Latest / The Shed Organics Show / #50 - The Best Bits [Episodes 1-49]

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#50 - The Best Bits [Episodes 1-49] · The Shed Organics Show

0:16
Hey everybody, welcome back to a very special 50th episode of the
0:21
Shared Organics Show. And today we are going through
0:25
the best bits of the last 49 episodes.
0:30
And it's crazy just going through all of these episodes,
0:33
picking out some of these clips to put together for this episode
0:37
made me really realize how much 50 conversations is or 49
0:42
conversations and how many different people, amazing people
0:46
from all sorts of areas and walks of life I've managed to
0:51
have on this on this podcast. And it's just made me feel
0:53
really grateful for the types of people that I've got to speak to
0:56
and pick their brains and hear their experiences.
1:00
Another thing I'm super grateful is, is for the new listeners,
1:03
you know, listening every single episode and sharing your
1:07
insights, your stories, what you've loved.
1:09
It's been really fun. I didn't realize the impact that
1:12
this show might have in such an early stage in, in just one year
1:17
of operating. So that's it's given me a lot of
1:20
motivation to take into next year.
1:22
But with these clips, look, how did I pick 10 clips?
1:25
That's crazy. How could I have picked out 10
1:27
best bits from the last 49 episodes?
1:30
And it came from a couple of different things.
1:33
One is that this part of the conversation or either the
1:37
conversation in full really sat with me at the right time.
1:40
It's often sometimes when you really need a certain
1:44
conversation or you're just in that right part of your life to
1:48
receive that information in the right way, brought to you by
1:51
that person in that right time. That's probably one of the
1:55
motivating factors for some of these clips.
1:58
Another motivating factor is you guys, you listeners, I can see
2:01
on the stats how each episode is listened to, which particular
2:06
parts of the conversations you found interesting.
2:08
And that was a good guide as well to pick out some of the
2:12
audience based top ten as well. So there's been a few different
2:16
criteria, you know, both my favorites, your favourites in
2:20
terms of the stats and things like this, and then some that
2:22
are just literally good parts of the conversation that need to be
2:25
repeated. So look, let's dive into the
2:29
first part, the first clip, and we have to go all the way back
2:32
to episode 2. This was actually recorded
2:36
before the start of this year. So it was recorded the end of
2:39
2024. Getting ready for the start of
2:41
the podcast. This is Tilly from Tilly's
2:43
Garden. And in this particular clip,
2:46
Tilly is sharing how much of her grocery bill she saves on her
2:52
600 square meter block. Now, it's a lot less than that
2:55
growing space, which I think we go into in the clip.
2:57
But hearing the impact that that makes and the type of
3:02
satisfaction that Tilly gets from that was really, really
3:05
inspiring. And I think it's such an
3:07
important clip to highlight again, to showcase what you can,
3:11
what can be done in a suburban block.
3:13
So first up, this is episode 2 from Tilly's Garden talking
3:19
about all things money saving in the garden.
3:22
I think a lot of people can relate to that, like when
3:25
they've just bought a house or they're just starting gardening,
3:28
being able to say, hey, for $0.00 or as close to $0.00 as
3:35
possible. Like so far we spent $29.00 on
3:38
the council's compost bin, so it was like $29.00 for a.
3:41
Compost because you can get the rebate, can't you, obviously,
3:43
with all the money back that they give you?
3:45
Yeah, that is a great one. And so that's like all we spent
3:49
so far. And then you guys, we've got the
3:52
green manure sample, which has done superbly.
3:56
Awesome. Yeah.
3:57
So we're hoping with that garden to showcase for people just
4:02
starting out, but also there that's definitely like since I
4:08
started family, like I've definitely become probably more
4:12
community conscious now than I was prior to having my child.
4:16
Yes, and I've like noticed particularly on like the
4:23
Facebook like groups and stuff and the moms groups is
4:26
particularly post 2020. Everyone's like, how can like,
4:30
how can we make groceries cheaper?
4:32
How can we like we can't afford to feed our kids this week like
4:36
we're struggling and I'm like, OK, I know in my that last
4:42
month, if I was to have bought the same things that I ate from
4:45
my garden from Willy's or Carl's, I added it up with all
4:50
our like what we harvested, it was $1600.
4:53
Wow. The month before that was 1400
4:56
and then in June it was 12150 and then in May, May was like
5:05
1800. Whoa.
5:06
And that's all being produced from your garden.
5:09
Yeah, that's just eating. That's not what's going to the
5:12
chickens or what's going in the most as chop and drop.
5:16
That's amazing. And like, you're absolutely
5:18
right. Because lately, like, yeah,
5:22
lately all of these groceries are just continuing to go up and
5:25
up and up and up and in, in the shops.
5:27
We, we literally have food that doesn't taste good.
5:31
It's not nutritionally dense and.
5:33
What choice do we have? We need to eat like.
5:36
And as you say, you want to feed your kids and you want to feed
5:39
your kids good stuff. And we want to educate them on
5:42
the importance as you are when you're a kid of good food and
5:45
where it comes from. So yeah, cool.
5:47
So, so then you're, you've started this on like TikTok and
5:50
YouTube. Obviously, you know, I've been
5:53
watching what you do. It's very, very cool.
5:55
So you're just showing ways of of being able to do with these
5:59
kind of yeah and these community based activities or like these
6:04
small scale or like the closed loop systems that help you save
6:08
money and and really. And I feel like showcasing, like
6:13
to get people into it by showcasing the fact that, hey,
6:17
this has real dollar value, the fact that I only spent 12 hours
6:21
in my garden last month and I saved myself 1400 dollars.
6:26
Yeah. Like.
6:27
That's over $100.00 an hour. Yeah, that, you know, is is
6:31
like. On a, on a 600 square block like
6:34
not well, 200 and whatever growing space that's it.
6:37
It's really not a huge amount of space like to produce that level
6:41
of of groceries. Yeah, like you wouldn't think
6:45
so. But when you move away from that
6:48
ideology of like, oh, I'll have like a row of 12 lettuces that I
6:52
plant on July 1st and 14 carats. And you start going, I'm going
6:57
to put one lettuce here and the next to that lettuce, I'll
7:00
surround it by radishes that'll be ready to pick in six weeks.
7:03
And then once those radishes are ready, the lettuce will be
7:05
bigger and I harvest the leaves from the edges rather than the
7:09
whole plant. I can extend the value of crop
7:13
and then, you know, next to that lettuce as it comes through, I'm
7:16
going to put like a cherry tomato that'll get shaded in the
7:19
beginning while it's like weaker and the lettuce will grow
7:22
through. Then I'll chop and drop it to
7:24
feed the tomato. Then the tomato will help like
7:28
provide climbing work for peas. And I can do all that in a
7:31
square foot. Yeah, exactly.
7:34
That's and that's essentially you're providing as well like
7:38
what you're going to eat, not necessarily like a huge surplus
7:41
of one thing where you have to go and then store it for a year
7:45
or whatever. Yeah, I mean that's still OK.
7:47
So you. Probably haven't seen my freezer
7:49
full of tomatoes. And there we have it, How good
7:53
was that Tilly sharing how much amazing produce she can create
7:58
in such a small space in suburbia.
8:00
So I hope that motivated you to see what else you can be growing
8:04
for your family in your garden. Clip 2.
8:07
We're going to be moving on to a very special friend of mine in
8:11
the show, Leonie Shanahan. I met Leonie at the Queensland
8:15
Garden Show this year, really developed a nice connection with
8:18
her and just was so inspired by her story.
8:22
And this clip I really enjoy because it's talking about the
8:26
impact of school gardens or the education that comes around
8:31
gardening and growing produce for ourselves, having healthy
8:34
food, healthy soils, blah, blah, blah.
