hey there Ron my name is Jordan from
half an films and this is limestone
permaculture farm
well I'm Brett Cooper and I'm myself my
wife in the cold Cooper are the owners
of limestone permaculture it's a little
farm based up in the Stroud valley I
wanted to start a permaculture farm
based on the fact that about 12 years
ago my wife had gone through a bit of an
illness where she had to change the way
she ate we were living in Newcastle at a
time and we decided to change the way we
were living in the way of food
production you know instead of going
down and buying all our supposedly fresh
produce from our local grocers and
suppliers we started growing yourself
Brandon Nicky grew their knowledge about
organic gardening by reading books
watching documentaries and working on
their tiny 330 square metre property in
Newcastle they created a successful
intensive veggie garden which led to
holding open days developing community
gardens being featured in the local
newspaper and sharing food with
neighbors breath then completed a
permaculture design certificate with
Peter Breck knock from Allen River
permaculture basically by this stage we
were looking to move out of Newcastle
we're looking to get a little property
we spent 18 months looking for the right
place and eventually we we settled on
this strand road so this is our little
swale set up here it's it's made up of
four main spires and a little mini SWA
further than ant in the top two we've
got that set up with a lot of
subtropical x' and as it ventures down
further down the slide we've got
espaliered apple and pears the Swale
system now is really looking after
itself we just come through and
essentially just do a little bit of a
chop and drop it's self seeding a fair
bit now we during the early years we ran
pumpkins and squash in here along with
sweet potato and the stir shims to get
that ground cover the pumpkins and the
squash are prolific Danny we had a great
crop last year and because we left some
of the pumpkins to right there's a few
quite a few pumpkins in here as well
we'll get self seeding in pumpkins
there's quite a bit of comfrey to that
makes for a really good chop and drop
because it bulks right out and we just
come through about midsummer and just
drop it and spread it back out and then
it shoots up again you get the same
amount by the end of summer essentially
our soil isn't that great and when we
cut in for the the swales
the spoil is obviously not the best at
all
so there's been we've been putting quite
a bit emphasis on trying to rebuild the
soil content in that in that spoil
that's in the backside of the Swale the
swirls are working for themselves now we
don't have to seed anything anymore all
we really do now is just maintain it's a
beautiful thing
I'm only here afternoons and weekends
and I have to work five days a week
unlike most people we've got a standard
job and yet we make this happen and we
make this work you know I'm more than
confident to say that if it's possible
for me it's possible for anybody we have
a farm gate at the front and we supply
veggie boxes to to cafes into other
markets
I would only suggest that at the moment
we're easily feeding 50 families and I'm
just one person we're producing a fair
amount coming out through our little
farm gate out the front currently
seasonally we've got brassicas got all
your variety of hooves we have potatoes
sweet potato
lemons and oranges mandarins yes so this
is um this is Bernie the caravan he came
from Bernie Butler's place who was a
local farmer not far from here this
caravan was picked up off his farm it
was completely covered in moss and you
know it looked like it'd been under a
tree for 30 or 40 years which probably
is with the farm gate there's actually
two farms involved cottage barn B&B
which is in Stroud a little farm run by
Ken and Carol Maddox and Ken is the
other part of two men and a pumpkin so
we've got two farms supplying our little
farm gate we basically have our veg
displayed here and over on the other
little part of the farm gate
I love see people's faces when they went
you know they see beautiful big tomatoes
and beautiful big eggplants and you know
they're absolutely excited to know they
don't have to cook with something the
place itself has has allowed me to
expand my permaculture research it's
allowed me to be a little bit innovative
with the permaculture it's led me to you
know trial and error and we've had some
errors no doubt but we've had some
successes
this is what I'd like to call a hybrid
shade house so it hasn't really got a
proper name but it's essentially old
perspex sides which is designed to
buffer the wind try and trap a little
bit of heat and then you've got the mesh
on top which allows the rain to come
through about without any sort of frost
all hail and allows the air to get in
but without too much of the wind through
there as well so essentially it's a it's
not a hot house and it's not really a
shade house it's a bit of both it's set
up as an exclusion zone so it's another
area where we like to put crops in that
are heavily affected by things like
cabbage moth you know other flying bugs
in here at the moment this is just
finishing off the winter plants this is
all different varieties of Brassica it's
quite intensively stacked so it works
from from low up to high
that's detroying capture the the midday
and afternoon sunlight so at any one
stage during the day the these plants
are getting sun in some form or fashion
we've only had this in place for about
two years and what we did find was when
we had the tomatoes and cap chickens in
here lasts last summer season we had a
bit of problem with fungi in a type of
mold that was getting on them and we
found that was due to the fact that it
wasn't getting enough airflow so once we
had the tomatoes moved into a location
where they got more airflow they
actually thrive quite well so what we're
doing here now is we're actually trying
to think of a way where we can maybe put
shutters on these perspex panels and on
the door so we can actually get some low
airflow going through in summer but
close them off for winner so that would
be the next stage where we're looking at
now to try and rectify that matter and
that came back from observation and then
looking for a solution it's been
interesting the the trapped air flow
doesn't affect the brassicas at all it
was only the more summer plants that
obviously the high temperatures and high
humidity so that was really interesting
and that's just another good example of
observation the principles behind
permaculture are natural that's the key
