Michael Green

Writer and producer

Bugs in the garden

In Greener Homes on

Let insects be your constant gardeners

ANTLIONS, the larvae of lacewings, have insatiable appetites. Luckily, for vegie growers, they’re on our side.

“They look like tiny balls of fluff,” says insect expert Jane Davenport, author of The Garden Guardians, “but they’re really like little crocodiles dashing around the garden, eating aphids and sapsuckers. They suck the juice out of the aphids and stick them on their back, so they smell like the aphids and ants give them a free pass.

“There are all these symbiotic relationships in the vegie patch. Once you’ve got your bug-eyes on and you realise what’s happening, it’s fascinating. ”

She says gardeners have a choice between being a “cure-all” or a “curator”: the former need all manner of pesticides to keep their patch in check, while the later employ bugs to protect their produce.

“If you’re the kind of gardener who uses chemicals, you’re giving yourself lots of work. Good bugs will do it for you for free,” she says. “And there are already so many toxins in our cities, why would you want to add them into your garden as well?

There is, however, the small matter of enticing the bugs into your beds. Ms Davenport suggests establishing “an insectary” – a dedicated area where you let the critters have their way – as well as a variety of flowers, so something is blooming all year round.

“For example, ladybirds need something to eat, that’s the thing that attracts them,” she says. “Once you’ve attracted them you want to keep them – they’ll eat pollen if there are no pests.”

Karen Sutherland, from Edible Eden Design, also prescribes petals as a cure.

“Plant flowering herbs and lots of flowers with different shapes – they’ll bring all sorts of beneficial insects to your garden,” she says.

If you’re beginning a vegie patch in an area where there are no established gardens nearby, you can kick-start colonies of good bugs by ordering them in the mail. Another useful hint is to compost your old mulch during the cooler months, and let the chill eliminate the pests.

But what can you do if your leafy greens look grim?

First, find out what you’re up against. “If your plant has a lot of bugs on it, check whether your neighbours and other gardeners have the same problem. If so, then it’s something normal – it’s not because the plant is unhealthy,” Ms Sutherland says.

In springtime, aphids gather to gorge on new growth. “You have to be patient,” she says. “As an interim measure you can squirt the plants with a hose to knock them off.

“I find that if I wait and don’t do anything, ladybirds and praying mantises start appearing and eating the aphids.”

For a more active response, she suggests searching the web for organic pest control tips. You can easily homebrew your own sprays. For white oil spray – to control aphids, scale, mealybug, mites and more – mix four parts vegetable oil and one part detergent, and dilute 1:50 with water.

Above all, spend time in your garden. Ms Sutherland says the diversity of insect life affords infinite exploration, especially for kids. “Praying mantises are hatching at the moment in Melbourne, so if you look very closely in your garden, you might find tiny ones, only one-centimetre long.”

Read this article at The Age online

We need to talk, Mr Mayor

In Social justice, The Age on

AS I stood in the city square on Friday morning, I locked arms with a quiet IT student and a man who has a doctorate in law.

None of us had done anything like this before. Contrary to Mayor Robert Doyle’s assertions, we were neither professional protestors, nor the usual suspects.

By chance, we had landed in an obscure corner of the human chain, inside a marquee, facing the back of the square, well away from onlookers.

Even the other protesters seemed to have forgotten our corner – for an hour or so, the IT student had no one else to link arms with. As the chant rang out for us to “hold the line”, I asked him how he felt. “Vulnerable,” he replied, with a light smile. The police who surrounded us shared our mirth.

And so, for the first few hours, the big showdown felt more like farce. I had a lot of time to consider my position. Why, exactly, was I there? Should I stay?

Earlier this year, I wrote a long article about homelessness for The Big Issue. Often, while I worked on the piece, I felt deeply shaken.

One day I met a woman who, through illness and ill fortune, faced eviction from her modest unit. She was a good woman, but could no longer pay her rent – the shortfall grew bigger week by week. She sat with me in her darkened lounge and sobbed.

Earlier that same morning, I’d read in the newspaper that Gina Rinehart’s wealth had doubled in twelve months, to $10.3 billion. Hers is wealth born of inheritance, extracted from our finite resources, and funnelled into scare campaigns against taxes.

And so, before the Occupy movement began in Melbourne, I followed its progress in New York. I was excited that Occupy Wall Street had made equality once more a matter of daily public debate.

I visited the city square on several of Occupy Melbourne’s six days, but I didn’t camp. I felt frustrated by the slogans and rhetoric, and by the unwieldy facilitation process for the public forums.

