I have been traveling around the world for
the last 5 years working on permaculture projects and communities in several
countries. I shared my nomadic journey in 2 articles which you can see here and here . I decided to
settle down for a while and bring my knowledge and experience in managing
permaculture systems to the next step.
I got the chance to participate in the
Practical Permaculture Diploma offered by the Permaculture Research Institute
Sunshine Coast here in Australia on a scholarship basis. The practical approach
, being able to learn practically valuable self-reliance and life skills
attracted plus the accessibility me to join this program.
As David Holmgren beautifully said 20 years ago and which I also deeply resonate with : ¨Permaculture, in its
basic principles and its various forms of practical expression, has much to offer in personal and
societal transcendence of addictive consumerism and its replacement with a
creative abundance.¨ I felt motivated to
make a change, to really be able to re-gain practical skills that have
been lost along to way during my life time in a comfort consumer society.
Let me explain to you here a little bit of
what I have learned and experienced so far on site in just over 1 month working
practically at PRI Sunshine Coast. I hope it helps people to get a better
understanding what it takes to manage and run permaculture
systems (which ultimately is dealing with evolving living complexity as well as
simplicity ). Another outcome would be to inspire you to join one of
the future practical programs offered and get a step closer to the new
regenerative culture we aim to create together !
We are located
on the beautiful Sunshine Coast near a village called Kin Kin in a wonderful
subtropical climate. PRI Sunshine Coast is 12ha in size and run by Tom &
Zaia Kendall. Once I arrived I immediately started to appreciate and enjoy the
natural beauty of this area and all the trees and forests plus amazing bird
concerts all around us. After having spend lots of time in the more troubled
ecosystems of the world I really appreciate spending time in surroundings like
this.
View from the wonderful pond with forest view
Sunrise at PRI Sunshine Coast
I first started to learn and work here on
site with Choko, Anna and Toffee, our beautiful lady cows starting at 6am feeding them organic Copra (a residue of the coconut oil pressing process) and a
spoon of minerals. As some of the pastures are not yet established to its
fullest potential, milking Choko while playing nice calming classical music to
her and after checking all of the 3 beauties for ticks.
Afterwards we lead them into one of the 25
grazing cells that are rotationally grazed here on site, for 2-3 days each at a time. They can have some good times out there eating lots of
grass, dropping their manure and pee plus trampling down weeds and disturbing
the soil surface. This then makes it easier for us the sow in a seed mixture with
our wanted pasture plants: a mix of running grasses, clumping grasses and
legumes. This system of cow grazing management has been inspired by Holistic
Planned Grazing or Rotational Grazing and it's really exiting to get the chance
to work and experiment with this type of management.
In
the evening we again go out to bring them back into their secure, rain protected
night time shed. We routinely check for ticks, feed them plus milk Choko once
again. The milk will be used to make cream, butter, yogurt and cheese which I
also learned to make in my first week here. I felt very empowered and motivated
to be able to milk Choko after just 2 weeks of learning and feel confident to lead them in and out of their grazing cells.
The beautiful
ladies in the grazing cell
The manure that we collect in the morning
from the cows goes into our Bio-Digester that supplies about 1/3 of the gas for the
cooking needs of 9 people (Tom & Zaia, Volunteers & Students)
currently living on site. The Biogas Sludge that comes out at the end of the process
of extracting gas is used to make beautiful high quality compost that
we use in our gardens to grow vegetables. I really appreciate and value seeing
such closed loop systems functioning in action.
Usually after the morning animal routine is
finished around 7.30am we have a delicious breakfast made with love and no
wheat or other grains by Zaia. It is always a pleasure to have such a
delightful and energetic start to the day. You can find some of her recipes here.
After breakfast we usually start our day
with some of the rotational community tasks like washing dishes, sweeping
the community space, cooking or emptying the compost toilet. Once those task are
finished we transition into the farm related tasks to be accomplished during
each week.
Personally I have learned by being in many different communities and projects, that to keep a
Permaculture Farm, Community or Learning Centre running successfully it works
well to involve everybody staying on site in rotational community tasks. This fosters a sense of involvement, community spirit & empowers people to take
care of themselves and others and learn to be involved in all parts of
the process going on in a project.
Management and clear communication is a key
factor in keeping things flowing smoothly. Here on site, we have a rota set up
with the tasks clearly outlined and at the start of each week we have a quick
gathering and establish daily and weekly goals and tasks to be accomplished.
