My Motto
Every now and then you stumble across something and think ‘gee, I’d totally tattoo that on myself’. Well, this year I had one of those moments and went with it.
I’ve always thought I’d wait until I was at least 30 before I got a tattoo. I had that gut instinct that if I did something like that before then I’d most probably end up regretting it. I was a fickle young thing.
So for the last couple of years I have seriously contemplated a couple of ideas. I did get very close to a cross stitch design. Figured I needed to stitch it up before embarking on actual ink. And after I had done that, decided it would be a bit big for what I wanted.
I’m a collector of old craft. Either finished pieces or the things people use to make with. I have lots of old needle cases and needle books. Tons of old needles, wool winders, thimbles, you get my drift. A couple of months ago I bought this simply gorgeous antique souvenir sewing kit. It didn’t take long for me to realise that THIS was what was going on me forever.
Click here to see the other images of the box. It is such a delightful object, I am going to treasure it for a very long time!
I’m the kind of person that believes in the importance of signs. It’s crucial to remind yourself of the messages you hold true. Some people hang stuff on the wall, pin things to their office cubicles, embroider samplers, paint on footpaths. I have a small affirmation stuck on the inside of my wardrobe door, I have pictures on my walls, and a vast collection of button badges I can pop out for the right moment.
It’s Never Too Late To Mend, is very much a motto for me. I apply it to craft, politics, our lovely planet, my relationships and communities. And now I proudly wear my motto on my arm to help me keep on track for the rest of my life.
A massive thanks to Matt Gordon who was working out of Down to Earth Tattoos for his beautiful work. He was so much fun to hang out with!
And another massive thanks to Mark Burban for the great pic. I did some really great work with Mark and will be revealing more on that project soon!
Now, get mending!
xxx
rayna
Blitz: One Year On
It’s hard to believe, since it’s been so busy around here, but it’s been a year since a bunch of wonderful people came to our house and blitzed our garden. You can read about that day here and here. I like to tell people that was the day our house became our home, and it truly was.
So one amazing year onwards and our family has been loving the fresh goodness almost every day since. We’ve eaten tomatoes, potatoes, garlic, zucchini, beans, peas, eggplants, spring onions, rhubarb, warrigal greens (bush spinach), figs, chillis, peppers, cabbage, broccoli, broccolini, cauliflower, a big range of herbs and of course, fresh eggs. And we’ve shared all of our bounty with our friends, family and neighbours.
The last month has been super busy as we get the garden ready to pump out the summer goodness. Lots of soil prep, planting seeds and seedlings, building climbing frames and of course weeding!
We’ve put in two more garden beds since the blitz. The corrugated iron one we won from the awesome crew at VEG at this years SLF. Currently growing the last cauli, a broccoli I’m saving for seed, onions, watermelon, pumpkin, cress and some flowers. The wooden one was a great find from Reverse Art Truck and is housing some eggplants, radish and spring onions.
This was the bed we built on blitz day and has just been topped with soil and compost for the summer growth. I planted it out yesterday and today and it contains tomatoes, corn, radish, spring onion, beans, zucchini, cucumber, lettuce and cress. Might pop a couple of strawberry runners in there too if there’s room. I also had the help of my lovely friend Emily to build the climbing frame out of sticks pruned from trees around the garden. Use what you have!
This garden is humming along! I built a bamboo climbing frame and there’s capsicum, eggplant, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, cucumber and broccoli in there now.
This is a wee bed my dad built. It’s my favourite as it’s a little show garden. But it doesn’t get a huge amount of light so it’s tricky. But I have an artichoke, garlic, eggplants and flowers in there. Oh and a rogue dill plant..
Here’s a fun little upcycling experiment I’m trying out. I found an old shopping trolley on the side of the road with no wheels. So I pulled it home and turned it into a spud garden. When you grow potatoes, your supposed to let the shoots come up and then cover them with soil. If you repeat that process a couple of times, the plant sends out more shoots with more spuds. So I’ve been doing this in here, adding about 20cm of soil each time. When the top dies off, I can just tip it all out and let the kids find all the potatoes! It’s working pretty well so far.
