Saturday 1st August 2009, 11:30am

CERES Environmental Park, Lee St, Brunswick

In the Multicultural Classroom

From the press release:

First a website, now a book by David Holmgren, Future Scenarios: How Communities Can Adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change will be launched by Adam Grubb, founding editor of Energy Bulletin, an online news list on Peak Oil and Energy related issues, and Permablitz pioneer.

In Future Scenarios, co-originator of the Permaculture concept and leading sustainability innovator David Holmgren shows us what the future might look like in the generations-long era of energy descent that faces us – and also tells us how to adapt to the cultural, political, agricultural, and economic implications of two forces that will shape that future: peak oil and climate change.

Future Scenarios depicts four very different futures. Each is a permutation of mild or destructive climate change, combined with either slow or severe energy declines. Probably futures, explains Holmgren, range from the relatively benign “Green Tech” scenario to the near catastrophic “Lifeboats” scenario.

“These aren’t two-dimensional nightmarish scenarios designed to scare people into environmental action. They are compellingly fleshed-out visions of quite plausible alternative futures, which delve into energy, politics, agriculture, social, and even spiritual trends. What they do help make clear are the best strategies for preparing for and adapting to these possible futures.” – Adam Grubb

For more information phone 5348 3636 or email info@holmgren.com.au

So I’ve been busy launching and working with my friends Dan, Paul and Nathe on our new business: Very Edible Gardens (VEG).  Dan is the founder of permablitz and Paul has designed more properties for blitzes than anyone else, and Nath has been into permaculture since the early 90s.  We’re running courses, doing consultancies and designs, and selling raised vegie beds which we can fully install including timers so people can water legally without getting out of bed at 6am.  We’re still all heavily involved in the permablitz movement in a mostly volunteer basis.  We want to provide meaningful employment for people keen to gain skills in urban permaculture design, implementation and maintenance, and help the city transition to a far more sustainable place which means dealing with a lot of our needs more locally.   Lots is happening at the moment, and there will be updates on the VEG site soon!

I made the website, which I hope is my last one ever! Check us out at www.VeryEdibleGardens.com

A film by Tanya Curnow, 2006.

EAT THE SUBURBS takes the oil debate from the bowser to the backyard and follows Melbourne’s “permablitzers” as they prepare for the end of the oil age… one garden at a time.

Made 2006 but online for the first time now.

It’s an excellent 9 minutes, the only short film I know of which deals specifically with peak oil and food issues. Eat The Suburbs received its world premiere at the 2007 Hot Docs International Film Festival which is one of the most prestigious in the world. I got undue credit at the end, as other people speak a lot more than me including the uncredited, and most wonderful, Megan Floris and Matt Daniele.

My only minor misgiving is that Tanya happened to film it at the first young activist crowd dominated permablitz, whereas usually there isn’t a single culture or age group that dominates the blitzes. One of the things I like about them is that they do get you out of cultural ghettos and meet people from lots of backgrounds and ages. Not that I have a problem with youngish activisty crowd, some of my best friends etc etc…

Note: The film happens to take its name from this blog, and I helped Tanya a little bit develop the idea but there’s no formal connection.

Links:
Richard Heinberg: www.richardheinberg.com
Permablitz: www.permablitz.net

The more I do face to face work, facilitating courses and permablitzes and working outside, the less time I find to update this blog, and while I regret that, damn do I feel lucky to be surrounded by so much generosity and eagerness to learn and share out there in the unpixelated world.  We recently celebrated our 50th blitz in Melbourne (see photos) and elicited some wonderful words of encouragement from four of my superheroes, who happen to have surnames starting with H: Rob Hopkins, Richard Heinberg, David Holmgren and Mae Wan Ho.

Background

For those who haven’t been to one, a permablitz is a kind of one day permaculture-styled backyard (or frontyard) makeover, with free workshops, fun and food — all based on volunteerism and a model of reciprocity.  Anyone can come, and for many it’s their first experience with permaculture design or food gardening.  If you come to three or so, we can help organise one at your house.

Our “ultimate aim is to make the suburbs edible enough such that should food become unaffordable, we don’t even notice”.

