| | | Melbourne as an urban forest, living life without plastic, the return of the Guild Sessions and more |
| |  | | Permablitz in the Media, a new Guild Session and Living With Less | It’s been an exciting time in Permablitz-land of late – we were stoked to see Hannah Maloney showing the audience of Gardening Australia what a permablitz is all about, and a mere few days later we saw a three-page article about little old us in the latest edition of Pip Magazine! And if that’s not enough, we’re simply thrilled to bits to be re-launching the Guild Sessions for the amazing designers who enable the blitzes throughout Melbourne. You can see details of all this below.
Oh, and the Collective has got a brand new member! Homesteader and aquaponics man Ben joined us last month, so we’re becoming more resilient as an organisation every day – hooray!
Looking out the window, last year’s winter was relatively mild, so many of us could be forgiven for forgetting what a real winter feels like! As such, our song of the month is a cold winter song… called Cold Winter Song by singer-songwriter Jay Sparrow.
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| | | | Blitz Requests | Last month we kicked off not one, but three new designs! Martin, Natalie, Martijn and Jon have teamed up to work on a new community garden space in Ferntree Gully, while Harriet, Martin and Josh began working on a design implementing permaculture & sustainability principles into the St Margaret’s Primary School in Maribyrnong. Finally, new Guild members Inger, Steven and Prue have teamed up to tackle James’ place in Coburg. Amazing!
We have two brand new designs-in-waiting from the eastern suburbs this month, the first from Croydon, and the second from Mont Albert, which is perfect for a design team looking to start small.
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| *Please note that the above listings are not for Permablitz events – yet! They need design teams to weave their magicks.
|  | | | | | | | | | | Hero of the Month: Carob | | | Carob trees can live for over 100 years, grow to 15 m and produce a trunk girth of up to 3.5 m. You can plant them wherever an olive tree will grow, and their pods are delicious as a chocolate substitute.
The Carob in the Dunstan Reserve food forest is only 5 years old, but it already stands over 2 metres and produces lots of pods.
Libby from Moreland Community Gardening tells us all about this awesome tree – read all about it here!
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| | Beets and Pieces |  | | | Urban forests: Melbourne’s plan to green the city | Australia’s second largest city has unveiled a $19.1 million plan to unleash a sea of green across the city by boosting urban forests and decorating buildings with ‘vertical greening.’
The plans will also see council increase the quality of green roofs and vertical greening across the municipality, where there are already 40 green roofs, according to council.
Budget documents describe plans to “progress a planning scheme amendment to improve sustainability performance and deliver green infrastructure on buildings.”
Parks and gardens across the city will get a makeover under the budget pledge, with council making a $19.1 million investment in projects to make the city more sustainable, including $7.1 million in upgrades across 480 hectares of parks and gardens.
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You can read the full article in Government News to see community response to this announcement.
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|  | | | Live With Less Waste | The team from Happen Films recently spent a couple of insightful days with the Carter family.
The Carters are an awesome family of five who are as low-waste as you can imagine. The sum total of their rubbish for the last two years resides in a not-quite-full jar on the kitchen bench; all of their recycling for the last two years is a fist-full of foil that they’re about ready to send off in their otherwise empty recycling bin. An impressive achievement by anyone’s measure!
Inspired? Why not check out Plastic Free July for how you can reduce your plastic usage.
You can watch the new Live With Less Waste doco here – it will be 8 minutes well spent!
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|  | | Back in the Garden | It’s bare root season! If you’ve got room in your garden, now is the best time to get a fruit tree in there – but be sure you know what you’re getting! Here’re some good tips to keep in mind when choosing your tree – as well as tips on the best way to plant them!
Of course, if you’ve got enough trees, you can always get perennials – if you already have these, now is the perfect time to divide them. It’s also a great time for winter pruning around now – if you don’t know how, check out the many training sessions that are around at the moment.
There’s not a lot of things that will take off in the cold soil right now, but you can definitely give the following plants a go:
Seeds you can plant in July include:
| | ● | Beetroot | | ● | Radish | | ● | Lettuce | | ● | Shallots | | ● | Mustard Greens | | ● | Snow Peas | | ● | Onions | | ● | Strawberries (seeds and runners) | | ● | Peas | | | |
| Remember: some seeds do better starting off in punnets, some in pots and some in the ground. To get the best from your seedlings be sure to check the best methods first!
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