Sydney Harbor Gardens - Pink and Green in East Balmain

I've come to a lovely interlude of my Year of Living Homelessly - house-sitting at a jungle-like home on Sydney Harbor, until mid-September.

   

I don't know how Helen managed to find me. Visually, we have identical taste in plants - I restrict myself to a garden of these three contrasts: 

• Pink on Green 

• Light green on dark green on light green
  

• Fluffy or heart shaped or dangling and lavish or massive - a party of distinctive foliage

Do this, and it will come out beautiful (To Cecilia and Helen, anyway)

Recycled tin can garden. Illustration by Cecilia

As the earth-garden areas are all in shade, Helen's edibles are in sunny pots, watching the harbor - guava, strawberry. 

I could make her hibiscus into tea, dig up her bamboo shoots and ginger roots for stir fry, and infuse the cream for my crepes with her lavender.

But maybe I won't. 

I think Red Shiso, that wonderful drinkable Japanese herb, would be a perfect friend for her existing plants. Maybe next summer.

Its true that I like diversity and change. Most mornings, a different Ten Story high 'residence' appears at my balcony.  But I never get a chance to make friends, that's the downside.

Upstairs I have a choice of five balcony garden seating areas from which to have my breakfast. 

There are another five courtyard gardens to choose from, less open and sparkly, so I prefer these. Add to the list two interior gardens, and a large pot plant population. 

Friends everywhere!

Although Helen doesn't specialize in Organic or in Edibles, if cities and citizen suddenly needed to feed themselves,  she could have a successful garden going in a year or two.  She could manage a whole neighborhood to succeed, I suspect.

Its just a tiny step from turning an able gardener into a Sustainable food gardener. 

But turning your average sustainability enthusiast into a successful food gardener takes years and years. 

It did in my case.

Bit by bit my garden and its casualties got me to face up to the realities: That a healthy garden springs from healthy soil, and a healthy character (or the love of gardening elicits health in our characters)

My balcony garden taught me these things:

• Pretending there isn't a problem won't fix things, 

• Procrastinate, and there isn't a tomorrow (for the poor plants)

• Take shortcuts, and your destination disappears.  

Just being in a clear house like Helen's, where each draw is filled with everything you need, and nothing you don't, is keeping my mind decluttered, ready for good permie action. 

Please send me blessings for a productive, happy spell here in East Balmain. And introduce me to your Sydney friends, so I don't get too lonely, here with all these plants. 

Worlds most astonishing Indoor farm - Tokyo Business District

Conference room, Head office, Pasona Group Inc.

With all my Japan projects bedded down for the winter, I set out for some sightseeing in my final weekend in Tokyo (Dec 4th) with a visit to the head office of the Parsona Group Inc.



Pasona is a stroll away from Tokyo station, a kind of urban desert of towering concrete and glass.
But it looks like someone at the company decided "Life is for spending, lets do something astonishing" and the result is impeccable, improbable 'urban farm'. Plants are grown mostly under human-supplied light and nourishment, mostly indoors.

I saw lush-looking eggplants, giant daikon radish and beans, with cucumbers and roses climbing the walls. 200 kinds of plants are grown, disease free, all without pesticide. When your a farm isolated in urban concrete, there is nothing really to bug you.


Their full-sized ricefield has three harvests a year. You can see the 'autumn' crop drying in the background.
They brighten the 'HELF' lights and drop them down closer to the paddy as the plants desire - about 5 lux most months, up to 10 lux when the rice kernels are ripening.

The neighbouring building is an energy company. Maybe they got mates rates. I've drunk tea and eaten sweets flecked with real gold, but if you did your calculations, a bowl of this rice would outdo such opulence, easily.


My favorite part of the whole building is this tiny 'willow fence' that slows down the circulating rice paddy water as it gets close to the inlet. The clay-soil edges of the paddy are planted with a natural cover of brave little weeds, but the rice itself grows on palm fibre.

Sakuma-san

Here the agricultural consultant, Sakuma-san, tells me how they make it all work. When I ask what his dream job is, he says to be a regular farmer, under a regular sky, with all the disasters it entails. The predictability is heaven for the rice, but humans need more challenge to flourish.

Matsumoto-san

The office staff all share the task of caring for the 'office pets', the plants. They water, remove withered leaves, and havest the produce for the staff cafeteria upstairs. I chatted with Matsumoto-san and asked if she was a farmer. No, a geologist. The cafe, she tells me, is just delicious.

