Permaculture cuisine for Saturday's party - cooking day tomorrow.

These delectable party snacks by Mai and Aya, with help from Stephanie Alexander's cookbook, would qualify as 'Permaculture food'. Here is why....

The cottage cheese was made by Aya while she was WWOOFing at the Holmgren's - she even milked the goat. Parsley from our garden was added, and chives from the fridge, which made us wish we had planted more chives in our own garden : motivation preceeds action. The breadcrumbs were made by toasting and crushing old Philipa's bread, which reminded us to buy the best and use every little bit: turn leftovers into breadcrumbs BEFORE we need them (and buy more airtight containers). The olive oil is made in Australia (local) by organic farmers, bought in bulk (no jars to recycle), and the rest of it sits in the former laundry, for guests to decant in their own empty bottles they bring along - nothing for the recycling bin.

Creating just one permaculture dish can touch many areas of your cooking life.

"You try to pick up one thing by itself, and find it is connected to the rest of the universe"

Thank-you Mai for the cooking and photo. Thank-you Su for happy goats.

Fiddly food isn't worth it usually, but three of us did bits of the task, and it was effortless. Permaculture: the art of making things worth it.

Thank-you Jun, Yes, I would love to have you over tomorrow and make Okara-ryori together.('kara' is waste made from the tofu-making process,but can be reclaimed deliciously)

Festive weekend: balcony by the river

Day one, nearly set up. Where is everyone?

Wth Yumi, Maki and Hitomi, behind our stall with a very quiet wombat



Rearranged for a river view and breeze
(thank goodness I am surronded by designers)

My dear Conductor Raymond, making sure I'm feeling harmonious

Selling Permaculture

Hitomi is cool

Wetpots doing their thing

packed up and ready to go home

Herb TV and intrepid creator on their way home

and so are we

Wheatbag creation day this Sunday 5th Feb

Everyone who comes to live at my house gets taught how to make wheatbags, then gets addicted. They spend days making them for friends and family, to keep them warm and comforted through the winter.

You get some cotton material, a sixties skirt from the op shop is great. Fill it with wheat, and heat it five minutes in the microwave. Keep it on your lap as you study, or take it to bed with you.

It lets you heat yourself, not the air around you. You use five minutes microwave energy, instead of a whole night of heater energy. You don't get sleepy breathing in all that warm air.

I take a warm wheatbag and breakfast up to my balcony every morning through the winter. I took my Japanese textbook up there too, and stayed there studying for as long as it was cozy. Cocooned in another world. Wheatbags mean your investment in a balcony garden is one you can enjoy all year round. They are proof that you can reduce your energy usage not just by 10 percent, but by 10 times, if you get creative. Without sacrificing anything of value. Good Permaculture.

This Sunday Feb 4th, friends are gathering at my house to learn how to make wheatbags, make extra for me to sell at my 'Eden on your balcony' stall, and take a beautiful one home for free. Afternoon tea and new friendships, new inspiration all provided. Please come, but book first on ophelia@ocean.com.au

There will be a few more free workshop days - also Tuesday feb 6th. 0412-474-282

waterwise crazy idea - put the washing machine in the couryard

I decided - I can't keep on bucketing water to save my country - this is the 21st century. I made some calls - there is a 22 week waiting list to buy a tank, and they will sell me a pump to get my bathwater to the garden for $1,000. Its a terrace house, with plumbing hidden, which is why I had let myself give up earlier. Not any longer - those poor farmers. And letting my garden die won't help the environment - the garden, its bugs and microbes, they ARE the environment.

I called my creative friend Dominic over for a solution. "Hey, the washing machine IS a pump", he said. "Just put it outside".

Frank the wire artist did all the fixing and shifting, we found a cover, better detergent, and now everyone seems happy. Especially the hydrangeas.

We will think about winter when winter comes. A coiled black hose sitting in the sun sounds like it could be good. Who can help me with that?

The laundry is now the bulk organic food room. Bring your olive oil bottles to be filled when you visit. Dominic, you are brilliant.

Festival in Federation Square - Sustainable Living and Eden on your Balcony

The Permaculture 'Eden on your balcony' will be a fun, beautiful and alluring stall, introducing people to Urban Permaculture, and how it can fit into their lives right now, on their balconies.

We are creating the stall in the cubby-house spirit of having fun and impressing ourselves, but I hope to sell things too, get good balcony products out into the world.

