International Permaculture Day

Another blustery day and those strong and robust Permies, who weren't put off by the wind, arrived at the farm ready for work. We had five projects planned for the day but soon realised that four was more realistic, so the planting of pig forage will have to wait for another day.

The theme for this year's International Permaculture Day was Reclaiming Food Freedom. As we operate a Community Supported Agriculture in a peri urban situation I think a having a day here to celebrate the day was quite appropriate. And to have such wonderful people come to the farm to participate in our activities was a real blessing. Permies are such lovely people!

We broke into small groups and dived straight in. There was a compost heap to be made...

We make our heaps using recycled tomato stakes. They heat up and are ready for use in 4months. It was so lovely to have some young ones getting right into it. this young girl was very busy gathering all the resources.

When we built our pig pen we had planned to put in a banana circle to take advantage of the excess nutrients. Yesterday  with the help of some strong young able bodied people we managed to bring this project to fruition. Even though the pigs had spent some time in the area, ripping up the soil, it was still tough going, digging in the clay, but the guys created a beautiful banana circle, complete with drainage to bring those nutrients into the circle.

 On the opposite side to the pig pen is the goose house. It is scheduled for a rebuild soon. The plans involve a roof that will enable us to collect rain water, with the overflow destined for the centre of the circle. In the background you can see our humanure bins. Some of this was used to plant the bananas.

In the foreground is the box drain which will collect the pig nutrient. This will flow down the pipe into the circle.

Bananas were planted, staked and mulched.  The centre was filled with organic matter and the bananas underplanted with pepinos and sweet potato.

We also completed a wicking bed and did some chop and drop, which I will show you another day.

We stopped for lunch. Home made vegie soup, Mark's sourdough bread, the best lentil salad ever and some lovely greens fresh from the garden.  Such a lovely way to connect, over good fresh food.  We finished off all the projects. Some stayed for a coffee and some seed sharing, and then the group started to disperse. We are so grateful to everyone who participated and feel very blessed to have these people in our community. Thanks to you all for coming out on such a blustery day.

Hot Hot Hot.

Into the heat of yesterday morning, descended a bus load of children.Thirty five children ranging in  age from 5 years to 11 from an inner city OOSH (out of school hours childcare), along with their teachers.

We quickly got on with the tour before it got any hotter. The aim for the day was to show the children animals living in an an environment that caters to their needs and individual behaviors.

The children noticed that the pigs liked their mud puddle and lots of food.

They noticed that the chickens liked to roll around in the soil and lay eggs.

They were surprised that ducks like to eat their food from the water.

The children were surprised that the chickens like to sleep up high on a roost.

They were a little surprised that a cow was so very very big.

There were children who were frightened of guinea pigs but by the end of the visit were promising to be back so that they could buy one for their very own because they were just so cute and just the thing to hold in your lap.

After the tour we divided into five groups and rotated around five activities. They got up close to the cow and pony with Mark, and if they felt really brave they got to brush them.

They were able to sit and cuddle with the guinea pigs.

They drew a picture of something they'd seen on the farm with a theme around what animals like in their environment. There were lots of drawings of pigs and mud!

They did some seed saving. Corn rubbed from the cob, sunflower seeds pulled from the old flower head, leek seeds pulled off and willowed, and red kidney beans taken out of their pods.

 The group doing the leeks didn't get very far did they?

And lastly a paper pot made, filled with soil and a little seed added, to be taken home to grow.

Sorry no photos. It was so full on. But we all had a great day. And as they left a little hug for me from one little girl, telling me she would miss me and that she'd be back for a guinea pig. One teacher's parting remark was ''Thank you so much. The kids learnt so much and so did we"

And that makes it so worth while. If the only thing they learn is that animals deserve to live a good life, and they can make decisions as they get older about where they source their food, then I feel that we've made a difference.

And after they all left it was back to making sure the animals were comfortable during the afternoon heat wave. We put the overhead sprinklers on in the garden to cool down the chickens in their domes, and of course make sure they have cool water to drink. I refill the guinea pigs dish of water. They don't necessarily drink it if they have enough green grass to eat, but they do like to lay in the water to cool down. And I move them into the shade.

The seedlings will need a drink as well and then it's back to the shade and a cool drink for me also. Quite often I wrap a wet towel around my shoulders while on my my tour of the livestock and this helps a lot to keep me cool. If you'd like some more tips on keeping cool this summer duck over to Linda's blog. She shows you how she keeps the house and animals as cool as possible in her neck of the woods and contemplates the real threat of bush fires.

Around The Farm

2014 has been declared International Year of Family Farming and so to celebrate I would like to share snippets of our family farm. So once a week for the rest of the year you can join us here for a slow tour of the farm.

The 2014 International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) aims to raise the profile of family farming and smallholder farming by focusing world attention on its significant role in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development, in particular in rural areas. 

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Apart from growing food in our mandala market garden we aim to educate and provide a model of sustainable agriculture in a peri urban location. We are just 5 mins by car from the local shopping centre and we are quickly being surrounded by development. And so we have become a city farm. As a demonstration site we are including more examples of less intensive ways to keep livestock thus enabling us to educate visitors on choosing how their food is farmed.

So today I bring you photos of our finished pig pen. And let me tell you Cinnamon and Nutmeg are well pleased with their new digs.I did try to get photos of the two of them but they are so very fast. Worse than trying to take photos of toddlers I tell you.

 A lovely house filled with nice clean straw. The house was built with second hand building materials. The weather boards are from an old shed we dismantled a couple of years ago. Don't they look great. The silky oak was already growing there and it will provide much needed shade in the future.

 A little window to the north for some winter warmth.

