Cream of the Crop Vegetable Gardens

Just dreaming a little….. click on the little arrows at the bottom left of the first photo to see lots more.

Cream-of-the-Crop Vegetable Gardens

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.

Inspirations: Vegetable Seeds for Cool Growers

There are some amazingly interesting and wonderful people in Tasmania. It really is like another country, rather than another state of Australia. I am struggling to explain concisely what it is that makes it seem this way but it has to do with a history of isolation and necessity being the mother of invention and self-sufficiency.

Up north in the Tamar Valley are a couple of blokes passionate about beans, who have been trialling varieties from all over the world in an attempt to find those which will produce well in the cool climate of Tasmania. Currently they grow over 100 varieties!! The purpose is to make them available for home gardeners to grow and people to cook and eat. One of the newsletters went into the health reasons for eating beans of different colours. What these blokes know about beans is staggering.

Every month they write a newsletter about what they have been doing and when we might be able to buy the new seeds they are producing in quantities big enough to sell to home gardeners. I find it all incredibly inspiring. I have spoken on the phone to the man who runs the nursery and one day I will go and meet them. It reminds me of somewhere I went in France where a man did a similar thing with pumpkin varieties…. but the name of the place has slipped my mind now.

They do all sorts of research into other vegetables too, always with the home gardener in mind.

Tasmania, actually, is not dissimilar to France in the way that it has remained totally itself and has not been over-run by agri-business or any other big business but is full of small enterprises and individuals making the most of what they have in their area. I love this way of life dearly and would not now want to live anywhere different.

Here is the latest newsletter from Inspiration Seeds.

Here is another newsletter concentrating on the health and vitality of beans, fresh and dried.

Life is good.

Growing buckwheat between the vines in NZ

Managing biodiversity when growing a monoculture crop is not something every vigneron thinks of doing but there are benefits for the quality of the crop, for the farmers and for those who drink the final result.

This piece is taken from an excellent website called stuff.co.nz

At Te Whare Ra Estate in Renwick, near Blenheim, (north east of the South Island) owners Jason and Anna Flowerday have found an innovative way to use the space between their vine rows - they've planted buckwheat.

Although a strange sight to visitors driving past the rows on the way to the cellar door, growing buckwheat on alternate vine rows had a range of benefits and was a natural way to glean optimum conditions for grapegrowing, Mrs Flowerday said.

The vine rows had about 3 metres of space between them, about 10 hectares of land.

"For us, it's a big area between the vine rows," Mrs Flowerday said.

"So it's about creating something effective for the best use of the land."

Among other species, buckwheat attracted small native wasps by the name of Dolichogenidea tasmanica, which helped get rid of the leaf roller caterpillar pest.

The technique, adopted from what began as a research project nearby at Seresin Estate, allowed them to avoid using chemicals on the vines, Mrs Flowerday said.

"It's about looking for a natural solution to a problem."

Other plant species did a similar job to the flowering buckwheat. However, buckwheat had increased the abundance and longevity of the wasps, it had a short sowing to flowering time, could be managed to produce flowers over the entire grape-growing season, was relatively cheap, and could be killed by frost, which prevented it from becoming a weed.

Buckwheat also attracted a number of other beneficial species including hover flies, lacewings, and ladybirds.

Mr Flowerday said biodiversity and working with the environment naturally was key to maintaining a good vineyard.

Seed Freedom Fortnight

October 2nd – 16th is when the world of thinking eaters join forces to proclaim their right to grow and eat food from seeds that have been saved and sown by farmers and gardeners for thousands of years, not from seeds that are genetically manufactured by large petrochemical companies and must be bought annually by farmers.

You can read about Seed Freedom here. And you can see on this map the actions being taken all over the world for this incredibly important issue. This link will take you to the online map where you will find all the details of these actions by hovering your mouse over the pin. If you know of others, you can add them to the map.

Currently Tasmania is GM free and profits from this in its sales of clean, green foods to countries in Europe and Asia. Let’s keep it that way!

Carl Barnes and Glass Gem Corn

….. truly an inspiration to all who save seeds.

A stunning variety selected by Carl Barnes, a part-Cherokee farmer and breeder, from several traditional corn varieties. Produces a diversity of gorgeous translucent, jewel-colored ears, each one unique. A popcorn, the kernels may be ground into cornmeal or popped….

…..For millennia, people have elegantly interacted with the plants that sustain them through careful selection and seed saving. This process, repeated year after year, changes and adapts the plants to take on any number of desirable characteristics, from enhanced color and flavor to disease resistance and hardiness.