8:36
All the things that you know, that I love taught to people or
8:40
kids at a young age and integrated into the normal
8:43
system of schooling. You know, there's so many
8:46
different ways of schooling these days, but at least having
8:49
some connection to land, to food, to growing, it's so
8:53
important. So it was really cool to be able
8:55
to hear Leonie's story about creating these school gardens.
8:59
So you'll hear it for yourself. Here.
9:00
It is episode 40 with Leonie Shanahan.
9:04
Anyway, so I'm having morning tea with my youngest daughter
9:07
and her little friends, all these little 6 year olds sweet
9:10
and and and they they open their lunch boxes and I'm like.
9:16
No. Oh.
9:18
My God, like where is the nutrition in these lunch boxes?
9:23
Like some might have had fruit, but you know, there'd be lots of
9:27
colour. We know about the rainbow diet.
9:29
Yeah, lots of colour, but it's all artificial.
9:32
Yes, in pre like in plastic. So a bit of micro plastics to
9:37
add to that as well. I'm like hey, I didn't want my
9:42
kids to look like freaks with all their healthy food.
9:46
It's like, where is the nutrition for these children to
9:49
have their birthright of being healthy and their true potential
9:55
to be unleashed because they're healthy and, you know, where's
9:59
it going to be their brain capacity and, you know, all
10:03
those different umbrellas that came under health.
10:06
I thought, OK, you have studied permaculture organics,
10:12
horticulture, how about you do something about it, do something
10:16
with it? Because I started starting off
10:21
and this happens to a lot of women.
10:22
They have their first baby and then go actually where am I
10:27
heading with my life? And that was one of those
10:30
changes. I wanted to do something that
10:31
made a difference. So I decided to study
10:34
horticulture, thinking that I'd go and work in Cambodia and,
10:38
and, and because they had that generation that was wiped out of
10:42
all the farmers. So I thought, oh, I'll go over
10:44
and I'll and I'll teach them. That was the thought.
10:47
I've never even got there. But, and I was the longest part
10:52
time horticulture student. They've had only two, one or two
10:56
subjects at once. So going back to, you know,
11:01
realising that, OK, stop complaining and do something
11:05
about it. So I went in, so that's about
11:10
2000 and four 2005. So I went and looked at the
11:16
current models that were successful.
11:18
So I went down to Melbourne and looked at cultivating community.
11:21
They were running good programs down there and I went to
11:24
Northeast Street City Farm in Brisbane and I went and spent
11:28
the day with them visiting schools.
11:30
And then I came home and I wrote my own 12 month program.
11:34
Wow. And then and everything was to
11:37
be about empowering them, not me just telling them what to do,
11:43
right? So and then so obviously the
11:49
universe went love that idea. I'm going to I'm going to make
11:53
sure it works. So I'd go on to this community.
11:58
I don't know what it was now, but I remember saying in this
12:01
group, oh, I want to start this school garden program and this
12:04
woman across the other side just puts a hand out and said our
12:08
school needs that, we'll make it happen.
12:11
And that was. A.
12:12
Harmwood State School and they were amazing.
12:15
Like we went to see the principal tubers.
12:17
Yep, we'll make it happen. We didn't get funding, but the
12:21
school so believed in it. They said no, we'll make it
12:25
happen. And we just combed the shops,
12:27
the local, it's a little town, It's, it's grown a lot these
12:31
days. But and businesses were
12:33
fantastic and donating. And so anyway, so I went into
12:37
this school and taught several classes.
12:40
At that stage I was focusing on Year 5 and sixes and I taught
12:45
them about permaculture and design.
12:49
And the idea was they came up with their own design because
12:52
it's their school. It's not my school, it's their
12:55
school. So.
12:58
And of course, if I remember the first time I got up in front of
13:01
them and I'm suddenly like, oh, oh, you've got 30 designs in
13:07
front of you and that's just one class.
13:09
How are you going to do this anyway?
13:11
Well, thankfully my mind went very quickly.
13:13
Break them into groups, work out the main thing they liked.
13:17
And, and so at the end of the day, with a little bit of
13:19
persuasion and me coming up with the final design, every person
13:24
in that school or the classes I had felt like it was their their
13:28
design. That's amazing.
13:30
Yeah. So that they had ownership.
13:32
So that was the first important thing.
13:34
And then one of the most important days that the kids
13:37
will always remember there was true.
13:39
There's that and there's harvest day.
13:41
Was the setup day. Yeah.
13:44
Where we where and it's a shame they didn't record it on TV
13:47
because they set up things I did.
13:51
Ours was much better and was more real.
13:54
So all that students came together and we asked parents to
13:57
come and help. And that first school being the
14:00
first one's more memorable because.
14:03
Yeah. You know, we had 79 people turn
14:08
up to help. That's amazing.
14:11
And thankfully I had the forethought to write up all the
14:16
different steps on butcher's paper and have like step one,
14:19
Step 2, Step 3, because we were doing Herb smiles, we're doing
14:23
no dig gardens. I'd put the shape out earlier in
14:27
the day, so the shape was there. We had so many activities going
14:33
at once. And so they come up and say, oh,
14:36
we've just done this. And I go, that group's just done
14:38
what you're up to. Go and speak.
14:40
And I was just doing this all day.
14:41
Go and speak to that. Go and speak to that one.
14:43
Do that. Do that.
14:44
There's that list. There's the delay.
14:46
It was done. Beautiful.
14:48
Thank you so much again to Leone.
14:50
The rest of that conversation was amazing as well.
14:53
So I highly encourage you to go and check out that.
14:55
As with all of these clips, these episodes, if you enjoyed
14:57
the clip, please go and check out the episode in full.
15:00
All of those links will be in the description below for the
15:03
full episodes. So next clip we're moving on to
15:07
the wonderful Michael Wardle from Saver Soil Permaculture.
15:12
Michael has such an extensive wealth of knowledge in this area
15:15
and being able to read sites for what they're telling us, where
15:20
they're moving and the types of things that we might be able to
15:23
achieve within that site that are pretty practical in terms of
15:27
working with the land, with the signposting of the the weeds and
15:31
things like this. So Michael talks us through, in
15:35
this instance, how he works with clients to understand their
15:38
needs and what can actually be done within the site and
15:41
balancing those two, but also expanding that further into our
15:46
cities and our current way of life and how we could possibly
15:50
fix some of our food issues in terms of bringing it more local,
15:54
having some swaps, being able to understand that you don't
15:57
actually have to grow it all yourself.
16:00
We can share with our neighbors and share around and bring that
16:02
local feeling into those tighter areas.
16:06
So Michael dives right into a few of those things.
16:08
And again, what a wealth of knowledge.
16:10
What a beautiful conversation. So here's Michael Wardle from
16:14
Saver Soil Permaculture. Things and so permaculture just
16:18
doesn't just cover with regards to growing a food.
16:20
It also looks at social systems and and as well as healing and
16:24
and production and recreation and social as well as
16:27
environmental and education. So we're looking at a holistic
16:30
approach rather than just one particular thing.
16:33
Identify if it's an urban environment.
16:34
I'd really focus in on how much time do they have available?
16:39
Don't know what they want to grow.
16:40
How much time have they got available because it's easy to
16:43
go like you said, it's easy to go hard.
16:45
You plant everything out really fast and I want to do this.
16:47
And then before you know it, you're, you're spending all your
16:50
time in your garden. You've got no time for anything
16:52
else because you've planted too much or you've done too much or
16:54
whatever else. And you know, there's other ways
16:56
to do it as well. I mean, I teach a course, it's
16:59
over 3 days and it's pretty intensive with regards to
17:02
growing food. And one of the things we we talk
17:04
about is, you know, how much time have you got available?
17:08
But also understand you don't have to do it all yourself.
17:11
Yes. You know, typically there's
17:13
usually about 20 to 26 people in A room.
17:16
And so you're looking at, well said, look at that, Say we've
17:18
got 20 and it's like you will, if everyone here grew 5
17:20
different things, that's 100 different things that are
17:24
available. Rather than focus on trying to
17:27
grow at all, you grow tomatoes really, really well.
