An interview Alysse Gallagher
Instagram: @one_fine_farm @practical_permaculture
BIO: Our family Oscar/Hubbie & kids (Addie & Gus) are embarking on creating a Permaculture inspired homestead. After travelling Australia for 18 months, we are starting from scratch. We are documenting our journey to help show others what is possible.
Location: Northern NSW -Clarence Valley, Yaegl Country
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More about this episode:
Have you ever dreamed of transforming a simple plot of land into a thriving, self-sufficient homestead? Our latest conversation with Elise from One Fine Farm is an intimate look into the realities of permaculture living, where she shares her family's journey in northern New South Wales. From the careful observation of rain patterns to the ambitious plans for crop cultivation, Elise's story is a compelling tapestry of hard-won wisdom, community spirit, and a profound connection to nature.
'How I Grow' is produced by The Seed Collection Pty Ltd.
Find out more about us here: www.theseedcollection.com.au
An interview Alysse Gallagher
Instagram: @one_fine_farm @practical_permaculture
BIO: Our family Oscar/Hubbie & kids (Addie & Gus) are embarking on creating a Permaculture inspired homestead. After travelling Australia for 18 months, we are starting from scratch. We are documenting our journey to help show others what is possible.
Location: Northern NSW -Clarence Valley, Yaegl Country
-----------------------------
More about this episode:
Have you ever dreamed of transforming a simple plot of land into a thriving, self-sufficient homestead? Our latest conversation with Elise from One Fine Farm is an intimate look into the realities of permaculture living, where she shares her family's journey in northern New South Wales. From the careful observation of rain patterns to the ambitious plans for crop cultivation, Elise's story is a compelling tapestry of hard-won wisdom, community spirit, and a profound connection to nature.
'How I Grow' is produced by The Seed Collection Pty Ltd.
Find out more about us here: www.theseedcollection.com.au
You're listening to how I Grow with the Seed Collection. My name is Gemma and today I'll be speaking with Elise from One Fine Farm on Instagram and the Practical Permaculture podcast. Elise, along with her hubby and two children, is embarking on creating a permaculture-inspired homestead. After travelling Australia for 18 months, they're starting from scratch and documenting their journey to show others what's possible. Elise and her family are living on Yagal country in a subtropical region in northern New South Wales. Hi Elise, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.
Speaker 2:My pleasure. How are you?
Speaker 1:Well, thank you. I'm really excited to be speaking with you today and I can't wait to learn more about how you grow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very excited.
Speaker 1:So, to give everyone a bit of an idea of the space that you're starting with, elise, could you describe your canvas, the land you're working with and why it's important to you that you're doing this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So initially we were looking for a lot of land but we wanted to be close to the beach. So we're about seven, 10 minutes to our local beach and we ended up on just under an acre and a half. So it was kind of different to what we had in our minds, that we first wanted to purchase, and we did a permaculture course in the back of our head thinking we'd have you know, 20, 30, 100 acres kind of thing. So it's been a bit of a you know 180 flip from what we were first looking at.
Speaker 2:It was all bush and they've subdivided the land so it has been partially cleared, with some big gums at the back, and we've got houses or land either side of us where people, some of them are vacant blocks, some of them are purchased and everyone's slowly building very heavy clay soil. It's been raining non-stop in the Northern Rivers area so we've literally got just a mudslide through our block currently. And besides that, infrastructure-wise, we've connected to mains water and we have a fence around our block so that our puppy dogs could join us, and we're living off-grid pretty much in our caravan until we can build and set up our gardens oh, it sounds very exciting, genuinely a fresh start.
Speaker 1:You have a completely clean slate to work with yes, pretty much lots of kangaroos.
Speaker 2:So we're trying to, yeah, take stock of the land and figure out, um, what some of the things that will be affecting the block and what's already there, and how that kind of works with what we want to do.
Speaker 1:That observation principle of, yeah, watching a full season cycle and seeing how it all works together with your land.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when we were looking at purchasing it, we actually were camping at the local national park and I said to my husband, we must look like crazy people because it was belting down rain one day and I was like, quick, get the kids, get in the car. And we all went to the block before we even had purchased it and sat on the block at the front drinking coffee, watching where the rain went and where it pulled. So, yeah, definitely lots of observation going on and even prior to us buying it, yeah, doing site sectors and things like that to make sure it was appropriate for what we wanted to do on there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that might sound crazy, but it's very, very clever. Yeah, it's great advice too for anyone with some land looking to do. What you're doing is to yeah, rain, hail and shine. Get out there and check out what's going on. So you'd like to create a permaculture inspired farmstead there. Can you tell us what this looks like for you?
