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My new drip-irrigation system has been in for abou

My new drip-irrigation system has been in for about six weeks and it's a *total gamechanger*.

I can water each of my annual veggie garden beds independently at the flick of a timer. 👌

But even more excitingly...

All five of my 5,000-litre rainwater tanks are now connected, meaning I can shift/share water between them.

And we updated the existing system so I can switch my house and my garden onto rainwater or mains water completely independently, and make the best possible use of my 25,000-litres of rainwater storage. 🙌

When I started dreaming up my permaculture-inspired house renovations and garden redesign a few years back, a key element was better capturing and harvesting rainwater.

It feels like an exceptional resilience measure, especially considering South Australia is the driest state on the driest continent on Earth.

And it'll help keep the costs of my veggie garden down too, as I reduce my reliance on expensive mains water.

Big thanks to my clever Dad who helped take all my big ideas and turn them into something we could actually build together. ❤️

In this age of climate crisis, I reeeeally wish we could collectively move away from 'renovations' being code for ripping out and replacing a perfectly functional kitchen, or adding a giant extension that eats up precious open land. 😬

Imagine what our cities could look like, and how our planet would fare, if more folks instead put their renos money into simple sustainability measures, such as rainwater tanks or ceiling insulation or rambling native gardens.

One can dream, hey...

How to join your local Buy Nothing group :: if you

How to join your local Buy Nothing group :: if you're not yet involved with this free global sharing movement, prepare to have your mind blown and your heart uplifted.

The @BuyNothingProject is an online community where people offer items free to folks in their local neighbourhood. It's rather astonishing the sheer breadth of excellent stuff given away — I recently scored a near-new Garmin smartwatch, worth $380. Completely free. 😯

Not only is paying against the rules, but bartering is too. It's all about giving totally freely, no strings attached. Yessss.

As stated on the Buy Nothing website: "We exist to build resilient communities where our true wealth is the connections forged between neighbours.

"We believe that communities are more resilient, sustainable, equitable and joyful when they have functional gift economies."

🙌🙌🙌

Across the world, 7.5 *MILLION* people are involved. And you're about to join the cohort, yeah?

Here's how:

〰️ If you're on Facebook, search 'Buy Nothing' and see if a group pops up in your local area.

〰️ Or, download the free @BuyNothingApp (works on both iPhone and Android).

〰️ There's also a giant list of all the groups worldwide, organised by country, on the Buy Nothing website.

〰️ And, if a group doesn't exist where you live, you can start your own. The Buy Nothing website has heaps of info about that.

Personally, I've found so much great stuff from my local group over the past four years — including a bike, firewood, furniture, rugs, a pure wool quilt, cushions and gardening equipment.

And I've given away countless more items that I didn't need anymore.

I love that Buy Nothing helps connect me with people living within just a kilometre or two of me. And I love the thrifty thrill that comes with slowly finding beautiful things to create an eclectic home vibe (similar to op shopping).

In a time when things feel dark and heavy in the world, these small actions of connection and community resilience feel all the more important... and offer some much-needed light for the soul, I reckon.

So, time to join your local group, hey? ✅

PS. It's Buy Nothing Day this Saturday, November 25. The perfect day to get involved...

Of all the things I imagined my garden might teach

Of all the things I imagined my garden might teach me, I never thought it would be this... ✨

If you consider yourself fiercely independent — like, to a fault — try building a whole new permaculture garden when you have precious few building skills and a back injury that renders some things impossible. 😬

Pretty quickly, it became clear that I simply *couldn't* do it all by myself.

Nor did I want to, really.

I've been so lucky to have friends, family, neighbours and even the odd stranger lend a hand as I pulled apart my little urban Adelaide garden and put it back together again, this time according to permaculture design principles. 👌

Admittedly, it took me ages to get comfortable accepting offers of help.

And even longer to start directly asking for help when I needed it. (Still probs not 100% on that one, tbh.)

But now, with the bones of my permaculture garden redesign almost done, I look around and see memories everywhere.

Embedded in all the big and little elements are memories of moments spent with good folk, shovelling, building, learning, laughing our arses off.

Turns out — on the other side of the vulnerability of asking for help — there lies the possibility of community, connection, strengthened relationships and reciprocity. 🥰

Our ancestors knew this, I reckon.

But in our age of individuality and independence, some of us have forgotten. Well, I had, in any case.

Thank you, little garden, for the practical reminder.

🙏 And special thanks to @awalksym for designing the gorgeous annual veggie beds featured in this vid, and then rocking around with @leela.marie, @sotootheyears and @11dale11 to spend the entire day here building them with me. I am so grateful; these garden beds are truly a work of functional beauty. 👌👌

Ooook, let's talk poo-less manures! Yep, it's a th

Ooook, let's talk poo-less manures! Yep, it's a thing. A seriously amazing thing, actually.

