Flowers the world over have romanced us for centuries. Who can forget the scent of jasmine in summer, a bunch of fresh roses, or their mothers favourite perfume? It’s easy to think of flowers as purely decorative, but they’re so much more than a pretty face. Used in the vegetable garden to attract pollinators, the
The wet summer season in the subtropics is a time for lush grass, sunshine, Christmas holidays and vigorous plant growth. So what better time to investigate some new and interesting fruit trees for your orchard? The traditional fruit trees that require a cold snap to set fruit are never going to be winners in the
we can reduce our consumer spending and reliance on overseas-produced goods by buying high-quality local handmade products.
Feeling limited by your water tank capacity? Need to store more water but can’t fit the tanks under your guttering? What if there was an easier way, so you could have what ever height tank you wanted, and still catch all your runoff? Well there is! It’s called a sump system. When it rains, the
This is the fourth part in a series of articles on my self-built geodesic dome greenhouse. If you need to catch up, here is part 3. It’s All About the Possums! As if my problems with light and powdery mildew weren’t enough, I now had pest damage to contend with. Will it ever end?! The
The Queensland fruit fly is a serious garden pest that destroys a wide variety of crops by laying its eggs inside fruit and vegetables. This results in fruit which is full of maggots and rotting, sloppy flesh…in other words, completely ruined. While they are a nuisance for the backyard gardener, the damage they cause means
The best place to start with permaculture is your own backyard. That might be as small as a paved courtyard or as big as a farm; either way, anyone can put permaculture into practice. Permaculture is a flexible system that caters for every type of property. It allows you to start small, and build up
High-raised garden beds are all the rage these days- and why not?! I’ve been using them for years for their many advantages. They’re fantastic to garden in, so convenient, easy to use and to water. But they’re not the quickest to fill, and they do take a lot of material. I’m going to show you
The world changed for most of us, sooner or later. Some very much so, and others not so much. Lifestyles were forced to change, to adapt. Many of us started to work from home. We all had the same questions; “What if things stay this way?”, “How can I stay safe? How can I keep
Pumpkins are part of the cucurbit family of vegetables. Cucurbits are veggies like cucumbers, zucchini, button squash, watermelons and even gourds. I’ve been growing and eating a ton of pumpkins this past year- I’ve eaten them fresh, frozen them, made soup, given them away, you name it. You can do this too, by following my
‘Permaculture’ is one of those words we often see and hear when reading about gardening. It’s like some sort of mythical desert oasis…you’ve heard about it, you know it’s a good thing, but you can’t put your finger on what it really is and what it looks like in the real world. So what is
This article is a follow-up to ‘Problems with Light-My Geodesic dome Greenhouse Part 2’. Although I’ve been harvesting lovely vegetables from my geodesic dome and grow tunnel daily, a new problem appeared in February, just after the wet season had started. POWDERY MILDEW!! I really want to make the dome work, as it’s such an
A guest post authored by Lauren Schwartz of www.lawn.com.au There’s more to self-sufficient gardening than ornamental plants and decorative sculptures. A productive garden is a healthy garden, and one that can lead to an excellent life goal: self-sufficiency! By growing your own food and in the process caring for nature, you can make the land
At the start of any growing season, people plant like crazy with the excitement of growing vegetables. The excitement can quickly die down though, when those veggies start to pitter out before the season is fully finished, leaving gaps in your garden bed & a gap of time where you could still be growing, harvesting
It’s no secret that clay soil is far from the gardeners friend. Poor drainage is a problem, and when the soil is waterlogged your plant roots become starved of oxygen. If the soil is too dry, it can be hard to dig and plant roots can’t grow through it. So how do we fix clay
Well, here we are at the beginning of a brave new world having been dragged kicking and screaming into this new reality where we must learn to be more self-reliant and more communally and locally co-operative. It’s going to get tough but you know the saying “When the going gets tough, the tough get going!”
I’ve finally decided to write this article about our logo design so that whenever people ask me I can refer them to this page with a simple hyperlink. Yes, our About Us Page does already have a brief explanation of what the “eye” logo represents and I have been referring people to this page over
Making a tree change into self-sufficiency is it "living the dream" or buying into a nightmare or both? It's interesting how people can have different perceptions about the same thing or situation. These perceptions (or how a person sees a given thing/situation) are mostly formulated by one's life experience, education, age, belief systems, and many other
When visiting my in-laws last holiday season down in NSW (Bowral to be exact) we went on a small day tour out to a winery for lunch and on the way, we stopped in at Harper's Mansion. A really brief history about Harper's Mansion in Berrima Situated in Berrima approximately 125 kms south of
I often get asked, "what are you going to do with all that produce?" Sometimes people enquire because their first thought when seeing a glut of homegrown food is waste but here's how I see an oversupply of produce: Success – Whenever we get a great harvest I see the achievement. Backyard farming isn't always,
Self Sufficient Me is a blog about self-sustainment by growing our own produce (plant/animal), and self-fulfilment by looking after our health (physical/mental) through exercise and slowing life down a little.
