Join my newsletterKoren Helbig2024-08-14T08:54:40+09:30

Urban permaculture newsletter

Small-space food gardening, low-impact home renovations & ethical business marketing

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Koren Helbig in her urban permaculture garden and food forest 1

Stuck in a boom-or-bust cycle with your garden? 😑 Yeah, that sucks, hey.

Consistency can be one of the hardest arts to master as a new gardener.

But, after much trial and error, I'm finally eating almost daily from my small urban veggie patch. 🙌

For my latest @abclifestyle story, I cobbled together five key strategies that have helped make it possible.

It's all pretty simple stuff, right?

Springtime is swarm time for European honeybees. 🐝

And last weekend I got lucky – a family living near me had a small swarm land in their rose bush.

I headed over with a mixture of excitement and nerves. This was the first time I'd ever attempted a swarm capture.

But it's true what they say: swarming bees are about the gentlest bees you'll ever encounter, intent as they are on making a new home.

Here's what's going on when bees decide to swarm:

〰️ The original colony begins to raise a new queen. When she's ready to hatch, they'll send out their old queen with a group of 3,000-5,000 workers to start a new hive.

〰️ This swarm of bees will often temporarily rest somewhere (such as this rose bush) until their scouts find a new home for everyone to move into.

〰️ During this period of waiting, the bees are docile and relatively easy to catch. Beekeepers are much less likely to be stung.

〰️ And how amazing is this: after catching the swarm, if the bees have decided to stay, they will line the hive entrance, fanning the air with quickly buzzing wings to release pheromones and draw their sisters inside.

Swarming is often repressed in conventional beekeeping. But in natural beekeeping, it's considered a key way bees reproduce using natural selection.

As I enter my fourth year of learning the gentle art of natural beekeeping in Warré hives, I'm grateful for these opportunities to keep developing my skills.

And what a way to meet lovely new people, too!

Thanks to @kellymodra and fam for being so fun and supportive around my beginner swarm-catching skills, capturing loads of the action on camera – aaaand for the delish vino while we waited for the straggler bees to march into their new home. 🙏🥰

Welcome to my place, little bees. May my garden's flowers be ever plentiful for you. 🌻

Um, what — so 10k of you hang out with me here t

Thoughts? Like, maybe 'radical rest' doesn't alway

Contrary to popular opinion, permaculture is *not* just about gardening. 😮
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In fact, if you're working on making little sustainability changes in any part of your life, you might actually already be practising bits of permaculture without even knowing.

Nice one, you!

The beauty of getting your head around the ethics and principles of permaculture is that you end up with a framework from which you can make solid and sustainable decisions in ALL areas of your life.

It kinda knits a heap of good ideas neatly together into a practical package that's much easier to understand and work with. ✨
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Or at least, that's what I've noticed since completing my Permaculture Design Certificate in 2017.

So, I've spelled out a few permaculture foundation basics in these slides — swipe 👉 to see.

If you're interested in delving deeper, Rosemary Morrow's book Earth Restorer's Guide To Permaculture is an easy starting point (libraries often have copies).

I also have my 'Top 25 Permaculture Books' list at the link in my bio, which focuses on practical action type stuff, more so than theory — because I find I learn best by doing, and maybe you do too?

🌍

This stuff stinks to high heaven, but I promise it

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.