Tamara and Andy have been on their beautiful acre in Bunyip for 2 and a half years now. They have 7 swales, a pond/mini dam, a tank, greywater, two frog ponds, interesting downpipe plumbing and other water infrastructure. Bunyip has about twice the rainfall of Melbourne, but is still in drought.

Tamara did her PDC in January 2007 with Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton and has never looked back. She now teaches practical permaculture workshops and convenes the brand new local group Permaculture Cardinia Baw Baw as well and the Bunyip Urban Landcare Group (BULG).

The permablitz will include the following workshops:

Tamara (PDC) on “how to swale” and compost tea making – Elaine Ingram style but cheaper

Rhiannon (PDC) on big pile composting

Matthew Bond (PDC) doing Biodynamic 501 preparation and application - from 3pm

Any others people would like to do

On the day, we will be:

Planting 100 local indigenous wattles. A year ago we put in the windbreaks and orchard nurse trees at the inaugural BULG planting. Some have died so and we are filling gaps and moving a couple of gums – planted too close to productive trees.

Mulching our 25 heritage apples, 29 nectarines and various nut, citrus, plum, chestnut and native trees, an absolute essential to make it through our hotter and drier summers.

Stacking layers and companions into the swaled landscape by: taking hard cuttings and doing Tamara’s time saving “stick it in the ground and hope” method and digging up the marauding tansy and sticking that in too. Believe it or not, survival rate is pretty high when there is water around. If you have daisy, geranium or other cuttings you’d like to see “liberated and running free” please bring them. The more the merrier the biodiversity!

The official opening of the Silver Dorking’s new chook house, made by Andy from local fallen cyprus.

Lunch: homegrown pumpkin pies will be proffered. We roast the pumpkin here and the local bakery turns them into sweet and savoury pies for us! I can’t wait!

Please RSVP so we have an idea of numbers a few days before the blitz. If anybody wants to bring morning-tea treats that would be lovely too.

Mattocks, shovels and barrows could be useful.

Vline transport: Catch the 8.25 from Southern Cross and get off at Bunyip.

http://www.vline.com.au/timetables/timetables/timetables.html#eastern

You can walk or cycle from the station.

39 Wattle Tree Road is between Hope St and Nash Road.

http://bunyip.org.au/Snapshot/HowtogettoBunyip/tabid/69/Default.aspx

Contact Tamara at
Tamara@Moonrisepermaculture.com.au