So where to now?

OK, I have my PDC and a head stuffed full of information and ideas - what do I do now? I think the principles that most apply here are observe and interact, and small and slow solutions. To sum it up I need to take a "hurry up and wait" approach!

There are so many things I want to do on our property, but I really need to cultivate (no pun intended!) patience and just watch the sun, wind and weather, and really plan the best use of all our space. It's not going to be easy though - I WANT IT ALL NOW :*) .

In the meantime there are some small things that I am doing:

• valuing a renewable resource by putting buckets in the sink and shower to collect 'waste' water and recycling it onto the garden
• I've turned off the house pump and we now gravity feed all water into the house. It's a small thing but it makes me feel better. It also helps to reduce water consumption as there is less pressure. An added bonus of this is I have learned about tap architecture as I had to take the flow regulator our of our kitchen tap to get any water out!
• Mulch, mulch and more mulch - I've raked up the grass clippings and put them on the garden beds
• Harvesting a yield - growing even more of my own food

Days 12 and 13 - Design project

After nearly 2 weeks of information overload it was time to put some of the information into our first design. We were split up into groups of 5, and had all of day 12 to work on the plans for our sites. Our group had a good mix of people, and we seemed to get into the 'zone' fairly quickly and came up with a phased plan for our urban site in Seymour. As well as the presentation we put together a folio of drawings (done by the drawers in the group - I can't draw a straight line even with a ruler!!) for our client.

Group work has never been one of my favourite things, but the process seemed to go reasonably smoothly - and it was a really good exercise to bounce ideas off other people, and to try and incorporate everything we've learned about the principle in a practical way.

Day 13 was presentation day, where each group presented their designs to our 'clients' and the rest of the class. It was fascinating to see the different directions each group took - even though two groups had the same client. Some really creative ideas, and even a mini practical water demonstration using green cordial (nice one Dan!).

By the end of the day it was time to relax and chill out - everyone was glad it was over! Time for pre-dinner drinks in the sunshine, another fab dinner, and then the end of course quiz night. Highlight of the quiz night was the various caption competitions using photos taken on the course. Some very creative responses!!

Day 11 - Violet Town / Murrnong

Today we visited David Arnold's property in Violet Town. It was great to see a different permaculture property in action. A real contrast to other places, as it was flat, and very orderly with rows and rows of trees on the way into the main building.

He has an incredible diversity of fruit and fodder trees, and a dam that made me really envious! As well as the property tour, we did a session on water, and spend some time calculating how much water we could catch from our roof, and also catch in our soils. I was amazed to find I could store about 10 olympic swimming pools of water in my soil - safe from evaporation and available to the plants. Time to start planning my soil improvement and keyline ripping for next spring!

You can see David's vid's at www.youtube.com/murrnong.

On the subject of water a mini rant - I was dismayed and annoyed to see this heading in today's age: "Water worries temporary" Claims that Melbourne will not need new rainwater tanks or greywater systems in homes . HELLO PEOPLE!!!! We need to catch and store!!!!!!!!! That way you wouldn't have to take water from regional victoria and pipe it away from agricultural land and down to the city. And you could spend the money for the desalination plant on public transport. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Day 10 - animals, urban retrofitting and design projectwater,

Lots happening today! We started with a session on greywater - reviewing a range of systems from commercial to DIY home based ones. I'm very excited by some of the possibilities for a simple system at our place. I definitely want to get one of these happening in the next few months. We also talked a bit about simple aquaculture systems.

The next session was looking at options for 'retrofitting' the urban landscape - including treasure in skips, options for guerilla gardening (LOVED this part of the session) as a community building exercise helping to reclaim unwanted urban spaces.

This afternoon we had the intro to our design project - we'll be working in groups of 5 on 2 real life design projects for members of commonground. My group are looking at creating a permie-plan the urban house (run down) and land in Seymour town. I've got a great group with diverse skills and experiences so I'm really looking forward to working on our design. Lots of exciting possibilities. The rest of the afternoon was taken up with the site visit and talking to our 'client' about his plans and visions for the site.

Tonight is a night off (bliss) so will probably do some notes / planning for the project. Tomorrow is another site visit to Violet Town.

Day 9 - Introduction to design & earthworks

Today we've had 4 sessions (one more to come after dinner) with David Arnold about designing - focussing on principle 7 - design from patterns to detail. I found today great - things just started to fall into place. Lots of outdoor work looking at patterns to work out sectors (eg fire sector, winter sun, summer sun, wind) that need to be considered when doing a design. We also talked a bit about mapping, and the various tools available to map

We also had a discussion about the design consultation process - things to think about / look for / ask about when working with clients (something we have to do for our final project, although the clients are people from commonground - so friendly!!).

Last thing this afternoon we looked at earth works and looked at various way to find contours and levels - including an a frame with plumb line, and a bunyip. We they wandered around looking at various earthworks at Commonground, and did some practical work with the bunyip trying to look at how we might extend drainage ditches with the right gradient. Very useful.

The last section of earthworks was a discussion about the keyline concept developed by yeomans, and how that can be used to keep water in a landscape - either just by ditches / keyline riplines and/or keyline dams.

Lots of food for thought - and possibilities for practical application to our place.

Day 7 and 8 - Melliodora

Wow. I am blown away by Melliodora (the Holmgren property). So many thing to inspire...makes me want to bulldoze our house and start again! It was great to see permaculture in action on this scale - and in the middle (ish) of a town rather than out in the sticks (so to speak).

Some things I will be trying at our place include:

• simple composting toilet
• greenhouse on the house (might be a longer term project!)
• cool cupboard in the house
• more fruit trees
• goats
• maybe a dam
• sprouted grain bread (Su's food was amazing and all from the garden)
  

Lots of interesting discussion / debate about weed ecology, use of plants like tagasaste and other non-natives, as well as a rather depressing presentation on peak oil - I haven't quite got David's knack of seeing the problem as the solution yet - it just depressed the you-know-what out of me.

It will take me a long time to work through all the things I have seen and heard over those 2 days - but today I have a day at home and need to get out into my own garden and tend the tomato empire and do more spring planting!

Day 6 - pests, social and economic permaculture, and retrofitting

If that sounds like a lot to take in in one day - you're right!

The morning was taken up with sessions on plant and animal pests in the garden, and different strategies for dealing with them anything from crowding out unwanted plants, to vaseline on trees, to pureed bug sprays, home made bug traps and attracting beneficial insects.

After another excellent lunch the team from Commonground (where we are staying) they spent some time talking about their community. It started with an exercise on power, and a discussion about the different types of power and how it can be expressed. They then talked more about the way it's organised, how they make decisions and manage the property.

The last session of the day was about housing design and retrofitting, which included a walk across to the straw bale house on the property - which is FAB. Loads of character - and I was particularly excited to see the beginnings of a reed bed (see pic - coming soon to our place I
think!!!).

Tommorrow we're off to Hepburn for a few days, including a visit to David Holmgren's property - should be inspirational, to say the least!