17:30
I grow cabbages really, really well.
17:35
Yeah, but trade and. Supply let's get let's get let's
17:38
get a little bit of a a crop swap in space rather than but
17:42
The thing is that with some of those crop spots that I visited
17:44
as well and this this is not a critique in any way, but you
17:47
know everyone's growing silver beets.
17:48
So all the silver beets ready at the same time.
17:50
So everyone comes with silver beet or everyone comes with or
17:52
everyone comes with It's like diversify your crops yes.
17:55
That way when you come there is there is definite trade and
17:58
there's definite that social atmosphere.
18:00
So you're not just designing the ecological because you're with
18:02
regards to what you're growing in the ground and the food
18:04
sources, but you're also designing instantly, designing
18:06
the social into it as well. Yeah, I really like that.
18:09
Human connection. Yes, I think that's so important
18:12
and especially for our built up cities and communities where we
18:17
are like, you know, you barely know your neighbors in some of
18:20
these instances, which is really sad.
18:23
How do you just a question on that?
18:26
How do you see that sort of thing coming into our lives?
18:31
Because I, like you try and promote that type of thing, like
18:35
growing, sharing, swapping, all of that type of thing.
18:38
And we've seen it work for millennia like it used to work
18:42
like that. How, how do you see that working
18:45
in our our cities? And what sort of problems do you
18:48
do you reckon we face? I think like it could work, but
18:52
it takes work, you know, and that's the thing.
18:55
And usually it's driven by, for the minute anyway, in a lot of
18:59
areas, it's driven by one or two, maybe three people or a
19:02
small committed group of individuals to make it happen.
19:04
But it actually takes community to make it work.
19:06
So, you know, having it fun and interactive, but also there's
19:09
the chance on the other side of the coin, there's the chance of
19:11
burnout because those people that, and I've seen it time
19:14
again, I've had a lot of friends who've burned out doing that
19:16
because, you know, it was really active involved in the moment
19:18
they went, listen, I can't do this anymore, I need a break.
19:21
Then next thing you know, it's all gone.
19:22
And so, yeah, but also it's easy it there's a level of
19:28
convenience in just popping into the shop.
19:29
So that's sort of the, the other side of the coin that we're,
19:31
we're dealing with. But the current cost of living
19:34
crisis that we're dealing with, prices have gone up 3040% on a
19:38
lot of things and people can't afford.
19:40
And it's like, you know what, you can do this at home very
19:42
simply and it doesn't take a lot and you don't have to.
19:45
And just it's the same to people.
19:47
You don't have to grow at all. And all of a sudden you just see
19:50
relief on their face because they feel they've got to do it
19:53
all. It's like, no you don't.
19:54
Yeah. All right.
19:55
But let's focus on what is of value to you and your family,
19:59
whether it be monetary value or health or whatever else, and
20:02
then let's grow that so you can support yourself with that and
20:06
start there. And then maybe slowly but surely
20:09
add little bit by little bit and understanding the limits of the
20:13
site, because suburban areas, a lot of suburban blocks are
20:16
anywhere between 300 and 800 squares now.
20:19
And you can do stuff, but you can't do it all.
20:21
Yeah. Yeah, you can't plant every
20:23
tree. You can't.
20:25
You're right, You can't do. If it you can't do exactly, and
20:29
if it knocks a little bit off your grocery bill or or
20:31
something and and you can then provide little extras to your
20:35
neighbors or something and to your family, then that helps
20:38
everybody. And then more people get excited
20:40
by it because they can do it. It's only a small manageable
20:43
amount and they can work this the way way up with it.
20:47
There's a small. Even here, you know, I've got a
20:50
little bit. I've got 3 meters of balcony
20:52
garden. I'm in a rental, I've got a
20:55
biponic shoes downstairs and there was an old garden bed that
20:57
I've converted into a herb guard that's producing everything I
21:00
need. Yeah, awesome.
21:01
You know, you don't need a lot of space to do this stuff.
21:04
It's a bit of an illusion that we need to have acres and acres
21:06
and acres to do it. It's just about being strategic.
21:09
And he's absolutely right, because I always thought that
21:12
you needed acres and acres myself.
21:14
I always dreamed of acres of farmland and trying to grow
21:18
absolutely everything myself. I think maybe that's just part
21:21
of everybody wants to do everything themselves, but you
21:24
know, we don't have to. The reality is we can share and
21:27
we can cooperate. And I really liked that clip.
21:30
So go and check that out. That was episode 25.
21:34
Now the next clip we are going again all the way back to
21:38
episode 6. This was a very fan favorite
21:41
episode and I'm not surprised because the gentleman involved,
21:45
Mr. Phil Dudman, is an absolute fan favorite wherever he
21:50
appears. So fan favorite or not, this
21:53
clip was really worthwhile bringing back.
21:55
So in this clip, Phil talks about not only his feeling about
22:02
community and the impact of doing something in your
22:05
community, in your street, starting as a bit of a trend or
22:09
trying to be more interactive with your neighbors and your
22:13
community. But also how his boys, the two
22:16
boys that he has in his family, how he managed to try and get
22:20
them into gardening or just get them involved with gardening
22:24
early on and how that may have impacted them later on in life.
22:28
And whether that is possible to do as a gardening fanatic.
22:31
You know, I'm a gardening fanatic myself.
22:33
And trying to inspire your children without killing that
22:36
motivation is just so difficult. So it was a really interesting
22:39
point of view from Phil. And yeah, we just have to
22:42
include this clip. So here it is, episode 6 with
22:45
the incredible Phil Dudman. Well, it's interesting.
22:49
One simple thing that most gardeners would know is that
22:54
when you're creating a beautiful front garden in particular, and
22:58
you're working out in that garden, most people who will
23:03
walk past will stop and have a look and they'll say hello and
23:06
I'll engage with you and I'll comment on on how beautiful your
23:11
garden's looking. It's an expression of yourself.
23:13
You're doing your own thing out there and that feels good.
23:16
But, you know, you strike up a conversation and sometimes those
23:20
people will be gardeners, other times they won't, but they're
23:26
still drawn to it. So just by having that
23:30
interaction with someone wandering past who's taken an
23:32
interest in your garden is, is a great way to connect with the
23:35
community. But you may be inspiring
23:38
somebody to do the same thing. It's interesting.
23:43
I, when I first bought my house here in Lismore, one of the
23:47
things I did was to plant up the footpath, The Verge and, and
23:53
create something, it's like an extension of my garden and, and
23:58
I'll fill that area out. You know, I've kept in mind that
24:01
people are going to walk through there.
24:03
They've got to be able to, you know, back their cars up and do
24:05
all that. So the way I've planted it and
24:07
planned it is that, you know, those things aren't going to be
24:09
an issue. But it didn't take long before
24:12
someone moved in down the road and did the same thing.
24:15
And now further up the street, there are two adjoining houses
24:20
up there where people have moved in and they're, they're, they're
24:23
talking to me about doing the same thing.
24:26
So it's not going to be long before our whole street is, is
24:32
going to be full of verge gardens.
24:35
And then you're the ones that don't have it, that have just
24:37
got the grass. You know, they're going to stand
24:40
out. It's not going to be the verge
24:42
gardens that stand out anymore. It's going to be the grass that
24:44
stands out and it, it looks so much better.
24:47
It feels so much better. You're we're surrounding
24:50
ourselves with plants. The birds love it, the insects
24:53
love it, and people passing by love it as well.
24:57
And certainly on a hot day, the ones who are walking along the
24:59
footpath are much preferred. They much prefer going through
25:03
our little shady, yes, part of the footpath and the one next to
25:08
it that is just like out in in the blaring sun, yeah.
25:11
Barren. So, you know, it cools, it cools
25:14
your environment and it looks far better.
25:17
But I think you asked something about I'm trying to remember
25:19
your question. I've gone off in a rave there,
25:20
but no. I absolutely.