Speaker 2:yeah, so we're quite new to permaculture. I completed my PDC at Limestone in the Hunter only last year. Permaculture has been something that we've, you know, been very interested in the last couple of years, but we've only done our formal training quite recently, so it's a big journey for us really, like we are no experts and we're definitely fumbling and learning along the way. But I think the big thing that I got out of our permaculture course was to start with our vision and our why that was really important. Um Brett, who does the course with us or who, sorry, teaches the course um, yeah, he really drummed that into us.
Speaker 2:So, really taking stock of why we want to be there, what our values are as a family, um, what we want the block to provide for us, how we want to work with the land, those kind of things really dictated the type of block that we were looking at. So we wanted something. We ideally wanted something with a bit more of a slope than what we had, but we picked it because of the aspect. We picked it because of the aspect. We picked it because of its climate. So, yeah, our vision really kind of revolves around growing enough food for us and sustaining our family.
Speaker 2:We don't really want to be self-sufficient or self-reliant necessarily. We've kind of we had that in mind to start with, but as we learnt more we realized that community sufficiency was something that we were more interested in, and obviously there's things that we won't be able to get in our community as well. So, understanding the limitations and kind of not beating ourselves up either about the fact that you can't be totally self-reliant or self-sufficient, but, yeah, as much as possible, providing majority of our vegetables and some fruits for ourselves, our family and we like the block to be an income for us. So we're looking at doing a micro farm, I guess, because it's quite small and the back of our block we can't actually build on, it's all an environmental, environmental zone. So that'll be our zone five, where it's kind of untouched. Um, and, yeah, looking at going into specific garlic varieties that suit our climate and doing a flower farm oh lovely.
Speaker 1:And when you say zone five release, I understand these uh sections of the the property are counted in in terms of permaculture, so you have zone one through to zone five. Could you explain what some of the zones are for those listening who might not understand this?
Speaker 2:yeah, so it kind of starts with um, zone zero. So zone zero is the house, um, and your homestead. But we also talk about zone zero, zero, which is yourself, and starting with zone zero, zero. So you know what your needs are and your values, which is kind of what we're talking about before, and then zone zero is your homestead, so the house itself and how you can make that sit within the environment and you can think about things like aspect and wind and, you know, capturing water, those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:Zone one is a section closest to the house, so they're things that you'll visit frequently or are high needs. So you know you might put your chickens in your zone one because you need to visit them every single day to collect eggs or quick pick vegetables. You know, cut and come again, greens, your herbs, things that you will be visiting frequently. Zone two is kind of the next stage out, so if you kind of think of it like a concentric circle, things that lead, need less maintenance, but you still do visit them quite often. Zone three is going into crops and things that are almost more commercial use or larger scale crops. Zone four is a semi wild area, so things in between, that kind of homestead and then your bush or natural environment and then five is that natural environment and wilderness kind of area, bush things that we don't intervene in and it's part of the natural ecosystem?
Speaker 1:That sounds fantastic. It sounds like a really good aid in helping you plan what to put where, I should say, and especially given that you're on that clean slate, that's going to come in very handy. Yeah, excellent. So I saw on Instagram that you've been getting the kids involved with making some lasagna beds. Could you tell our listeners what lasagna beds are and what's required to create them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we've chosen lasagna beds because we are on clay soil so we don't want to dig down and just create a big water bowl, so we've chosen to build up for all of our beds. For our lasagna beds it's pretty much just like a long-term, slow, cold compost. So you layer just like you would in a compost system and we try and get as much diversity as we can in our lasagna layers. There's more traditional ways of doing it, I guess where you do you know browns, greens, manure, those kinds of things. But we're just doing as much diversity as possible.
Speaker 2:So our greens we're looking at doing things like green leaves, grass clippings, any green material we can get our hands on, which is kind of tricky for us because we don't have any plants to be able to provide us with our grains. You know we don't have weeds, we don't have, you know, pumpkins that were the pumpkin vines that we're pulling out or comfrey or anything like that. But those kinds of things are all things that you could put in as your greens layer. And then your browns are things like brown leaves, any straw. We've got lots of mulch because we did take a few trees down. So mulch, both new mulch and aged mulch that might have been sitting there for a while.