The food forest in the chook run is going great. We have bush spinach, rhubarb, strawberries, yukon, caped gooseberry and calendula growing in there. And also a lemon, a lemonade, an olive and a couple of feijoa trees cruising along. Our very own orchard!
I don’t spend much time in the front gardens any more so I’ve aimed to plant stuff that’s as low maintenance as possible. There’s a plum, a fig and an olive tree. As well as sunflowers, zucchini, tomatoes, squash and some flowers and herbs.
The one garden that’s not coming along as well as we would’ve hoped is the nature strip. We probably put in too many grasses and not enough ground cover. So we’re hoping to get some more of them in soon. But with all the rain, the plants that are there and growing nicely and some of the grasses have started spreading from seed. So it should fill up soon. The tree in there is an ornamental pear, and I’m hoping to do some guerilla grafting next year and get it fruiting 
So we are now growing: artichoke, garlic, tomatoes, potatoes, zucchini, chilli, capsicum, cucumber, eggplant, radish, spring onions, onions, lettuce, beans, corn, broccoli, watermelon, pumpkin, strawberries, bush spinach, rhubarb, lemon, lemonade, mandarin, olives, feijoa, fig, plum, lemon balm, rosemary, oregano, lemon thyme, mint, chives, garlic chives, spinach, thai basil, nasturtium, cornflower, sunflowers, cress and chickens and kids!
Oh and I bought the bloke a homebrew kit for his birthday and gocco printed a bunch of labels designed by one of his best friends. So we’ve got that going on too!
Whew.
We’re hosting christmas this year so I’m aiming for a 80% homegrown meal. It’s gonna be a fun one!
We’ve got more plans for next year including building a shade over a courtyard, putting in a swale and planting more fruit trees.
Thanks again to all the amazing people who came to our blitz, and all my friends who’ve been helping through the year. Words can’t explain how much I love my garden.
WE are Wyndham Vale
On the same day that the Wyndham Weekly reported I was to be the new Artist in Residence at Iramoo, Delfin Lend Lease announced a new $1B property development on the fringes of Wyndham Vale. This yet to be publicly named development will house up to 12,000 people within 4000 dwellings. According to media reports (but surprisingly nothing on Delfin Lend Lease’s website) there are plans for four schools, community, sport and recreation facilities, open space with lakes and waterways, and a shopping centre.
Like all master planned developments, this estate will be designed and branded with a specific theme(s) of housing and will be sold in staged releases of house and land packages.
Since then yet another large development has been announced for the area. Raising even more questions about the pressures all this rapid development is going to place on already stressed infrastructure.
Far too often the values and long term goals of existing communities are left out of the design and planning processes. While councils may develop long term goals for their area, in areas of rapid growth it seems clear to me that corporate developers have much more power and control over the social and environmental development than the community or local government. Add on top the differing levels of decision making responsibilities between local and state government, it does all get a bit confusing for local people who do want to participate in planning processes. I can’t speak for the Wyndham Vale community because I don’t know the specific history of the relationships between the council/state government and the developers operating in the area. But I do know that of the many conversations I’ve had with locals about the history of the evolution of Wyndham Vale, these issues seem to be very much at play here.
Reflecting on these issues, I would like to present the major project for my residency, “WE are Wyndham Vale”.
I invite all residents of Wyndham Vale to contribute their future visions and exciting ideas for the area. All of the submissions are to be incorporated into a large visual wall map of the area. The map will then be embroidered for exhibition, alongside the submissions. Participation is easy, simply download the submission form, print it out, fill it in and email or post it in or drop it off at one of the drop boxes around Wyndham by the end of 8th of July (details on the form).
Once all the submissions are collected and the design is collated, I will be holding public stitching sessions for people to get involved in the making of the map. You can indicate if you want to be involved in this part of the project on the contribution form.
My hope is for a community vision of the priorities local residents hold important for the future of this area. The map will be framed and kept on display in the Iramoo Community Centre.