25:21
Have the importance of connection with community yeah,
25:23
that's right yeah, yeah. Oh, look, I think it's, it's
25:26
such a big part of, of the, of being a gardener.
25:31
And as I get older as a gardener, I realize how
25:33
important it is to just keep talking to people about what you
25:36
do and what you love. And they respond.
25:39
And, you know, there's a fair bit you learn about gardening
25:44
that you can share as you get older and even as a new
25:47
gardener. And I think if you're, if you
25:50
meet someone who's curious, offer to help them, you know,
25:53
offer to help them with some advice on what to plant and how
25:58
to do it. I mean, you know, we've all done
25:59
a little bit and we've learnt things on how to make it easier,
26:02
share that knowledge and get people started.
26:05
People have a lot of setbacks in gardening and it can actually
26:10
turn them off and they never want to do it again.
26:11
So help them get through those moments so that they can
26:15
breakthrough and and have some have more successes.
26:20
I've got two boys and they're very close together in age and I
26:25
was in my late 20s when I had my kids and my head was just in the
26:30
garden, you know, straight into gardening.
26:32
So, you know, from a young age I had them out there in the patch,
26:36
hanging out with me, working amongst the plants, harvesting,
26:42
you know, connecting with the plants, planting, doing things
26:47
together and just enjoying that time together.
26:52
It was more about the time together.
26:53
But we're doing something that Dad loves.
26:56
He's passionate about, you know, as I grew up, you know, we're
27:03
we're bringing so much of this food to the table, you know,
27:08
fresh broccoli every night, cauliflowers, carrots, potatoes.
27:13
And, you know, it was hard for me with my enthusiasm not to sit
27:19
at the end of the table and give them a sermon about, you know,
27:23
look at this amazing food here, kids.
27:26
It's from our garden. But that's all I knew.
27:28
And of course, they got sick of hearing me Raven odd about that.
27:33
So I had to back off a little bit.
27:35
Have they both have they become gardeners?
27:37
They're in, they're hitting 30 now, my kids.
27:39
So, you know, they, they have often said to me like, you know,
27:46
now that I'm an adult, I realize how good it was to have such
27:52
great food coming from the garden.
27:54
And they appreciated that they've, they both dabbled in
27:57
gardening, but they haven't picked it up yet.
28:02
But it's the seeds have been planted.
28:05
One thing that has come out of that is they've got an
28:07
appreciation for good eating and eating fresh and eating organic.
28:12
You know, they seek out, they seek out good food.
28:16
And you know, they've had enough experience with their mates
28:19
growing up to realize how bad food can be and how trashy it
28:25
can be and how processed it can be.
28:28
So they both focus on, you know, starting with good food.
28:34
Amazing. Thank you, Phil.
28:36
Again, I highly encourage you to go and check out the episode in
28:39
full. Next clip.
28:41
We are moving on to episode 9 a few episodes later.
28:45
This one was with Rachel life a little greener on Instagram.
28:49
She works and works well with Raven Place Farm and this clip
28:54
was all about community collaboration and I loved this
28:59
clip because I was just so inspired by not only the area
29:02
where Rachel is, but the community feel that they have
29:06
the way that they reuse and repurpose so many different
29:10
things. Waste is not waste for everyone.
29:13
It can be gold for somebody else and turning that into a product
29:16
and being able to sell that and being able to keep everything in
29:20
house in these closed loop systems.
29:23
I think it was done super brilliantly.
29:24
And it's it's a really nice way to be able to highlight exactly
29:28
what can be done in this instance.
29:30
So let me hand it over. Here is Rachel from episode 9.
29:35
So we've got worm farms and composting sites on situ.
29:38
I do a lot of chopping and dropping as well so I'm just
29:42
putting it straight back into the soil.
29:43
Especially with the cut flowers and stuffy fine prepping veggies
29:46
for sale. If it's like leaks and stuff I
29:49
was harvesting today, I just literally strip them and drop it
29:51
right there, put the roots back in and just kind of leave it
29:55
again, minimizing effort. Like the less that I can do.
29:58
The whole plan long term with the farm is extent like
30:01
absorbing external waste streams.
30:02
And so having conversations with local restaurants to allow us to
30:06
kind of create more compost on site, which will then reduce the
30:10
cost of the food for the end consumer.
30:15
We do. We've got some really cool other
30:18
closed loop systems within the Cafe as well.
30:20
So generally we'll absorb like the coffee grind and use them in
30:24
the farm. But they've just started doing,
30:26
they're cooking tallow. And so now they're using the
30:29
tallow that they cook with, they're giving it the tallow
30:32
that they cook with the coffee grinds.
30:34
Then they're giving it to a local soap maker and the soap
30:37
maker is making soap, which is like an exfoliating soap for
30:41
gardeners. And then that's coming back into
30:43
the system that we can sell as a product.
30:45
That's insane. That's I know it's, I'm like, I
30:48
use it all the time. It's such a delicious soap.
30:50
And again, it's not us doing it. It's working with the community
30:53
and utilizing their skills to close those systems.
30:56
We just grow like I grow loofah here as well.
30:58
So we're using that to put in the scrubs to make body scrubs.
31:02
And so it's just, wow, closing all the systems that we can
31:06
Chicken Mule use on site. We get wood chip from local
31:10
arborists as well. So I've got some really good
31:13
connections. And so now I'll drop loads of
31:15
massive, big piles of wood chip, wood chip off for me.
31:17
And yeah. That's amazing.
31:20
I like everything that you're saying just screams
31:23
collaboration, and I think that's something that's so
31:28
missing in a lot of our societies.
31:31
Mainly, I guess I've built up cities and more tightly close
31:36
neighborhoods and things like this where everyone's on small
31:39
blocks and things like this. Do you find that the Northern
31:43
Rivers, obviously, I mean, the times that I've been there, it's
31:46
such a gorgeous, gorgeous part of the world.
31:50
Do you find that that mindset is kind of, I guess, a local
31:57
mindset that everyone sort of shares and wants to protect that
32:00
area? Yeah, I think so.
32:02
It's definitely, there's a lot of community and collaboration
32:05
in the area, especially after the floods.
32:07
And we kind of had to stand up for ourselves really because
32:11
this is all we had. And so we kind of really all
32:13
came together. And I find that more Woolenbat
32:15
like all of the region because I kind of travel around the
32:17
Northern rivers quite a lot. It's that really beautiful kind
32:20
of connected. It's almost it's like a
32:22
connection between country, like that real country vibe of like
32:25
everyone, you mates with everyone and then just like a
32:29
community driven connected nature based area.
32:32
Yeah, it's that's wonderful because, yeah, I, I find that,
32:36
you know, when populations reach a certain point or even, for
32:41
example, like anyone living in, in sort of suburbia, you're kind
32:45
of, you barely know your neighbors really.
32:48
And like when when you live in a community that's more kind of, I
32:53
guess country, it's you, you know, the person down on that
32:56
property. And you might have known the
32:57
person that lived there before and you might, you know, they
33:00
came from this generation and you know what they do and they
33:03
look after this and they'll help you with that.
33:05
And there's all this kind of looking out for each other.
33:08
I think it starts with a conversation, so like just going
33:12
up and like talking to your neighbors, going over and having
33:15
a conversation saying hey guys, this is what I want to start
33:17
doing because there are some amazing people doing some
33:19
amazing things. Like Tilly.
33:21
I did listen to the potty and I think is it the worm?
33:24
Like the worm, she's not very active on insta.
33:27
She does the same thing like has she composts everyone.
33:30
She's got massive big worm farms and she composts everyone food
33:33
way same as what Tilly is doing, right?
33:36
And then it's kind of bringing those people back together
33:39
because right now we're in this really disjointed commute.
33:43
Like we're in suburbia. Like I used to live in Hong
33:45
Kong. So I get it.
