Permaculture Soils DVD – It’s a Wrap!
Compost, DVDs/Books, Fungi, Rehabilitation, Salination, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Soil Conservation, Structure — by Ecofilms September 6, 2010
 Geoff Lawton and Frank Gapinski |
I just came back from filming all the links to Geoff Lawton’s Permaculture Soils DVD over the weekend. It’s a wrap – finally – with all principal photography completed and now it’s just a matter of finishing off the edit. Squeezing it all down to 90 minutes will be difficult as there’s heaps of good Permaculture information in this DVD. From Compost Teas, Kitchen Gardens to Ripping the Soil, working with cows, ducks, chickens and worms – and in the middle of it all, Geoff’s 18 day Compost formula – Geoff was in top form. Despite not drinking any water all day and being exhausted from nursing a cow the previous evening that was expecting to calf at any moment, Geoff was able to stay awake, stay focused and deliver on queue.
Comments (8)Geoff in Early Observation Mode
Comedy Break — by Ecofilms September 2, 2010
Here’s a photo of a famous Permaculture person. Can you guess who it is? He was photographed with this shovel back in 1956 at the age of two. He is wearing a child restraint belt usually attached to a long cord as was customary in those days to prevent him from running away to play in the dirt. But he did run away to Australia. He will soon be appearing in a new Soils DVD – but with a bigger shovel….
Comments (3)Are Eucalypts Weeds?
Conservation, Land, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Regional Water Cycle, Trees — by Ecofilms July 29, 2010
For many years they’ve been seen as a symbol of pride in Australia. Expatriate writers in the 50s and 60s would write about returning to Sydney by ship and about being greeted by the smell of wafting gum tree leaves as they waxed lyrical about the nostalgia they felt for home.
Authorities still plant them everywhere. In parks, next to footpaths, street corners, new housing development estates, Eucalypts are as Australian as the Emu and the Kangaroo. They are seen nearly everywhere and nobody seems to take them as a threat in Australia.
But should Eucalypts be re-examined as a noxious weed?
Comments (21)Home Cheese-Making DVD Hits the Road!
Animal Processing, DVDs/Books, Fermenting, Livestock, News, Processing & Food Preservation — by Ecofilms July 8, 2010
Okay, it’s taken a while and we were expecting to release this title last year. We even had a few people ask for it for last year’s Christmas, but the truth is we took too long to finish it. So now it’s here, ready to go! Elisabeth Fekonia’s Home Cheesemaking and All Things Dairy DVD has finally been released!
Comments (13)Intro to Permaculture Design DVD Now Available with Spanish Subtitles
DVDs/Books — by Ecofilms June 24, 2010
Geoff Lawton’s Introduction to Permaculture Design DVD has already gone into a second edition, but, thanks to a number of keen Spanish speaking translators out there, we’ve now also added a Spanish subtitle option to this DVD!
The hardest part of editing subtitles into something like this is getting people to co-ordinate their transcriptions. Jane Gapinski at Eco Films sat down and made the English subtitles first with timecode embedded in the text document which meant translators fluent in both English and Spanish were able to replace the English text in their preferred language and email the new document back to Jane.
This way all the timecode was preserved, allowing the Spanish text to easily cut in on cue with the action.
This process made the whole task a lot easier to embed text into the new DVD. Many thanks to the many helpers who helped spread Permaculture around the globe. PRI and Eco Films would like to thank:
El Efecto Borde from Argentina, Enrique J. Triñane from Uruguay, Gianna Bonis Profumo from Spain and Robert Parks from the USA.
It’s a great example of team co-operation amongst the international permaculture community.
Comments (0)Solar Cookers
Energy Systems, Processing & Food Preservation — by Ecofilms June 11, 2010
While we were shooting the Permaculture Soils video with Geoff Lawton, we noticed an array of shiny solar cookers being assembled on the jetty at Zaytuna Farm. Barb Ford from Brisbane was cooking the afternoon lunch for the woofers and students on the farm.
Taking a break from our filming, we asked Barb to give us a run down on the various cookers she had on display and explain their uses. Not all Solar Cookers are the same. Some act as ovens whilst others act as direct burners.
Comments (7)Free Hot Water from Compost Wheelie Bin
Compost, Energy Systems — by Ecofilms January 11, 2010
by Frank Gapinski, from Ecofilms
Here’s a great tip given by a member of the Aquaponics Made Easy Forum on a cheap easy-to-build hot water system using compost.
The original question posted to the forum was "how to heat a fish tank over winter without any extra energy costs?" A hard thing to do. Thermal Mass heating was one answer but a crafty member posted a very interesting solution and swears that it works a treat. We’ve illustrated his simple design. It’s so simple you will think “Ah-ha! Why didn’t I think of that?”