So please download the contribution form by clicking the get involved button below and get thinking about what YOU see Wyndham Vale’s future looking like.
Finally a special big thanks to the Iramoo Community Centre and Wyndham Council for getting behind this unique project.
Looking forward to seeing your ideas!
xox
Rayna
click the button above to download the submission form (.pdf 61kb)
Saucy fun!
It was a perfect Melbourne Autumn day when a bunch of lovely folk got together in the Iramoo Community Centre to embark on an epic wee apple sauce making session. See the EcoLiving Centre where my studio is has a huge apple tree outside. A random act of inspiration hit me when I saw hundreds of apples going to waste. My inner desire to waste not want not led me to start a sauce making day. I couldn’t think of a lovelier way to introduce myself to the locals and kick off the residency.
Coincidentally there was already a community swap meet in the progress of being organised so the two events were merged and a community day was born!
Wyndham Vale is out in the sprawling meetropolis on the edge of Melbourne. And it’s a rapidly growing area with Wyndham Vale having the highest population growth in the country last year. But like all suburbs filled with busy working people, struggling to grow a strong sense of community. That’s what I love about community kitchens, they have a fabulous way of bringing people together.
So a group of like minded folk gathered in the kitchen armed with peelers, knives, measuring cups and wooden spoons. (hint #1 have lots of peelers!). Soon the smell of cinnamon was wafting through the centre.
There was a bouncing castle, a swap meet, a brilliantly awesome coffee cart and a mental note to my love to take photos of these things next time!
Once we got the first batch cooked and jarred and the next bunch on the go I did a short chat about myself and the craft I do and then got into our Gocco session.
We were blessed to have the very awesome creative talents of Pilgrim from Draw! Pilgrim for our label design. And she’s agreed to have this label up as a free pdf download. Click here to download a nice printable version. It’s set up to fit most jar sizes.
I managed to give a very clear example of how NOT to do gocco first up! See we had this great design that was designed for two colours on each print. BUT in my nervous flustered rush to get it done I FORGOT to lift the plastic layer up before sticking on all the tiny bits of foam and then squeezing on all the ink. (hint #2 when running workshops take deep breaths and double check your steps!)
Sigh.
We probably could’ve figured a way of reusing that screen but I decided that time was ticking away so I just grabbed another and we got into it. We decided to keep it simple this time and not do the different colours rather do one label in each colour. I think they were feeling a bit sorry for me!
The first print was gorgeous! There was a hearty round of oohs and aahs and everyone was mad keen to give it a go. And I dare say there was a significant level of gocco converts in the group!
After some drying and cooling time, it was finally time to decorate the jars and they look HOT!
A heap more cooking and sterilising and stirring and printing and chopping and gluing ensued and before we knew it we had a bench covered in yummy scrummy jars of sauce. If anyone wants the recipe I’ve posted it at the bottom of this post.
And how chuffed were all the attendees to take home some jars? Yip, pretty blimmin chuffed. I for one went straight home and cranked up a roast pork and it was DELICIOUS.
Overall, the day was a brilliant success. What was most satisfying for me was bringing together a bunch of like minded people who are all based in the West and working in various ways on issues of community, environment and sustainability. But whom in most part didn’t know each other. Many great conversations were held and it was fabulous as a facilitator to be floating in and out of conversations about cooking, politics, climate change, gardening, parenting and economics. Even more exciting for me has been watching everyone connect on Facebook post event and continuing the conversations and collaborations.
The other aspect of the event that I was really happy about were the people who didn’t attend but still contributed. There were people contributing apples and jars all week even though they weren’t able to attend. I’m really looking forward to starting the next stage of the residency and meeting even more awesome locals!