33:46
Like it was like high rises, like thousands of people in
33:50
really tall buildings. And it's Eurinia Cube.
33:52
That was it. And so it's all about like
33:56
reconnecting with people and reconnecting with nature and
33:58
opening up those conversations. And, and you can, you, how can
34:02
you utilize social media to kind of be, be, be a tool to help you
34:09
connect rather than being something that disconnects
34:11
people like those social media groups.
34:16
I was trying to set up a bartering system day in
34:18
Wollenbar, but I just got too busy.
34:20
But like not just like a produce sharing day, but also with skill
34:25
sharing day. So people could bring not just
34:27
food, like stepping away because some people don't have the time
34:30
or the capacity to grow food, but maybe they can teach you how
34:33
to knit or they can teach you how to sew or woodworking or
34:37
something. So having this like community
34:39
days on a regular basis where everyone can come together and
34:43
share everything, knowledge and experience and skills.
34:47
Thank you, Rachel. What cool clip?
34:50
I'm sure you're inspired by that because you know, the last
34:53
couple of clips talking about community and just being
34:55
involved with your neighbors and your community and swaps and
34:58
things. It's just when you realize that,
35:00
you know, you might have access of something someone else needs
35:03
and vice versa, whether it be knowledge or whether it be, you
35:06
know, tangible things like groceries.
35:08
It's just it's such a heart warming and incredibly
35:12
connective way of working with each other to supply each
35:16
other's needs. And then when you realize that,
35:18
you know, you can get all of this stuff for basically a lot
35:22
less than we're paying normally, everyone gets to live a little
35:25
bit better. Which actually leads me on to
35:28
our next clip. We have the wonderful Tiander
35:31
from Euphorage joining us on this episode.
35:34
And she's talking all about the idea that sparked her amazing
35:39
app Euphorage, and including roadside stalls and home grown
35:45
trades and swaps and things like this into a tangible app that
35:49
someone can then go and find when they need that produce,
35:53
find what's around them. And also be able to put yourself
35:55
out there and say, hey, look, I've got more of this.
35:58
So I loved this story. I thought it was really
36:01
inspiring. So this clip made it into the
36:04
best bits. And here is the wonderful
36:06
Tiander from Euphorage on episode 15.
36:10
I remember really clearly meeting some new mum friends and
36:15
being invited over to this mom's house who I'd never, I've never
36:18
been there before. And it's like, yeah, come bring
36:20
the kids. They can swim in the pool, you
36:22
know, we can sit and relax and have some snacks and bring,
36:25
bring a plate. And I'm like, oh, yeah, OK, that
36:27
sounds good. And if I went with my little, I
36:29
don't even remember what I took, but something, you know, that
36:31
was crunchy or organic or I did. I definitely wanted to, you
36:35
know, that was that's where I am at.
36:36
And that's the kind of people I wanted to, to surround myself
36:39
with. And we sat down this table and I
36:41
just picked up this strawberry that was on there and I bit into
36:44
it and it was the most incredible strawberry I've told
36:48
this story. I feel like really silly going
36:50
over it, but it was insane. Like it was the first time, you
36:53
know, when you taste something from the garden, you've only
36:56
ever had it from the shops and then you taste something from
36:58
the garden and it's just like, wow, it was that kind of moment.
37:02
And I said to her, my God, where did you get these?
37:05
It's amazing. And then she told me about A
37:07
roadside stall that was about another like 1 1/2 kilometers
37:10
down the So I found this stall like 1.2 K down the road.
37:14
Never have I been down that road.
37:16
Never would I have had any other reason to go down that road
37:19
aside from meeting that mom, having that encounter with the
37:22
strawberries. And that roadside stall took me
37:25
from I have 4 kids like and I, I want to buy organic food, but
37:30
for me even going to the markets was so expensive and not it
37:34
wasn't attainable for me. And then all of a sudden I'm
37:37
introduced to this roadside stall and I go and check it out
37:39
and it is loaded like I can do, I reckon 65 to 75% of my fresh
37:45
fruit and veg from this roadside stall.
37:47
Wow. And the mum that introduced me
37:50
starts telling me, Oh yeah, I know, I know, I've got to know
37:52
the people I've been shopping at this store for years.
37:55
And she told me about their farming practice practices.
37:57
And over time I meet them too. And I, I speak to them and I
38:00
hear from them and now I'm able to get like organic.
38:04
It's not certified, of course, but I know from what the farmer
38:07
has told me, the practices are that it's spray free.
38:10
And it's like a fraction of the cost of what I would have been
38:14
paying if I was going to the supermarket to get organic food
38:17
or going to the farmers market to get organic food.
38:20
And so that was like the first like, wow moment for me.
38:23
There's, there's, I know that there's more roadside stalls
38:26
around. Just where are they?
38:28
Like, how do you find them? Because if I hadn't met that
38:31
mom, I would never have gone like literally there's no reason
38:34
for me to go that direction. I would never have gone there.
38:37
It's only a couple of KS out of my way.
38:40
And so that kind of thought process started the, the cogs
38:44
turning, I suppose. And then further down the track,
38:49
I mean, the Valentino's family, as I mentioned before, they're
38:52
Italian. I, I remember distinctly going
38:55
visiting them in Canberra. It was Christmas or something.
38:57
And like it's, it's hard to explain.
39:00
If you have Italian relatives, anyone listening to this, you'll
39:02
fully understand. They make their pasada and the
39:04
salami and all that, like traditional practices.
39:07
They're making all this beautiful food and even having
39:10
their own gardens. And they're literally passing
39:12
the same stuff from one person to the other.
39:15
I bought you beans. Thank you.
39:17
Like I already have a three passing the same stuff around
39:22
and around and around and around to each other.
39:24
And I was just like, you know, as an Aussie, I would kill, I
39:28
would kill the. Yeah.
39:31
That was the first kind of and I started talking to Valentino
39:34
about that and seemed like, you do know, like how many people
39:37
would just love the opportunity to share in that.
39:41
And then we started talking. His mom does markets, but she
39:44
doesn't sell those sorts of things in my because she makes
39:46
Muesli and biscuits and all like kind of little things like that.
39:50
But the facts were COVID, she wasn't able to do that.
39:55
So we were started having these conversations.
39:57
Well, how, how could it be that they could share that even if
40:00
they're not a stall holder in a market or if they were, but then
40:03
something like this happens and they can't get to the market.
40:06
You know, there's nothing in place to sort of offer that
40:09
opportunity for people. Like I bake sourdough bread and
40:13
I had bums at the school like ordering sourdough bread.
40:17
And I knew that if it was open to a wider community, I could
40:20
have served more people. But this is that balance.
40:23
Do I want to take it there or not?
40:24
Even if I did, how would I do that?
40:26
You know, I'm probably going to be in community groups on
40:29
Facebook or something, just plugging away every week.
40:32
There's no thing to find your local food.
40:35
And that's what really started the idea going.
40:39
Thank you Tianda, what an inspiring conversation.
40:42
I think the whole story and the movement with Euphorage is
40:45
really heart warming and inspiring, especially with what
40:48
they've been through, so I had to include that one.
40:51
I think it's such a brilliant idea, and we need more people
40:54
jumping on that app to utilize it as much as possible.
40:57
So thank you, Tiana. That was episode 15.
41:00
The next clip is from probably my favorite conversation of the
41:05
entire year. And it's been no secret if
41:07
you've been listening to the show, that I've been speaking
41:09
about this man constantly. Just the way that he's able to
41:12
phrase things, to put his ideas into words and just his thinking
41:17
is so I guess different to what you might be used to hearing.
41:23
But it's so poignant and perfect in terms of the way that I
41:26
received the information. So I really loved this
41:29
conversation. It stuck with me so much.