Bigger
projects on the property include getting timber from a neighbouring property to make fence
posts, planting out lots of new vegetable seedlings in the vegetable gardens
plus, as rainfall is exceeding evaporation, lots of chop and drop in the food
forest and swale systems.
What I have learned in the last weeks of
doing lots of chop & drop in the Zone 2 Food forest and Zone 3 Swale
systems is really quiet amazing and crucial to be aware of. We have lots of
legume support species like Pigeon Pea (which needs pollarding) and Crotalaria, Cassia, Senna (which needs coppacing, like Tulsi and Mugwort). This then cycles the nitrogen of the
legume species and also the biomass back into the soil and concentrates the
energy in the form of mulch around our valuable fruit or nut trees to give them
a good boost for the next season ahead.
one part of the Food forest Chopped & Dropped
Also we have a good look around to find any
grass that has made its way into the system. As we want to have fungal
dominated soil in our food forest system, we really want to get the grasses
out! Next thing to be aware of is any climbing legume vines that are taking over
or strangling our valuable fruit or nut trees or even our support species. We
cut them back a bit and use the biomass as mulch on the ground, we really don't
want to export any of the nutrients created in these systems so
we drop the biomass on spot!
Another job to be done along the way and to
give multiple functions to our visits in the food forest system is to have a
look at our trees if there is any pruning needed. This may include new suckers coming up
under the graft or branches growing into the wrong directions.
A useful tip, we mark the valuable species with a pink tape to make them more
easily visible in the system. This also helps let new people coming in know not to chop down valuable trees or plants. Our tools have pink
spray or tape on them to make them visible in these human created jungles in
case they drop on the ground!
Sometimes as a newcomer in those systems it
feels like everything kind of looks the same, just green and brown everywhere
but after Tom pointed out to us a couple of species it becomes totally
different. You start to see a pattern in the food forest system, a stacked
multilayer diversity of plants, all fulfilling a function and supporting the system
towards maximum stability and productivity. A lovely landscape to work with and
satisfying to spend time in, it was one of my favorite jobs this month!
We have started to maintain a Zone 3
Swale system on a slope of the property, getting the grasses out and re-mulching the
entire swale with chipped biomass mulch. We created weed barriers with
big logs that we cut on site. We focused also on promoting more of the pinto
peanut, our preferred ground cover in those systems which we hope will cover all the
swales' surfaces soon.We also plan to put sawdust in the swale ditch to prevent
weeds and encourage the pinto peanut more in there.
It feels so exiting and motivating for me
to be having the chance to observe how these systems are going to evolve and
develop over the next couple of months.
Also we went to two local Permaculture
group meetings of Permaculture Noosa and Permaculture Gympie. I hope to
continue being part of these meetings regularly as I find it important to
relocalize and be connected to a local network of permaculture practitioners
sharing their experiences.
Unfortunately the Permaculture Noosa meeting got canceled as almost no people came. We had big rains that day and Cyclone Marcia was moving trough the country. We had a rain event of 138ml in one day and we got the chance to see the Dam and Swale systems on the property in action.
Unfortunately the Permaculture Noosa meeting got canceled as almost no people came. We had big rains that day and Cyclone Marcia was moving trough the country. We had a rain event of 138ml in one day and we got the chance to see the Dam and Swale systems on the property in action.
It was so great and powerful to see the
huge swales and dam filling up, catching and storing energy and slowly infiltrating
the precious resources water into the landscape. After such a big rain event we
really could observe here on site how the earthworks benefit the landscape, hold
water, prevent run-off and overall benefit the system in holding, spreading and
sinking nutrients and moisture into the soil.
In the vegetable garden we had lots of work
to do, which kept Khadija (the Certificate student) and all the volunteers very busy. We were weeding, re-shaping bed edges, re fertilizing (with our composted
biogas sludge) and mulching followed by planting out many new vegetable babies.We are looking forward to harvest some of the crops ready for eating soon!
Keyhole garden bed before re-mulching
We also went for an amazing
trip up to Noosa Heads together ,as the 8 week practical training was at its half time
period. Tom & Zaia decided to surprise us with having a barbecue and
chocolate cake at the beach and on the way we visited a consultation site which
Tom and the students have been working on for a couple of days to installed a
swale system for a client. What a beautiful day and good opportunity to connect
to each other outside of the farm and working routine.
Tom explaining the swale and spillway
See more here at my blog and you tube
channel :
PRI Sunshine Coast website : http://permaculturesunshinecoast.org/
PRI Sunshine Coast You tube: https://www.youtube.com/user/permacultureSC
