Vertical garden in an hour at $nil cost

Vertical garden with soil exposed Timber pallet vertical garden with soil in sacks Tafe Outreach students built this couple of vertical gardens in my back yard. It took a couple of hours to do the first one but it had to lie down flat for four weeks while the plants took in the soil. The other one was built and lifted up and the top planting done in about an hour; by containing all the soil in the sacks and cutting a notch in the sacks to insert the plants we greatly speeded up... Read More

Can I use treated pine in a raised bed garden?

I asked this question of a soil expert, Phil Mulvey, Chief Executive Officer of Environmental Earth Sciences and Phil’s advice is: In regard to CCA treated timber, there has been a lot of research with CCA treated logs and vegetables.  Slow leaching of metals does occur and impacts the soil in contact with the logs (50 mm).  Little uptake does occur to the vegetables but the same issue occurs with roots crops in close proximity to the logs as it does for lead.  The root... Read More

Dystopian but terrific writing

One of the people I read each week is James Kunstler.  Firstly, because of the writing, and secondly, because his ideas and ‘take’ on things is so interesting. Dystopean, yes.  Boring, no. His books have a more measured and very well researched richness to them. There’s a link on his blog (www.kunstler.com…) to a recent article in Orion Magazine, Back to the Future A road map for tomorrow’s cities and you can read it, here: www.orionmagazine.org… And... Read More

How to make a country unsustainable

The New York Times this week ran an opinion piece by Patricia McArdle (19 June) about how the US has gutted and is ending one of Earth’s most sustainable food systems. Where would they do such a thing? In a place where they mean to do ‘good’;  Afghanistan. Read this  and try not to open your mouth with amazement: www.nytimes.com… As some counterpoint, however, trivial by comparison, there’s this: www.abc.net… “And so we beat on, boats... Read More

Our new shed arrives

This Friday our new garden shed arrives. It will be in the yard of the Pine Street Creative Centre near the western boundary fence. Any gardener will have access to it. Now anyone will be able to get garden gear and garden at any time that suits them. The Council officer who has made this happen, Russ Grayson, will get a lock for it and we can give the combination code to any gardener so they may gain access. The manager of Pine Street, Jane Hooper, is getting one of the Centre’s... Read More

Loving a man’s spirit

Now, if I love a man’s spirit, it is at least Wendell Berry’s, poet and farmer. If you love words, ideas and guts this is your man. Anyway, try this on your heart: it’s Wendell this week reading at  George Washington Uni, Washington DC: click away and open up your heart, me hearties: brtom.typepad.com… M  Read More

Learn how to make a vertical garden from a timber pallet

Gardeners Tomorrow when we garden from 9 til 11 am most of the time it’ll be in the ‘temporary shed’ – my back yard. We’ll make a vertical garden from a timber pallet in my back yard. Cost? $Nil – everthing will either be recycled at no cost to us or grown by us:  as follows - -        timber pallet (carried back from building site on City Road by Gardener Thais) -        hessian backing (free from Tobys Estate) -       ... Read More

9 Garage sales in Chippo this Sunday and counting

So far 9 houses in Chippo have registered their garage sales this Sunday. There’s a few in Myrtle street and others within ten minutes walking distance. It’s easy to register your garage sale, it’s free and there are handy tips on the web page about how to do it. For a list of garage sales, and a map of where they are and what they’re selling or giving away, you can enter the postcode 2008 when you visit this link: www.garagesaletrail.com… The project... Read More

Things that grow up, things that grow down

Things that grow up may (beautifully) be planted with things that grow down. For we city gardeners,this is news we may grab with both hands. It means we can grow more tucker in less space. This natural intensity, easy as it is for us to apply in our urban farms, can bring: plant, insect and bug diversity more competition between pests, and perhaps the triumph of those pests we prefer – the ones that predate the pests which destroy our tucker more birds, particularly the... Read More

Sydney Council’s ‘Ethical food policy”

Sydney City Council has created guidelines for buying food for Council purposes. The Guide says: “The City of Sydney recognises the importance of healthy, safe and sustainable food to the general health and wellbeing of our community and our environment. In line with Sustainable Sydney 2030, the City of Sydney intends to lead by example in promoting and providing sustainable, healthy and cruelty-free food choices to our employees, residents and external visitors.  By choosing... Read More