Many of us think that permaculture — an holistic system of ecological design — currently provides the best available framework for organising our activities for ‘energy descent’ — the period post the peak in global oil production in which we’re now probably facing less and less available energy each year.

So a permablitz is a really simple concept but it seems to tap into veins of enthusiasm, and they can be fantastically good days helping people on the road to some serious food production, and some beautiful gardens can result.

The permablitz concept started here in Melbourne in 2006 through a collaboration between permaculture student/teacher Dan Palmer and a South American community group in Melbourne’s outer eastern suburbs.  I was lucky enough to be involved in the first one thanks to my friendship with Dan.  Since, we’ve blitzed all around the city, with renters, in housing estates, on big properties, on tiny ones, in community gardens and schools.  For more background, read more at permablitz.net.

Before and After

Here’s some during-and-after shots of permablitz in the hilly suburb of Eltham earlier in the year, then six months later.  The home owners didn’t have any experience growing vegies, but had been to a few blitzes and reckoned they were ready to throw themselves into the deep end.  Two designers worked with them before the blitz to work towards something that suited.  On the day we built mulched paths, put in lots of vegie beds arranged along the contour of the slope for maximum water infiltration, plus we planted fruit trees and dug, lined and planted out a fairly large pond.

The blitz:

Six months down the track:

Nice work Rachel and Brent who’ve put so much time into their place, and Erin and Mike the designers, and all the blitzers who turned up and helped.

There are 54 and counting stories in the Melbourne permablitz annals, this is just one of them.

Words of Support

Below I’ll outline a few developments in the world of permablitz.  But first, here’s some words of support from our global H-heroes, which makes us feel most honoured!:

“Permablitz the world! That’s the path to survival, sustainability, and cultural renewal. Your lawn will kill you if you don’t kill it first, but a vegetable garden with fruit and nut trees will support you from cradle to grave.”
– Richard Heinberg, author Peak Everything and other essential books.  www.richardheinberg.com

“…What you guys have created is more powerful than the gardens you have made, it is the concept of the permablitz… the idea that landscapes of lawn, shrubs, concrete and dog mess are not the pinnacle of human achievement, but are an odd manifestation of an age with more oil than sense, and the idea that we can change them, and we can change them fast. Out with the lawn and in with the salad!”
– Rob Hopkins, Originator of the Transition Network, see www.transitionculture.org [read full article]

“The  permaculture movement began in the suburbs of Melbourne and other capital cities in the late 1970’s, but by the mid 1980’s, the action had moved to more remote rural areas as the culture of consumerism and greed in mainstream Australia made the suburbs a toxic environment for permaculture. Informed and strengthened by its experience in the geographic and social hinterlands, permaculture activism is now ready to reclaim Australian suburban landscapes and culture as the Energy Descent future of resource scarcity and climatic instability turns consumerist culture to compost. Permablitz is on the frontline.”
– David Holmgren, co-originator of permaculture, www.holmgren.com.au [read full, thoughtful article]

“I love permaculture: saves effort in sowing and tilling, restores ecosystems to their wild, biodiverse and natural states as far as possible, good for putting lots of carbon in the soil to fight global warming, and the food harvested is really the best possible for health.”
– Mae-Wan Ho, Director of the Institute for Science in Society

Dandenong Development Board collaboration

Permablitz is running a project with the Dandenong Development Board called the Edible Gardens Project and we recently had a visitation from former AFL star and current Victorian Planning Minister, Justin Madden, who came down to a blitz and although at the time he apparantly seemed more interested in the lamingtons, he did have some quite decent things to say in a subsequent press release:

“At the heart of any town or city is the community and the more people help and interact with each other, the stronger the community. This project brings people together so they can help one another, and learn from each other in a relaxed garden setting. In a time when food costs are on the rise and our waistlines are expanding, the edible gardens project couldn’t be timelier.” — Justin Madden

See: dandenong.permablitz.net

Courses

We ran our 8th two-day Introduction to Permaculture Course this weekend. We’ve got a good core teaching team, and had anywhere up to six teachers on a single course (or as little as two), and each course evolves from the last, with lots of feedback and refining. We get great feedback, like: “Energetic, informative and empowering. And entertaining.”

