I just got my 2011 Permaculture Diary and I have to say I am thrilled to bits at the quality. It’s printed through Permaculture Principles and so much information is in there that you will be skipping ahead to see whats happening in the next month.
From seasonal planting guides to introductions to some truly inspiring people. The lovely Dylan from frugalist massive is in there talking of suburban wwoofing. Happy Earth and how they have transformed their suburban back yard along with lots of other inspirational people doing their ‘thang’.
Now even if you recoil at the sight of dirt in your finger nails, and think double glazing is only for donuts- it’s still a great read, and you get to write all your doings in the calendar bits.
Sunday was Sustainable House Day and a few photos of some of houses we visited.
This particular one I was thrilled to see, especially after writing about lack of edible gardens in this post. A new building due for completion later this month. Four citrus trees planted in its front garden, with more edible gardening out the back.
An internal courtyard, with louvred roofing. This makes it possible to cut out sun and rain or open the whole area up for cooling. (No air conditioning in this house.)
The side of the internal courtyard had a green wall. Filled with all sorts of plants, some edible and others just to add more lovely greenery.
Over all we spent a really interesting afternoon getting to check out 3 totally different houses. From simple renovating ideas, new building constructions and a tour around a sustainability consultant/architect own house.
More ideas for us to chew on and The Monkeys didn’t break anything!
cityhippyfarmgirl 
Love the internal courtyard with vertical garden! What a great way to spend a day, having a nosy around through these houses. The planner/calender looks and sounds very interesting, too! 🙂
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Such fun to go have a great look-see at these houses & see all the amazing ideas. I love vertical gardens too, saw one at a demonstration place & it was set up so the breeze would blow through it & it cooled the courtyard down to really lovely temperatures (& this theoretically, was on the western side getting full sun…, ) Fantastic.
Thanks for sharing.
Cheers Anna
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How inspiring ! that vertical garden looks amazing, great picture – how do they water and feed the plants? Did they tell you? Great day out you had there!
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Where do you get the diary? Thankyou
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Christine- the vertical garden was great. A really lovely outdoor/indoor space. I would happily have a house with one of them!
Anna- This was a similar concept. As it was in the middle of the house, the cross breeze and cooling factor in summer would be gorgeous, and the breeze straight up to the bedrooms. It just made so much sense having it.
Joanna- Little Monkey was racing every where in that house, so I didn’t get as much info as I should have. I believe it was rigged up to a trickle system, also behind that green wall was where they had all their water tanks.
Carly- If you click on the Permaculture Principles link up the top of the post, then on to their website just click on the picture of the diary on the right hand side. It posts really quickly too.
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I’ve been tempted by that diary. I think you’ve convinced me I need it.
I love that green wall!
We only managed to do one house this year, but it was worth it. I love sticky beacking into other’s eco homes.
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Its fun sticky beaking isn’t it, I think thats why I like Sanctuary magazine so much…it is a good diary too Tricia.
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What a great and interesting post Brydie! How lucky to get a look into those houses, and that diary does look and sound very tempting! Thanks. 🙂
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Thanks Pam.
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I love the internal courtyard with louvered ceiling- it reminds me of the greenhouse we had when I was young. A quick twist of the wheel and the top opened up to let the cooler air in and the humidity out. Thanks for sharing your afternoon. The vertical garden is part of my internal dreamscape.
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Internal dreamscape…I like that. I think the courtyard with louvred roof would be part of mine. All I have thought about lately is atriums!
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Brydie, thanks for the pointer to the diary, and for taking pics. We didn’t make it on Sunday – busy time here – but it’s so nice to see the direction that Sydney is (hopefully) moving towards…
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I really hope its a direction that people are going in too…
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What a wonderful idea for the green garden wall..just love it! Thanks for sharing
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it is a good idea isn’t it Yvette 🙂
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Ah, those houses look amazing. We saw quite a lot of interesting eco housing when we did our wwoofing stint in Australia and NZ, but I suspect things have moved on since then.
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oh oh oh! You were a wwoofer? Tell me more! Where did you go, what did you do, how long for, did you like it? I regret not doing something like that when I was younger.
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Goodness it was 12 years ago now and we weren’t that young – early 30s. Spent 6 months in Oz & 6 months in NZ. Had an amazing year, stayed in some wonderful places of all types and met loads of great people. Didn’t learn as much permaculture etc as I was hoping but CT is a bit of an expert in that field & horticulture & botany, so most folk were learning from him. Did learn that Community life wasn’t for me. Started in Melbourne and worked our way up the East coast, but only got as far as Crystel Waters – Oz is such a huge place. Best wwoofing place we stayed was the Monastery at Stroud and the worst was an ashram at Wiseman’s Ferry.
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How interesting…. You must have so many stories from that period. Can I ask what bugged you about community life? I’ve often thought would it work for me…not sure.
Australia is huge. So many places to go to- I feel I have only seen such a small part and I live here.
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Lots of adventures we had, added to by hitchhiking everywhere. Well I thought community life was the way to go and we stayed in lots of intentional communities in both countries and a bit in the UK and the only one that came near to working was a quaker community in NZ and that was quite a loose community – they all had their own homes and gardens on a larger piece of land that they shared. It was the politics and intensity of such a small group of people living together – always falling out with each other, swapping partners with a too high proportion of troubled characters. Conclusion was the only thing that would work were eco villages on a large scale – at least 600 people so less intense and more folk to contribute and share the work etc – but I’ve always been an idealist.
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Thats pretty much what I thought it would be like. I have looked into the larger scale eco villages, they do still interest me. Like you the idealist in me truly loves the idea but not sure on the realities of it. 600+ would be a nice number to work with, but where to find that many like minded people??
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For another, hopefully more functional, vision of community living see Murrnong, youtube.com/murrnong. OK, that’s my place and that’s me in the vid, from 2007. Michele and I also also produce the Permaculture Diary (and Permaculture Calendar) that you have mentioned here. If you are interested in helping to sell these through your blog, for commission, contact us via pcdiaryandcalendar@gmail.com
David
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