Gold Coast Permaculture Prepares for Another Great Year Ahead
Community Projects, Courses/Workshops, Demonstration Sites, Developments, Land, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Permaculture Gold Coast January 19, 2012
by Vanessa Fernandes
Dani, Mel, Judy, Kristy and Pond in the house garden
2011 has been seminal in the development of permaculture on the Gold Coast, NSW, Australia. The incorporation of Gold Coast Permaculture (GCP) early in the year has seen the organisation and the concept become very much integrated into the Gold Coast community sector. Some of the sector we have cooperation with are:
- Employment Plus, the employment arm of the Salvation Army
- The Smith Family provides contact with schools and organisations that wish to create gardens
- The Department of Corrective Services
- Federation House who are working with individuals who have become very marginalised
- We work with local government and other not-for-profit groups.
We are also blessed to have many individual volunteers who have embraced the project.
Gold Coast Permaculture is making a real difference to many people. Federation House is a particular programme that we at GCP value. Federation House is a place where people with mental illness can go for recreation and support. A permablitz was conducted there in October and Justin participated in the 10-year celebration by giving a workshop there for the staff and members. Participants apparently also included local politicians so it is hoped that they ‘got the message’. There are few better qualified to give it than Justin. The staff at Federation House are very supportive of our efforts and Federation House is one of our ongoing major partner organisations on the Gold Coast.
Not only has the community participation/people care ethic been actively promoted, but the actual urban agricultural demonstration project has expanded significantly. We now refer to site, situated at 270 Ferry Rd., Southport, as the Gold Coast Permaculture ‘Urban Farm’. Each day we have 4-5 people coming in to obtain fresh, straight from the garden, organic vegetables. They keep coming back each week. Our honey supplier Syd, who has two hives just down the road, keeps us in honey for sale to the community as well. It is very popular and Syd is rather stretched at present. Fortunately, the hives at the Urban Farm have begun producing also, with the first 13 or so litres extracted last week. There is to be a major expansion of hives at the site with two top bar hives and two Warre hives currently being constructed by the Elanora Woodworking Group — one of our community gardeners, Pam, is a member and a woodworking teacher. Pam has volunteered to undertake this project on our behalf. The talent pool in the organisation is growing quickly. The photograph below is shows the Urban Farm in July 2011. Now we have three major market garden areas and a community garden at the front of the block.
Gold Coast Permaculture Urban Farm in July 2011
An expansion of the group into micro-business opportunities in order to fund positions and the organisation itself is now underway and will be further developed as 2012 progresses. This will be an important year for GCP in this regard. Not least in this micro-business development is the beginnings of an education arm that will go hand in hand with the urban farm demonstration project and community garden.
Gold Coast Permaculture Urban Farm in October 2011
Gold Coast Permaculture Urban Farm in December 2011.
The base for a 2012 Urban Design course
The education side will begin with a PDC to be held on one day a week over 13 weeks from 31 January and this will include participation from both members of the public and ‘work for the dole’ trainees. Later in the year a 5-day urban permaculture course will also be taught by teachers including permaculture designer and landscape architect Scott Godfredson. Scott has a brilliant track record in urban permaculture design, consultancy and development, having undertaken design projects for commercial and individual developments. He has also been the consultant on whom the Gold Coast City Council has depended on to provide the main frame design for the community gardens currently operational under the council scheme. Scott runs a private design company called Exos Design and includes, as partners, Doug Bullock of the famed Bullock Brothers and Martin Jackson who was intimately involved in the design of the Currumbin Valley Eco Village, a regular stop-off point for different courses run by the PRI.
The BH Project in North Kohala, Hawaii designed by Exos Design. A design that
fosters healing, creativity and community interaction within the
greater context of sustainability.
Participants will undertake field trips as a part of the educative process, taking in a practical look at various aspects of urban permaculture design while learning how to develop their own consultancies. The beauty of such a course being held on the Gold Coast is the number of design examples that abound. Students will learn a variety of practical and commercial permaculture skills that are normally unavailable to the average student of such a course. Keep an eye on the Gold Coast Permaculture Facebook page for further information on these courses. We will also request the PRI to place notice on its web page when this course is to be held.
Our volunteers have been particularly active and a number of them including Pete the Plumber, Marty, Dan, Siera, and Will Taylor are to be commended for the efforts they have expended. Pete, together with Siera, has been instrumental in getting our chooks and their living quarters up to a reasonable standard, so if you need a plumber or a chook tractor built, Pete is your man.
Pete’s Rolls Royce Silver Shadow model chook tractor
— current model being prepared in the background.