The bounty of genetic diversity our ancestral farmers and gardeners created in this way was shared and handed down across generations. But under today’s industrial agricultural paradigm of monocropping, GMOs, and hybrid seeds, this incredible diversity has been narrowed to a shred of its former abundance. A 1983 study compared the seed varieties found in the USDA seed bank at the time with those available in commercial seed catalogs in 1903. The results were striking.

Of the 408 different tomato varieties on the market at the turn of the century, less than 80 were present in the USDA collection. Similarly, lettuces that once flourished with 497 heirloom varieties were only represented by 36 varieties. The same held true for most other veggies including sweet corn, of which only a dozen cultivars were preserved out of 307 unique varieties once available in the catalogs. Though this data leaves some questions around actual diversity decline, the trend toward dwindling crop diversity is alarming. In just a few generations, both the time-honored knowledge of seed saving and many irreplaceable seeds are in danger of disappearing.

Though much of this diversity may be gone, all hope is not lost. The emergence of a breathtaking heirloom variety like Glass Gem reveals that the art and magic of seed saving lives on. It reminds us that we can return to this age-old practice and restore beauty, wonder, and abundance to our world. Indeed, this renaissance is already underway. The rising seed library movement is encouraging local gardeners to become crop breeders and empowering communities to reclaim sovereignty over their food. Our pioneering Seed School program at Native Seeds/SEARCH is training people from all walks of life in building sustainable local seed systems rooted in ancient traditions. And as eye-popping images of Glass Gem continue to spread around the world, Carl Barnes’ kaleidoscopic corn has become a beacon—and perhaps an inspiring symbol—for the global seed-saving revival….

Copied from “Native Seeds”, an American native seed company.

Seed Freedom Fortnight

I cannot understand people who are not interested in where their food comes from and swap stories on Facebook about where you can get really cheap ‘food’. We live in different worlds, them and me, but are neighbours. They would rather drive half an hour through rural Tasmania to a cheap shop, than spend half an hour in the garden, sowing a whole season’s food or shopping at the market on a Sunday.

This video says it better than I can…. join with Vandana Shiva and take up one of the actions she mentions, to save your freedom to choose what you eat, now and forever.

 

Gardening Australia gets to the core and soars to the stars….

"Meet Joost Bakker - artist, florist, inventor, architect, builder, landscape designer, restaurateur and eco-entrepreneur. He's a big ideas man."

 

I have been getting a little tired of Gardening Australia but this week hit the spot for me, with some amazing innovations that really are world firsts. Honestly, each segment was not just interesting but so inspiring and creative that I wanted to jump up out of my chair and go and join in. If you can, watch it on iview.

 

It started with this wonderful man…. Joost Bakker…. who has ideas and just gets them done…. "I just believe that we don't need to generate any waste in any of the things that we do in everyday life," says Joost. "We can live in a world that is sustainable and doesn't need to have an impact and we don't need to put anything in landfill. Everything endlessly reusable and recyclable - that's my philosophy."

Sure we’ve heard that all before but Joost is a BIG ideas man…..he designs recyclable houses, he recycles buildings, he turns 100% of his cafe waste into compost on site. He is just simply wonderful!!

"In this cafe, we don't have any rubbish bins," says Joost. "We don't accept anything in cardboard, we don't accept anything in glass - so our milk comes in stainless steel vats, our whiskey comes in wooden barrels, all the produce comes in black returnable plastic crates.

And there’s so much more!

"Well, if you look at Sweden, they've decided that by 2020 they're going to be totally self-sufficient in fertiliser. So every new house that gets built there has a urine-harvesting toilet with a tank and the government comes and empties the tank once a year. Urine is sterile*, so you can store it for a long time and they have equipment that injects it into the soil," says Joost. "So, rather than using chemical-based fertilisers they want to use natural fertilisers."

And I bet he gets this one done….

"I'd love to put a farm on top of an office tower in Melbourne. That's my goal. I actually want to show how much food we can grow with the waste that the restaurant generates. I want to have a restaurant, a farm, a composter and use things like olive pips to generate energy and have a completely enclosed loop of a supermarket at the base, where people can buy the produce that we've grown. Anyway, I'm working on it. It's a big dream. It'll happen. I'll make it happen!"

Suddenly the rest of the world seems so small.

Seed Freedom Fortnight is coming

Go to Vandana Shiva’s Seed Freedom website and facebook to see how you can join forces with your neighbours…..

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.

‘Daily Good’– providing solutions to the ‘news’

Local, Australian news services have become the lowest of the low, in terms of providing factual, real news. There is rarely anything worth mentioning as it is all cheap and easy daily details on rape, murder and political unrest, at home and overseas. Where has intelligent journalism gone?