Speaker 2:We've got mills, timber mills, near where we are, so shavings from the timber mill works really well in our context. And then you have other things like seaweed, manure, coffee grounds. You know mushrooms, spent mushroom waste from when they're making mushrooms all those kinds of things are things that you could layer in a lasagna bed. And then what we do after that is pocket plant. So we just open up the top of it and we put in some good quality either topsoil or you know well composted compost and we plant into that. So it saves us money as well, because we're not having to buy truckloads of soil or create truckloads of compost. So it kind of speeds the process up and it is a lot cheaper to do it that way.
Speaker 1:I like as well that you're reaching out to the community, looking outside the box and you know, for example, the shavings from the timber mill. I think that's very resourceful and it's a great idea just to plant that seed for listeners. That doesn't have to be just about what's you know at your feet. You can look around. You go and have a chat to people in your community. You'll find things like this available.
Speaker 2:Well, we've done a lot of our kind of hedge planting and so far I've only spent nine dollars on some manure that I found on the side of the road that was pre-bagged. Everything else we've done has been free or found or foraged.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. So what kind of things are they that you've done there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, we were joking about on our podcast the other day that I need to get a t-shirt that says crazy seaweed lady, because I just go to the beach and pick up buckets and buckets of seaweed. So that's something that's super available to us. Definitely, check your local council because there are limits and some places you can't take seaweed from your local beaches. But we have a bit of a seaweed problem at our local beach so they're more than happy for us to go and collect all the washed up seaweed. And, like you were saying, things like going to the mills getting timber shavings the blocks across the road from us get slashed frequently because nobody's built any houses there yet. So we get our trailer and we go across, we pick up all the straw, our local cafe gives us the coffee grounds, so just things like that. Really that we're kind of keeping our eyes open and I think when you start looking for these resources you notice them more and more.
Speaker 2:Marketplace is a really good one. Like we got all of our mulch before our trees got chopped down from someone who was just giving it away. That was happy to and it had been sitting there for ages, so it was really broken down. You could see all the fungi inside it. It was, you know, all the good stuff. So, yeah, definitely check out Marketplace too.
Speaker 1:Excellent, and it's a marketplace on Facebook that you're referring to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, that is good there. I do like a browse. So you mentioned that you were traveling Australia for 18 months. Was there anything along your travels that made you think, oh, that's on the list for the farmstead.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. So I guess, like kind of taking a step back, the whole reason we traveled around Australia is because we weren't really happy with the life that we'd kind of set up for ourselves in suburbia. We were really stressed. We had a really big mortgage, um, yeah, it just wasn't the kind of lifestyle that we were wanting to live, and that's kind of how we went down that permaculture path and discovering that.
Speaker 2:But the whole trip was about figuring out where we wanted to live and what we wanted to do and what we envisioned for our farmstead or homestead really.
Speaker 2:So I mean, back when we were looking at lots of acreage, we were really keen to host campers, because that's something that we were super interested in, and we got lots of acreage. We were really keen to host campers, because that's something that we were super interested in, and we got lots of inspiration for outdoor kitchens from a lot of the hip camps that we stayed at. There were some epic outdoor kitchen setups and fire pit areas. That's definitely something in our garden that we want to incorporate, yeah, yeah, and just lots of people who were already doing what we wanted to be doing. So it was cool to see how they'd set up their garden beds, how they'd set up, you know, vegetable washing stations, and how they were utilizing water and integrating different systems on their farms, um, even things like, you know, feeding and watering systems for chickens. Like, just traveling around, we saw so many things on different properties and through meeting people. So, yeah, plenty of things that we kind of collected ideas along the way.
Speaker 1:It's a fantastic way to learn, too, through people who have done it, and you can hopefully avoid making any mistakes that they have so that you can learn from theirs. It really is nice, yeah, excellent. So was there anything out of any of those that stood out the most really inspired you the most?
Speaker 2:I think just having access to vegetables that was one thing that I really, really wanted, and whenever we stayed somewhere that had a veggie garden, um, it just really inspired me, uh, to want to do that and to think about how to do it in a way that I could create the most diversity in our garden, like I don't want rows and rows of the same veggie. We really want to have as much polyculture and diversity in our veggie beds. And after talking to people about it, you know it was so good for pest management and after doing our permaculture course, obviously that reinforced all of those things as well yeah, yeah, definitely that companion planting and, and yeah, the, like you say, the poly crop, it's um, it's just full of benefits you can't lose.