Audry-san

Pasona is a Temp agency, where young ladies come to be sent out for employment. A young, irresistable Audrey Heburn is their image girl.


Quiz: What color light does lettuce like to eat? Why?


The public cafe, a forest of hanging baskets.



One of the meeting rooms. The furniture is elegant and 'wholemeal' with its raw edges and pencil marks showing. The staff are are proud to say that the glass tabletops were recycled from the old office partitions, and that the floor is made of forest-thinnings. The entire building is a retrofit, and infused with 'green' virtue-points, as listed in their PR materials.


Hydroponic lettuce floating on polystyrene

These plants requested a little more breeze.

Roses love light. In this season, early winter, the plants on the exterior balconies are mostly climbing roses, braving the cold, thin but elegant.



The tall young Japanese are not particularly aware of any food crisis going on. Urban farm's educational posters fill everyone in a bit.
Above are their ideas of of how to solve the food crisis.
The more closely you read it, the more interesting it gets.
They admit its a bit uncertain if all these solutions listed will work.
So, my goal for next year is to have fun events at Parsona, and watch them change that list, with Permaculture in big letters.


The Japanese are astonishing.

I'm showing you these pictures in the Permaculture spirit, that is, that you can find something positive from this story of Pasona, something that gets you into action.
Creating a new culture is hard. Nobody can get it all right in one go. Its okay to do amazing things that have big flaws. Have a lovely vision and make it real the best you can. Others may come along later, get inspired, and finish the work you couldn't.

The edge between real and not - balcony gardens of Omotesando, Tokyo

From this Rabbit hole in the lobby, you can peep down to the tea party in the basement,
and if you are brave, join in.

I set out for a play-date with the writer Holly Horiguchi, to my favorite nook of Tokyo - the back streets of Omotesando.
This place of tiny, transient dreams is probably responsible for this whole 'Edge Garden' addiction.
This high-rent area has the Dior and Chanel brigade, but unlike Ginza, is a meadow of these tiny, creative shops, conceived and created by real people, for the joy of making their vision real.
For a season, at least.

Galactic gardens, serenely defying gravity, earthquakes and other disasters.

Snails as natural janitors, cleaning up after your tea party, shiny-clean.

A plume of something enchanting.
Cconstellations of cheerful yellow flowers in misty green.

Decluttering & Balcony garden Workshop on Asaba's Bridge -

This weekends permaculture workshop theme was 'Breathing life into interiors'. We looked at ways we could use garden ideas such as Zones to create spaces that motivate us to action, making the life we want.

Lunch in Asaba-san's back garden. Well, the temple at the back of her back garden.


Asaba-sans gallery is a comfey space for presentations


And the deck joining her house to mine a wonderfully cluttered target for our new decluttering skills.

The people who attended all have big dreams. I hope my Permaculture can get them that much closer.

My New Balcony: Artist's terrace in Tokyo

After a few days stopover in Brisbane, I arrived at my new home at Asaba's Art Studio in Yokohama, April 20th. Its a kind of floating room, with a deck destined to be an epic balcony garden. Its already, um, decked out in Asaba art, momentos, and beloved flotsam for me to sift and choose from. Here's my first tablescape, with all the Ceciliaesque objects In one spot.

Lots to look forward to.

Rare, Useful and Urban - Marie's Herbs at Melbourne's Farmers Markets

Meeting Marie and her Aladdin's Cave of Useful edibles was what really got me hopping at the North Melbourne Farmers Market.

Cecilia and Marie the Horiculturist exchange a meaningful herbal gaze

I bought some Alehoof, which she told me was used to bitter beer before they discovered Hops, and will twine prettily for meters over my blue-flowering courtyard rockery. Till I find an accomplice to brew up something enticing when its ready

Alehoof picture from Cornucopia Seeds another source of rare and thrilling plants.

The Waragul greens are now in, one of very few Australian Natives that are easy to eat (I bet the Megafauna was great though).

Greek Basil, which she tells me is more densely clumping than sweet basil, so good for the aestetic and sharing nature of a tight balcony space, so that was the third of my '4 for $10' deal.

The Salad Burnet with its pretty leaves is the new star of my garden. Won't it look great on a background of tomato bruschetta, or Dramatic on a bed of black wild rice, maybe with red goji berries....


You can find Marie at Weekend Farmer's markets all over the place: Yarraville, Botanic Gardens, Bundoora, Mulgrave, Templestowe, and of course North Melbourne.