I know there are terrible things happening in the world but seeing children covered in blood in Syria or a man being taken to court for rape or one politician slinging off at another is not telling me anything NEW and doesn’t NEWS mean something new? For every bad piece of news, they should show one of the millions of people who are trying to do something about it, thereby adding hope and education to the very poor presentations.

I get my news elsewhere. One place is Daily Good which inspires me to get out and do more to change the way things are and puts me in touch with so much NEWS that is really happening, in every corner of the world where people are endeavouring to overcome the horror of what our local news keeps telling us is there.

Like with Jamie Oliver and his passion for school lunches and children knowing and growing food so they can be healthy, there is a link between how children play and how children behave. Creating green spaces for the poorest and most disadvantaged children, often living in big, grey cities, has the chance to stop some of those horrific American shootings we are told about. The excerpt below is from “Daily Good: news that inspires”

….Charlotte, 4, has two 20-minute recess breaks each day. Her teachers wish they could spend more time outside with their young charges, but they have to rotate usage with other teachers, and the playground is also small and somewhat unwelcoming. It's surrounded by eight-foot chain link fencing and features standard-issue swings and monkey bars on blacktop. When she doesn't feel like chasing her friends, Charlotte sits with her back against her school's brick façade and watches cars pass on an adjacent freeway….

 

 

….Ivy's preschool recently added an outdoor classroom. Fencing created from natural materials conceals a hidden wonderland divided into intentional learning and play areas. In one part of the classroom, Ivy and her friends can get their hands dirty with "messy materials." Across a mosaic stone path, they can snip samples of organic greens grown in their own raised beds. There are weatherproof marimbas for the musically inclined—and really, aren't all preschoolers musically inclined?—and "tree cookies," rough wooden building blocks, for use in elaborate building projects…..

Creative, hands-on outdoor experiences like those Ivy is exposed to are an essential piece of the child development puzzle. Research reveals that contact with nature may be as important for children as good nutrition and sleep…..Most children have more options for solitary play provided by electronics and child-targeting technologies. This lack of time outdoors contributes to childhood obesity and increased reliance on behaviour-regulating medicines. While many educators recognize these connections, they may not possess the tools or resources they need to actualize nature-based learning in their schools.

“Nature Explore” can help bridge this gap. In outdoor classrooms, children develop a sense of wonder and respect for the natural world. They solve problems, experiment, engage, and explore. Globally, there are already 170 certified Nature Explore Classrooms, with many more underway. Based on field-tested guiding principles, these spaces have been developed for schools, early childhood centers, domestic violence shelters, military bases, parks and museums. While each design is unique, the underlying philosophy remains the same: Connect kids with nature and amazing things happen.

Want to introduce the kids—or educators—in your life to a Nature Explore classroom? Visit www.natureexplore.org for virtual tours of certified classrooms, details on upcoming workshops, an overview of the design consultation process, and other resources that can help you launch a Nature Explore space in your community.

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!

A Fast History of the Earth’s Climate

You want facts? Well here they are; presented extremely well, without being dry.

What did it do for me? Made me more aware than ever that humans won’t be here forever; nothing ever has been, but we are adding fuel to the fire of our extinction…. not that smart for the cleverest animal currently on earth!

Hughsli again…. well why not? He is my son!

He works on the preserves and bars and cereals for days, weeks even, then as the weekend draws closer he launches into fresh dips, salads and chocolates. Then he gets up at 3am every Saturday and Sunday (market days) and finishes baking the most amazing cakes, tarts, croissants and breads.

He was so kind; asking me to spend a day in kitchen with him, knowing how much I would love that. Evidently I talked too much (what mother who misses her son, doesn’t talk too much when with him?) and once I made a mistake with resetting the scales but, for my first go at being very accurate AND doing what I am told, I thought I did alright. But get up at 3am the next morning, I did not!

I arrived at the Farmers’ Market much later and saw the joy on his face, heard the jokes with his customers and thought of my many wonderful visits to similar markets in France…..

France….. a cheese man….

Adelaide….. Hugh, his own man…..

Just take a wander through some of the range he took to the market that day, for The House of Hughsli stall….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out Hughsli on Facebook.

Polytunnel Workshop 10-08-13

I don’t like them and I don’t want one. I don’t want to be responsible for adding to the world’s plastic…. but I do want a glass one though, made from tip-shop, second hand glass windows…. in my mind there is a fabulous plan. I am loathe to promote this workshop but I do think a movable cloche might be handy to shelter young seedlings, like Alex has at Golden Valley Farm.

