Permaculture Shoalhaven
You have probably heard the word permaculture on
ABC Regional Radio, "Gardening Australia" or "Burke's Backyard".
It is a word that stops you in your tracks. It's meaning is not obvious.
Some people see it as a particular way of growing food and you will hear
people talking about a "permaculture garden". Others use it to
describe their lifestyle - ways of living that can endure for generations.
Coined in Tasmania in 1974 by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, the word
has its origins in very old practices of very old cultures - the ones that
continued for generations. Practices that involved co-operation with nature
and each other.
Permanent culture. Culture goes with communities - interdependent groups of people growing food, raising animals, caring for each other, healing each other, sharing their knowledge and skills and trading surpluses and special goods.
Permaculture also incorporates modern scientific knowledge such as passive solar design, the need for rhizobium bacteria to add to the seeds of nitrogen fixing plants and keyline water storage plans.
Permaculture practices are based on careful observation of our environmnet,
our use of resources and how we meet our needs. It's about designing, implementing
and maintaining productive environments that provide food, medicines, energy,
shelter, material and non-material needs as well as the social and economic
infrastructures that support them and doing this in a way that can continue
for generations
Permaculture in the Shoalhaven
There are many permaculturalists in the Shoalhaven. A group in
Milton get together most months in each other's backyards - to exchange
information gleaned from local observation, to provide labour and ideas
on projects such as making mud-bricks, building a chicken tractor, planting
out a windbreak or a "living fence", setting up compost systems,
digging swales, starting up an aquaculture system, making a kitchen garden
etc.. Even with only 5 pairs of hands you can get more than 10 hours work
done in less than 2 (the sum is greater than the sum of its parts).
The Tomerong-Bay-Basin group are establishing around a Permaculture Design
Certificate Course that finishes in November. All sorts of creative ideas
for gatherings and projects are emerging - e.g.bulk food shops, community
gardens, aquaculture and edible landscaping - especially as we visit sites
in Kangaroo Valley and see slides and videos of people and communities overseas.
It seems that there'll be permaculture stalls at the 4 country shows early
in 1998 - Kangaroo Valley, Berry, Nowra and Milton. In order to do this
we'll grow some useful, multi-functional trees and plants to sell and provide
practical and anecdotal information to interested people about sustainable
living in the Shoalhaven.
If you would like to become involved, find out more, or have a group of
people with permaculture on their minds come to your backyard/property,
ring Pamela Gray on 4454 0880
Pamela Gray , is a permaculturalist/teacher, celebrant and papermaker
living in Milton