Contact Marie on :

economedes@optusnet.com.au

Rachelle buying supplies for her Balcony garden. It seems she lives around the corner from me, and I bet whatever she is growning is gorgeous, so I've been looking up, looking forward to good things.

Balcony garden curtains, ikebana and cord fasteners by Sayaka the Day-WWOOFer

Sayaka the fabric designer:

Holy interlude with roses and needlework

Because I sometimes run out of spare guest bedrooms, but never run out of lovely things to create, I host day-wwoofers - dreamy creatives like myself when I was young, often traveling the world to learn new skills, eat interesting lunches, and add to their ideas bank of domestic possibilities and impossibilities. Then go home till next time.


The day lovely Sayaka came to visit, I happened to have a bunch of fragrant roses my mother dropped off from the countryside. The first thing Sayaka did was an ikebana arrangement, which showed off a beauty Ive never seen in roses - look how the full-blooms arch around the young ones, protecting them, proudly showing them off. And the unruly baby ones just spring out joyfully. "Yes! Its a REAL designer come to visit" - Gazing at what she did to those roses sure made me happy.


Next, she did an analysis on what was wrong with my cord wrapping systems, then designed and created a batch of these. The flower fastener has three functions - since this is after all a Permaculture creation day. For how and why cord fasteners improve your quality of life, see the story at at my Intimate Permaculture blog - Balcony gardens are an excellent place for neat laptops and lamplights but on an edible gardening blog the connection is tenuous.

Lunch under the balcony, the front courtyard, brought to you by Trays.

If you wonder why you don't eat on your balcony or veranda as much as you could, I bet you just don't have trays. Because Aussie shops don't sell trays. The answer to getting the most out of life is often a simple cheap bit of missing hardware. When you visit Tokyo, stock up, distribute them to your balcony gardening friends.

The day was hot, the ceilings high, the curtains long.
The furniture moved, the floor clean and inviting, the work low, focused and mind-chatter quelling.
That's the story of this picture with Cecilia and Sayaka.

I've finally replaced my adequate, factory-made roman blinds my with creamy-lush, tailor made spilling-to-the-floor damask. Invisible hand stiching takes a couple of extra hours, but if you do it with a mate, it becomes two hours of absorbing entertainment. I get though the stitching like a racing car driver. I go near-dizzy with my pace, hypnotized by my steady rhythm. Its a little embarrassing that after all the effort I put into living life, my most dazzling skill is such a maidenly, Victorian-style accomplishment as needlework.


The neighbours kitty is usually quite partial to a nap on my balcony, but hot days require a different stratagy. Here he is enjoying a nap with maximum surface area evaporative cooling posture. Right where my new, heavily-insulated curtains are about to be hung.

Balcony Garden curtains cannot have a seamy side.

Which gets me thinking - that's what Permaculture is all about. About creating a life where there is no embarrassing side to hide. You've just composted it, designed around it, made the arduous fun and friendly, and made it all small enough to manage with yourself and people you like.

Thank-you Sayaka, what a team.

Merry Balcony Gardens of Carlton

This edible & useful two-story balcony garden brought joy to my world.


I came across it wending my way home though Carlton's back streets, after a delightful afternoon tea at Brunettii's with Laura and Daniel. "How can I make these people my relatives" I was thinking. When Santa parachuted down.



The edibles included cherry tomatoes, basil, nasturtium leaves. Like almost every successful balcony garden, it had a filled container of water, ready to be scooped from.


If you are of Irish Catholic Stock, you too would notice the cloth Scapular of Mary, a powerful 'sacramental'.


Here Mary serves this garden in multiple ways:

• Tying back unruly vines

• A water-wise addition to Greenery

• Expresses the character of the gardens owners - probably Lapsed Italian Catholics

• Ensures that if the tree dies wearing this scapular, it will not face eternal flames (The blessed Virgin herself promised this to any wearer, hence my grandfathers attachment to his)

• Keep Evil spirits off the balcony, and possibly pests who busy themselves with baleful actions:
  

"One of the most remarkable effects of sacramentals is the virtue to drive away evil spirits whose mysterious and baleful operations affect sometimes the physical activity of man. To combat this occult power the Church has recourse to exorcism, and sacramentals" (The Catholic Encyclopedia., 1913, VXIII, p. 293).

The neighbour who caught me photographing has now promised to show me his rooftop garden for this blog. But not till things grow up a bit, so in a couple of weeks, I might have lovely new photographs, and a new gardening mate.