Fencing!

Wow, exciting news! A fence is being put up around the mandala garden to help keep the wallabies out. This will be a wooden post and wire mesh fence. Combined with the electric fence that we'll put at "jumping" distance should hopefully deter the wallabies that don't mind the electric fence.
The plan will be to grow some pretty (and maybe edible) vines through the fence so that it serves a few functions.

Quiet Garlic

A quiet week on the farm... we've finished planting garlic and are seeing the shoots emerge.

Ecovillage

Some good thought has gone into the establishment of an ecovillage in the Hunter this week. The dream is to create an association of people that work together to reclaim our basic abilities to feed and house ourselves and to connect deeply with each other.

Imago Forest is one potential location, but we are not being rigid about this.

Imago Forest is on 173 acres, most of which is forested with beautiful tall Eucalypts. There are several cleared spots between 1-5 acres in size. The plan is to have hamlets in each of the clearings. The hamlets would be made up of 3-10 separately owned cottages placed around the outer edge of the clearing. Each cottage would be private and have it's own garden. In the centre of each clearing would be common land eg. Mandala Garden, Pastures etc.

Each hamlet would have its own individual characteristics determined by the people living in the hamlet.

The eco-village is intended to be flexible so that you can own/lease and live there full/part-time. Within the context of the guidelines, being able to fit into everyone's lifestyle is important to us.

If you'd like to know more get in touch: ecovillage@imagoforest.com.au

Bokashi re-visited

Bokashi is an amazing way to speed up the "composting" of food. Two weeks ago I buried a bucket of bokashi into a shallow hole in the ground. The next bokashi bucket was due to be buried and so I had a look at the previously buried bokashi... completely converted into nutritious soil!
So if you have two buckets it looks very likely that you will be able to fill the bucket over a period of about two weeks, rest it for two weeks then bury it. In the meantime you will be filling the second bucket. By the time you need another bucket the first will have been emptied and be ready for use. And the soil will be converted already so that you can bury the next bucket in the same spot. You won't need to find an ever expanding area of land to bury your bokashi.
Brilliant!
(This is an update on a piece I wrote on Bokashi at the end of March.)

Raw Food

I had a very interesting experience over the weekend which completely debunked some of the preconceptions that I had about diet. I attended an "Awakening Warrior" workshop at Imago Forest and had some trepidation, not least because for two days we'd be following a raw vegan diet.
The diet meant raw fruit and raw vegetables only. Not only no meat, but no dairy, grains, nuts and no cooking!
As it turned out I felt so good that I kept going for another day, until vegetarians arrived at Imago and we started eating ... cooked food. I really noticed how the grains sat heavily in my stomach after the raw diet.
I think that I may have taken to the diet more easily because of the amount of fresh raw fruit and veg that I have available at Imago, but I'll still be reading a book recommended to me called "The 80/10/10 Diet" by Dr Douglas Graham. This will apparently give me the knowledge to know why humans thrive on a low fat diet of whole, fresh, ripe, raw, organic plant foods in simple combination.