The most memorable moment of today was walking into the room (I was a bit early) and finding Bill Mollison seating at the desk. I didn’t expect it, and my heart made a little leap. Bill gave me a long look, I smiled back and took a seat in the second row.
The day has finally arrived for the 2010 Permaculture Design Course with Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton. What lied ahead was a journey from Sydney to Melbourne to meet and learn from these two extraordinary Permaculture teachers. I suppose the natural thing would have been to travel by plane, but I chose the “slow travel” instead and opted for a train.
And so, at 7:30 am I boarded a CountryLink train and we were off.
September is a big planting month around here, so let’s get right into what to plant in September in Sydney. Here is a whopping list of 59 spring vegetables, herbs and flowers to plant right now.
amaranth (194/365) by jenni ripley
Where: sow in garden after risk of frost has gone
Harvest: from January
I woke up on Saturday morning to the sounds of howling wind and rain. I though, “Oh man, this is the day we are visiting Sydney gardens!” I was tempted to crawl back under the warm blankets, but to my surprise the day turned out to be very mild, and even cozy.
On Saturday, September 4 2010, few gardeners from Glebe Community Gardens (including myself) visited two fellow Sydney Community Gardens in an effort to research their methods and understand what successes can be applied at our garden.
Angel Street Permaculture Garden and Newtown Community Garden are a mere 10-minute walk away from each other, but they could not be more different (described below) in their approaches to community gardening. Both are successful and productive, and both have lot’s to teach us about community and abundance.
I really admire what Dan Jason does. I first saw this documentary while doing research for a college project. That was a time of great soul search for me, when I was feeling that I wanted to do ‘something’, but didn’t know what. Watching “Gardens of Destiny” documentary made it clear to me, for the first time, that there is hope because people like Dan Jason exist. I knew that what I wanted to do was re-connect with the land, be a happy human, the best human I can be.
This beautiful documentary about Dan Jason’s “Salt Spring Seeds” of Canada was produced by Jocelyn Demers in 2009. In the film, Jocelyn Demers meets with Dan Jason and other seed, food and political activists to discuss issues of seed saving, organic food projection, GMO, cancer cures and relationships between people and governments. All these topics are presented in gorgeous settings of Dan Jason’s seed sanctuary and saturated with hope. Multiple solutions are presented, and it just looks so beautiful and inspiring.
Running time: 63 mins (8 parts)