Speaker 1:So what is it that you're going to plant?
Speaker 2:first, speaking of planting, Well, we've actually planted our first thing in the ground, which was a mulberry tree oh lovely, yeah, it was a gift from a family member. So we've popped that in the ground and I've got a few things potted up, some herbs. But just before we left we've come on holidays. This week we planted a whole heap of or sorry, not planted. We sowed a whole heap of seeds. So I've got all of my seeds germinating currently and we've just built some garden beds, so hopefully our winter beds will be cranking in a couple of weeks time.
Speaker 1:Oh, fantastic. What kind of garden beds have you built there?
Speaker 2:There's really bad termites here. Like I love the look of those beautiful sleepers and stacking them up with raised beds, but it just wasn't a smart idea to do that close to the house with the termites, so we've just gotten some recycled corrugated iron and just made the beds from those ourselves.
Speaker 1:Oh lovely, and they can have a beautiful rustic look too. I quite like how they look.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're pretty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. And again, you know recycling things. It's fantastic. Yeah, excellent. So you've planted the mulberry tree. Hopefully that serves you well for many moons to come. But what are you most looking forward to growing? You mentioned on your travels it was access to veggies, but is there anything in particular that you just? You can't wait to get in the ground and to harvest.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm actually a sucker for natives, so not in terms of harvesting, but I just cannot wait to get in the ground and to harvest Well, I'm actually a sucker for natives, so not in terms of harvesting, but I just cannot wait to have lots of natives all around me, like acacia, and having some, you know, grevillea and the prostrating one, that kind of will cover all of our ground and I can't wait to just have all of that around us. And, you know, seeing that encourage all the birds and the wildlife. I'm really excited for that. But I really also want to get our cut flowers in the ground because, you know, I just don't think you can have a bad day when you can walk out and walk amongst your flowers and cut some and bring them inside and it just makes me feel so happy. So, besides our veggies, I'm definitely looking forward to having lots of flowers around, whether it's natives or yeah, our cut flowers.
Speaker 1:Oh, that sounds lovely. Do you have a favorite cut flower?
Speaker 2:um. I love peonies, but they won't grow in our area oh, okay um, but yeah, dahlias, I love those. I just love the diversity you can get from them. They, they're beautiful.
Speaker 1:They are, yeah, quite striking, aren't they?
Speaker 2:And there's another sunflower that I really love. It's like a I think it's called a teddy bear sunflower. You don't actually see the seeds in the middle. I think I got it from you guys actually.
Speaker 1:Oh, the little fuzzy ones.
Speaker 2:Yes, they're so beautiful, I love them. So I bought a big packet of those, which I'm going to try and plant a couple actually when we get home, to see if I can sneak them in our climate during winter. But I don't know how I'll go Fingers crossed yeah.
Speaker 1:So did you have much of a garden prior to setting off on your travels when you were living in suburbia?
Speaker 2:Not, really, actually I've done garden beds, raised garden beds you know just the birdies ones you buy from Bunnings kind of thing but always struggled with pest management, you know getting moths and caterpillars and all those kinds of things and aphids, and I think because I wasn't really understanding you know how the whole thing worked together I never really had any great success. I grew up. My grandparents all moved here from Croatia. They're all immigrants, so I mean I've had a lot of experience through them gardening and that's kind of where I got a lot of my gardening knowledge from, because you know they were being very frugal when they first came and growing up they always had veggie patches in garden beds and my grandmother loved flowers so she planted a lot of flowers around. But yeah, myself, no, not really, to be honest just some little tiny patches in our suburban backyard, patches in our suburban backyard.
Speaker 1:Okay, so is there anything that takes you back, like a flower or a particular plant, that takes you back to being in the garden with your grandparents? I just love hearing these stories from people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my mum's mum. We had some acreage when we kind of semi-lived with them on and off when I was little and I just loved sitting in her patch and you'd feel like as a kid you know it's covering you entirely, even though it probably wasn't as big as it felt in my head and playing with snapdragons. That was one of my favorite things to do and making them talk and having my own little imaginary world playing with snapdragons.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's really sweet. I think those yeah such precious moments, and would you say that those are the moments that first inspired your love of gardening, or did that come a bit later?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, especially my dad's parents. You know they always had the veggie patch. You know eating a beautiful ripe fig straight from the tree and having tomatoes off the vine, those kinds of things are such core memories. And then when you start, I think, becoming an adult and you're buying produce yourself, especially when you have your own children as well, you know, you kind of unlock those core memories again. But you also kind of question, you know, is this the best decision health-wise for my family? Can I get fresher food and healthier food? And when you start kind of reassessing that once you become a parent, I think it kind of brings you back. And I've done that full loop as an adult now with my family because I've wanted that and I want those memories for my kids and I want those health benefits for my children. So, yeah, I think our kids have been a massive inspiration for us to go back down that path and kind of revisit gardening and, yeah, wanting that for our family.
