Frost, beets, food waste solutions and tiny house living!
Frost has returned to Melbourne’s suburbs
Frost is here, so if you were somehow unaware that winter had arrived – there can be no doubt now! The morning air has been super-brisk lately, so while that means we get to wear some super-warm jackets and scarves, our frost-sensitive plants have no such luck… So if you’ve got plants like avocado, coffee, babaco or even most chillies – either get them into a warmer clime or get some shade-cloth over them. They’ll be thankful for it!
All the frost of the weekend has made us think of heading to the mountains to enjoy a spot of snow. And to get into the spirit of things, we’ve annointed the Fleet Foxes with the honour of Song of the Month with their indie-folk anthem White Winter Hymnal.
Permablitz News
Want to join the Permablitz Collective?
The best photographer in the world ever.
Life brings with it many changes, and Permablitz is no different – we’ve recently seen Eka, Queen of Documentation move to central Victoria to pursue her medical career while innie-extraordinaire Hermann is now living the dream on a farm a few hours drive out of Melbourne. All of which leaves us with a few gaps in our Collective
As such, Permablitz has decided to beef up our organisational hub and is actively seeking out fresh members to help us in our mission to convert gardens into edible oases!
Interested? Find out more here!
Permablitz Designer’s Guild Session: Tiny House Living
Last month’s Design Session with Dan Palmer was a smashing success, and hot on the heels of it we now have a discussion on Tiny House Living to look forward to!
Guest speakers Alicia and Andrew have been living off-grid in their Tiny House for just over two years. Their desire to live more simply, sustainably and in line with their values were the driving reasons for the change in lifestyle and home. Join us as they share their planning process, the ups, the downs – and how you can do it too.
Hero of the month
Beetroot
Beetroot is dead easy to grow, and is something you can sow right now! Plant now and in summer you can be enjoying your very own beetroot, pumpkin and fetta salads – or a beetroot relish to serve with your barbeques… yum!!
Learn more about beets and how you can grow it here…
How to.. Propagate from cuttings
The best time to take cuttings is late spring or early summer. Right now? Not so much!
Check out these tips so you’ll be ready to get plants for free using some simple to follow techniques.
Bits and Pieces
Food waste shapes up as a national scandal
UP TO half the food produced in Australia every year — about 44 million tonnes — is thrown away.
According to an Australian Institute study, Australians are discarding food worth $5.2 billion a year.
Shiny potatoes, carrots that are too big and bananas “too sausage-shaped” are being rejected by supermarkets for not meeting cosmetic retail standards, adding to the food waste burden.
This food then rots on-farm or in landfill, producing methane and creating an environmental burden.
At best, it is fed to livestock for far less than the cost of production.
“We’re not talking about greening, bruising or mechanical damage or damage due to storage, we’re talking entirely about the way they look,” Ms Davis said.
“The consumer has been persuaded to only accept fruit and vegetables that look a certain way and this is the result.
We can do better.
See the Weekly Times for the full article, along with some of the national retailers’ cosmetic guidelines that are currently enforced by “The Big Two” supermarkets all across Australia.
Darebin Council to trial scheme that turns food waste into power
YOUR dinner scraps could soon help power your home under an ambitious plan by Darebin Council.
Food waste will be diverted from landfill and converted to energy and other resources at a special facility, in a limited trial to be conducted later this year.
Participating households will place food waste in their green bins for weekly collection.
If the trial is successful, the council plans to roll out food waste recycling across the municipality with the aim of reducing carbon emissions and encouraging renewable energy.
To find out more about this initiative, check out the Herald Sun article here!
In the Garden
It’s bare root season! If you’ve got room in your garden, now is the best time to get a fruit tree in there – but be sure you know what you’re getting! Here’s some good tips to keep in mind when choosing your tree…
Of course, if you’ve got enough trees, you can always get perennials – if you already have these, now is the perfect time to divide them. Pruning is also important around now.
There’s not a lot of things that will take off in the cold soil right now, but you can definitely give the following plants a go:
- Beetroot
- Lettuce
- Mustard Greens
- Onions
- Peas
- Radish
- Shallots
- Snow Peas
- Strawberries (seeds and runners)
Remember: some seeds do better starting off in punnets, some in pots and some in the ground. To get the best from your seedlings be sure to check the best methods first!