Green manures are a ridiculously cheap and easy way to create soil food and fertiliser from nothing more than plants. 🙌

I tried it for the first time at my place last autumn.

Months later, when I dug into my once-depleted garden bed to plant the first of my fruit trees as part of my permaculture garden renovation, the soil colour had completely changed and the worm activity was off the charts. 👌

And all from a pack of seeds that cost me less than five bucks.

But it's crucial to use the right green manure seed combination.

So let me spell that out a little more for ya...

You can buy specific green manure seed mixes, which usually contain some kind of legume to help fix nitrogen, combined with cereal grain grasses to provide plenty of leafy green organic matter.

And most seed suppliers offer summer green manure packs and winter green manure packs — the mix of seed types changes a little depending on whether you're growing in cool seasons or warm.

🌞 I used a summer green manure, which included mung beans, millet, soybeans, buckwheat and cowpea.

❄️ Common winter green manure mixes include lupins, fava beans, oats, subclover and woolly pod vetch.

So, now ya know.

And you're surely rearing to kick-start your new veggie patch or revitalise struggling soil by growing your own green manure. Riiiiight?

Well, I have a HEAP more info on all this inside a green manure how-to article I wrote for @abc_everyday recently. 😎 Head to zee link in my bio for that full guide.

Happy manuring! (Said no one ever 😂)

Learned a new skill recently. One that has been pa

Learned a new skill recently. One that has been passed down across centuries, hand by hand and generation by generation, within traditional cultures all over the world.

Including here in Australia.

It's called coiled basketry and it's a beautifully slow, repetitive, methodical way of weaving.

Truly like a moving meditation. ✨

And the end result is an incredibly strong and useful basket, made only with natural fibres. (I used raffia, but native grasses are commonly used too.)

No glue, no knots, no trying anything off. Pretty amazing, really.

I'm so grateful to have soaked up the wisdom of South Aussie-based Aboriginal woman Tahnae Davidson-Bartley during these generous classes, held at the Glandore Community Centre here in Tarntanya / Adelaide.

I really enjoyed hearing Tahnae speak a little about Country and culture, too.

While the Glandore sessions have now wrapped up, there are several Aboriginal elders who offer weaving classes from time to time here in South Australia.

Get yourself along to one, if you can.

It's such a beautiful way to connect with a touch of our country's history, while learning a hands-on skill that somehow also offers deep rest for the mind. ✨

Last summer, with my garden deconstructed amid ren

Last summer, with my garden deconstructed amid renovations, I decided to experiment with a temporary measure: growing veggies in straw bales fertilised by human pee — yes, seriously. 😅

Here's how to do it... because you totally want to give it a try now too, riiiiiiight?? 😏😁

I used four pea straw bales, but any kind of straw works fine. Just avoid hay bales, which are an animal feed crop and so contain seed heads that could germinate in your bed.

Place bales on their side, with the cut straw facing upward and the string around the sides. This helps hold them together.

Position the bales somewhere that gets at least six hours of sunlight — more if possible.

Mine went against a north-facing fence. I also added secondhand wire trellising to the fence for vertical growing space.

Then, the most important step before planting: "activating" your strawbales using a high-nitrogen fertiliser.

(Read: actual human pee 🙌)

The idea is to fully soak your bales with water, then apply some form of fertiliser every day for two weeks.

The nitrogen reacts with the carbon in the straw, kickstarting the process of decomposition so your plants have readily available food when you plant them out a fortnight later.

This activation can be done with organic fertilisers, compost teas or worm teas.

Or by using your own urine. After all, human pee is rich in nitrogen — and free! 👌

A fortnight later, the bales are ready for planting. Make a hole in each bale, fill with compost and a little organic fertiliser, then plant seedlings directly in.

Within weeks, I was harvesting bountiful zucchinis, jalapeños, tromboncino, cucumbers and pumpkins. 😍

All they needed was semi-regular watering and a little fertiliser top-up every few weeks.

As the season slowed, my straw bales gradually turned into a rich compost-like material, which I then spread across my new garden beds to breathe life and fertility into the soil. Nothing wasted. 👊

For even more info on all this, read the full 'strawbale gardening' article I wrote for @abc_everyday. Link to the full thing is in my bio.

Happy pee-gardening, peeps. 🤣😍

Ngathu tampinthi Kaurna miyurna yaitya yarta-mathanya. Ngathu Kaurna yartangka tikanthi, tirkanthi, warpulayinthi.

I acknowledge and pay my respect to the Kaurna people, the traditional custodians of the land on which I live, learn and work.

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