I'm trying to find useful, beautiful, low-waste items to sell, so if you have any ideas, please let me know. Here are some things on the list:

Seeds for flowers
All about bugs: who are your garden helpers, and how to make the rest less troublesome. Book by the wonderful, 'out-there' ladybug lady Jane Davenport And more of Jane's goodies:

Windmills to keep your gardening spirits up on shady, windy, non-flowering balconies -

placed amongst the green

Fridge Magnet Pens


Useful and beautiful shopping bag







Something by Cecilia - I will have a go at getting Permaculture illustrations printed into cards.
***

wheatbags made from recycled dresses
The amazing wetpot system

The new testament:

by Permaculture co-orignator, David Holmgren

Sprouts are great permaculture - easy, daily supply of fresh greens & free entertainment, organic, no pests, always successful. You can do it for free in a jar veiled with ballerina skirt of tulle, but this European Biosnacky is beautiful like sculpture, and the humidity, everything is perfectly controlled. And so cutely named.

David Holmgrens 12 Permaculture Principles Fridge Magnet

I saw this in Tokyo last October, and was... blown away.

Beautiful, useful and virtuous. How permacultural.

I've asked if I can promote it. Imagine one whirring above your balcony

Slinky underwear?

Well, at least the doozy hanger for discreete balcony laundering.
By woodworker Hamish Hill

Other ideas are plants (but they don't seem easy to carry or manage, don't seem profitable?), Diggers organic Seed club subscriptions, my workshops, my wheelie bin and wormfarm art, mosquito nets or incense....clever hanging baskets. Wormfarms are probably too heavy, but I could try, I would love to. What else would be good?

Wheatbags. Wrong season, but they are so great. If you want to learn how to make them, join in a creation workshop

What are your Favorite Balcony garden Gadgets? Wetpot watering, wormfarms and more

click here for Wetpot passive watering system

Desert low-technology, thousands of years old. Moist inside, crunchy outside. Water in the tank seeps through the unglazed pottery pot. Nothing for weeds on the surface. Sorry weeds.

I took an x-ray

Home-made worm farms for balcony garden composting

This one from kitty-litter box and seedling trays cost $20, and can be made to match your sofa.

Here are my wonderful wwoofers "Maccha", helping me put the handle on the worm farm lid (creative acts often require two people). My balcony is too sunny, this design has too much ventilation, so it dried out. I only noticed, because I caught them escaping. Poor Worms.

What is giving you ease and delight in your balcony garden? I would love to hear from you and your good ideas.

Sydney Harbor balcony garden renovation

I arrived from Melbourne to Harbourside Sydney a few minutes before the midnight fireworks did their thing, filling us with awe. That moment I realized: in a cosmic sense, my life is as transiant, as insignificant as fireworks, and can be as spectacular, if I choose spectacular, If I provide the energy. Who would have thought the fireworks were going to continue the whole week. Friction, suspense, and the Spectacularly unexpected: thats what you get when two human beings have to put aside their usual ways of doing things to create something new. It only works if you are creating something alluring enough to persist in, like creating Eden.
The balcony is actually a rooftop on one of Old Sydney's oldest houses - a home with five flights of stairs, all as small as children's teeth - people were small in those days. So its vertical, like a castle tower.

Here are the reasons why this could be the worlds most successful balcony garden:
Bathroom: It is actually a rooftop, complete with bathroom. Go Bethsheeba! The owner visits here many times a day, so unlike a usual rooftop garden, it will be constantly noticed, needed, appreciated; constantly rewarding. A worthwhile investment

View: The harbor, passing ships and boats, sunsets. No cheap developments, no advertising. Impeccable.
Morton Bay Fig: This huge old tree provides shade for tropical plants, for enjoying a dappled a-fresco lunch, for keeping wormfarm worms happy. It gives shelter from strong wind and rain, yet as the sun crosses the sky, the north-facing wall is drenched in sunshine, perfect for a productive kitchen garden. Micro-climates allows an explosion of diverstiy in a tiny space. It does shade the garden in winter.

Creative Owner: A professional filmmaker and musician, he has a mind like lightning, maybe genius. He has a rarefied sensitivity to beauty, and a raging commitment to making a better world. He has a talent for planning, logistics, making things happen within budget. He doesn't like letting of doing things the way he has always done them, even if they aren't working Like all of us. But he very often DOES let go, do things that feel against the grain. It is like a miracle to see someone do that, and it has elicited the same in me.