Congratulations... and best of luck on the new place, Len.

I notice the "Pictures" section of your "Len's Garden Page" site is now defunct (you get an "error" message there). I suppose this is because you've moved and don't have a lot of pictures yet of the new place (?).

How far from the old place did you relocate?

Joel

g'day joel,

all pages on my old site should still be working, i'll check that out? do you have my new web address?

we have moved 200 kilometers back to the city's northern suburbs. lots of reasons for doing so but in life we must remain flexible hey?

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

g'day joel,

there ya go mate try it now somehow i missed that page in the transfer protocol.

i will be editing that page later to show the new place and what we are doing, but for now it could still be of interest.

len

Len, quite a shift... considering some of your earlier criticisms of suburban life (for example, on the "Shed Culture" thread). Now you're going to be on the "northern suburbs"...

Are you going to develop your new place along the line of a particular philosophy? Blazing new trails?

How will you deal with a neighbourhood that probably will have homes with manicured lawns... I know lawns are not high on your list of the esteemed!

Best of luck, mate...

Joel

yes joel,

quiet a shift you pretty much have it one mate, yes a shift in lifestyle to a degree definately a shift in location, but not a shift in the philosophies i aspire.

yes i will in all aspects adhere to what i suggest recommend to others, no i can't change the mcmansion manicured lawn set, yes the lawn on our place won't look that manicured it won't get any watering from us nor will it get any other man made or chemical application.

as we are on a corner block the footpath represents app' the same area of available lawn space, so we will be planting the footpath with habitat trees as mauch as we can, that will minimise that grass area to a small degree, however there will not be much lawn in the yard,

the yard will be utilised for those supplementry type activities (i find terms like sustainability and self-sufficiency don't carry any attributes to attract the masses it is like "tooth fairy" stuff isn't it, and sad to say with the undercurrent of making dollars in the permy' sector that word to is now being rejected by the lack of following building in the simple terms of it).

so we need vege' gardens and as much room as possible for food trees as well as some of the more exotic natives especially to create atmosphere around the pool/patio area, where we will pretty much live in the summer time.

at present (this could be modified) we are wanting to put in two 5,400 (24,500 ltr) imp' gallon water tanks, they will take up app' 14.2 sq/mtrs of space. the tank size could yet be settled back to the 3,200 imp' gal' (14,300 ltr) size, city administrators think that a tank in a garden looks uglier than most garden sheds but you can put as large a free standing garden shed as you like where you like, not so when it comes to water conservation, silly hey??

but yes i am still very much critical of what we humans are doing in the name of providing accomodation, in these new suburbs now the ruling bird is the crow (in my opinion not native but so out of control the officials don't want to deal with it) and the indian myna(h) ferel. so we have new generations of children who if they don't get to go to an expensive tourist attracting nature park/zoo/circus will never know that we have more birds than the 2 afore mentioned species winging our skies.

where we are is close to some nature reserve so at least i can attract some of a small variety of resident good birds. there are no frogs but we can change that.

still after spending many months living in a newer sub-division than that where we currently are there is no likleyhood that i can see of this mythical but wonderful shed-culture that existed in the 'burb's way back in the 40's & 50's and in rural up to about the 80's, but i would welcome it with open arms.

and as our 2 car garage will be converted to a games room for the pool table and an area for tall tales and fishing stories we may well attract some of the neigbourhood hey? of course in today's world of litigation they will have to sign a waver won't they??

one neighbour has come over and introduced himself as i will when i catch site of other neighbours in their gardens, certainly want to be friendly at least.

and our quicky vege' garden has already been a trail blazer though it hasn't attracted any looks from neighbours so far. and where the yuppy standard for water conservation is a tank of less than 1,000 litre capacity (no enough to brush your teeth with hey chuckle) our tank(s) will reset the goal posts.

please excuse the typo's

len

Helpful, Len. Your place will probably turn out very interesting and thought-provoking, and I'm sure very livable.

I'm curious about something you wrote: "i find terms like sustainability and self-sufficiency don't carry any attributes to attract the masses it is like "tooth fairy" stuff isn't it, and sad to say with the undercurrent of making dollars in the permy' sector that word to is now being rejected by the lack of following building in the simple terms of it"

Does this mean that Mollison and Holmgren (and their students and associates) were unable to get a real movement rolling in Australia? (I have no illusions that such a movement could yet have altered the mainstream, much.)

Also, I pick up something in what you're saying (correct me if I'm wrong) that Permaculturists have become mercenary ("making dollars in the permy sector") -- but, if so, isn't it the case that Permaculturists, too, have need for money - even if it is less money per person that they need?

