Written by The get together started out with a brief committee meeting. We are hoping to organise an outing to a farm out Kilkivan way where it’s been regenerated using native flowering plants – see the photos at the bottom of this post. More information on this will be sent out this week. If you’re interested, it’ll be Sunday 6th October.
A shared lunch followed the committee meeting. The food was delicious and it’s always more enjoyable when shared with friends.
Most people seem to be enjoying the new meeting venue and time. The Community Gardens is a lovely place to meet and fits with our Permaculture ethos. They’ve done a lot of work at the Gardens and Pete gave us a brief update. The Community Gardens members have planted a lot of trees and put in paths and garden beds. The plan is to build more raised beds and continue to develop the food forest/syntropic area.
One of the permaculture ethics is People Care and I really do think that’s what our group is about. There was an interesting conversation about health as one of the members has some health issues. It was good to be able to openly discuss, give advice and learn about this. One suggestion for better health is to eat probiotics and I (Lucy) presented a brief introduction to fermented foods. You can read my summary and the recipes that I discussed here: https://gympiepermaculture.com.au/docs/fermenting/
We discussed the temptation to use glyphosate. Most of us want a tidy garden (I want one, but it’s not in my DNA to be able to have one!) and the some think that the quickest way is to use spray. Cutting weeds is a never ending job, and mulch needs to be continually added. I don’t think anyone should judge someone too harshly for using glyphosate, but there was some discussion about why it’s a good idea not to. Apart from the obvious fact that it’s a nasty chemical, it doesn’t hurt to have a bit of wild areas in a garden for the little birds. It’s the little birds that eat the bugs and by keeping some habitat around for these little birds you encourage them to live in your garden. They need the protection of the grass and low growing shrubs to hide from the bigger birds.
Quite a few people commented on the increase in birds in their gardens. Permaculture design should take into account areas for wildlife even in suburbia. Roxy thinks she’s getting more birds because of the development around them that is destroying their habitat, which makes sense. Having plenty of trees, shrubbery and yes, even grassy areas are all good things. It’s just hard to get used to the “untidiness” of it all. Des and Lissa have a veritable wildlife refuge, with possums, scrub turkeys, rabbits and kangaroos. Unfortunately, some of them are quite unwelcome guests!
We’re in between seasons so everyone’s harvesting, planting and letting things go to seed. It’s certainly time to plant all the spring veg!
A few dot points on items of discussion:
- Madagascar Beans – it was a good year for them. Dried Beans can be used to make miso, just need to get some koji rice. Eating them green by removing them from the pods and cooking in stews and soups or with other mixed veggies.
- Choko’s – fermenting them – either grating and preparing like sauerkraut or fermenting in a brine with other vegetables and aromatics.
- Mice eating seeds from seedling trays – cover them with fly screen or mesh. They particularly like watermelon seeds!
- Garlic – harvest now or let grow a little longer? The consensus was to let them grow a little longer as they do get bigger in the last stages of growth.
- Sambung – some people just can’t get the hang of it. My suggestion is to pick the top 2 or 3 leaves which are small and soft and use them in a salad and save the bigger ones for cooking like Spinach. Regula thinks that tatsoy makes the best spinach substitute but there was a few of us that were on team sambung.
Very good
Thanks serge.