Massive thanks to all who attended and made the day such a raving success.
xox
Rayna
APPLE SAUCE RECIPE
Preparation Time
10 minutes
Cooking Time
20 minutes
Makes
750ml (3 cups)
Ingredients
1kg granny smith apples, peeled, cored, coarsely chopped
100g (1/2 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
185ml (3/4 cup) apple juice or water
1 tbs fresh lemon juice
2 x 7cm cinnamon sticks
1/4 tsp mixed spice
Method
Combine the apple, sugar, apple juice or water, lemon juice, cinnamon sticks and mixed spice in a large saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring, for 3 minutes or until the sugar dissolves.
Increase heat to medium-high and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes or until the apple is soft. Remove from heat. Remove cinnamon sticks and discard. Set aside, uncovered, for 5 minutes to cool slightly.
Transfer apple mixture to the jug of a blender or the bowl of a food processor and process until pureed (we didn’t bother doing this, just cooked it a bit longer and mashed it in the pot). Place in a clean saucepan and stir over low heat until heated through.
Notes
This apple sauce will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 days.
Sauce and swap!
I am pleased as punch to announce the first event for my residency project at Iramoo “Sauce and Swap!”
On Saturday April the 30th, we’ll be saucing it up with apples from the tree at the EcoLiving Centre. And we’ll be making labels with a Gocco printer so if you’ve never used one before it’s your perfect opportunity to come give it a go! Draw! Pilgrim has done the label design and it is GORGEOUS! She also did the poster, isn’t it great!
At some stage between peeling, chopping, stirring, sterilising and printing, I’ll be giving a little introductory talk about my craft and what sort of stuff I’ll be getting up to during the residency.
And there’s a community swap meet going on as well. So bring all your unwanted (but good!) stuff and swap it for some other stuff. How rad is that?
If you are planning to come, please try and bring some jars. We need small sauce jars and lids, no more than 300ml in size. And if you can get the labels off before you come that will save us a heap of time on the day.
Don’t forget to help us spread the word amongst the locals. I’ve started meeting people, but I’m sure there’s tons of closet craft/apple sauce/community radness fans out there.
See you there!
xox
rayna
Crafting a new community
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a guest post for the in.cube8r blog. Here it is reposted in case you didn’t see it. And please go check out their site. And even better, please go visit one of their lovely shops!
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever does” Margaret Mead
In this time of global environmental and economic crisis, the looming challenges can sometimes seem insurmountable, especially considering Australia is one of the biggest carbon consuming countries per capita on our lovely planet.
While the challenge to turn this around may seem enormous, it’s not impossible to meet. One of the most important and effective changes we need to take on is our relationship with stuff. Indeed it is our obsession with material things that is such a massive contributor to our environmental excesses.
While the mainstream media might still be consumed with the debate as to whether climate change is a human-created problem, or even exists in the first place, most Australians are getting on with the job and working towards solutions. From the direct action activists placing themselves between the trees and the chainsaws, to the vast hordes of cyber campaigns, to the school kitchen gardens, to earthships, the solutions are as diverse and inspiring as the communities working on them.
The craft community is no exception. While the same capitalist consumerist pressures exist within the craft world, you would be hard pressed to find a crafter who hadn’t spent some time thinking about the social and environmental ramifications of their making. In fact, many centre their crafting around finding different ways to reuse old materials or to make statements about their vision of the way the world could be.
As a community we are fantastic at cheering each other on. Of all the different worlds I interact with, none is so happy and enthusiastic as the crafters. What we aren’t too hot at is calling each other out on our naughty stuff. What I really don’t see enough in the craft world is crafters questioning the world around them, and their craft within the context of that. Craft does not exist in a vacuum. Issues of sustainability, economics, sexism, racism and cultural appropriation, homophobia and all the other phobias do impact our making. Identifying and challenging those issues need not be scary or dramatic, but it is important to do.
Sustainability is one of the easiest ways to check out our attitudes. For makers, we can firstly ask if we are really makers or are we just consumers and hoarders? We’re all a little bit guilty of stashing, but it’s good to check in every now and then and make sure your stash isn’t requiring a whole house of its own. If it is, the time has definitely come to start being an actual maker again! And of course, it’s important to check out where your supplies actually come from. No point making your own stuff in protest at the sweatshop industry when all your supplies come from sweatshops. Buying less supplies but making sure it’s locally made not only has a big impact environmentally but also makes a significant difference to the local craft community.