41:31
So here is Eric van Zulicom. I hope I'm saying that right,
41:35
Eric, because that's such a butcher of your last name from
41:39
United Natures. And this conversation, we're
41:41
talking about plenty of different things, but
41:43
understanding how much time you have in terms of how much you're
41:47
willing to put into the garden, into a space, but so much more
41:51
and so much depth around that. So I'll just let the
41:53
conversation speak for itself. I'll let this clip stand alone.
41:56
Here is Eric and this is episode 23.
41:59
It's important to acknowledge that your expectations should
42:03
suit your lifestyle and your lifestyle changes.
42:06
Therefore, you need flexibility. And sometimes we engage in
42:12
things, wanting a certain outcome, and then realize that
42:15
it was actually the process of engaging that was what we
42:18
needed, not necessarily the thing.
42:20
For some people, gardening is a thing and they turn to it
42:24
because it feels wholesome. They get good vibes from it.
42:26
They know they can be productive.
42:28
They're working with the system. They know that they can get a
42:30
response from. It's not a dead tile.
42:33
You've got to paint the tile. If you leave the tile in a
42:35
garage, it's just going to collect dust.
42:37
But if you plant a seed, it's going to do stuff while you're
42:41
engaged elsewhere and you come back and you go, that was my
42:44
mastery. Look at my chilies.
42:48
And then you have a child. And then you can go very
42:52
esoteric with this, But I'm a very pragmatic, scientifically
42:55
driven person. I'm very spiritual because I
42:58
like, I understand. There's so much after that I
43:00
just can't fathom. So I've got this big box of I
43:05
don't understand. It's too big for me, but I
43:07
respect it and it's there. And my son is my teacher.
43:13
He wasn't born with all the degrees I've got and with the
43:17
life experience that I can see, but he's born without the BS
43:23
that I've accumulated. So he doesn't have the onion
43:26
layers of expectation and hurt and learning and gain and wonder
43:30
and all of these things, obligation, etcetera.
43:33
He sees it and he says, and I go, you've got to laugh as a
43:38
parent because your kids are going to show the, the, the
43:41
skeletons in the closet very quickly.
43:43
So you learn how to, you know, water off a duck's back.
43:48
You learn to sit and watch and learn.
43:49
And I just like I said, that skill of watching and watching,
43:54
not look, not looking, but seeing, not just talking, but
43:59
learning how to view your words with deep meaning and value
44:06
takes quietness and it takes humility and it takes
44:11
understanding that they're probably all built on losses and
44:13
figuring things out. That's cool.
44:16
But your children will teach you because they will mirror all of
44:19
your vulnerabilities and your garden will throw back in your
44:24
face all your expectations because it will say, I won't be
44:28
caged by you. You've got a hedge from and you
44:31
want square hedges. That's cool.
44:34
Trim me and turn your back on me and I've got my own agenda and I
44:39
don't speak your language. I don't have your expectations
44:43
and your beliefs. I'm going to set C, then I'm
44:45
going to send roots on. I'm going to grow however my
44:47
genetics wants me to, which way the sun angle is and all of
44:51
that. So if you learn the currency or
44:53
the language of the things you're working with, then you're
44:57
half the 3/4 of the way there. The next thing that really
45:01
struck me was, you know, it's that old saying it's perfection
45:08
doesn't exist. It recreates itself and will
45:11
tightly mess you up. It's progress.
45:16
Perfection is in like the rain end of the rainbow.
45:18
Perfection. It doesn't work like that.
45:22
The more effort you put in does not create perfection.
45:25
And the cleaner your edges and your lines and the better
45:29
integrated and smarter you are. The smarter you are, the more
45:32
you learn, the less you'll ever know.
45:37
So true wisdom isn't gaining knowledge, it's actually letting
45:41
go of knowledge and realizing. I humble myself, but I
45:46
acknowledge that I'm getting very clever.
45:48
But I I've got to watch what I'm doing because it comes with
45:52
responsibilities and it changes. And so the way I survive
45:56
parenting and expectation and being efficient and gardening
46:00
was the progress rather than perfection.
46:03
And my wife taught me that because I've been wanting to do
46:08
workshops and teach and share what we're doing here at our
46:12
Homestead United Natures. And I've been holding myself
46:16
back in procrastinating. She said, just do it.
46:19
And I said, what are you talking about?
46:20
I've got a little of expectation and perfection of, you know,
46:23
I've got all this experience. And she set up her macrame
46:26
business and she just does it. And it's amazing how she's
46:29
growing. And she said, Eric, people don't
46:32
want to see the end product. They want to see the guts of how
46:35
it works. They want to see your wicking
46:37
bed not made yet. They want to see your compost
46:41
halfway through. They want to see your veggie
46:43
patch straight after harvesting. We want to see you mulching the
46:46
base soil because that's what you're learning is it's not this
46:49
veneer of completedness because that's not reality.
46:54
And it's it's this huge cycle. It's quite wonderful.
46:56
And nature will do that because you will have an idea of what
46:59
you want with your garden. But what your garden is is never
47:04
a finished product because technically your finished
47:06
product should be in your belly. It's still not in the soil.
47:11
That's that's progress. What a beautiful sentiment.
47:15
Thank you Eric. The the key take away from that
47:18
conversation is progress over perfection.
47:21
And I just think it was encapsulated so well in his
47:24
experience there and his story. So thank you so much to Eric.
47:27
That was such a poignant thing to share and I'm so glad we got
47:30
to highlight that again in the best bits.
47:33
Now, moving right along, we've got another favorite, another
47:37
fan favorite with Keith Edwards at episode 46.
47:41
This was a recent episode and in this clip Keith is talking about
47:46
the story of his grandchildren enjoying the garden and what
47:50
that means to him and what that sort of legacy is leaving for
47:54
those kids. Having that experience of
47:56
growing up and eating fresh food from the garden and being able
48:01
to live that experience, that understand that, setting them up
48:05
for such a brilliant life ahead to be able to do the same here.
48:08
And this got so much good feedback when I put this clip
48:11
out to the world, so I had to include this in the best bits.
48:14
What an absolute fan favorite. As I mentioned before, Keith
48:17
Edwards. Here he is on episode 46.
48:22
And probably one of the most important factors that that
48:26
happens to me when I sit on my drawing board is I have a little
48:29
person sitting on my shoulder and, and her name is Edna
48:33
Walling, who was Australia's greatest female landscape
48:38
design. Oh.
48:39
Awesome. So, so I studied Edna Walling
48:43
and, and I, and I have lots of little things that she says to
48:46
me as as I'm sitting on my on my drawing board, looking at the
48:49
brief and then coming up with a design.
48:51
And one of the most important things that she says to me is
48:55
this a garden you can see all at once is not much of A garden at
48:59
all. Wow.
49:01
All right. And the reason, the reason that
49:03
that is so important is that that if you walk out your
49:06
backyard and regardless of what size you've got, if you walk out
49:10
that backyard and you can see absolutely everything that's
49:12
going on in that backyard, it's not going to take you out.
49:15
It's not going to say, say to me, come out and see what's over
49:19
behind this particular space here.
49:20
Come and see what's behind this garden bed, see what's over
49:24
here. It doesn't take you on a journey
49:26
unless you've you've created these particular garden rooms.
49:30
And that's what I try so much to do.
49:34
I've done big gardens where, where, where this they've got
49:37
children. So you provide spaces within
49:41
those gardens that haven't got physical boundaries, but have
49:45
got a pathway that wanders all the way through the, the garden
49:48
beds. And there'll be little faces
49:50
within those within that, that that garden where you can sit
49:54
and contemplate. You get away from mum, get away
49:57
from dad, you know, have a hissy fit, whatever else you know,
50:00
it's so it's everything's got to have a journey.
50:03
That's a that's such a profound thing.
50:06
I relate very much to having sort of that mental voice of
50:10
various people that, you know, fortunate chatting to a a bunch
50:13
of people like yourself that are really, really knowledgeable.
50:15
And I get these little tidbits of things that that come through
50:19
in in the work that I do. But I really love that idea of
50:23
just being invited by the garden to go and figure out what's
50:27
going on and just to be to be taken through on that journey.
