18 September 2009
Dear
Michael,
My husband
and I managed to catch your last session
on Sunday during the Sustainable House Day
Inspection and I wanted to let you know
how you have changed our lives and
regenerated our energy toward living more
sustainably.
We received your book as a
gift about 10 years ago and over the years
have picked it up and read a bit here and
there. After 2 children, several
businesses and houses later we both found
ourselves looking for new direction. I
watched one of your YouTube videos
regarding street gardens and started to
make a plan with my husband for a
sustainable garden. It was after a week
long working holiday in
Thursday Island
my husband came back inspired by days
filled with catching and growing your own
food. Since May we have removed our
conventional garden in
Croydon
Park
and built raised garden beds – under the
helpful instruction of my 70 something
year old mother who lives with us. We
have
Orange,
mandarin, lemon, and lime trees 2 of
each. 2 Kiwi plants and 2 passionfruit
vines, a grape vine, almost 20 tomato
plants and several broad beans, snow peas,
silver beet, spinach, broccoli, mixed
lettuce, carrots, beetroot, onions,
garlic, leeks, chilli, capsicum, zucchini,
eggplant, corn, watermelon, rockmelon,
strawberries, blue berries, sweet potato
and a huge variety of herbs and Chinese
vegetables. We also built a very large
chicken yard and Agro, Mad Max, Ruddy and
Marcella have produced about 80 eggs to
date and consumed countless amounts of
kitchen scraps and left over food.
What we have
noticed over the last 4 months is that
since the chickens we have started to find
it difficult to fill the rubbish bin
(small thanks to worm farm and composting
bin as well). My sister-in-law and
mother-in-law have all started giving us
their kitchen and food wastes and they
have reduced their bins as well as reduced
their cooking amounts as it was becoming
very clear that they have been throwing a
huge amount of food away. We have been
eating from the garden for over a month
now and the savings have been about $30
per week (things still growing) but we
have already eaten 2 crops of Chinese Veg
and 6 mixed lettuce bunches. We have so
much space in our 500l fridge that we sold
our other fridge as it was no longer
needed. I think that is because we have
more things in the garden so we pick when
we eat and there are no leftovers because
the chickens basically eat them all. We
originally built 2 x 6m x1m raised garden
beds and we need more space. Probably
another 6m garden bed would work for us
and then we need to make some changes like
not so many tomatoes next time. We have
also started growing our own seedlings.
After seeing your bees we are looking into
starting our own colony.
What are we
going to do next? Well there is a whole
list. (1) The council (Burwood) did us a
favour 5 years ago when we put in plans to
build a big 2 storey house and rejected it
until last year when we pulled the plug.
Now it is just a matter of do we tear the
house down or renovate. We want solar and
have been talking about wind power and of
course we were inspired by a house in
Northbridge with his 54 solar panels. The
house we live in now is in desperate need
of help with guttering, rain harvesting
and redesigning. We have the luxury of
having the long side of our house under
700m² facing due north (about 3°) and on a
corner so there is no shadowing except
from an old tree on the other side of the
road in the afternoon. We are planning to
have a house that is sustainable with an
edible garden.
(2) We have
a block of land in Marulan about 30 acres
and I am currently researching planting a
food forest there. We are planning to
contact the local council in Goulburn and
try and work out something with the local
aboriginal people and plant true native
foods along side some of the more
traditional fruits and vegetables that can
be found commercially.
Last but not
least (3) there is a large vacant block up
the road about 150m that the council have
left as a storm water overflow I haven’t
seen if overflow in over 10 years of being
here. I would like to approach the
Burwood council and see if we could build
a community garden there. It is in the
middle of the block that is bordered by
Georges River Road,
Stanley,
Rawson and
Tangarra St East
in
Croydon
Park.
I like the way you have your composting
bins on the street and will a little help
we could get that going in our area but
the ability to grow food would be terrific
as there is so much space there that gets
an incredible amount of sun the community
garden could feed most of the house holds
in the 4 or 5 blocks around it.
These are
exciting times and we are continuing to
grow and learn. Thank you for impacting
our lives I guess the most resounding
experience is that since we started this
journey 4 months ago my husband has lost
20kgs and looks like he might have a waist
before Christmas. The children are
helping in the garden and we are preparing
food and living together more harmoniously
than we ever had. The chores of looking
after the garden and the chickens have
just slotted into every day life.
Preparing and eating fresh food is now
just a normal function. We are happily
becoming more sustainable as the days go
by. I am so glad that we got to see you
in person the other day.
Kind
regards,
JH
ENFIELD
NSW 2136. |