One of the harder challenges for those of us makers is to ask ourselves if the world really needs the things we make. There I said it. Yes, there can only be so many fabric covered button badges, beaded bracelets and wall decals. What there isn’t enough of is shoes for school children, menstrual pads for school girls and warm clothes for homeless people. I’m not saying that we have to use our craft to save the world all the time. But we should ask if our craft is directly unsaving the world. I used to make cross stitch kits. But one day I realized I was sending the majority of them to America and it seemed to be a pretty big waste. You can already buy cross stitch fabric, embroidery thread and needles in America so why post them there? Now I sell electronic copies of my patterns instead. It’s a lot less resource intensive and my customers get the design instantly. Not only am I now using less transport miles and packaging, I am providing a better service to my customers. Proving the point of environmental campaigners that doing business sustainably is not only better for the environment, but it’s a smarter way of doing things.
What our world really needs is less stuff. Not in a minimalist, bland boring kind of way. But a surround yourself in brilliant, useful, locally made inspiring stuff way. Crafters and makers have such a brilliant long history of leading the way when it comes to adapting to new environments and demands for better ways of doing things. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to see the craft scene leading the way as role models in the environment movement?
However uncertain our future is, one thing we can be sure of is our survival as a species relies on our capacity to get truly creative and embrace the challenges of a post-carbon future. Can’t get much craftier than that!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Rayna Fahey is a local craft artist. She co-founded the Craft Cartel with Casey Jenkins and runs radicalcrossstitch.com Rayna is a self-described craft evangelist and loves nothing more than finding new ways to combine her love of craft, hanging outside, gardening and subverting the dominant paradigm.
Iramoo!
Tomorrow is the first day of my exciting new adventure, a three month artist residency at the Iramoo Community Centre in Wyndham Vale. For those of you not terribly familiar with Wyndham Vale it’s right next to Werribee on Melbourne’s South-Western most border. In fact the community centre looks right out over some classic western basalt plains.
It’s an interesting little suburb. Some parts old and some parts new, both in houses and in people. It’s a quiet wee spot but has a really interesting and engaged little community. It’s very much like my suburb. One of those spots surrounded in busy bustlingness so often gets overlooked and as a result has a little village feel.
For my residency I’m going to be based in the local environment centre which is tucked away in a quiet street overlooking the delightfully tranquil Lollipop Creek. I’m going to be up to all sorts of lovely mischief involving different groups within the community and using all sorts of materials from local natural materials through to industrial offcuts from local businesses. And whatever else I stumble across along the way.
Alongside the environment centre is a giant heavily laden apple tree. So to kick start the residency I’m going to host a apple sauce making day with locals and anyone else interested in coming. Details about that soon.
In the meantime, I’d love to ear if any of my readers are out that way. Or if you know anyone who lives nearby who’d be interested in some craft workshops or just plain ol play time, please pass this on. I’ll be sending out email newsletters about this project so if you want to be on it, drop me a line.
Bra Bug Gardens – the tutorial you’ve all been waiting for!
Our household just held a massive cleanse. We decided we just had FAR TOO MUCH STUFF! So we’ve been through every cupboard, drawer and shelf cleansing out the excess stuff. The pile is immense and I’m very much looking forward to our Garage Sale this weekend to help raise funds for the Christchurch Women’s Refuge. I’m also donating 100% of pattern sales, so please pop over to the shop and pick one up.
But there’s some stuff you can’t sell too easily. And I’ve managed to filter a whole big bag of old knickers socks and bras out of the drawer (which I can now close! hurrah!). Rather than biff them in the bin, since textile production is one of the most wasteful industries on the planet, I’ve been seeking out ideas for reusing.
I’ve also set myself a wee mission this year to see how many different ways I can come up with the grow plants on fences. Long time readers will know I’m not the worlds biggest fence fan. But while it’s not possible to completely do away with them, I’m interested in finding ways to make the ones we have to have more functional. Canvases and gardens have been my two areas of experimentation.
