meditation. When your brain ceases to be full of anxiety, worry, trauma and anger it is like a sponge, ready to soak up new ideas, ready to look outward and you are then ready to put your shoulder to a good cause. When the good cause actually reduces your stresses and makes you feel happy with your future, it is a win:win situation.

Life is good; get there fast then take it slow…. and don’t argue with those who say otherwise!

Raw milk in South Australia

I received this email and hope you can help to get South Australians you know to add their impetus to allowing cow share-holders access to raw milk from the cow. If any state can do this, it will be SA. Please do what you can.

 

Dear KATE

As an update to the situation in South Australia, I have been informed by Senator Mark Parnell that he is intending to introduce legislation into the South Australian parliament that would effectively ensure that share-herd operations are a legal means for people to access unprocessed milk.

This I suspect will be the first time an Australian parliament will have seen legislation that tries to ensure a legal avenue for people to have direct access to unprocessed milk.
It is important that those who support this cause make their voice heard now.

If you live in South Australia then write to your local representatives. If you don't, write to anyone who has anything to do with the place - like your batty old aunt who barracks for the Adelaide Crows, or your friend whose parents had their honeymoon in the Flinders Ranges!

Regards
Gordon Rouse

Rajlakshmi Organic Cotton

Conventional cotton cultivation uses almost 60% of all toxic chemicals produced in India.

When a whole village of farmers turns organic the benefits help everyone. It started with cotton and then food. Then the movement spread to 132 villages and 5,000 farmers!! 

To support these people you can buy organic cotton goods from New Internationalist. On the website you can read about all the stages of production and manufacture of all the clothes, linen and other cotton products sold by New Internationalist.

………“The transformation towards organic started sometime during 2007 when initially 39 farmers took to the sustainable practice. It took two more years for all the farmers to shift to organic. In 2001 American bollworm infestation was very high and even 15 sprays of toxic chemical pesticides wouldn’t help.

“Today, this village does not worry about pests on cotton. They use their simple, naturally made bio-pesticides to control any pest problems,” says Mr. Ananthoo, co- convener of ASHA —Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture — and coordinator of Safe Food Alliance, Tamil Nadu and an organisation called Restore in Chennai.

This was made possible by committed effort and intense dialogue with and amongst farmers by an organisation called Chetna organic. Based in Hyderabad, the organisation started a dialogue with the farmers and initiated the shift towards organic cultivation. Chetna Organic works with farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Odisha.

In Odisha alone, the company functions in five districts, having five co-operatives, operating in 132 villages, impacting more than 5,000 farmers who in turn are organized into 411 SHGs (self help groups).

While initially the focus was on cotton, today, all crops are cultivated only through organic methods….

Chetna Organic brought in much more than just sustainable agriculture. While mixed cropping, integrated approach, crop rotation, sustainable and biological practices and self-consumption-first were the focus, they also brought in very valuable principles like natural resources management, food and nutrition security, seed sovereignty, child welfare & education. Thus the whole idea of improving livelihoods with sustainable agriculture was approached in a holistic fashion,” says Mr. Ananthoo.

Worldwide radio and tv

I am now paying less for my internet than ever before and getting more. Consequently I am able to spread my wings and listen more often to wonderful, interesting, funny and educational radio from around the world, while I do indoor jobs. I’d be interested to hear of online radio stations that others could recommend.

I used to love Radio Aquitaine but I don’t think it is still running. It was a great station in English and French, depending on the topics and broadcasters; started by an Australian woman too!

BBC radio has some wonderful programmes and podcasts. I have just finished listening to one about food trends around the world. Not as dull as the title might sound, its worth getting your teeth into!

BBC Food programme: Provenance and pleasure, history and health - Radio 4's weekly look at food. Making sense of food, from the kitchen and canteen, to the farm and factory. We place food in its historical and cultural context; call to account policy makers and industry decision makers; and celebrate the sheer pleasure of good food.

I am soooooo tired of Tasmanian radio and the endless, narrow range of topics covered; from forestry to football and back again.

And when it comes to TV, I now love to stream from anywhere I can. I am delving into the Youtube station called BBC Worldwide. To overcome the problem of those outside the UK not being able to watch the enormous number of fabulous BBC broadcasts, they do it through Youtube. Brilliant! A long programme will be cut into parts but its no problem to watch it this way.

Now that I have an HDMI cable from my laptop to my new TV, literally the whole world is in my hands. It is a wonderful way to not just hear about what is happening overseas, in whatever field interests you, but to actually watch it or listen to it direct from that country, in their own words…. and that includes watching Gavin’s Monthly Podcasts, from The Greening of Gavin, in Victoria.

I want to find other stations but have not had time yet. Do tell me if you know of anything worth seeking out. Next I want to get a radio that can play via wifi so I can listen while I am in the garden too. I know they are available now but I need a battery operated one that will work quite some distance from my router.