Speaker 1:They're great little teachers, children and, yeah, often inspiring us. What are you hoping to teach them or demonstrate to your children through embarking on this journey?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're actually homeschooling our kids as well. So I mean, they're just my little shadows, they're following me around every day and I just think that in context, context learning is so good for them and they really grasp the concepts so well and they're learning about things that interest them. So pretty much anything that they're interested in we dive into, whether it's you know how a seed starts to come up, or you know why you treat different seeds differently. You know having to boil a seed or smoke to germinate a seed, those kinds of things. My eldest, who's five, she's really interested in all those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:And then my younger one, who's three. A lot of our gardening stuff for him is about responsibility. He really likes the fact that he gets to water them and the consequence if you don't look after something, and, yeah, those kind of concepts he's really enjoying. But I just think the garden provides them with so much learning opportunities. You know whether it's noticing the bugs and talking about those and life cycle, and I just think the garden's going to be some of the best education they're going to get from our homeschooling journey.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think there is lots to learn in that and I like how you say that your little one's journey is about responsibility, what happens if you don't water the plant, and things like that. It's the best way for them to learn getting out there and getting their hands in the soil. And those memories, those lessons, I should say they tend to stick a lot quicker than just being told.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean, you know the garden provides science for them, it provides math. You know we're learning about conservation, we're learning about all kinds of things. So it's not just learning about flowers and plants, they're learning about all kinds of things. So it's not just learning about flowers and plants, they're learning about so much. You know, we take it as an opportunity to talk about mass and to talk about numbers and to talk about, you know so, so, so many concepts. So, yeah, it's pretty much my whole curriculum at the moment. Yeah, that's fantastic. And they can't get bored. You know they might get sick of doing something and they'll go find a stick and they'll start poking at a tree or looking at an ant's nest or whatever it is. So there's just so much for them to discover.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you can get them out there with measuring tape as well, when it's time to make those garden beds and plan everything out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've been measuring out our house and pegging out the corners. So, yeah, we've been measuring out our house and pegging out the corners and so, yeah, they've each got their own tape measure and they've got a little notepad and they write down, you know, in their little random language that they have with mark makings, what they're seeing and noticing. And they've also been, you know, getting Addie wants her own patch. So every time we go to the garden centre or nursery or wherever, or Bunnings, she'll find the seeds and the the garden aisle and she's like, okay, I want a rose in my patch. And you know, for a five year old, she knows so many different plants, um, and their names. And, yeah, she blows me away with the knowledge that she's accumulated oh, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1:That, that is really wonderful. I hope she gets her roses in her patch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's going to be the most random patch in our garden, but you know, go for it.
Speaker 1:Why not? Why not? It's good to be creative. So you mentioned teaching your daughter why you might boil or smoke some seeds. Could you explain that a little bit further for our listeners, who might be a bit curious?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So seeds all need different things to germinate. Really, I mean, most of the seeds that we're used to you pop in the ground and you know. Sure, there might be a different depth that you might plant it to, but for the most part you can plant them and they'll pop up. But yeah, some seeds are very particular, so you know you might need to scratch the surface of the seed to encourage it to germinate.
Speaker 2:Some seeds like being soaked in water or put in boiling water, some, like I said you know, smoke, heat, and these are all things that naturally occur in nature. So we're not doing it just because we feel like it. We're doing it because we're trying to mimic what happens in nature. So, like a banksia pod, those need the smoke to open up and to be able to germinate. There's a lot of seeds that can actually just sit in the ground.
Speaker 2:There was a story I can't remember where I was watching or listening to it but they thought this particular native flower in the Blue Mountains had gone, like they thought it was extinct. They hadn't seen it for 20, 30 years, something like that. And then those bushfires came through and someone was walking a horticulturalist and noticed that this plant had popped back up, so it was just sitting there waiting for the right conditions essentially and that was the bushfires so that it could pop back up and germinate. So yeah, seeds and plants are amazing and some of them are very fussy, needy little things, but definitely amazing to see nature in action.