So with that in mind I had a cheeky yet cunning idea to reuse my old bras. I’ve recently finished breastfeeding and I’m certainly not planning on doing that again so I’ve got a heap of maternity bras. They’re pretty solid so I thought they might make awesome plant pots!
PRESENTING: Possibly the worlds first Bra Bug fence pot tutorial!!
Materials:
old bras
scissors
needle and thread
stuff to decorate with (buttons, glitter, embroidery thread etc)
dirt
sand
little plants – succulent cuttings are ideal
STEP ONE
Grab a big pile of bras
STEP TWO
Cut off the back strap and shoulder straps
STEP THREE
Decorate!! There is absolutely no instruction here. Go nuts. Make your bras whatever you can possibly imagine them to be. I made bugs because these were heading for the fence at our community garden where our Permaculture Playgroup is held. Each week we have a theme and bugs was it this week.
Don’t laugh at my dorky bugs!
STEP FOUR
Fence time! This is of course the most fun bit. Find yourself a chain link fence and slip one half of the bra through and fold it back on itself so the two cups are joined. Then stitch along the side and the bottom so it holds together. You can stitch however you like just try not to leave gaps or the dirt will just fall through.
TIP 1: Use a fat long needle. It’s quite tricky pushing the needle through since the fabric is usually quite thick. Especially if you have a padded bra.
TIP 2: Get a friend to help with this bit and have a person on each side. It’s a wee bit tricky to push the needle through from the opposite side of the fence you’re standing on. It’s possible but annoying. Also, it’s more fun making stuff with friends
STEP FIVE:
Gardening time! Fill your bug up with dirt and then plant. I was planting succulents and put 3/4 dirt and 1/4 sand so it looked pretty.
TIP: when you’re putting in the first bit of dirt make sure you stuff it in to fill the cups out, especially if you aren’t using padded bras. It’ll help it hold its shape.
And that’s it!
These ones were very much an experiment and I am quite sure I will perfect the art of upcycling old bras into spectacular mini fence gardens and I’ll try and update this post with any great lessons learned. In the meantime, have a go! I for one think the world is finally ready for the next great thing in organic, sustainable street art.
xox
Permablitz! part 2 – how does your garden grow?
Now following on from my previous post about our permablitz…
Four weeks and buckets of rain and sunshine later, our garden has completely transformed!
Firstly and most importantly, presenting our fabulous new chickens! This is Susan.
And this is Patti (who refuses to sit still for a photo..)
They’re both very happy hens and were laying less than 12 hours after moving in. We are loving the fresh eggs! Needless to say, Tara is pretty stoked about her new friends, or as she calls them ‘our two mums’.
Post blitz, we’ve done quite a bit of work to their space. We had to move the house and construct a chook fence to keep them away from our neighbours (bless them..). And we’ve put in the beginnings of an orchard.
Their wee garden is coming along nicely!
I’ve started stitching on the fence – the ladies approve! Hoping to do more on it over the summer.
And the rest of the garden is coming along amazingly
our new garden beds are going crazy, and as you can see we’ll be harvesting out of them very soon
We’ve had our first potato harvest and they were super yummy. Even made some potato bread. It was so delicious there wasn’t even time to take a photo of it…
Everything is growing so green and luscious. We’ve been eating fresh spinach every day and the tomatoes, beans and capsicums are all flowering and starting to produce fruit. There’s some seriously awesome salads coming up.
So finally we have a wonderful kitchen garden and outdoor dining area. We had our first proper test drive this week when some of our good friends came over for a BBQ
And everyone approves!
Finally – and I’m not even showing you everything, there is SO MUCH going on in our garden – I made a little hanging strawberry garden out of some old formula tins and some jute string.
Plant pots are a great way to reuse formula tins. Just whack some spraypaint on the sides to cover the ugliness and away you go. Hanging them is a great way to fill up underutilised spaces. They’re the perfect size for strawberries. Can’t wait til these babies take off!