50:31
Mate, your thinking is so, so beautiful.
50:34
I just love all the nuanced ways that you're thinking about these
50:36
things. A question I find myself asking
50:40
a lot at the moment is, is like what is top of mind for you at
50:44
the moment in terms of what's interesting you moving forward
50:47
in this industry? What's still exciting you?
50:49
What sort of things are you, you know, diving into head first at
50:53
the moment that's really fresh and exciting for you?
50:57
Well, it's, it's not necessarily new plant varieties or anything
51:01
else that that's creating my interest.
51:03
It is my clients that are creating the interest because
51:06
I'm getting an awful lot of young clients that now want to
51:10
be involved with the gardens. That's edible.
51:12
Beautiful, beautiful. They want to, they want to be
51:14
able to get their children to go out the backyard and pick
51:18
beautiful homegrown fresh produce that's free of chemicals
51:22
and nasties and all the other crap.
51:24
And, and, and, and that is a, a huge passion for me.
51:27
That is something that I particularly really love.
51:30
My I've got 2 grandkids that live fairly close to us and when
51:35
they arrive with their parents they look at their mum and dad
51:37
and they say to them why don't you stay here and talk to Nan
51:41
and Pop while we go and visit the garden.
51:44
And they go out the backyard and they go on and, and you walk out
51:46
there and they're just picking broccoli or beans or tomatoes or
51:51
fruit and just. Consuming such a joy.
51:54
And, and, and that is the best possible thing that you can give
51:57
to a child. It's not bloody money and toys
52:00
and crap like that. It is an involvement with with
52:03
nature, seeing where food comes from, seeing that it's seasonal,
52:08
seeing how. How, how, how much it tastes
52:11
better. You know, my, my, my grandson,
52:14
one of the two grandson had a competition picking beautiful
52:18
carrots out of the out of the ground and, and they, they took
52:22
a whole heap home and, and they were used over a a few days.
52:26
And, and the oldest one looked up at his mother and while he
52:28
was eating a carrot, he said, this carrot's come from Pop's
52:31
place, hasn't it? Because it doesn't taste like
52:34
the the stuff that you normally buy us, you know, and that sort
52:37
of thing is just brilliant. Yes, you know, he's getting he's
52:39
getting an understanding of of just how good home grown food is
52:44
so that that hopefully will instill in him that opportunity
52:48
if he gets it to grow his own as well.
52:52
Well, that was just encapsulated so well.
52:54
Thank you, Keith, and I know that you'll all be feeling nice
52:57
and buzzed and heart warmed from that conversation.
53:00
So this is a perfect time to be bringing in a little bit more of
53:03
a thoughtful clip here from Jade Miles Black barn farm.
53:08
This is another recent one on episode 43.
53:11
In this clip, Jade is sharing how she feels that we have lost
53:15
our connection to land, how we have lost this reciprocity of us
53:21
and nature and thinking of ourselves as a complete oneness,
53:24
not separate from nature and not with this extractive and
53:28
damaging approach that we seem to take to it.
53:32
So Jade really highlights that this connection is lost and how
53:37
we can possibly be thinking about that in terms of our
53:40
greater impact to not only ourselves, but our communities
53:42
and us as a species as a whole. So it was a very thoughtful
53:45
conversation. Again, came in a really
53:47
important time for me to have this conversation.
53:50
So thank you again to Jade. This is Jade Miles from
53:53
Blackburn Farm and this is episode 43.
53:57
Ultimately, there's a bigger piece in the puzzle that is at
54:00
play that really doesn't matter how connected we are to our food
54:04
system and how well we build or rebuild our connection to land.
54:12
None of that matters if we haven't huddled.
54:18
And so that really is where my second book came from.
54:20
It's a cultural piece that basically asks us to rewrite our
54:26
story away from the one of deep separation from self, deep
54:30
separation from the reciprocity held by others, and deep
54:34
separation that is our fundamental challenge to
54:37
overcome from the ecological systems that hold us.
54:41
We, we have built this narrative that is ultimately hurtling us
54:48
towards a place of fundamental destruction and collapse,
54:52
inevitability that says as the human species, we are top dog
54:59
and we don't actually have to play by the rules of mutual
55:05
reciprocity. And we can extractively take
55:09
what we like when we like at the price, price we're willing to
55:12
pay without putting anything back in.
55:15
And it leaves us in a place of deficit, vast deficit.
55:19
So not only ecological deficit, but cultural deficit, you know,
55:26
we've we've lost the art of sitting silently and moving out
55:31
of our heads that we've so greatly celebrated for hundreds
55:35
of years, because that's where success sits surely in our heads
55:38
and our ability to, you know, create systems and order and
55:41
efficiency. And it leaves us void of an
55:46
ability to really listen. Listen to our bodies that are Co
55:49
creating stories with Mother Nature herself.
55:53
Listen to the calling or the rhythm of the year that we were
55:56
once so deeply connected to. And I had an understanding of
56:01
listen to a landscape that actually needs us to to
56:04
participate with it. And that lack of reciprocity has
56:09
left us with an extractive mindset.
56:11
And that extractive mindset will ultimately leave us without a
56:16
place to call home. And so, you know, we definitely
56:22
Blackburn Farm is a place for growing amazing food for our
56:26
community and we do it as wildly and as naturally as we possibly
56:30
can. We mimic Mother Nature wherever
56:32
is is possible. And we never add synthetic
56:34
anythings, no synthetic herbicides or fungicides or
56:38
pesticides. We do lots with our, our hands
56:41
and we, you know, we have lots and lots of practices that allow
56:47
us to do that. But the greatest part of all of
56:51
it is that we educate our local community to, to understand that
56:55
that is what a healthy ecosystem actually looks like.
56:58
And that's what produces healthy food and healthy medicine and
57:03
opportunity to sit in the landscape quietly and, and
57:06
breathe deeply and connect with your senses and connect with the
57:10
landscape and the energy that's coming from the natural world.
57:13
But ultimately, the joy for us really is that we now have a
57:19
beautiful environment that we can invite people to, to sit in
57:23
the dam or sit in the river and lie on you and watch the clouds.
57:28
Or sit in ceremonial circle in men's circles or women's
57:32
circles, or, you know, sacred fire circles or whatever it
57:36
might be. Or create silent mandalas or
57:40
journal in a corner of the property.
57:43
Ultimately, we need to return. We need to return to the mother
57:52
that knows how to hold us. We need to return and we need to
57:54
shut up. Because learning to really
57:56
listen to what we can Co create together will ultimately be our
58:03
greatest opportunity to return to a balanced state.
58:09
And hopefully, despite the fact that we've reached six of the
58:13
non planetary boundaries, we've surpassed them.
58:17
Hopefully there is enough opportunity and time for us to
58:24
rewrite our story that is rich with ritual and connection and
58:30
initiation and reciprocity. I couldn't have put it anywhere
58:36
to myself. That idea of reciprocity,
58:39
rewriting our story. I think it's so important.
58:43
And that is such an awesome clip to be able to highlight that
58:47
feeling and the way that she just portrays that and says that
58:52
in that whole, you can feel how much that means.
58:55
And I think that echoes throughout all of us.
58:58
So an important clip. And that was clip 9.
59:02
So we've got one more clip to go in these best bits.
59:06
And I couldn't. Not because going through this
59:10
episode, there were just so many clips that I wanted to pull out
59:13
and put into this episode that I couldn't not go back to the
59:17
wonderful Eric again for another clip from him.
59:20
Because I just was oozing clips basically of him with all of
59:25
this just knowledge bombs and experience.
59:27
And it was a jam packed hour and a half.