It’s a super fun way for us to spend a weekend and for participants too.  Many write to us afterwards with stories from their backyard, or letting us know that they’re going on to study permaculture design certificates, or other ways of taking the knowledge to the next level.  We take people through the ethics and some permaculture design principles.

Some come expecting something more like an organic gardening course — although we don’t advertise it as such, and get more than they expected, but they are almost always grateful for this.  We don’t tone down our act much.  We get great people attending willing to come with us as we go well beyond the basics of companion planting, composting and mulching (we do that too), and touch on historical framings of permaculture, quite sciencey bits, and issues like energy descent, urban animal integration, weed ecologies, composting human manure, radical plumbing, guerrilla gardening, and an urban strategies brainstorm encouraging folks to think outside of the backyard, all threaded together and presented via our own fusion of permaculture design principles.  While some of it is challenging to people used to soft green lightbulb-changing approaches, I think we’re authentic and just intelligent-sounding enough to not come across as nutjobs, and actually inspire quite a few.

The Most Well Respected Grand United Melbourne Permablitz Designers Guild

We have about 65 local people with Permaculture Design Certificates on a mailing list, with the above arguably pretentious title.  Every permablitz has a pre-design visit by at least one designer.  The design is important — we are not making symbolic gestures, we want food producing systems which suit the skill level, time of the maintainers and are physically suited to the location.   Through this process young designers get experience and build confidence and have access to feedback and review.  Guild members can get some teaching experience on our courses too.

We occassionally get together, to share things we’ve learnt, give feedback on designs.  Last week ten or so of us spent the evening with Pamela Morgan with the theme of ‘permaculture and crisis’.  Pam is one of the key permaculturists who spent a lot of time in Cuba after the Soviet Union collapsed, celebrated in the must-see film The Power of Community, How Cuba Survived Peak Oil.  She shared her thoughts on a visit to Argentina to investigate how urban agriculture and other projects functioned during the peso collapse, in a capitalist context. There was much to learn as we enter into some troubling financial times of our own.

So who organises this this and who funds it?

Nobody funds us — so far our efforts organising and administering blitzes (except working with the Dandenong Development Board, and running courses) have been entirely voluntary.   There’s an evolving loose knit crew of people who chip in.  We’re looking at incorporating as a non-profit soon though so some of this will be a bit more formalised soon.

Manual

We’ve got a short manual for people wanting to organise blitzes elsewhere.  Email us permablitz@gmail.com if you’d like a copy.

Blitzes elsewhere

Blitzes have been happening or groups are forming in  Alice Springs, Bega, Bundaberg, Sydney and elsewhere.

Newsletters

The newsletters come out fortnightlyish.  Since I accidentally wrote a funny one a while back, now I feel compelled to keep it up which I do with mixed success.  If you’ll excuse an indulgence, here’s some of my favorite snippets:

~~~ Dirt is the New Prozac ~~~

Have you heard of the humble soil microbe Mycobacterium vaccae?  It was first found by scientists in a pile of cow dung.  Perhaps they thought they were ‘civilising’ it, elevating it above the depravity and ignorance of its fecal home when they taught it the ways of the petri dish?  But was M. vaccae fazed or embittered by their neo-missionary condescension?  Not if it’s subsequent behaviour is anything to go by.  When the scientists injected it into various rodents they found it released serotonin in the brain — the very same chemical boosted by anti-depressant pharmaceuticals.  Subsequent research has shown that it gives humans a happy buzz too.

And where do you get exposure to this microbial friend, also linked to reducing asthma and skin allergies?  Walk down Smith St Collingwood on a dark night and look for the jittery guy in the cap with the plastic bags of well composted soil?  No.  Just get out there in to the garden… Which you can do at one of the very exciting upcoming blitzes!

~~~ Blitz? Yes you can! ~~~

Have you ever tried smiling to make yourself feel happier?  It may take a while, but once you force your cramping and convulsing cheeks through the pain barrier, it can really work — perhaps in a not dissimilar way that a mystic finds enlightenment through fasting in a cave.  Somehow expression manifests attitude which manifests reality.