So our medium sized Melbourne block is currently growing: potatoes, garlic, countless varieties of tomato, chillies, capsicums, spinach, zucchini, beans, eggplants, carrots, spring onions, kale, strawberries, chives, rosemary, basil, lemon thyme, sage, pineapple sage, oregano, cress, lemon balm, parsley, chamomile, liquorice, comfrey, figs, plums, lemons and nectarines. Plus of course the chickens. And we have HEAPS more space to use. And we probably spend about 5-10 hours a week pottering around attending to weeding, pruning, staking, harvesting etc.
The increased value of our quality of life? Priceless.
Permablitz!
So a few months back we attended our first Permablitz at our friends’ house. A Permablitz is basically a backyard blitz with a permaculture design. And we had such an amazing time! So wonderful to join in with a bunch of awesome people to descend on someone’s house and transform their space into a highly functional, productive working garden. Not only did we get to meet heaps of interesting people, we got to learn a lot too.
Watching our friends’ garden grow since has been so exciting to watch so when we were offered the opportunity to have our own garden blitzed, we couldn’t be more thrilled!
As readers and friends will know, 2010 has not been the easiest for us. So we couldn’t have been happier to learn something amazingly GOOD was going to happen to us!
We had the amazing design help of Angela, Amanda and Mara, who worked with us to come up with a great plan to transform our garden. And one slightly boggy Sunday in November about 50 people rocked up to our place and made our dreams a reality. We had a pretty strict policy of buying as little new stuff as possible. In the end the new stuff we bought was dirt, sand, gravel, some chicken wire, screws, nails and a gate latch. Everything else was dug out of our shed, brought by people on the day or scavenged from around our neighbourhood. I’ll let the pictures tell the story.
BEFORE:
DURING
Pre-gardening stretches led by the awesome Lex. Coupled with the chi kung session after lunch, we cemented our role as the neighbourhood freaks
SERIOUS mud. We had a clear day but we’d had a months rain the day before and this area was already pretty thick with clay. MASSIVE respect to the people who worked on this area!
Chook house construction. Utilising our old outdoor table, a few wooden pallets and an old cabinet unit.
Garden bed construction, featuring the old top of the outdoor table.
Planting! It’s always the highlight of a blitz, putting in the seedlings everyone brought at the end of the day.
Halfway through the morning we decided that since we had such an awesome turnout we’d do the nature strip too. Fully planted out with indigenous grasses, small shrubs and ground covers.
And at the end of the day, everyone was EXHAUSTED!!
AFTER
My favourite recycled material was the inside of an old screen door. We knocked it out of the frame, turned it sideways and attached it to the side of our courtyard frame. Perfect climbing frame for our happy wanderer!
Arguably the world’s coolest chook house!
Little window sill gardens for the chooks, drip watered from the chook house roof. Now planted out with marigolds, cress and strawberries.
And arguably the worlds first pallet chook gate with a nice mesh on the actual gate – a perfect cross stitch canvas! I’ve already stitched a small heart on it and planning a lot more. I’ve also planted beans on the right side to grow up the timber. And I just noticed the first one has sprouted today!
Well I reckon that’s enough pictures for one post. The blitz was just over a month ago and the place has grown so much. I’ll do another post with updated photos so you can see the transformation. EDIT: it’s here.
But before I wind this one up I just want to say how amazing the permablitz community is. The Melbourne Permablitz organisation just had it’s 100th blitz (we were #98). So that means 100 gardens at peoples houses, community centres and gardens and school gardens have been transformed into food producing spaces all thanks to the voluntary hard work of people who truly believe it is possible to turn this world around if we just roll up our sleeves and just bloody get on with it. And no one got paid, and everyone had yummy food and great times and learnt lots and met new people.
And if that’s not revolutionary then I just bloody don’t know what is.
Our biggest love, thanks and eternal gratitude to everyone who turned up and mucked in. Can’t wait to repay the favour at your house!