Canberra Permaculture Design and Education in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory | Home & garden website

Canberra Permaculture Design and Education

Locality: Canberra, Australian Capital Territory

Phone: +61 410 121 272

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• Community organisation
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• Environmental conservation organisation
• Home & garden website

25.01.2022 The website is up and running again! http://www.canberrapermaculturedesign.com.au

25.01.2022 Have you heard about the teddy bear hunts and rainbow trails that are taking off around the world to help engage children on neighbourhood walks? Here’s our little contribution - a rainbow and a rainbow bear! #bearhunt #teddybearhunt #rainbowtrail

25.01.2022 We picked it! Our first (and probably only) red capsicum!

24.01.2022 Quick update to say the website is currently down but will get it running again ASAP!Quick update to say the website is currently down but will get it running again ASAP!

24.01.2022 In this time of enforced social distancing we are trying to spend a good amount of time out in the garden. Since the rain came back it’s amazing to see how much has regenerated - it’s looking quite lush! Pic for today is a dwarf chrysanthemum (I think it was called ‘tough mums’ which has just come into flower)...

23.01.2022 Happy (Good) Friday everyone! Just spotted this great offering - the Post Carbon Institute are offering their online resilience course for FREE during the Covid-19 pandemic. If you’re wondering what to do during the shutdown and would like to learn more about how to help your household become more resilient to economic, environmental and energy-related shocks then this might be very helpful. https://education.resilience.org

22.01.2022 Pretty flowers from our garden to help cheer up your day. Can you guess what this one is?? (Answer below) It’s echinacea purpurea - yep, the immune-system boosting plant you can buy as a supplement in health stores. These ones were grown from seed so there is quite a lot of variety in the size of the flowers. Thought this particular plant had died during the drought but looks like I was wrong!! PS the purple flower in the side of the pictures is a purple salvia (I forget the actual variety name)...

20.01.2022 Secret ingredient in this home grown lemony pesto pasta is French sorrel (rumex acetosa) It grows really well in winter and has intensely lemon-flavoured leaves. Pesto was a mix of about 1 third French sorrel leaves to parsley leaves (also growing in abundance at the moment) whizzed up in the blender with cashew nuts, olive oil, a little garlic, salt and a good squeeze of lemon juice. Add a bit of Parmesan at serving time if you like. Great to find another use for the sorrel - it tastes great but goes mushy if you cook with it, so is very much a salad green - but I find salads aren’t so appealing in the cold weather. So pesto it is. I expect it would make a good dip too...

20.01.2022 I expect I am preaching to the converted but right now it seems especially important to get children into the garden to learn about growing edible and medicinal plants... (Pic is of our 8 year old daughter checking out an echinacea purpurea flower) #permaculture #homeschooling #gardeningforkids

19.01.2022 Upcoming Introduction to Permaculture course - https://mailchi.mp//upcoming-introduction-to-permaculture-

19.01.2022 If you need some brilliant permaculture inspired music to cheer you up while you’re stuck at home during Covid-19 you may enjoy this uplifting live gig by Charlie Mgee of the band Formidable Vegetable... and wow, for anyone learning the ukelele, may this be an inspiration to you!

17.01.2022 We have apples!!

17.01.2022 It has been a hard and anxious summer: drought, excessive heat and evaporation, smoke and bushfire risk, massive hail and now there’s a nasty virus spreading around the world. Thankful therefore that Canberra received so much steady life-giving rain yesterday. Here is one of the warrigal greens plants on our deck, all pretty with raindrops. I find that being in the garden (now recovering from the hail and very green from recent rain) is helpful and healing during these uncertain times... nature regenerates amazingly when given half a chance.

15.01.2022 We’ve been in peak zucchini season for a few weeks now - the rain has been great for swelling them up! So we had a zucchini based dinner party for some friends... zucchini and basil soup, zucchini quiche, barbecued zucchini salad with mint (plus rocket salad and tomato, cucumber and basil salad - all from garden). And to top it off - zucchini chocolate cake (not pictured). I was a bit cheeky and only told our daughter there was zucchini in the cake after she had taken her final slice... but she said she would eat it again even now she knew!!!