Marty has worked at our site for many months on the gardens and taught workshops on one of his great loves – native bees; Siera also works very hard on everything over all the areas of the group and is the front man for the Ashmore Community Garden in their section of the 270 Ferry Rd community garden. Siera combines this with being our resident “chook whisperer” though I must say we are becoming a little concerned about the inordinate amount of time he spends whispering to the chooks…. The Ashmore Community Garden group have taken a garden (and half the fence) while they are awaiting the development of their own garden at a park in Ashmore that is to be provided by the Gold Coast City Council. Of our current regulars, finally there is Dan! He is a dedicated worker on the two day a week employment training programme coming in up to five to six days a week. He also has a very productive garden in the Community Garden area.
The community garden section of GCP with the latest participants to be
involved in the project in front of their new garden
– Stacey with family and friends & Pond.
Then there is Will. Will Taylor is one volunteer who has been a personal success story for both us and himself. He has come to us from sleeping rough and having a number of personal issues to deal with to now participating fully at Gold Coast Permaculture. He has really turned his life around and recently gained full-time employment but continues coming in one to two days a week to work with us. Will has taken a great interest in obtaining expertise in garden design and vegetable growing and has developed a seriously productive garden in the complex where he lives. He has a range of skills that are very difficult for an individual to develop and can repair and/or make almost anything. In addition to working with us at 270 Ferry Rd, he works on our behalf in his own time at home. Of great importance to us, he has just completed a chimney for GCP enabling us to continue with the process of making fosfito or, soluble phosphorus fertiliser. Will is a highly valued member of the group of people who come into Gold Coast Permaculture to volunteer their time and we intend to hang onto him if at all possible for as long as we can.
The chimney that Will built
The process for which Will manufactured this great chimney is the making of fosfito. This process was just a part of the valuable content taught by Eugenio Gras at the RegenAg Bio-Fertile three day workshop attended by one of our members on the Sunshine Coast in November. Eugenio is returning in 2012 with a “making your own micro-organisms” course that essentially eliminates the relatively expensive process of making and using compost tea. Fosfito is made by initially burning a quantity of bones (40 kgs in this case) and then pulverising those burnt bones into a fine dust. This is then sprinkled on top of rice husks that are spread around and over a small fire that is made under the chimney in a ratio of 10:1kgs. The husks surround the fire and are then layered in the same ratio of husks to bone dust until all the bone dust has been absorbed into the burnt husks. All that is left after the completion of the burn, which will take around 2 full days for a 3 layer job, is a white powder covered by a fine ash. This is the soluble phosphorus fertiliser with Ca and Si and it can be diluted and sprayed onto your plants. It is the intention of Gold Coast Permaculture to make this product available to the community. We are also going to manufacture lime sulphur and bio-fertiliser, a fermented product at GCP in the near future. We just need some cow rumen to kick it off.
2012 looks set to be an even bigger and better year for volunteers and for the area of micro-business than was 2011. A second site for the group on the Gold Coast is currently being considered and this will be run in conjunction with the current site at 270 Ferry Road. This will increase our community reach and ensure that Gold Coast Permaculture establishes a firm foundation on which it can continue into the future. We very much look forward to seeing the readers of the Urban Farm site at 270 Ferry Rd Southport on the Gold Coast.
Comments (4)
Do you guys have your own blog? If not you really should. Such a great project deserves one
Comment by Evan Young — January 19, 2012 @ 10:02 am
Go Guys!!!!!!
Brilliant!
I’ll have to pop over and check it out.
What an inspiration for the Gold Coast which is usually looked upon as just a ‘tourist’ attraction etc.
Yippeeeeeeeee
Comment by John — January 19, 2012 @ 1:21 pm
Starting off in 2011 as a vacant, squatted, overgrown & abused block of land in a prime position, 270 has risen from the dead to take pride of place on the Coast utilising Permaculture Principals. A most welcoming community has evolved with private accomodation for those who live onsite, public space for workshops, established & productive gardens for general public as well as allocating gardening space for Ashmore Community Garden members whilst they await Council approval for their own site.
Wonderful & innovate techiques from people who have travelled & worked in exotic locations, with truly multicultural language and skill sets, make 270 Ferry Road (big red fence) the place to catch up with friends or make new ones.
Many people have contributed to the making of 270 – they’ve all left their mark,some have moved on to other projects but there are always those wonderful volunteers who have made a home away from home & have become the best of friends spreading the Permaculture story wherever they go.
Congratulations for creating such an inspirational place – a refuge where even the chickens & bees come home to roost every night.
Roll on 2012 – so many plans – so little time..CONGRATULATIONS!
Comment by rebecca — January 20, 2012 @ 9:22 pm
My first visit today to your Permaculture Garden on Ferry Road, and won’t be my last. I thoroughly enjoyed my greens tonight. It was my pleasure speaking with you Charles and meeting your talented daughter, although I couldn’t find her blog online. County Bumpkin at heart? Wonderful programs you are running there. Congratulation and wishing you best for a long term successful future. Teresa
Comment by Teresa Bracewell — February 22, 2012 @ 8:37 pm
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