Category

Permaculture

October 21, 2018
49

Degrowth in the Suburbs

By | Permaculture | No Comments

About the film

This film tells the story of one small family practicing urban sufficiency. They live on 1/10th of an acre in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. By living more simply and utilizing alternative technologies this household draws 75-80% less electricity from the grid than the Australian average (per capita). At the same time they’re exporting five times that amount in solar energy back into the grid.

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49
August 6, 2018
36

Permaculture Tours Episode 1: Abdallah House

By | Permaculture | No Comments

About the film

Welcome to the first episode of our new series, Permaculture Tours. In this series we’ll be diving deep into some amazing properties designed using permaculture principals, with the aim of giving you inspiration and ideas on how to apply these solutions in your own life. In this episode we take a tour of Richard and Kunie’s property, Abdallah House, in Seymour, Australia. On this 1/7th of an acre property, the owners have made the most of the available space through thoughtful design of the garden, house, and marginal spaces. Find out more about Abdallah House and permaculture at http://abdallahhouse.com, http://retrosuburbia.com and http://permacultureprinciples.com

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36
June 27, 2018
27

Creatures of Place

By | Permaculture | No Comments

About the film

Creatures of Place is an insight into the wonderful world of Artist as Family: Meg Ulman, Patrick Jones, and their youngest son, Woody. Living on an urban 1/4-acre section in a small Australian town, Meg and Patrick have designed their property using permaculture principals. They grow most of their own food, don’t own cars and ride their bikes instead, use very little electricity, and forage food and materials from their local forest. We found their story super inspiring and we think you will too!

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27
June 14, 2017
16

Restoring Paradise

By | Permaculture | 6 Comments

About the film

Regenerative agriculture offers a future for the sustainable farming of meat in line with nature’s needs, by using holistic grazing and organic/biodynamic practices and even sequestering carbon in the soil – so important in the fight against climate change. At Mangarara, in New Zealand’s beautiful Hawke’s Bay, Greg Hart and his family are in the process of restoring 1500 acres of land conventionally farmed for over 150 years into the paradise it once was.

Focusing on diversity of animals, plantings and practices they are creating not only a beautiful landscape but also a beautiful place for animals and people to live and thrive. Holistic grazing keeps the grass long in order to build soil biology, sequester carbon, reduce fossil fuel inputs and keep animals naturally healthy. The neighbouring farmers might think it’s a wasteful practice, but as Greg says in the film, “Waste is a human concept. Nature doesn’t do waste.”

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16
May 22, 2017
24

The Future of Food

By | Permaculture | 4 Comments

About the film

In this film, organic market gardeners Frank and Josje talk about why the supermarket system doesn’t work and how Community Supported Agriculture fits into a new story for food growing. CSA members help farmers to grow the best quality vegetables and to nurture healthy soils by committing to receive vegetable boxes every week for a season.

That way, the farmer can get on with growing great food and sending it direct to their customers, without having to accommodate the profit-geared demands of the supermarket chains, which drive conventional growers to produce less nutritious vegetables in ways that damage the soil. This is the future of food, a future in which both people and planet are healthier!

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24
April 8, 2017
6

Closing the Loop

By | Permaculture | 2 Comments

About the film

Here’s a subject we’re super passionate about – although it’s not a topic always appreciated at the dinner table! Humanure composting is the ultimate in self-responsibility – when we use flush toilets we not only waste beautiful clean water, we waste an incredibly useful resource. Our poo, when properly composted, is a brilliant addition to our gardens, making it the ultimate in ways to create a closed-loop system.

While this isn’t an immediate option for apartment-dwellers, it’s certainly an option for anyone with a back yard big enough to hold a couple of compost bays. In this video, Greg and Lisa, from Wanaka, New Zealand, describe one of the easiest ways to compost your poo. We highly recommend the book Lisa mentions by Joseph Jenkins, The Humanure Handbook – you can buy it online or download a free PDF.

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6
April 8, 2017
12

Urban Abundance

By | Permaculture | One Comment

About the film

In the small town of Oxford, Kane and Fiona Hogan have transformed their urban 1/2-acre property into abundant veggie gardens. The aim of Urban Gardener is to build resilience and food security in their local community – both by growing food for people to purchase and by helping people to grow food in their own backyards.

Here is yet another inspiring initiative that brings together the essentials for resilience: good healthy food and strong communities. Check out progress at Urban Gardener on their Facebook page.

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12
April 8, 2017
12

An Invitation for Wildness

By | Permaculture | 2 Comments

About the film

In the small town of Riverton at the bottom of New Zealand’s South Island is Robert and Robyn Guyton’s amazing 23-year-old food forest. The 2-acre property has been transformed from a neglected piece of land into a thriving ecosystem of native and exotic trees where birds and insects live in abundance. Robert and Robyn are a huge inspiration to us, not only for their beautiful approach to healing the land and saving heritage trees and seeds, but for the way they’ve impacted on their local community.

They’ve operated an environment centre in their town for over 20 years, where the community comes together to learn and discuss, buy produce and sit by the warm fire over a cuppa. We’ve even heard of folk who’ve up and moved to Riverton because they’re so inspired by the Guytons!

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12
April 8, 2017
1

The Food is Free Laneway

By | Permaculture | No Comments

The Food is Free Project is a community-building and food-growing initiative that began in 2012 in the USA and has taken root in many communities all over the world since then. This film is about the Food is Free laneway started by Lou Ridsdale in Ballarat, Australia. People leave excess food, seedlings, plants and even food scraps for composting on permanent tables set up in a laneway alongside Lou’s home. Anyone can take food for free.

The initiative is not just about promoting the idea that everyone should have access to good food, but about drawing together communities to help each other to live and eat well. We loved filming with Lou – she’s super inspiring! You can follow her efforts at https://www.facebook.com/foodisfreelanewayballarat

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1
April 8, 2017
1

Purple Pear Biodynamic Permaculture Farm Tour

By | Permaculture | No Comments

About the film

A tour of Purple Pear Farm in New South Wales, Australia, a permaculture and biodynamic farm with rotating tractor domes over mandala garden beds, pigs, chooks and some great philosophy. Mark and Kate run a small CSA (community supported agriculture) offering vege boxes to their local community.

They dream not of growing ever bigger and bigger and controlling the market for veggies in their region, but rather of staying small and supporting other vegetable growers to initiate similar projects, or even to join theirs, so that everyone in the community is eating well and living well. Now there’s a vision to be inspired by!

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1