And out of what gestural seed did the permablitz network arise?  Why from little more than one man and a particular can-do expression.  I give you Dan Palmer and the can-do-dan:

On its own it’s a very powerful expression.  But get two fellows doing it while facing each other, and you have yourself what scientists call a mutualistic can-do excitation feedback complex.  No one yet knows what would happen if a larger crowd got together and did it.  It may go non-linear, and then it’s anyone’s guess.  But I’m willing to try it if you are… at one of the next two exciting permablitzes this month…

~~~ Get on the Frontline.  Of Love ~~~

Five simple steps to dealing with the modern world:  1. Find the abyss.  2. Approach the abyss.  3. Stare into the abyss. (Firmly, but compassionately.)  4. Hold the abyss. And gently caress the abyss.  (Don’t take advantage of the abyss’s vulnerability at this point.)  5. Feed the abyss soup.  Lots of soup, obviously, it being an abyss.  The abyss will be tame now, but take it out of the house regularly to experience the wondrousness and fantasticality that is Life. Like, for the sake of example, a most exciting permablitz event…

~~~ Sheep are Back! ~~~

My brother and I spotted these sheep grazing on grass growing up from the cracks in the concrete in an abandoned petrol station, in downtown Moe last summer.  As an allegory of peak oil, urban decay and the renewal of agrarian sources of sustenance, however, I found the the symbolism a little heavy handed.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grubr/2281431576/in/set-72157603955116165/

We even get some relevant information about blitzes in there sometimes too. You can sign up on the permablitz.net homepage.

Futures

Some of us are establishing a business we hope can compliment and ultimately help fund permablitzes.  We’d like to see more local blitz groups form, so the concept can spread nodally.  The command and control alternative sounds like too much work anyway.  We want to make some software to help formalise our follow up process for past blitzes so that we are learning even more as we go, and have those lessons accessible.  There is a lot of generosity and opportunities opening up around the network, and many directions we could head.  For now we want to focus on doing what we do even better, and making the process easier for others to set up elsewhere.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date: 26 May 2008

The Australian co-founder of the permaculture concept David Holmgren has today launched a new global scenario planning website, Future Scenarios: www.FutureScenarios.org.

Holmgren says his future scenarios will help both policy makers and activists come to terms with the end of the era of growth.

While the end of growth is so unthinkable to many policy makers and economists that they use the term ‘negative-growth’, Holmgren says we are already entering a generations-long era of ‘energy descent.’ We now face less and less available energy each year, coupled with a destabilised climate.

“The simultaneous onset of climate change and the peaking of global oil supply represent unprecedented challenges for human civilisation. Each limits the effective options for responses to the other,” writes Holmgren on www.futurescenarios.org.

Holmgren uses a scenario planning framework to bring to life the likely cultural, political, agricultural and economic implications of peak oil and climate change.

“Scenario planning allows us to use stories about the future as a reference point for imagining how particular strategies and structures might thrive, fail or be transformed,” says Holmgren

Future Scenarios depicts four very different futures. Each is a permutation of mild or destructive climate change, combined with either slow or severe energy declines. Scenarios range from the relatively benign Green Tech to the near catastrophic Lifeboats scenario.

“Many futurists are looking at Facebook, robot pets and other i-fads, whereas David has been studying a much bigger picture. He works from the fundamental resource and environmental constraints, and I’m convinced that he’s got his assumptions right where others have them very wrong. He has followed through with unusual insight, drawing on 30 years of permaculture thinking, which I would say makes him the most important futurist in the world right now,” said Adam Grubb founder of Energy Bulletin (www.energybulletin.net with over 400,000 visitors a month.)

“These aren’t two dimensional nightmarish scenarios designed simply to scare people into environmental action. They are compellingly fleshed out visions of quite plausible alternative futures which delve into energy, politics, agriculture, cultural and even spiritual trends. They help us reconcile our own competing fears and hopes for the future, and to consider the best strategies for adapting to a changing world,” says Grubb.

Holmgren says “we will need resilience and adaptability in the face of radical change.”

‘Energy Descent’
Holmgren coined the term ‘energy descent’ in 2005 as a less negatively loaded way than ‘decline’ or ‘collapse’ for describing a future defined by constantly diminishing energy production.