Speaker 1:It is. It's incredible, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's many different methods too. They all need, as you say, different things, some things, but particularly Australian natives. They're a finicky bunch sometimes.
Speaker 2:And I find the plants that you can't necessarily propagate from easily, like natives, you know. Not all of them you can transplant or, you know, take a hardwood cutting. They seem to be the ones with very particular needs when it comes to their seed germination.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would agree with that. So, elise, what's something that you would like to see more of in the gardening realm?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a good question. I think people are just having a go. I think sometimes people get very disheartened when a plant dies or they're not successful in a certain crop or it gets smashed by bugs or something like that. But I think it's a way for us to really learn and instead of just being like, oh you know, I've got a black thumb and I can't garden, it's just kind of pushing past that barrier and understanding that you know you're getting feedback from the garden and the environment and taking that on, maybe just doing a bit more research. You know we do a lot of research as to what things need before we put it in the ground. It helps us be more successful, but we're still going to have failures.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, I, like I said before, I was trying to transplant some natives that were growing in our back area. I thought, oh yes, I'll dig these up. There were little pups that had come up of some acacias. I thought I'll just dig them up, put them them in a pot, like it cost me nothing, it's just a bit of my time and they all died. There was about 20 of them. They all died. None of them liked being transplanted.
Speaker 2:So that's not going to go in our hedge from our block, but you know, it was worth a go and even though I failed, it's Maybe I could do a different method, or maybe it's just not a plant that doesn't like being transplanted. So, yeah, I think that's something that we really need to remember, especially when we're at the beginning of our gardening journey that you're going to have a lot of failures and it's not a good reason. Well, I don't think it's a good reason to give up, that you could kind of keep trying and try different things and learn. And, especially, it's a good opportunity to connect, like, either with local gardening groups or your neighbor or your local nursery, um, because, yeah, I think gardening requires connection with other people, like that's a massive part for me of how we learn, um. So, yeah, very true.
Speaker 1:I think that's a very valid point. We we tend also to learn a lot more from our losses in some instances than we than we do from our successes. So it's not a bad thing to to have a failure, of loss of a plant or something like that, because you've learned from it. So it actually it makes you a better gardener, so so keep at it. For sure. Yeah, so is there. You mentioned that you had a few little garden beds before you set off around Australia. Is there something that you've grown before that really challenged you?
Speaker 2:I've always struggled with carrots Isn't that a random thing? But I'm so bad at growing carrots, I don't know why. I've tried to make the soil more loose and sandy. I've tried. You know, you can get the carrots now in the strip packets from Bunnings, where they're all, like you know, separate. I just I can't. I can't grow carrots. I'm going to give it a red hot go this season, but so far I have had zero success at growing carrots. They're like the size of my pinky nail and have all this greenery. They have all this greenery and I pull them out and they're just not. They're not even. They're nothing.
Speaker 1:Oh goodness, so that's unlucky. Perhaps some yeah checking the soils, perhaps, and perhaps, and yeah, seeing if you can change that script a little bit this season, I think that'll be good. Uh, what about something at least that you would you sort of have uh bragging rights for anything that you've had great success growing?
Speaker 2:no, not from, not from my little garden beds, i't think. Actually, we did a bit of gardening at my mum's so we moved to my mum's house once we sold our house and we moved there during COVID lockdown so we had a lot of time to garden and be outside and yeah, I think I mean typical summer crops, but our tomatoes and our zucchinis went gangbusters and they were delicious. So I mean they're not really bragging rights because everybody can grow bloody. You know zucchinis and tomatoes. But they were good, they were good.
Speaker 1:Oh good, Do you have a favourite recipe for them?
Speaker 2:Oh, I love to pickle zucchinis, actually because it's one of those glut yeah, glut veggies that you get so much of and you can't possibly eat that many, so my favorite thing to do with zucchinis is to pickle them. So we pickle them just like you pickle cucumbers pretty much, and we have them on sandwiches and with breakfast. Um, and the other thing that I love, and everybody seems to love, is a chocolate zucchini cake or chocolate zucchini cake oh my gosh, you don't even know the zucchinis in there, like I know some healthy recipes.
Speaker 2:You know you can do like beetroot brownies, but you can tell the beetroots in there, or you know the sweet potato brownies.