 And doesn't every pig want a pond to wallow in? You won't see one of those in an intensive piggery!

 Their main yard opens up into another yard where they have free access during the day. When that space needs a rest (as surely it will with the work those pigs put into every day) there is another on this side where I am taking the photo from.

The pig house collects it's own water from the roof and it is stored in this tank. The pigs drinking water comes from here via a nipple attached to the wall. The little bit of orange is shade cloth we have erected until the rest of the trees grow.

There is still more to do. Waste water will be channeled into a banana circle, some more fencing to be completed and a few more trees to be planted. We also want to grow some more fodder for the pigs. In a few weeks time some electronetting will arrive and the pigs will have access to some more spaces, in particular, areas that we want to cultivate, as they are very, very good at that.

In the mean time they are doing a great job of taking care of our over sized zucchinis and cucumbers and any other waste produce we have.

Around The Farm

A little look at what's been going on around here..

The ducklings are getting bigger. Aren't they cute!

 

A bed of tomatoes interplanted with marigolds. Behind them are four beds of capsicum  interplanted with lettuce and cosmos for added colour. These beds are in front of the mandala gardens.


I planted the pair of Kiwi fruit that Meg gave me for my birthday. They are right outside my door and will eventually give shade to the west side of the house as well as yummy fruit of course.

We put in a couple of blue barrels as water tanks. They collect water from the shed roof and it will be used to water the kiwi fruit, some strawberries, the white mulberry and the grapes.

We bought a water diverter for this job. Once the tanks are full we can turn the blue tap there on the side and the water will be diverted back into the downpipe and flow back into the paddock where it eventually runs down into our swales. No need for an overflow.



These grapes are growing opposite the kiwi fruit. Eventually they will join up with the kiwi and create some beautiful shade. The trellising is yet to be built.

The new pig pen is taking shape. I'm sure Cinnamon and Nutmeg will be very happy here. They will have access to green pick, some soil and mulch to root around in, and the shade of some trees to lie around under. We will rotate them between the three runs, planting each run out with root crops and greens after they move onto the next yard. The main pen will be able to be washed out with the waste water going into a banana circle soon to be created just outside the yards. We will plant mulberries and nut trees for shade and forage for the pigs. We have positioned the pen so that the children who visit the farm can interact with the pigs. I think they have become the most popular attraction.

Next year we are opening the farm up once a month for "Mums and Bubs''  I will take them on a tour, where they can feed the animals and collect the eggs. Afterwards they can stay and have a picnic lunch. The children can interact with some of the animals and play.

An Adventure

We arrived home last Thursday from a week away to Melbourne. Our impulse for the visit was the huge amount of activity down there around sustainability. Of particular interest to us were the urban farms.We visited Collingwood Children's Farm and Ceres which are both of similar size to our farm (around 14acres) and situated within 6klms of Melbourne's CBD. Our farm is around 6 klms from the centre of the fastest growing city in NSW. It was our plan to tour these two farms and learn as much as we could that would be suitable for us here in terms of a peri urban, child centred, educational farm experience.
Both of these farms attract a lot of support and funding from local government, local business and the wider community. We also would like to invite support from these areas.We feel there is a need for a similar farm based experience for children in our area and it's something that really excites us.

As the name suggests the Children's Farm caters to children. It was set up in the hope that '' children living in an urban environment, often without backyards, could learn to care for animals and nature and also have fun outside''. It embraces the philosophies of permaculture, Landcare and organic farming.

we learned a lot here about signage,community involvement through allotment gardens and as a drop off point for resources, such as garden waste. We took away some ideas for animal enclosures, especially their pig sty. We are much in need of something similar for our Nutmeg and Cinnamon who have proven to be the escape artists that their species are renowned for.

The pig pens have rotational mud areas for the pigs to wallow in. There is greenpick growing in between pens for continual foraging.

We were really impressed with their setup and are keen to implement so much of what they are doing as more and more we are being contacted by schools, homeschoolers, afterschool care, and parents of young children as an awareness for the need for this sort of experience becomes more evident.

What are your thoughts on this? Next post I'll talk about what we learned at CERES.

Nutmeg and Cinnamon

Just a little while ago Mark and I visited a petting farm for a little inspiration for our ever increasing child friendly activities here on our own patch. We were keen to get some ideas on fencing and pens and how interaction between the children and the animals was achieved.

We got some great ideas..

But the thing that really caught my eye were the baby animals. Sheep, goats and pigs to name a few.

 

These lambs and kids wander free around the farm, spending a little time in here when it's time to milk the cow, so that they don't get in the way. Children are able to interact freely with these young animals. They even climb on the play equipment with the children.

 

 

 Now a sheep has been on my mind for a while. I'd like to get  one or two for their fleece, and goats would be handy to tackle a few weeds on the farm, and maybe we could even milk them except that I'm not much fussed on goats milk. But pigs? I have in the past voiced my opposition to pigs. ''They're smelly and dirty'' I would answer, when questioned on my aversion to them. We would never have them on the farm. Well wouldn't you know it, I saw a pen full of cute little piglets at the petting farm and I found myself being won over. And so a few weeks ago we took a drive up the Valley and picked up two little miniature piglets....

Nutmeg ....

 

and Cinnamon....

They will be part of the tour I take children on when they visit the farm for birthday parties, playgroup and such. They will be able to pet them and feed them, once we get them quiet. They are becoming used to us more and more each day and even allow us to pat them on occasion.

But we are a working farm and we can't have animals here that don't contribute in a more productive way, so they will also be used in a tractoring system to prepare ground for plantings...

 

..because they do love to root around in the earth!