“I chose the word ‘descent’ because it implies a long and sustained process through which it is possible to survive and even thrive. While energy descent does suggest the demise of globalised industrial civilisation, that process will play out over many decades, if not centuries. For individuals, households, organisations and communities focused on socially and ecologically adaptive design, energy descent is as much an opportunity as an obstacle. Realistic assessment of the larger forces at work in the world helps empower us to better refine our strategies.”

About Permaculture
Permaculture is an environmental design framework modelled on the patterns and relationships found in nature, yielding an abundance of food, fibre and energy for provision of local needs.

About David Holmgren
Holmgren co-wrote the first permaculture text Permaculture One in 1976 with Bill Mollison (published in 1978). With his 2002 book Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability David re-emerged from the relative shadows as the leading intellectual force of the permaculture movement. Rob Hopkins, founder of the popular Transition Towns initiatives in the UK, described Principles and Pathways as “the most important book of the last 15 years.”

David, his partner Su Dennett, and their son Oliver live at ‘Melliodora’ a small permaculture demonstration property in central Victoria, Australia where they are self sufficient in fruit, vegetables and animal products and provide most of their own energy needs.

Futher info:

David Holmgren
+61 3 5348 3636
info@holmgren.com.au
www.futurescenarios.org
www.holmgren.com.au

Ok… some of those might have been because when the local paper the Leader did a story on the proposition they falsely refered to me as a gardening guru. I’m more a yellow belt than a black.

So anyway: if you’re a permaculture student and interested in being a perma-boarder, contact me via the permablitz@gmail.com email address, as there seem to be plenty of match-making opportunities. Let’s make it happen, and synergise. Let’s synergise all over the place. Tell me your age, your experience, your requirements.

I’ve decided on a great little place in Northcote (in Melbourne’s inner north) for a 6 month stint. It’s owned by one wonderful woman called Kat and her family. She got the keys 10 days ago, and I’ve been here 9. We’ll post a whole lot of “before” shots soon, and you’ll be able to follow our progress right here with some guest posts from Kat in the mix. Soon we’ll have bees, trees, worms, chooks, the whole package. But first we’re working on a plan.

The next post will document Kat’s human-powered bicycle house move. Also coming up, a post-humous profile on Joel Meadows and family’s wonderful Tudor St., Richmond house which was on a similar scale, the best example of small scale permaculture I’ve ever seen. In many ways it will serve as our model and inspiration.

All is good! Oyster! (Antony says this is a happy exclamation of some type in Spain, but he is not to necessarily to be trusted). I say ‘one million dumplings’!

Where to water

Water restrictions should support community gardens and the backyard vegie patch, says Ben Neil, CEO of Cultivating Community (above left with gardener Sabri Kiziltam).
Photo: Simon Schluter

December 5, 2007

The inventor of permaculture is among those calling for backyard farmers to be freed from water restrictions. Katherine Kizilos reports.

IN A drought year, during an era of climate change, what does it mean to be a responsible gardener? Cactuses, paving and a sculpture near the barbecue? Or an old-fashioned vegie patch, fruit trees, herbs and a compost bin in the corner?

Some serious gardeners are now questioning the conventional wisdom that the best way to save water at a time of low rainfall is to put a clamp on the hose. While pushing the use of rainwater tanks and grey water, they also argue that growing fruit and vegetables at home is, in the words of David Holmgren, “the best thing you can be doing” for the environment.

Holmgren, with fellow Australian Bill Mollison, devised permaculture, a design system for sustainable living and land use. He puts his ideas into practice at his property, Melliodora, at Hepburn Springs, where a hectare of land supports fruit and nut trees, vegetables, chooks, geese and two goats. Although grains, some nuts and oil-producing plants are not in the mix, the property allows for a fair degree of self-sufficiency – Holmgren says this is also possible because he eats seasonally and does not rely on the “drip feed from supermarkets”. Water comes from dams and from taps connected to town water. Holmgren says the smallholding uses about one-fifth of the water “used by a market gardener or orchardist”.

According to Holmgren, “if we planted out city farms and urban areas, we could achieve a massive increase in (water) efficiency. No one is talking about this “.