Speaker 2:This chocolate cake is amazing. You would have no idea that there's any zucchini in there and it just kind of two whole zucchinis go in there. So it's a great way to get rid of them, or especially those extra big zucchinis that you know you don't want to cook because they just taste awful. You just grate it up and put it in this chocolate cake and it's amazing, oh we might have to share one of the recipes for that on your socials, I think. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:I'd like to give that a whirl. Yeah, fantastic. What about gardening tools? When it came to things you use in the garden, did you find there was anything in particular that was just really indispensable for you?
Speaker 2:Not indispensable necessarily. I'm a big like get your hands in the dirt kind of gal, but from our permaculture course I think I really learned that using the right tool for the right job is really important. And also, you know, I love the look of all the old wooden beautiful tools you can get. But when you're in the garden for hours at a time, I think when you go to buy the tool, it's really important to make sure that it's ergonomic for you but also that it's lightweight. For certain things you really want a lightweight tool.
Speaker 2:So at the moment I'm loving my Fisker fork because it's great for the hay, it's great for even picking up our mulch and I've been doing so many loads back and forth with the wheelbarrow to build up our lasagna bed. So I love that and it's super, super light and I couldn't imagine doing it with a big, heavy fork or doing it with a big wooden one because I just, yeah, it would be so much harder on my body. So, yeah, I definitely think certain tools, you really want them to be light and you want them to be ergonomic for you. I do love my beautiful little handheld trowel with the beautiful wooden handle which my husband very cheekily used to mix concrete the other day and I was not happy about that and I think those things are beautiful, like they can be real heirloom items. But for your bigger tools, I think definitely the weight outweighs the beauty of when you're using them and making sure that they're not too heavy and they, yeah, you can work with them all day long yes, yes, that's good advice.
Speaker 1:Um, has there been anything, along your gardening journey at least, that you never expected to learn?
Speaker 2:and that doesn't have to be about the garden just having come from the garden somehow yeah, I think I never really realized, like I knew nature made me happy and being outdoors, but how much comfort and how much joy the garden really brought me. You know I mentioned COVID lockdown. That was a massive thing for us. We'd have a cup of tea and we'd walk around the two acres at my mum's and, you know, do a garden check and observe and just do a really slow walk with our cup of tea or coffee, noticing things being out there. Yeah, and I think it really taught me to slow down.
Speaker 2:Part of why we took off in the caravan was that you know, our week was just go, go, go. We were passing ships. You know my husband would go and I'd be up with the kids and everything. So, yeah, I think the garden has definitely taught me how to slow down, how to be patient, how to be more mindful and in the moment, because you know you can't rush it, you don't have a choice, you're working at the pace of nature. So, yeah, I think the two big things that I got out of our gardening journey just the joy and, yeah, that lesson to slow down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a valuable lesson. Thank you for sharing that. I really love that. I read an article once that said when we're in nature, our body actually becomes that bit closer to homeostasis, so our blood pressure lowers, our heart rate calms down, we become more efficient at problem solving, we can think more effectively, and I don't know the study that was done behind it, but it certainly made sense to me and I think it says a lot in the way of where we should be trying to spend the majority of our time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's so many studies about how good it is for our mental health. You know grounding effects of nature when you take your feet off and you know you have your feet in sand or in soil and in salt water particularly. They're all things that are really, really beneficial for our mental health.
Speaker 1:Definitely definitely. Get out there and get your hands and feet dirty guys. Get out there and get your hands and feet dirty guys. So is there anything else? Elise, pivotal moments along your journey that you feel deserve a bit of focus? Along my gardening journey uh, yeah, it can be your gardening journey or your your travels while you're looking for your land yeah, I actually think our permaculture course was like a massive eye-opener for me.
Speaker 2:Um, so, brett, at Limestone you can go for a tour, you can do an intro course, you can do PDCs and then he does specific courses. So I started off by just doing, um, a weekend tour. So we went for a couple hours and he kind of gives you a run around his garden because there's just so much to see. And then from there I went and did the intro course and every time I went, you know, there was just so much more knowledge I gained from being there. And then, once we enrolled in the PDC and made that investment, yeah, I just think Brett and Limestone have been such a massive part of my journey. And then he has an alumni group on Facebook and so, yeah, he just seems so entwined into everything that we're doing at the moment. He's such a valuable resource to me.
Speaker 2:You know, he's a bit of a mentor.