59:29
So I had to include a second clip from him to round out
59:33
today's top ten. And this clip in particular I
59:36
think is a really nice way of rounding out this whole lot
59:40
because while each clip in itself has been really
59:43
thoughtful and had its own stand alone thing, I think this clip
59:48
really brings together the whole message that I'm trying to bring
59:52
forth with this whole podcast and doing this type of thing in
59:56
this whole movement. So I, you know, I couldn't have
59:59
said it any better myself. So here is Eric again for clip
1:00:02
#10 remember, this was episode 23.
1:00:05
Thanks, Eric. One of the big learning curves
1:00:09
for a designer is to realize that a good designer doesn't
1:00:15
design what they want. They design a solution for what
1:00:20
the client or the space needs. And sometimes that means putting
1:00:24
your desires aside and becoming very humble and opening your
1:00:31
eyes, not to look through the lens of what you would like to
1:00:35
see there or aspire to see there, but to read the
1:00:38
landscape, to read the ecology, to read the soil.
1:00:43
And until you can put your hand on the soil and just feel not
1:00:49
its condition, but where it's going.
1:00:51
Because remember, nothing in nature is static.
1:00:54
A grassland is only experienced as a grassland for a certain
1:00:58
period of time. And then it becomes scrub and
1:01:00
the scrub becomes woodland. The woodland becomes closed,
1:01:04
woodland becomes rainforest, etcetera.
1:01:06
And then it goes backwards because nature doesn't have a
1:01:09
mind of progression or gain or loss.
1:01:14
So when it's time and the trees die, they absorbed and it it,
1:01:20
it's not de evolution, it's just shifts and it kills the whole
1:01:24
forest off and it reverts back to open woodland or then
1:01:27
scrubland or to grassland. And it's all resource movement.
1:01:32
So I think the what we have in today's society is a capitalist
1:01:39
machine and that's natural. We build cities, we build
1:01:43
houses, we pour money into it, we work for it.
1:01:46
And you grow veggies to save you money or to produce wonderful
1:01:50
food for you to eat. And there's like an ownership
1:01:53
give or take. Nature doesn't have that.
1:01:56
So we've got to work with clients in my mind and with
1:02:00
other designers in terms of education and lecturing,
1:02:03
etcetera, to shift our consciousness from that to
1:02:10
understanding that the land is moving.
1:02:14
And if you want to grow vegetables, you've got to look
1:02:17
at your sites and say, OK, what kind of habitat or ecology have
1:02:21
I got here? I've got open soils.
1:02:22
It's there, it's exposed, there's lots of wind, lots of
1:02:25
sun. It's probably a bacterial based
1:02:27
soil ecology. Look at the weeds, it's grasses,
1:02:30
it's primary colonizers or these ones move quickly.
1:02:34
They're really rapid nutrient cyclists, cyclists.
1:02:38
OK, so if I want to try and plant a jabotic copper or a
1:02:43
rainforest tree from Brazil or or Australia, I've got to create
1:02:50
an environment that's suitable for that.
1:02:52
But what if I stopped thinking about the tree as a product?
1:02:56
And I think, OK, this is what I'm starting at base soil.
1:02:59
All right, let's plug into what nature's trying to do.
1:03:04
And you start adding lemongrass, different grass species.
1:03:08
You fill it up densely planted with bioaccumulators that lack
1:03:13
high exposes and bacterial based ecologies.
1:03:16
And you harvest. If you're really clever, you
1:03:18
make more edibles and herbs and you feed your family out of it.
1:03:21
And you cut and chop and drop and you cut and chop and drop.
1:03:24
And you let the seeds spread and you got a ton on it.
1:03:27
And you just, with a little bit of patience, look and read and
1:03:29
you observe your soil opening up a little bit.
1:03:31
So you let the weeds come in with a deep taproot and by the
1:03:35
time you see the weed, nature isn't just telling you what the
1:03:39
ecology wants, it's doing it. By the time the seeds germinated
1:03:44
and you see a view way behind the start point that race has
1:03:47
started and nature is saying the soil is compacted and starts
1:03:50
bacterial. This weeds going to come up and
1:03:53
I'm aerating, I'm opening it up, I'm bio accumulating and drawing
1:03:56
nutrients and carbon dioxide down into the soil.
1:03:59
So plug into that, start planting more, start planting
1:04:02
more, start planting more. And then in time you can change
1:04:05
the nature of your soils and increase your organic matter.
1:04:08
And then you say, OK, it's 5050 fungal bacteria.
1:04:12
Maybe I'll introduce brassicas and maybe I'll put a carrot in
1:04:15
there and you know, then I'll play around with these and
1:04:18
slowly over you can. That's the magic of humans is we
1:04:22
move through multiple ecologies. We're not like a tree that is
1:04:25
there and has to at last for a long time, we can actually
1:04:30
transition. We can be agents of change.
1:04:32
And you can supercharge those processes and you can slowly but
1:04:36
surely at the rate of your soil changes, you can change all the
1:04:40
vegetation because everything that's above is just an
1:04:44
expression of what's happening underneath.
1:04:45
So you, you shouldn't in theory, make your garden based upon
1:04:50
what's above. You should start under and
1:04:54
emerge out of the soil because that's a long lasting investment
1:04:59
of putting currency where it will stay with shop and drop.
1:05:03
Vegetation is cheap currency that sense what you put in the
1:05:07
dollar is in paper notes in big currency.
1:05:10
And so they feed off each other and that's the thought.
1:05:13
But to get there, we have to talk to designers and urban
1:05:18
planners and architects and talk to them about creating
1:05:23
environments that are capable of hosting succession and change.
1:05:28
And that changes our mentality about what we see when we look
1:05:32
at a park land. When you look at the Bush, you
1:05:36
know, everyone thinks they're trees.
1:05:37
And that's the Bush. That's the Bush that's going
1:05:41
through a dynamic change responding to humans.
1:05:44
And the trees are trying to compete with the carbon dioxide
1:05:47
and gas and methane and this and that.
1:05:50
And that's fine, but we need to plug into those policies.
1:05:53
And then we have it, ladies and gentlemen.
1:05:55
Thank you, Eric. He rounded it out perfectly.
1:05:57
As I said, that's the essence of the message here is reading the
1:06:00
land, working with and observing the perfect blueprint of nature.
1:06:05
Because who are we to say that we can do this better when there
1:06:08
is a perfect blueprint? It's observing, it's working
1:06:11
with, it's being part of nature, and that's what's important to
1:06:15
me and that's what's important to all of these people that
1:06:17
you've seen today in these clips.
1:06:20
So I want to give a huge heartfelt thank you to everyone
1:06:23
who has listened and commented. Being a part of this podcast to
1:06:27
the guests. Obviously to be supporting this
1:06:30
show in the first year is really important to me.
1:06:32
So I couldn't have done it without all of you in such a
1:06:36
special way. Sounds crazy.
1:06:38
Just thinking like, you know, this is the first year, it's the
1:06:40
first of many. I want to continue this.
1:06:42
It's like, I feel like I'm doing a little acceptance speech, but
1:06:44
I really want to just kind of acknowledge that it's an
1:06:47
important thing for me to have hit 50 episodes and the impact
1:06:50
that it's made there. By all means, every single
1:06:53
conversation had its highlights and really stuck with me in a
1:06:57
certain way. But to pick 10 was just so
1:07:00
difficult. So please, you know, go and look
1:07:03
at all of the other conversations that you feel so
1:07:05
obliged to go and listen to. There's some perfect people out
1:07:09
there doing some wonderful things.
1:07:10
So thank you again to everybody. I couldn't say it enough.
1:07:13
Thank you, thank you, thank you. But that's not it.
1:07:16
We're going again next year. You'll see me after a short
1:07:19
break, you know, for the rest of this year, and we'll be back
1:07:21
January 1st. I've got a whole bunch of
1:07:24
special episodes lined up for the second year, but that's it.
1:07:29
I'm so appreciative. Thank you so much for listening.
1:07:32
And yeah, we'll see you again next year for Round 2.
1:07:35
Here we go. Thank you and bye for now.