Sydney’s Sustainable House on CNN’s Spanish TV

You can watch the report on Sydney’s Sustainable House on CNN’s website. The one about this house is called “Una casa verde”.  Give it a few seconds to load then Click on it and enjoy… right after the advert.  I’m dubbed into Spanish of course. Enjoy, M  Read More

Trends in natural disasters

Trends in natural disasters. (2005). In UNEP/GRID-Arendal Maps and Graphics Library. Retrieved 04:49, June 24, 2010 from maps.grida.no/go/graphic/trends-in-natural-disasters…. This graph from the UN matches my sense of things. M  Read More

Pine Street raised bed garden

Raised bed gardeners, L to R: Zac, me, Sam, Helen, Rachel, Luke (holding a pot of Herb Robert) On Friday about 8 of us worked on the road gardens and we: turned the compost bins in Peace Park and in the streets took about six wheelbarrows of compost from the bins to put onto the new Pine Street Road raised bed garden in front of Don and Helen’s house installed a leaky drain... Read More

Splitting my bee hive

On Monday 20 September at 10 am Peter Clarke will show me how to split my native stingless bee hive, set up the new (second) bee hive, and harvest honey. It will only take about ten minutes. A photographer (the wonderful Saima Ali who has done the terrific photos for the second edition of Sustainable House) will join us to get some  shots to show how it’s done. Does anyone... Read More

How to cancel phone books

My heart groaned when I saw the plastic-covered White Pages on my front door.  I’ll recycled them un-opened.  I don’t use them. A neighbour, Steven, just sent me a link where I’ve been able to cancel the White Pages and all the other phone books I get but don’t want – the cancellation lasts for three years. If you wish to cancel any one or more of... Read More

Food box data for August 2010

Sydney Food Connect have provided this information on their fruit n veggie boxes: Over the month of August the social and environmental impact has been: Households/week: 228 City Cousins: 23 Price to farmers: 40c/$ Organic or chemical free: 100% Food miles: 261 km If you’re not a subscriber yet, that should be enough to tip the balance. Sign up here! I’m the City Cousin... Read More

Original Bokashi recipe

To avoid the cost of buying commercial mixes for a Bokashi kitchen composter use this original recipe and make it at home: Original Recipe Bokashi Mix (from Stephen Willis) Dry ingredients (Choose A or B) Preparation A 10 litres rice bran or wheat bran 5 litres fish meal or bone meal or chicken manure 5 litres seed remains after oil extraction (canola, soya, sunflower, sesame... Read More

Bob The Chook goes on the web

Bob the Chook shows the way to the kids Today I spoke by video on my computer with some children in a school in Qld.  They asked questions and I answered them as best I could. To show the kids one of the things I do to live by growing my own food I held one of the chooks, Bob, in my arms for most of the 45 minutes of our discussion.  Bob was the star.  To persuade Bob to relax... Read More

Beautiful garden diary

The 2011 permaculture diary produced by Michele Margolis features Myrtle St, Peace Park compost bins and other local verge initiatives. It is inspiring and informative for anyone vaguely interested in food growing, community gardening or sustainability  with real life stories, resources, planting calendar and  recipes. It’s ethically printed with recycled Australian paper... Read More

Choosing a sewage system for a house

I’ve been asked this question: “We are very interested in installing an aerated system to treat our greywater for in-house use and would appreciate any advice on which supplier to use. So far Ozzi Kleen have been the most responsive to our enquiries.” I consider at least two products for on site sewage projects: Aqua Nova (aquanova.com…, and Innoflow (www.innoflowtechnologies.com…) The... Read More