Holmgren also points out that farms tend to be open expanses and need more water than a home garden, which is naturally more sheltered. In addition, “farmers use overhead sprinklers which are inefficient”. And many orchards and market gardens are sited in sunny, warm places like Mildura, where the rainfall is low, but where farmers achieve a market advantage by producing fruit and vegetables slightly ahead of the season in colder, rainier Melbourne.

Holmgren has based his calculations on water use on a 2001 Australian Bureau of Statistics study by Lenzen and Foran. The study estimated “the amount of water needed throughout the whole economy to provide final consumers with $1 worth of various goods and services”. It found that fruit and vegetables required 103 litres per $1; beef products 381 litres and dairy 680 litres.

By contrast, Melliodora uses about 20 litres of water for every $1 of fruit and vegetables produced, while the two goats that provide milk and cheese consumed about two litres per $1 of value, or 1/300th of the amount used by a dairy farm.

According to Lenzen and Foran’s figures, commercially purchased food – not including the food purchased in restaurants – accounts for about 48 per cent of the water consumed by the average Sydney household. While the water that comes out of the tap at home accounts for only 11 per cent of a household’s total water use.

For Holmgren, the data suggests that putting restrictions on watering suburban gardens makes little sense. He knows that water restrictions are necessary but proposes households be given a seasonal allocation of water, with the decision of whether to use this in the spa or on the tomatoes left to them. Under this system the price of water would “skyrocket if you exceed” the allocation.

“There are good public policy reasons that home food production is desirable,” he says. “We need policies that at least don’t impede this, even if they don’t actively support it.”

Holmgren’s ideas have been given a boost by a recent petition to the State Government; hundreds of gardeners have asked for exemptions to the water restrictions to allow them extra water for vegetables and herb plots.

In suburban Coburg, Pam Morgan is conducting an experiment. “I want to explore how much food production I can get on a city block,” she says.

For 22 years, Morgan managed the Collingwood Children’s Farm and has visited Havana to see how the Cubans increased the city’s food production by 10 times in a decade. “Fifty per cent of their food is grown there now.”

By cultivating land in the city, the Cubans were responding to embargoes which slashed the amount of petroleum available to them to transport food; urban farms reduce food miles. Morgan also wants to recycle her household’s biodegradable waste to create compost (commercial farms use petroleum-based chemicals and fertilisers). She also hopes to save water by using grey water and roof water.

Morgan argues that policy makers are approaching the water-shortage problem “from a mechanistic perspective. Minimal water use in the garden and drought-hardy plants. It ignores the issue of carbon recycling or organic waste and also of returning nutrients to the land. We are wasting resources from the city at the moment.”

According to Clive Blazey, the founder of mail-order seed company The Diggers Club, the “average person only needs about 60 square metres of space to be self-sufficient in all the potatoes, all the vegetables and the fruit that you wanted to grow. You wouldn’t have big, massive apple trees or anything. You would have espaliered trees, especially dwarf rootstock varieties that wouldn’t take up much space”. He reckons the garden would need “about 34,000 litres of water”, which could be gathered from the roof, or grey water.

Blazey is concerned that the present system of water restrictions does not make allowances “for people on a low income who want to grow their own food” and who might need help to divert grey water or set up a rainwater tank. And he believes the role of suburban gardens in reducing greenhouse gases is not appreciated.

He is irritated by the prevailing landscape aesthetic which advocates paving gardens and planting cactus “so instead of burying carbon and doing something useful you are stopping any organisms from growing under the paving and you are using plants that have so little biomass they are absolutely useless to you. What you need to be growing in your backyard is a lot of green things. Trees and shrubs and plants and food plants and not paving, concrete and bricks.”

But the water restrictions fall hardest on community gardens, where gardeners do not have the option of using grey water and where tank water, if it exists, may not be sufficient for each plot holder’s use. In addition, the morning watering requirements can be difficult for gardeners who have to travel further than the back veranda to visit their plot (while also being less efficient than watering in the evening).