15.01.2022 So Sunday May 3rd was International Permaculture Day! Obviously we can’t have any tours at the moment so here’s a little homely vid showing some of the aspects of our ongoing permaculture garden project that highlights some useful winter edibles. Slightly wobbly camerawork courtesy of our 8-year-old budding movie director. (Note that Facebook seems to have reduced the video definition somewhat so will endeavour to put a higher definition version on our website soon.) Enjoy!

13.01.2022 With so much rain forecast for the next few days, here’s a little video and article showing how we passively harvest water in 0ur back garden. http://www.canberrapermaculturedesign.com.au//video-water-

12.01.2022 Being filmed this morning for Floriade Reimagined by the lovely Andrew, Chris and Nick from Eclipse Lighting and Sound with direction from Vikkii from Visabel. Pictured are myself, Andrew and Chris. Thanks to Vickii for taking some great photos! #Floriadeaustralia #floriadereimagined Eclipse Lighting and Sound... Visabel See more

12.01.2022 Wicking beds are a go go! It’s been tricky to get hold of the IBCs lately but I’m pleased to say we got another batch and here is Jeremy cutting them all up! If you’re on the waiting list I’ll be in touch in the next few days to confirm your order specifications and get the ready for you as soon as we can!

12.01.2022 It's been a while but here is our latest newsletter! Newsletter June 2020 - https://mailchi.mp/756f19d470a2/newsletter-june-2020

12.01.2022 How good is this idea for a relatively inexpensive structure surrounding a learning space? Pic from Moodji Farm in Bermagui which we got to visit in the school holidays. Thanks Dan Bakker from Eat Dirt Permaculture for showing me around! Structure is made from 3 cm diameter poly pipe and metal wall bracing. Can be covered as needed... Eat Dirt Permaculture

12.01.2022 Sad to report that our garden was severely damaged by yesterday’s hailstorm - this is what is left of a very productive bed of cucumbers. I wonder if they will recover? We are holidaying in Melbourne so will find out when we get back next week...

09.01.2022 First swede of the season!! (First time we have grown it too!) I got to take a trip down memory lane and made mashed neep! (I grew up in Scotland and we call swede neep) A well-known traditional Scottish dish is haggis, neeps and tatties (haggis, with mashed swede and potatoes). My other half is not a fan of the haggis so we went for sausages, neeps and tatties instead! We also cooked up the greens from the swede tops which was yummy too. I am so full! To make mashed neep, peel the swede, chop into small pieces and boil until tender (about 40 mins). Drain and mash, adding salt and pepper to taste, a knob of butter and a little grate of nutmeg. Yum!

05.01.2022 If you ever wanted to see passive water harvesting in action, here’s a video I took in our garden during some drought breaking heavy rain (yay!) a few months back. The garden is a bit messy and the video is a bit homely and daggy, but hopefully gives a useful overview of the things you can do in a suburban garden. Learn more here: http://www.canberrapermaculturedesign.com.au//video-water-

05.01.2022 If you wanted to learn more about how to make a wicking bed, here is a video we made with Floriade Australia! It includes information on what situations they are useful for and how to make up your own wicking bed. https://floriadeaustralia.com/event/wicking-bed-workshop/ #wickingbeds #permaculture

04.01.2022 Workshop alert: Cally will be co-teaching this introduction to Permaculture course in Queanbeyan! https://events.humanitix.com/introduction-to-permaculture

03.01.2022 How bizarre - our somewhat hail damaged pink lady apple tree is in flower again - it must think it’s spring. Whoops! Anyone else having their plants behaving strangely at the moment? I am wondering whether the extreme heat, dryness and lack of light when it was smoky over the past couple of months induced a kind of shut down of growth in some plants that is usually associated with winter. The baby Manchurian pear also has a couple of flowers on it. Both trees did also flower in spring, but the apple produced almost no fruit this year. Appreciate your comments on this one!

03.01.2022 If you are stuck at home here in Canberra’s suburbs wondering about how to make a go of things from home isolation you may be interested to learn that Retrosuburbia is coming out in a digital version. Everything you need to know about creating a resilient, self-reliant and economically viable life right here in the suburbs. I have my own copy and it’s a very good read! #retrosuburbia #permculture #covid-19 https://holmgren.com.au/the-problem-is-the-solution-how-p/

01.01.2022 Comfort food for a weekend breakfast. Eggs fried with leftover ratatouille from a previous night’s dinner and garnished with herbs from the garden...