Visit SPROUT Tasmania for bookings

Description

Attendees: Maximum 30
Cost: $50 per person
Location: Cygnet
Time: 9.30am – 1pm, Saturday August 10, 2013
Lunch included: Yes, gourmet lunch provided

Sprout Tasmania is presenting its Polytunnel Workshop in Cygnet. Learn about constructing, maintaining and profiting from Polytunnels, as well as extending your growing season. We’ll also discuss techniques to avoid weeding.

You can book your spot for this workshop by adding the item above to your shopping cart, then checking out. You’ll receive an email with your receipt and directions on how to pay via direct deposit, and then closer to the date you’ll receive another email with directions.

This workshop will go ahead, rain or shine, so bring your cold weather gear and your wellies!

Tasmania in winter….

View from Waterfall’s Cafe, Mt. Field National Park, Tasmania…. so, why wouldn’t you come to Tasmania in winter?

And the hills are alive….. with peace, and green and cosy fires….

(from Discover Tasmania)

And Tuesday Soup Nights at the Red Velvet Lounge in Cygnet…. free and warm and welcoming…. Thanks Steve!

Foraging Workshop at Birchs Bay

Channel Living with Paulette Whitney
Saturday the 1st of June             10am until 12:00 noon
 
Take this opportunity to learn more about the edible plants, both native and introduced, that are growing all around you.  Paulette Whitney will share her extensive knowledge of these plants in a foraging field trip at Birchs Bay.

Paulette, a qualified horticulturalist, and her husband run their business Provenance Growers they supply many innovative restaurants and have a regular stall at the Farm Gate Market, where they share their passion for utilising little appreciated plants.
According to Paulette;
‘Foraging refers to the gathering of wild grown food, rather than intentionally raising and harvesting it.  It enables new and intense flavours to find their way onto our plates, and forgotten foods to be rediscovered.  Traditional Tasmanian foods give us a window into our history, help to humanise Tasmania’s past.  Weeds, prepared artfully to reveal their innate deliciousness and to allow us to enjoy their nutritional benefits, are fabulous foraged foods.’
 
An excerpt from Paulette’s blog; Provenance Growers where she shares some of her knowledge and experience with Grey Saltbush.
 
Grey Saltbush, or Atriplex cinerea, is in the goosefoot family, Chenopdiaceae, along with lots of other valuable edibles; silverbeet, beetroot, quinoa and spinach. Even closer edible allies share its genus, Atriplex, which includes orach and fat hen.
I can't find many references to Aboriginal uses of it, please tell us if you know any more, but in the early days of white settlement it was depended upon as a vegetable. From what I can gather of its history of use, there was a terrible famine in Tasmania when supply ships failed to arrive. Grey Saltbush took on great importance as a famine food. It was eaten boiled, and it is still recommended today that it be cooked before eating.
The most delicious use it has been put to in my kitchen was to as a covering for a leg of lamb. I'd put the lamb in too hot an oven, and placed a bunch of saltbush on top of it to protect it while it cooked. A great example of necessity being the mother of invention, we threw away the sprigs on top that were burnt, and underneath found the most delicious leaves that had soaked up a little lamb fat, and had become like crispy, lambey, vegetabley potato crisps.
 
Cost: $25 children free
Plus Channel Living Membership if not a member: $12 single or $20 per family
(All participants must be members of Channel Living to be covered by our insurance)
Email: workshops@channelliving.org.au to register or
Phone Cath Earnshaw 62921032 for more information
Limited numbers
 
What to Bring:
·         Photos or examples of plants that you would like identified (extensive range of reference books available for plant identification)
·         Water for drinking
·         Warm work clothes
·         Sturdy boots or gumboots and gloves

Buying Meat in Tasmania

I hesitate, with my fingers hovering above the keyboard, thinking how to launch into this post about meat. You see, meat is a very emotive topic, worldwide, these days. Animal welfare, human health, peak oil, river contamination, water usage etc etc etc etc, are all hot topics. There is not just one answer; there are complexities, often not realised and sometimes misunderstood, by people in different countries and even within countries.
In South Australia I ate only feral meat. There are a lot of non-native animals there, that have become established in the wild. They cause massive erosion, eat vegetation down to the bare, hot, dry, rocky soil and destroy food and habitat for wild animals. So, shooters were allowed licenses to hunt them. The animals included goats, deer, rabbits, pigs and even camel. When a shop started up selling this feral meat, shot on the hoof, I was probably their first customer and shopped there exclusively from then on. In doing so, I was saving the terribly fragile, semi-arid landscape (mostly of the Flinders Ranges and north) and the native animals that call it home.
Here, in rural, southern Tasmania there are wild rabbits and that’s about all. Neither of the butchers in Cygnet sell local or organic meat!!! So, a quandary existed for me when I moved here and I mostly ate locally shot wallaby because at least it was local and wasn’t from a an animal factory. Since then I have met some wonderful people who raise meat for eating and I am comfortable saying that for this part of Australia, where pasture, water and space are plentiful and the farms and abattoir close by, that this is how I now choose to eat meat. Let me introduce you….
Beef…