Ben Neil, chief executive of Cultivating Community, which looks after 21 community gardens – just under 800 individual plots – on Ministry of Housing sites, says that when stage three water restrictions were introduced on January 1, “we lost 20 to 25 per cent of our gardeners. There was this initial feeling of ‘how are we going to cope?’ We lost quite a lot of crops.”

Since then, “some people have been quite ingenious,” he says. “A resident on the 17th floor has a pram and comes down with containers of water from the shower.” Neil is now talking to the State Government about installing more rainwater tanks in community gardens, but he also believes policy makers need to look at food-producing gardens and water restrictions in a different way.

“I believe that if local food and urban agriculture are not part of our future, it will be very, very difficult for us to face the forthcoming environmental challenges,” he says. “We must have people growing food in the city.”

By making life more difficult for gardeners, particularly community gardeners, you are not merely depriving them of a recreational and social opportunity, Neil argues. “If I don’t grow my food next to where I live, I will jump in my car and go to the supermarket and buy something that is refrigerated, wrapped in plastic and that has a massive carbon footprint.

“It’s a no-brainer. If I can’t grow food close to where I live, what am I going to do?”

www.communitygarden.org.au

Rob Hopkins explained it neatly in an interview earlier this year:

Well, I think although “The End of Suburbia” is a fantastic film and really totally transformed my way of thinking about this, I think the title is somewhat misleading. Suburbia, as James Kunstler says, is ‘the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world’ but, at the same time, it’s there. It’s what we have. David Holmgren’s approach, rather than being about the end of suburbia – or as the sequel is called “The Escape from Suburbia” – it’s more about retrofitting suburbia, redesigning suburbia, and rethinking suburbia.

David’s paper Retroffing the Suburbs for Sustainability goes into more detail.

The rest of the interview is available here: http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/106

What are permablitzes all about? How did they begin?
A permablitz is basically a permaculture-inspired backyard makeover where people come together to share knowledge and skills about organic food production in urban gardens while building community and having fun.

The basic idea is that by converting their lawns into organic food producing gardens, people will be able to back away from a dependence on industrial agriculture and the shipping of food back and forth across the world. At the same time, it makes organic eating accessible to more than just the upper-middle class. 

The whole permablitz thing started with a group called Codemo (Community Development Multicultural Organisation), a local community group composed primarily of South American immigrants. A permaculture geek named Dan Palmer started hanging out with the Codemo crew and after hearing him rave about the wonders of permaculture and the joys of having a backyard full of practically free organic vegies, and going round to see the amazing and beautiful permaculture system Dan and his housemates, Cat and Adrian, had created in their infamous Thomas Street backyard, some of them expressed interest in growing food in their own backyards.

The first permaculture backyard makeover was held in Dandenong at the home of Vilma from El Salvador. And permablitzes have been spreading all around Melbourne since.

Do you think permablitzes and similar DIY projects have the ability to enrich local communities and culture?
Definitely! Permablitzes involve a combination of learning, practicing and socialising. I'd say the social community-building aspect is just as important, or even moreso, than the garden makeover itself. In our socially atomised suburbs, with our tall fences separating our yards from our neighbours', its rare to get to know those living closest to us.

The permablitz I had at my place last Sunday gave me an opportunity to introduce myself to the old Greek couple next door and invite them round to share some of their gardening skills. A guy down the street who has a concrete yard has even been dropping his food scaps over so i could build up the castings in my worm farm in preparation. And a local lawn mower was dropping off his clippings at my place for the compost building workshop. On the day itself, I met quite a few local people for the first time who had heard about the blitz through the grapevine. On top of this, because it was Codemo who seeded off the permablitz concept, they have also offered fantastic opportunities to meet and spend time with a fun and diverse bunch of people – 76 year old Willie from Chile, for example, has been one most regular blitzers.  He's also one of the hottest dancers of the 'permasalsa' — most of the Codemo permablitzes end with drink and a dance.

