Long Lunch from New Hybrid-Rocket Stove

Exciting New Event on December 3rd We are excited to announce a special event: How to get the Real Taste of Brazil. Learn to cook traditional Brazilian food on a traditional ‘Fogoa’ Wood stove. But just as you might expect, we don’t do anything without improved efficiency in the mission. Flo, April and Paul have engineered, designed and built a hybrid Rocket Fogoa.  Come and join us in celebration. Meet Our New Fogoa-Rocket Stove April had the dream to build a rocket stove to help use up the abundant fallen timber in the permaculture food forest. Paul had the skills …

Getting Hindsight

Are you wondering what advantage comes from a little bit of permaculture planning before you spend the rest of your life pottering about in your garden growing food? How does design increase the success of a garden? Join us in our upcoming tour, March 4th afternoon tea and discussions at Earth Keepers in Buxton. Not only will you meet permaculture teachers Judith and Paul Collins but also be engaged in discussions about effective permaculture design with April Sampson-Kelly. The group will explore what makes this property unique, and witness how this wise couple face the challenges of being self-reliant in …

Gentle Earthworks for Abundance

Go Easy There’s more than one way to shape the land and direct water to your gardens. Most people can’t afford machinery to shape the land and build abundance. So, they usually abandon hope of reshaping their site and work with what is there. Why bother shaping the landscape? We can shape the landscape to: collect surface water when it rains store water in shallow ponds provide water for birds, lizards, frogs encourage beneficial insects improve the soil water the plants prevent erosion and nutrient loss What are our no-dig options? We can use animals (pigs, chickens, guinea pigs) or …

Earthworks for Everyday Earth-users – September 9th

Abundance on a Shoestring A natural water management system can save you heartache, time and money. Learn how to grow food in a planned landscape. Utilise the different micro-climates. Sculpt the thirsty places and soak up the soppy patches. Mitigate flooding rains and prepare your home for wildfire. Not all water management systems require pipes, dams, tanks or machinery. Nor do they require weekends of back-breaking digging, bags of cement, pebbles or terrace bricks. All Earthworks need a bit of know-how and planning. With this bit of know-how you can turn you garden into a more resilient and productive space. …

The Living Tipi

In today’s workshop we built and wove a tipi using mostly biological resources. Over the life time of anything we make there is deterioration and eventually things turn into compost. But a living tipi, like a living fence, can be more durable. Using nature and living resources we can train plants to replace the weave and to replace the poles, some small trees happily grow good central poles and will pleach their side branches. We talked about a range of weaving plants and suitable pole plants in the permaculture food forest. Some plants can happily produce both poles and weaving …