J.

g'day joel,

have you ahd the opportunity to read my essay on my site? it pretty much spells out how i see what has happened.

and yes the junta have failed mr 'm' and his cohorts introduced p/c on tv oh around 30 years ago give or take and he introduced it along the lines of we must change our thought processes on how we look after this planet, it was free all people ahd to do was think differently.

then along came all this lets make some money and a huge emphasis on design came into it, well when you have that much human intervention it is no longer a natural thing, the basics has been lost.

just have a look at this forum all but comotose in the water along with other's ie.,. on the usenet newsgroups have a look at 'alt.permaculture' and it has been like that for years, it was a viable group but the over ephsis on courses and people pushing their secular views pushed it over the edge. there are other forums all listed on my essay page not much happening in them just back biting.

the whole thing ahs been taken over by a modern version of the look different and be seen to be different yuppie hippies, and that will tur the masses away and off every time, about 30 odd years ago there was the 'nimbin' experiment had lots of good things for the greater community to think on but failed ecause the masses who have carreers etc.,. won't accept folk tip toeing through the field dressed in robes and long hair smoking all sorts of funny things and with low moral standards when it came to family relationships. i see this now as an extension to that.

and nimbin continues it has turned into something so bad the original folk wish they never started it.

ther are lots and lots of forums/groups etc.,. have a look in yahoo groups as well none are inspiring others to think different, there is no real p/c chat. have a look at perm'.org.au lots and lots of members lots and lots of lurkers nothing happening to inspire others to go further.

i have had people e/mail me asking where they can get down to earth help chat so they can get on the p/c train, they don't want to be bombarded with useless expensive courses unneccessary in the process. like a carreer you can't start up near the top you gotta start at the bottom.

take care friend this is the most action this forum and many others has seen in a long long time.

love the chatting wish it would all work but hey?

len

Len, I'd like to offer a thought or two and get your opinion.

You write: "and yes the junta have failed mr 'm' and his cohorts introduced p/c on tv oh around 30 years ago give or take and he introduced it along the lines of we must change our thought processes on how we look after this planet, it was free all people ahd to do was think differently."

But one of the key things was that Mollison and colleagues felt that conventional agriculture was a failure, in terms of environmental responsibility, etc. And yet a population must eat. The Permaculture philosophy that I have heard of (and mind you, I knew nothing of it before Mollision and Homgren's early books were published) seems to be focused on diverse and highly integrated acreages that are minimally polluting (to groundwater, etc), very livable for the people who create them, and sustainably productive of food and other animal/plant products. Yet they are not the high-yield produce industries that standard farms and ranches have come to be.

So if you can only feed your family and a few other people, there must be many, many of these Permaculture acreages in a society.

Okay, if that's the concept, surely people who have heard the notion and are interested in it will ask, "Bill and David, what do you mean? How can a person persue this and create a Permaculture homestead?" At that point, the proponents of the concept have to begin to specify their ideas, because people are asking for practicalities, and some vague notion without substance or proof is just a waste of time at that point.

For that reason, I can understand it becoming design (and method or technique) oriented.

Joel

a bit around in circles joel,

but yes conventional agriculture isn't doing it like it could so if i can use that anomily word they ain't "sustainable", back in the 40's to 60's before this push for greed and mas land clearing to "grow food" all our farmers where in our communities, they grew a myriod of crops and only in season, they rotated their crops, they basically only had natural pyrethrum and some derris to treat crops with. the quickest way they had to convince people that they needed chemical broad acre farms was to say "if you want food this is waht we have to do" and mr & mrs average fell for it hook line and sinker.

they rotated their crops so the food was full of natural nutrients, they where in fact market gardeners and for the main not on mega acres but smaller plots from around 20 acres up to around 100 acres, and when they went to market they took a variety of produce and they slod to the locals community usually from the back of a truck a couple of tiems a week.

milk came from a local farmer no processing, eggs came from a local farmer all free range chooks fed nothing more than grain and on it goes.

but the way we accept agriculture nowadays won't change unless you get the common man thinking and that is where p/c is failing, p/c is practised by the few of us in our daily lives and next door neighbours don't ask don't care. have a look at this forum (did you visit the others listed on my page? see that they are not working like they should because as i said before and lots others have told me there is way way too much emphisis on making money from un-neccessary courses and equally un-neccessary literature.

and yes world wide in our communities there are lots of people doing their thing with p/c no they are not attracting others and you may find this hard to believe but i talk to many and have visited many over here, they are flat out growing enough to feed themselves, because theya re too caught up in courses. books and the design you must be seen to have to be seen to be doing permaculture.

anyhow as we say over here avagudweegend hey?

len

Len... I believe there is a big difference between the situation in Australia and that in Canada, where I am, and probably also that in the U.S. We began to learn about PC through books in the early 1970s... not much, if any, of a presence in mass media like TV. The workshops didn't start showing up until maybe the late '80s, and even then few people took them. Nowadays, PC workshops are more available (annual season of them, spring and summer), but for the most part, people only take one or two of them. There is no pressure of any kind to conform by paying for every PC workshop that is offered. Of course, people who are seriously interested in something on the order of Permaculture (whether they use that label, or not) may avail themselves of the occasional lecture on seed saving, companion planting, tree culture, and so on... but often these are given by people other than those using the Permaculturist label.

Ideas have a way of flowing beyond the bounds of the "official" and "authorized" identity circle, so by now many of the basic PC ideas have been picked up by people who have never heard of Mollison, Holmgren, or any of those people.

I know a number of people incorporating these sorts of practices and principles, but virtually none of them are supposrting their households, financially, by monetary return from plants or animals grown on their acreages. All these people do something else for their main income.

J.