EXPLORE ALL ARTICLES ON THIS TOPIC:

sustainable renovations

Urban permaculture gardening column for ABC Everyday
I write a regular column for ABC Everyday on permaculture and organic gardening in small urban spaces. Here you can browse my story archive.
Where’s the best place to start with sustainable home renovations?
Here's the #1 question to ask yourself when considering sustainable home renovations, which will help you decide where to start and what you should change.

Browse other topics:

Oh hey, want to subscribe to receive blog updates?

Slowly, the dream of filling my small urban backya

Slowly, the dream of filling my small urban backyard with healthy yum food is coming together. ✨️

And look...

I finally got the hang of that finger-snapping before-and-after thing, like 14 years after it was a trend! 😂

Happy 4th birthday to this little experiment in ho

Happy 4th birthday to this little experiment in honesty and community. 🤎

I launched @the.local.yum in 2020 as a quiet rebellion against the narrative that cities are increasingly unfriendly, disconnected and even unsafe.

Have you ever noticed how honesty stalls are rather common in country areas? But not so in cities.

Why, I found myself asking, do we seem to trust each other less when we live in closer quarters? 🤔

Stewarding this urban honesty stall over the past four years has been a wild ride of ups and downs.

The Local Yum has captured imaginations and inspired urban folk across Australia to start their own city stalls. I've received photos and messages of support from all over the world. We scored features in national magazines and newspapers (thanks @frankiemagazine and the @guardianaustralia), and visits from the likes of @_paul_west_.

Other days, I've wandered outside to discover the stall has been robbed or trashed. The cash box has been ripped off so many times I don't bother with it anymore. The doors have at times stayed shut for weeks as my enthusiasm waned.

And yet.

This rickety little stall, made from an old wooden bookshelf pulled from a neighbour's landfill pile, keeps calling me back.

It's become a portal of connection to my local community. I know neighbours from five streets over by name now. People drop gifts of excess produce to share or pause to chat when they see me leaving my front gate. Others leave notes to say: "Thank you for making our suburb feel welcoming."

The architecture of cities is becoming ever more private, more locked away behind walls and roller doors and fences designed to reduce human interaction.

Little community projects like these have a knack for cracking through the isolation and anonymity, allowing us to connect as humans again, even just for a moment. And that, in turn, breeds more kindness, generosity and honesty, I've noticed.

Well done, little stall. Happiest of birthdays to you. 🤎

What do you think — would this kind of lifestyle

What do you think — would this kind of lifestyle change be possible for you? 🤔

Stinging nettle is everywhere at the mo, which com

Stinging nettle is everywhere at the mo, which compells me to remind you: this "weed" is friend, not foe!
⠀
Sure, it stings like hell if you accidentally touch it. But, like, gloves exist. And this prolific fella is one of the most useful, nutrient-dense plants around.
⠀
Here's a non-exhaustive list of things nettle is great for:

🌱 Tea for plants, aka a free nitrogen-rich homemade fertiliser.
🌱 Tea for humans, for a massive healing hit of chlorophyll, antioxidants, vitamins, calcium, magnesium, potassium and much more. (I add a little dried nettle to almost every herbal tea.)
🌱 Drying for use in tea during warmer months. Never be without nettle!
🌱 Cooking in any recipe that calls for spinach or greens. Think soups, curries, pies, pasta, quiches, pestos and smoothies.
🌱 Adding to footbaths, shampoos and tinctures.
🌱 Chucking in the compost to supercharge your heap.
🌱 Adding to chicken feed for, some say, more and better tasting eggs.
🌱 Making into the powerful 504 biodynamic prep.
❔ Know any other good nettle uses?
⠀
I firmly believe every garden should have a dedicated stand of nettle.

Don't have your own? It's almost certainly growing near you — right now, if you live in Tarntanya / Adelaide or similar climates in the Southern Hemisphere.

Chuck your foraging gloves on and get amongst it.

The beauty of bartering :: I didn't pay a cent for

The beauty of bartering :: I didn't pay a cent for these amazing professional photos – instead, I traded my time. 🫶

When @liza_savchuk_photography got in touch a few months back proposing a services exchange, I jumped at the chance.

The deal: fresh new photos of me and my garden in exchange for strategic marketing coaching for her ethical photography business.

HECK YES. 🙌

I love using bartering as an alternate way to meet key needs while stepping beyond the monetary economy.

It feels like a form of resilience. A way of building mutually beneficial symbiotic relationships with other real humans; good folk running brilliant small businesses that I really believe in. The kinds of businesses that are paving the way for a better future.

For example:
〰️ I often barter marketing services with a local organic farm in exchange for fresh veggies.
〰️ I write a regular newsletter for my local physio clinic in exchange for acupuncture and massage (crucial when living with chronic pain).
〰️ I've bartered wine in exchange for building organic winery websites.
〰️ I even use bartering to access regular counselling sessions.

Back when I lived in Spain, my city's council had somewhat formalised the system into a central Bank of Time (which is a global movement, actually). Each hour you gave was worth one time credit, redeemable for an hour with anyone else participating in the bank.

And thus, the flow of skills and knowledge spread freely, without even needing direct reciprocity at a one-to-one level.

I learned violin from one guy, had English conversations with another. (OK, the violin thing was short-lived. That shit is hard! But still.) A friend bartered Italian lessons and received a dozen homemade cakes for a major birthday party in return. Just beautiful.

Obviously, I still need to work for money, like we all do.

But I love that bartering offers a dash of diversity into the way I make a living. 💚

And so, consider this a little nudge your way – perhaps there might be someone in your community who's up for a trade?

Sharing some before-and-after photos as I quietly

Sharing some before-and-after photos as I quietly mark the second anniversary of owning my own home. 🥳

Progress on solo renovations often feels so damn slow that I wonder if I'm moving forward at all.

But a thousand tiny steps do add up to noticeable changes and momentum, as these progress photos have helpfully made me remember.

It's been largely about the permaculture garden out back, this past year.

Rewind to last autumn and my backyard was deconstructed and desolate — no food in sight. I found myself unenthused about cooking, deeply unmotivated without a homegrown bounty to fossick from.

Then friends helped me rebuild my chicken pen with its beautiful curved fence. In front, I planted a green manure to enrich the soil. And then, a mini urban food forest — four of my favourite fruit trees plus a heap of edible perennials (plants that live for more than two years).

More friends helped me turn lengths of recycled jarrah timber into four low-raised annual veggie production beds. I filled them slowly over months, hugelkultür-style, layering in rotting logs and old branches with compost and organic fertiliser to create a nutritious no-dig situation for my future veggies.

Meanwhile, Dad helped me figure out my dream irrigation set-up so my new veggie beds wouldn't need hand-watering. We also connected all five rainwater tanks to one another, so I have increased water capacity and thus increased resilience.

By summer, I finally had food growing again. Mountains of it! The food forest understory and my annual veggie beds started pumping out produce. Suddenly, I felt like cooking again.

There's much still to do here. Many spots are unfinished, messy and chaotic.

But slowly, veeeeery slooooowly, the urban permaculture paradise I dreamed of for years is starting to take shape.

💚💚💚

Btw, I've written in detail about most of the techniques mentioned above, as part of my regular ABC column. So if you want to know more, check out those stories via the link in my bio.

And a huge thanks to all the wonderful friends and tradies who have helped me get the dream to this point. 🙏

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.

© 2024, all rights reserved. | Website design and photography by Koren Helbig.