Technology can be amazingly wonderful….. funny that I listen to digital, international radio while I sort my seeds, preserve lemons, run my little wholefoods business and generally live a very green life!

The Wooden Boats Festival 2013, Hobart

This little video puts you in the right mood …..

Above - Some of the wooden boats that were rowed or sailed on the 9 day journey from Recherche Bay, at the southern tip of Tasmania, to Hobart, for the festival.

Some square riggers and even a Portuguese pirate ship, lined the docks.

In all, over 500 wooden boats came to the festival from all over the world!

….including this wonderful motor boat.

I think this giant pirate came on the old, black ship….

 

 

….. with Sally!

It was fabulous to have Sally turn up quite unexpectedly, from Adelaide. We laughed an awful lot for 2 days…. and we did a wicked job on part of my garden too.

 

There were marquees and halls full of craftsmen and the wharves were covered in all manner of small wooden crafts for viewing or for sale, from dilapidated to immaculate. There were talks on Tasmanian timbers, talks on every aspect of wooden boat knowledge from one corner of the world or another, talks on adventures and adventurers….. and all free….. for 4 days… and the best samosas I have ever eaten!

If you intend to come to Tasmania one day, put The Wooden Boats Festival in your calendar for 2015 (every 2 years).

You can read more here.

The Bullitt Centre in Seattle….deep green

My dose of good, from Daily Good.

The new Bullitt Center, currently under construction in Seattle, combines virtually every possible green building technique. The six-story building is entirely powered by solar panels, putting to rest any doubts that solar power only works in sunny climates. It's heated naturally through geothermal wells. And all of the water used in the building comes from something Seattle has no shortage of: rainwater.

It's the first office building in the United States to use only harvested rainwater. A cistern holding up to 56,000 gallons of rainwater will be able to supply water throughout a 100-day drought. Harvesting rainwater was actually illegal in Seattle until two years ago, strangely, but the Bullitt Center hopes that eventually the opposite may be true; they're advocating that one day buildings should be required to use rainwater.

The building's also made from the most sustainable building materials on the market. The frame is made of FSC-certified wood, and the design completely avoids common hazardous materials like PVC, cadmium, lead, and mercury. When the planners couldn't find a sealant for the outside of the building that was free of phthalates, they actually worked with a company to make a brand new formulation.

The design also includes composting toilets, a green roof, and natural lighting. Basically, this building has it all. The owners are aiming to meet the requirements of the Living Building Challenge, an incredibly ambitious program that goes far beyond LEED. To reach that goal, the building has to not only use the best materials, but be self-sufficient for energy and water for at least 12 months.

The Bullitt Foundation hopes that the building will be an example throughout the region.

My dose of good, from Daily Good.

A Carnevale in my garden!

And so it was that the ABC Gardening Australia crew arrived on time at 9am yesterday to film a piece on seed saving with me; producer, camera man, sound man and Tino Carnevale, all exceptionally nice people, who treated my inexperience in such things with lots of smiles!

The filming started with Tino doing an introduction in my driveway…..

Then we moved into the garden, walking, talking and re-walking and re-talking now and then. That is the part I found hardest – thinking up a brilliant explanation in answer to one of Tino’s questions, then sometimes having to remember and repeat it!

It was wonderful to spend an entire day talking about what I love most, with Tino, who has the same way of thinking as me. It was like a spring board; allowing us to cover more ground than I thought possible, whilst at the same time doing the filming.

It was interesting to see the attention to detail that the producer, Albert, had. He made sure that every possible angle and shot was covered, before moving on. We had to contend with the raucous sound of hundreds or maybe thousands of frogs in the pond, 2 broody and upset geese and a chook yard full of chooks telling us they had laid eggs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But, lets step back a few days…. when, over the weekend, 13 friends from our seedsavers group, SeedSaveUs, turned up at various times to get my garden looking its best. I cannot thank them enough!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn’t all work though…. I made sure there was coffee, cake, soup and bread on hand at all times!

Gosh, 2.5 years here and soooo much has happened.

 

And here is Lenny, the man behind all the photos; the kind and gentle man who has helped me through….. a special thanks to you.

Life certainly is good.

ps I will put the screening date on here when I know!

From darkness….. light

 

From Roger Doiron at Kitchen Gardeners International….. gardeners helping gardeners

For gardeners in wealthy countries, it's easy to take for granted the psychological benefits that a garden can offer.  In springing from the ground, gardens offer a living metaphor for rebirth and a fresh start.  It was for this reason that KGI was so happy to be able to fund the Garden of Hope project in Goa, India.  Rather than tell this uplifting story in words, we'll leave it to the presentation to tell it in pictures.

Please watch the slide presentation, share it and help Sow it Forward….. it might just change your day….. and it could change someone else’s life.

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