Daryl from Windsor in NSW came up with an innovative solution using two ordinary wheelie bins that are filled with compost and a wound central pipe arrangement to turn cold water hot very quickly. How does it work?
“What I have made is a compost heater, inside a wheelie bin with 20 mm poly pipe coiled around the outside wall of a pipe – about 8 metres in each bin.” he says.
Compost can reach a core temperature of 70 degrees Centigrade. Conventional Hot Water systems are thermostatically set to heat the water to around 65 – 70 degrees centigrade. So at its peak this system will create very hot water for free.
The Nomad Way in Bali
Demonstration Sites — by Ecofilms December 9, 2009
by Frank Gapinski, from Ecofilms
Photos© Frank Gapinski
Because a lot of Westerners visiting the Indonesian island of Bali could never quite pronounce his name, Nyoman Sarma became known to them as just plain "Nomad." Since the 1960s when he worked as a oil-rigger in Algeria and Tunisia, Nomad had a thirst for travel and learning more about western culture. But the pay for a Balinese rigger was very poor so Nomad did a lot of travelling the hard way.
Comments (6)A Man of a Thousand Trees
Biodiversity, Deforestation, Demonstration Sites, Food Forests, Global Warming/Climate Change, Nurseries & Propogation, Trees — by Ecofilms October 2, 2009
by Frank Gapinski
Recently whilst filming at Mulloon Creek Natural Farms near Canberra we spotted a lone figure in the barren landscape quietly digging a series of holes on a 2 kilometer stretch of swales that were designed by Geoff Lawton. Matt Kilby has been on the farm now for 12 months and in that time has developed a system of giving the trees he plants a successful start to life. Planting trees in heavily compacted soil is not easy as Matt will tell you, but it can be done if you follow some basic tips. In this video Matt explains the right way to plant a tree on a swale, especially if it’s located in a fairly inhospitable landscape and how to make sure that the trees you plant have a high success rate. The pink tree guards that Matt created are not cosmetic. They have a particular part to play in speeding plant growth as Matt explains.
Food Forests Across America
Community Projects, Education Centres, Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Plant Systems, Trees, Urban Projects — by Ecofilms January 26, 2009
For Erik Ohlsen, a Californian based Permaculture teacher and designer, 2009 is shaping up to become a year like no other.
"I run my own Permaculture contracting business and am about to launch a Food Forest campaign for 2009” he said. Erik’s dream is to encourage people to roll out a Food Forest systems across America.
“My vision is to educate communities as to the whole system benefits of food forests from, climate change to relocalization of food sources and creating oases of human settlement in our communities. To do this we will help students and interns design and install these systems.”
“We’re going to install Food Forests like a brush fire, and we can.” he says.
Comments (15)Wanted – Permaculture Translators
Courses/Workshops, DVDs/Books — by Ecofilms December 19, 2008
Wanted. Permaculture Translators – People fluent in another language willing to donate some time to translate from a supplied English text transcript of The Permaculture for Beginners DVD into their chosen language. The supplied Word document will be between 40 to 60 pages so if you are up to the challenge, we’d be grateful for your contribution. This is not a simple or easy task to complete in one sitting, so please, only reply if you are fluent in your preferred language, are motivated, self-disciplined and prepared to complete the task and deliver the document within a fixed deadline. This is very important.
Comments (18)Permaculture for Beginners DVD in the Works
Courses/Workshops, DVDs/Books, Developments, News — by Ecofilms December 16, 2008
Editor’s Note: Our creative video genius, Frank Gapinski, gives us an update on the work of Flashtoonz
Coming in 2009 is the DVD we’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Permaculture for Beginners is the fundamental introduction to the Permaculture Design Certificate Course. Its the 72 hour Course boiled down to just over 90 minutes with all the essential points covered. If you are interested in doing the full PDC and want to know more about it – then this DVD introduces the course in a nutshell.
More than just a classroom lecture – each point is covered in practical detail with on the field examples. If you’re new to Permaculture and don’t know where to begin – then this DVD reveals the PDC in all its glory by one of the best, most experienced teachers on the planet – Geoff Lawton. Geoff has taught the course in over 27 different countries.
He’s currently in Iran before travelling to Morocco and then back to Australia in January. Geoff is pretty excited about this title as its a way to introduce a whole new generation of people to Permaculture. The project was scheduled to begin in November but we had another DVD on the boil that needed completion. 2009 should be an interesting year for Permaculture people around the globe.
Harvesting Water has been translated for the Chinese market and other language translations are in the works. We got some big plans and some very exciting fresh films to reveal before the 2009 is done.
More details to come in the following weeks.
Comments (9)