After hearing about the permablitz idea, the coordinator of Jika Jika, a community center in Westgarth [an inner Melbourne suburb], has also requested a mini-permablitz be held in the gardens of a local public housing estate. The people who live there are supposedly pretty socially isolated so it will be interesting to see what comes out of holding a blitz and building a community garden with them. [I went along to this, and the tenants rock and are keen to get some tomatoes in, and we're going back to work with them some more next weekend. -AF]

Do you think it's important for people in urban areas to have an engagement in food production and learn how to grow their own food?
Living in a 'modern' society promises that we shouldn't actually have to think about our food, or any other basic necessity. We've 'developed' to the point that we now get to spend our time thinking about modern issues like ring tones and tax returns. So today the majority of the food we eat is grown by a handful of huge agribusinesses and sold in a handful of supermarket chains. Through this process, aside from disconnecting us from our food and all that its been through to get to our plates, we have also become completely dependent on multinational corporations for our basic necessities, and therefore have lost the very foundations of political autonomy.

I think that growing food, along with rebuilding community (to counter the individualisation and social atomisation faced in this corporate-driven society), are some of the most important and subversive activities we can do today.

“Political independence and the ability to engage in society has a lot to do with from what position of autonomy do we stand. And if we stand totally dependent on a one or two or three day food supply chain we don't really have any position of political autonomy.”
— David Holmgren, Permaculture co-orginator (quote taken from greening the apocalypse)

"If your experience is that your water comes from the tap and that your food comes from the grocery store then you are going to defend to the death the system that brings those to you because your life depends on that; if your experience is that your water comes from a river and that your food comes from a land base then you will defend those to the death because your life depends on them. So part of the problem is that we have become so dependent upon this system that is killing and exploiting us, it has become almost impossible for us to imagine living outside of it and it's very difficult physically for us to live outside of it."
— Derrick Jensen

Where's permaculture at at the moment? As a movement is it as vital as ever?
To be honest, i'm only just starting to learn about permaculture after having been working on issues around trade in food and agriculture so I don't think I can really give much insight here. Personally, though, while searching for alternatives to the global industrial agriculture system, I've become excited about what permaculture and food localisation (producing and consuming food in the same area) have to offer. But then when adding peak oil and climate change to the mix, and the likely consequences of these on today's food and agriculture systems, it looks like food localisation using permaculture principles and design is going to offer more than an 'alternative' — it will become a necessity.

Do permablitzes attempt to take permaculture out of institutional settings and straight into our homes?
From what I understand, the permaculture movement has made a conscious effort to be taught and shared primarily outside of institutional settings. The idea of permablitzes, though, is to make permaculture more accessible to those who live (and rent) in an urban environment, rather than just those who own a couple of acres of land out bush. The message is that as long as you have a yard (even if its covered in concrete), or a verandah, or a rooftop then you can produce food, and that by using permaculture principles and design, it can be reasonably easy.

Are permablitzes also about getting permaculture into, not only the backyard, but also the front manicured lawn, the medium strip, the roundabout?
Yes yes!! I'd love to see more edible front yards, nature strips and roundabouts! Di from Box Hill held a permablitz at her place, which was held mostly in her backyard, but that was because her whole front yard was already brimming with vegetables and chickens. It was designed really beautifully with lots of different coloured vegies making it seem like an ornamental garden until closer inspection (and until you heard the squawkings from the chicken dome in the corner)… who needs daises eh?

Favourite pick of the crop this season?
We didn't have a very happening garden until the blitz last sunday so the only things ready to eat at my place at the moment are the green leafies – rocket, spinach, different lettuces, silverbeet, and the herbs. Post-blitz, though, i'm probably most looking forward to the raspberries and strawberries, ooh and sweet corn.. and snow peas… and capsicum… water chestnuts… passionfruit… mmm… basil… we even planted some watermelon seeds… i think i'm mostly looking forward to being able to wander around my garden and just bite at random plants.

She coined the term 'permablitz', a contraction of permaculture backyard blitz. (Backyard Blitz is the name of popular gardening and lifestyle show in Australia involving rapid backyard makeovers).  Dan defined it thusly:

Permablitz: A informal gathering involving a day on which a group of at least two people come together to achieve the following:

• create or add to edible gardens where someone lives
• share skills related to permaculture and sustainable living
• build community networks
• have fun

At a recent peak oil and food security conference in Melbourne with David Holmgren and Richard Heinberg, the permablitz concept was one of the most enthusiastically talked about ideas amongst participants.

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