Speaker 2:He's the reason why I have the podcast with my co-host, joe, because I met Joe at the permacult course.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I think that moment and meeting him and I don't even know how I heard about Limestone and was first introduced to him and his business, but, yeah, him and his garden and the connections and people I've met through that course have just been so influential in some of the decisions that we've made for our family, for our block, for our garden, for our life.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's been a massive thing for us to come across him and and his garden, his family. You know his wife works with him and she does all of the kitchen and feeding of the students. And Nikki is just such a whiz, you know they have a mainly gluten-free diet and mainly sugar-free and the stuff she does with food and vegetables is just amazing. And his daughter works with them too. So, yeah, I think just that they're a family business doing what they do and that in itself is very inspiring for us because we want to turn our property into a business that can sustain not just me but also my husband and the fact that our kids are homeschooling, so inevitably they're going to be part of that process. So, yeah, I think that kind of moment and journey has been really pivotal in where we are right now.
Speaker 1:It encompasses a lot, doesn't it? Permaculture it's not just about the garden people may assume, but it really makes you look at your life as a whole and all different levels of how you approach it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it rolled in the course, or in the first intro course, thinking oh, you know, I'll learn how to grow carrots a bit better, you know I'll do this permaculture garden thing. But yeah, it's a design system. That's what it really is. It's a way of systems thinking. It's not just about the garden, or um, yeah, it's, it encompasses so, so much and working with nature rather than against it.
Speaker 1:I think we find ourselves more and more sometimes, you know, as a species fighting nature rather than working with it, and things are so much more productive when we we go with the flow. We work with nature's rhythms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and permaculture is also about ethics and about people care and about caring for the planet. So, yeah, it's not just about our gardens.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah, it's very true. So what about, like, speaking of you know as a whole and things like that, not just about the garden? You mentioned some as a whole and things like that, not just about the garden, when you mentioned some things that you would love to include on your block, the fire pit being one of them. So you must have seen a few different things. Is there anything unusual or wacky that you'd like to try in your garden space?
Speaker 2:No, I'm very practical kind of person. I'm very into aesthetics, so I want it to be really beautiful. I love Hugh Richards over in Wales, like I love his look of a kitchen garden and you know I'd love to have some big arches and things like that. I think probably the quirkiest thing that we want to have is that I love cottage gardens but I want to try and emulate a cottage garden with natives as much as possible. I'm sure there'll be mixed plantings in there, but try and create more of a native cottage garden to the best of my ability.
Speaker 2:I'd love to do that, but yeah, I think it will be fairly traditional looking, fairly traditional looking. The only thing I think that would be a bit different than people might not be so used to is some of those permaculture techniques where you'll be integrating a lot more systems and we'll be integrating things and really thinking about how one system affects the other. You know like we're not just growing a grapevine on our veranda for aesthetics. We're doing it because it gives us shade in summer and then the leaves die and we'll get the sun in winter. So we're really thinking about how plantings will affect how we live in the space. Um, so that's a big thing for us, for sure yes, definitely, and very important too.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for your time, elise. It's been wonderful chatting with you and I'm sure there'll be plenty of real estate searches taking place after listening to this. Vacant blocks no very inspiring. Thank you so much, but before we sign off, could you please share with our listeners how they can find out a bit more about you and how they could follow your journey on this homestead?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So our very, very new journey of our homestead and micro farm will be mainly on Instagram One Fine Farm, which is actually a play on what our travel account was, which was One Fine Van when we were traveling around our caravan. And we want to get a YouTube channel up and running. So we've been filming a lot of content for that, but we actually haven't got it up and running yet, because I want to make sure that we can actually deliver content regularly. And then, yeah, we have our podcast too, which is called the Practical Permaculture Podcast that I have with my co-host, jo.
Speaker 1:Oh, fantastic. So if you haven't already been following Elise on Instagram, jump online and give her a follow to learn with her, as she shares her experiences and learning journey on this exciting endeavour. Also, be sure to check out the Practical Permaculture podcast. It's got some fantastic interviews up there, so do jump over and have a listen. That's got some fantastic interviews up there, so do jump over and have a listen. You've been listening to how I Grow, produced by the Seed Collection in Melbourne, australia. It's our aim to make gardening more accessible to more people, and this podcast is one of the many ways in which we're doing that. If you don't already know who we are, jump online and visit wwwtheseedcollectioncomau. You'll find a treasure trove of gardening information, as well as a huge range of seeds and garden supplies and accessories. That address again is wwwtheseedcollectioncomau. Thanks for listening.