element and you can work with nature you
don't have to fight it it's not that
hard when we first got here there was no
fencing here whatsoever this was just
all the way open paddock apart from the
front fence when we first got here we
put a basic fence up we put our Dorper
sheep in there and
that's why we've got the barriers around
the fruit trees and basically what we
tried to do was was two things one we
needed an area to put the sheep just
while we got other things set up and two
was we wanted to try and rejuvenate what
little soil was in this area once we got
the other little paddocks set up we move
those sheep down to the other paddock
and we brought the ducks in here so we
had their muscovy ducks here for another
12 months we then opened it up and
brought the trucks in and integrated the
chook pen which we've got in here which
is an enclosure that's something that is
completely enclosed to protect them from
foxes if we don't do that we've already
lost up teen dozen trucks in the early
days from from foxes jumping over the
fences this guarantee says safe at night
and then we open them out let them out
the day and then in the afternoon they
go back in and we shut them back in
again the berries are still left in
place with the trucks because as you can
see a truck is just coming out and what
they do is they jump inside they go
through pick up the worms the grubs they
what little bit of grass might be
growing in around there they tear that
up the good thing is is when they're
digging and turning that soil it hits
the tin and bounces back in so it
actually we don't lose any soil content
and they do the little bits of manure
and whatnot so they continually turn
that soil around these fruit trees which
the trees love at the moment we run four
different breeds of chicken so we've got
the Bonneville ders Plymouth Rock the
noisy rooster Plymouth Rock at the
moment and we've got something very
similar to an ISO Brown but it's called
a Highline we picked them up with our
young so they haven't had a nipped
or anything like that so they live in a
pretty good life we've also got
Australorp so they're all good egg
production and we've got a couple of
dual purpose birds in there as well the
khaki Campbell's are purely for eggs
they make the best dark eggs in the
world that's my opinion we have a couple
of little of exclusion areas for our
Ducks when they have their young we keep
them inside this this netted this mesh
enclosure because we have problems with
our local eagles hawks crows and Qualls
and all of which can easily take the
babies away before you even know what's
going on by setting them up like this
for about
three week period it ensures the rate of
survival is quite high you still get the
odd one that might diet just out of
natural causes but essentially we're
normally up around that 90 percent when
they're inside the cage so after the
three week period we then move we then
open up the cage door and allow the rest
of the flock to come through and and and
they intermix and associate the source
of the babies and within a couple of
days they're all out into the paddock
and the happiest Larry but it's really
important to protect them in those early
few weeks otherwise you've got a good
chance of losing them too to some
predators Bret Nikki are able to cover
the input costs for the farm by selling
produce doing design and consultancy
work and running workshops so for me
permaculture is is not just gardening
it's not just organics it's it's not
just you know passive living it's it's
the whole package there is a better way
to live you don't have to move to the to
a rural area you don't have to be moved
you don't even have to leave your
apartment it's just the footprint you
leave it's just the things that's the
little things you do and what you do
it's it's about trying to be sustainable
on on all the little components where
you possibly can if you can supply self
with a few herbs and veggies fine if you
can reduce the amount of time that you
you need to drive a vehicle fine you
know just look at all the little things
you can do all let's go to help the
sheer fact that you're trying to reduce
your footprint on this planet means that
you will make a difference we've got a
series of swales but in front of us
Wales we've got a standard no degrades
bed that captures some olive trees and
some cherry trees and whatnot through
their pomegranate the garden bed just
below is a little bit of a Huebel
culture experiment it's just a type of
nodi bed that minimizes the amount of
soil you need to use we got there and we
filled it up with 6 8 and 10 inch size
logs in the in the lower levels we used
banana trunks and smaller trunk trees in
through the the secondary layer then we
started using the the two three-inch
branches from those other trees in that
next layer above that then we started
getting into the the twigs and the fine
branches on top then it was finished off
with a mixture of compost and hay some
hay bales and mixture and then we just
lined it out with a few troughs of soil
which enabled us to get our basic veggie
plantings off and running
drop the fairway you can see that it's
gone down about probably near 300
millimeters it used to be over the top
so those logs and the finest stuff on
top have already reduced and composted
the bigger logs are still below they're
slowly composting and you can when you
tear that up you can see a bit of fungi
and all that kind thing going on but
essentially you put about a year to two
years hard work into it and this is all
just come back at you it's a brilliant
thing one of the things that I love
about permaculture is it involves humans
doing good to the earth for a change
we're so used to hearing about how
people are destroying the planet and
permaculture shows that our impact
doesn't have to be destructive but can
instead be a force for healing the earth
and helping other forms of life flourish
what do I have they take away from
coming to the limestone permaculture for
you know a tour or visit a workshop you
know is inspiration I want them to feel
the way I feel I suppose this like all
good things in life when you experience
something that's really really good and
puts a smile on your face every day why
would you want to share it I mean it's a
beautiful thing it's changed my life
absolutely changed my life it's changed
my wife's life north to put my
children's life it is our our health is
by far better I put it all down to
permaculture a lot of people have a lot
of reasons but permaculture is
absolutely changed my family's life
you