Partytime next week, mushrooms and ready to blitz Croydon!
We’ve come a long, long way together… Through the hard times and the good… And we’re going to praise all those who have helped make Permablitz what it is, which means designers, hosts, PDC teachers and graduates, past blitzers, anyone who’s ever wanted to go to a blitz but never quite made it, those who fed the hordes of hungry blitzers… heck, everyone!
In honour of all those who will be joining us next week (that’s you right?) at the Permablitz Social Night, we’d like to dedicate this song of the month to you all, with Praise You by Fatboy Slim. Let’s watch them bust a few moves! (An honorary mention has to go to Camille Yarbrough for the original Take Yo’ Praise – a total jazz/funk classic!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex1qzIggZnA
Permablitz News
Join us for a Permablitz Social Night featuring Charlie Mgee of Formidable Vegetable
Next Thursday night the Permablitz Social Night is upon us. It’s all happening on May 9 at Open Studio in Northcote from 7 – 10pm.
If you’re interested in permaculture (or permablitzes!) come along and mingle with designers and permie practitioners.
Permablitz founders Dan Palmer and Adam Grubb will be joining us, and we’re looking forward to seeing many familiar faces from blitzes of the past, as well as meeting new people who we’ve only spoken to via email. It’s really a night for us to say “Thank You” to all the people who have made Permablitz what it is.
Charlie Mgee will be performing for us, including songs from Formidable Vegetable‘s latest album “Earth People Fair“. We’ve also received a swag of goodies from a number of very generous organisations including Pip Magazine, Milkwood, Melliodora Publishing and The Bearded Bee. Naturally, we’ve got to give these away. Obviously.
Kat Lavers featured on Gardening Australia!
If you’ve never been lucky enough to visit the garden of Kat Lavers, then you’re in for a real treat. Last weekend her amazingly beautiful and bountiful garden was featured on Gardening Australia.
Check it out for all kinds of tips for growing produce in small spaces.
Tina's Urban Permaculture Garden
When Tina decided to transform her lawn into a productive garden, she came to Permablitz asking for us to recommend a designer to see what was possible. Designers’ Guild member (and designer of over a dozen permablitzes) Terry was local to her and created the design.
There were then two permablitzes at Tina’ home last July and August and she now has a thriving food forest and vast productive spaces that allow her to grow food for her family, and support the environment.
3000acres, Open Gardens Victoria and Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation are partners in presenting a series of guided tours of Melbourne’s best productive gardens – check out their video showing how amazing Tina’s garden looks here!
Hero of the Month
The Mushroom
Oyster mushrooms growing on straw
Autumn has arrived and it’s finally mushroom season! At this time of year every walk in the forest is like a treasure hunt. You never know what beautiful, rare or even tasty treat might be hiding behind the next tree.
Massive thanks to Ema from the Mycommunity – Applied Mycology and Learning Lab for the amazing insights into these wonderful fungi.
Beets and Pieces
Good Life Permaculture teams up with City of Hobart to create compost booklet
Food waste comprises nearly half of the rubbish in an average household rubbish bin.
If you compost your food waste you’re diverting it from landfill where it takes up valuable space, rots and emits harmful methane gasses. Around 3% of Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions come from organic matter rotting in landfills.
As part of efforts to achieve zero waste to landfill by 2030, the City of Hobart has released a free booklet called ‘Home Composting in Hobart’. Don’t be fooled by the title though, this is just as valid for those of us not on in Tasmania!
Produced by Good Life Permaculture, with illustrations by local artist Rachel Tribout, the booklet provides strategies and techniques for composting food waste. It covers topics from worm farms to keeping chooks, as well as advice for common composting problems and how to build a no-dig garden.
Let’s talk about the weather
There’s few things Melburnians talk about more than beverages or sport, but weather is certainly one of them! We suspect that’s because it can be changeable and seems hard to predict, but it doesn’t have to be so mysterious. It’s all about knowledge…
Hosted by Jeremy of Very Edible Gardens and comprising four sessions across the year this free series is designed to unleash your inner weather nerd. Occurring at significant points of the annual cycle, each session will cover global climate fundamentals along with current weather patterns and what to look for until the next session.
The next one isn’t til mid-June – but you may want to book in now, or you may miss out.
Ballarat’s own version of backyard blitz empowers community to grow their own food
Permablitzes don’t just happen in Melbourne – they happen all across the world. Here’s one that happened just a few weekends ago – hats off to the great work of the people in the Ballarat Permaculture Guild!
Ballarat Permaculture Guild committee member Liz O’Dwyer said the permablitz on Saturday brought her one step closer to her garden goals that she could not have achieved on her own.
“It is all about community,” she said.
See the full article from The Courier here.
In the Garden
The best cloves to plant are those you’ve got from a friend who has successfully grown garlic before
May is the last month of autumn, and the weather will soon start to get really cold! This is a time for pruning, dividing perennials, and putting in new trees, shrubs and vines. It’s also the time to clean up the garden, remove dead, diseased or excess branches and plants, and start collecting all the wonderful leaves which can be used for mulching and compost!
Some suburbs are well known for the massive amounts of leaves that fall, and you can sometimes see die-hard gardeners collecting the fallen leaves in garbage bags – it’s free mulch after all!
Oh, and you can start thinking about garlic.
Seeds that do well in May include…
- Broad beans
- Carrot
- Chives
- Corn Salad
- Florence Fennel
- Garlic
- Kohlrabi
- Lettuce
- Mizuna
- Mustard greens
- Onion