Gerard and Deb produce everything organically. Here, this means REAL organics and includes care of the land that is not farmed, as well as the land that is. You won’t find their cattle in feed lots; they live their lives entirely on the farm. These are REAL people, with a passion for excellent quality, organic food, whether it be meat or vegetables.

Gerard has sown his pastures with herbs and grasses and all things that keep his cattle healthy. When other farms in the area have short, dry grass, Nicholls Rivulet Organic Farm still has knee high, green pasture.
The rest of the world would die for meat like this at the prices that Gerard sells it for. You can contact him direct or find him at the Cygnet Market, 1st and 3rd Sundays.

Check them out on Facebook too.

Hogget, Mutton and Some Piglets
Next is man who raises a few animals, usually sheep and pigs, for his own meat and to sell to locals. His name is Bud and he was originally from Texas, about a million years ago.
We are incredibly lucky to have him in our community, offering us free range, ethically reared meat with old fashioned flavour. Slaughtered at the Cradoc Abattoir, only minutes from Bud’s home, these animals have had no stress. There they are hung for 1 – 2 weeks. Bud will provide you with any cuts you desire and his meat is available most of the year.
If you have only eaten shop bought lamb until now, you are in for a real treat. I eat Bud’s meat with my eyes closed, savouring the wonderful flavour and texture. Not just for the slow cooker, the loin chops grill beautifully too and you’ll get all the bones, for stock, as well as any offal.
Right now he also has a family of piglets for sale, the likes of which you probably won’t have seen before as they are striped. Ready to go straight away, to be further raised or eaten as suckling pig, don’t miss out!!
Give Bud a call any time on (03)6295 1580 or send him an email: driver.bud@gmail.com
The thing about Gerard and Bud is that they use the land they have in the old fashioned way; no over-grazing, no artificial feeding, no irrigation, no chemicals, just living off the land and sharing the proceeds.
I am so lucky to be able to call these farmers and their families, my friends. This is how life is meant to be.

The TV segment and my interview with Gavin

It was great to talk with Gavin from the Greening of Gavin. Gavin is a star of sustainability and has written various ebooks about cheese making, cob oven building  and all sorts of green and wonderful projects and ideas. He lives by his words and manages to have chooks, fruit trees and vegetables as well as an impressive solar power station on his tiny suburban block in Melton, Vic.

Here is the interview with Gavin, with all the stuff that they didn't show on the ABC Gardening Australia TV segment.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

.....and here is the Gardening Australia segment, which I was happy with but a little disappointed they didn't show at least a little bit of the deep and meaningful.

The day when chips aint chips

Peak oil means more expensive food for those who can least afford it. The family farms of rural India, Africa, South America and even Tasmania are being taken over by multinational agri-businesses, in the name of providing food for the world. However, the International Year of the Family Farm 2014 has ideas on how to retain food production in every local community, doing away with expensive methods of agriculture and the cancer of food miles.

Imagine a food system which exposes energy usage at every stage of production, taxing or raising costs depending on energy used to produce the food.

So, growing your own food, lets say potatoes, in your own community, using local resources, would become the cheapest food. In your own home and local take-aways and restaurants this potato may be turned into chips for very little extra cost.

Processed, packaged food would incur extra costs for every potato grown in oil and chemical laden agricultural systems, every food mile travelled from producer of the raw potato to processing factory, every energy unit used to process the potato into, for example, a bag of frozen chips, including the production of the plastic bag and its own transport and energy costs and every energy unit used to then transport, store and display it in the supermarket.

Suddenly the true cost of chips is revealed.

I can imagine a system in Australia which stamps every item with an energy rating, such as that currently used for washing machines, fridges and cars etc. Affluent Australian supermarket shoppers often want to do something positive for the earth and the farmers but do not have the information or are not prepared to put in the time to explore all the issues. This energy rating system would be a clear and uniform way to compare foods.

The insidious creep of huge, energy-guzzling agri-business into the farthest corners of the globe’s farming areas is tearing the earth and communities apart and removing the ability of people to provide good, clean, traditional foods for themselves.