My optimism dissipated, but even so, there was something about the movement that challenged me. Everyone was welcome to participate. If I thought the process wasn’t working, or that the comments were more emotionally charged than deeply considered, then it was up to me to do better. If I didn’t stand up, it wasn’t fair to criticise.

On Friday morning, the police pressed more tightly around us as the hours wore on. When they tore the marquee from over our heads, the atmosphere of farce gave way to an air of panic.

I asked the computer student on my left why he was there. He told me he was a duel citizen of Australia and America and he’d been inspired by Occupy Wall Street. “For me,” he said, “this is about the separation of corporations and the state.” Over the previous days, he’d spoken with other protestors about the importance of curtailing corporate donations and influence on politics.

On my right was Dr Samuel Alexander, an academic who writes about simple living and limits to economic growth. He had just penned a 4000-word article, inspired by the protest, in which he outlined proposals for tighter media ownership laws, more progressive taxes and heavy investment in renewable energy infrastructure, among other things.

I’d also heard about another possible demand – for a Robin Hood tax on international currency transactions. For a movement comprising citizens in more than 1500 cities around the world, that proposal strikes me as elegant.

Nonetheless, as I stood in the line, I did not have a clear list of reforms in mind. But I had read about our current ways: about cascading financial crises in the US and Europe, about climate change, and about other environmental tipping points.

At Occupy Melbourne, hundreds of people cast off their apathy and sought to engage with one another on these matters, peacefully and publicly.

As I stood in the line, I was certain that these matters deserve debate, whenever and wherever possible. That is why I stayed in the square on Friday morning, and locked arms with other thinking people, as the riot squad bore down upon us.

Read this article at The Age online

Household solar energy

In Greener Homes on

Despite rebate changes, solar energy is on the rise

Last year, the European Union set a deadline for all new buildings to meet a “nearly zero energy” standard by 2020. It also directed its member countries to make plans to boost the performance of existing buildings.

By comparison, Australian building energy standards are far less stringent.

Maria Wall, from Lund University in Sweden, explains that European homes will have to be super energy efficient, and then meet their remaining needs by way of solar photovoltaic panels and solar hot water.

The EU’s target encourages the installation of distributed (locally generated) electricity production.

“You must start with buildings have very low energy demand and then add the renewables,” she says. “You can’t skip the efficiency, because otherwise you can’t get the equation to reach zero.”

Ms Wall leads a research project for the International Energy Agency, investigating solar energy and architecture. She visited Australia recently to present a seminar on the latest solar technology for buildings.

Under the project, researchers from 15 countries are compiling case studies and developing new design tools. Ms Wall argues that to get the most efficient and affordable results, solar energy must be part of the initial design concept.

She observes that Australia has much greater potential for solar harvesting than northern Europe. “If you’re renovating or building a new house, you should think about renewable energy from the start. Add it now, because it will make you more independent of rising energy costs,” she says. “You have the possibility, so you should use it.”

In Sweden, there are no rebates for solar panels. Here, however, the local industry is coming to terms with yet another change in government subsidies.

The most recent re-jig is a hefty cut in the Victorian government’s solar feed-in-tariff – the rate that panel owners are paid for the surplus energy they put back into the grid.

When the feed-in-tariff was introduced, it offered panel owners a minimum of 60 cents per kilowatt-hour, for 15 years. The new arrangement, called the transitional feed-in tariff, reduces the rate to a minimum of 25 cents, for only five years.

In July, the federal government’s solar credits scheme was also reduced.

Brad Shone, from Moreland Energy Foundation, says it’s very difficult to calculate accurate payback times, given the endless changes to government subsidies, together with the fluctuating price of renewable energy certificates and swiftly rising energy charges.

“It’s still a good thing to put solar on your roof, because you’re increasing the amount of renewable energy in Australia. But it becomes complicated if you’re focussed on the payback,” Mr Shone says. “It’s impossible for an average person in the street to understand the variables.”

The Moreland Energy Foundation coordinates a solar energy bulk-purchasing scheme for nine councils that are members of the Northern Alliance for Greenhouse Action. Together, they’re aiming to install clean energy systems in 1000 houses throughout Melbourne’s north.

“We’ve taken some of the risk away from householders, by doing all the research,” Mr Shone says. “We’ve found a product we trust at a good price, through a reputable, local installer.”

A 1.5-kilowatt solar electricity system will cost $4690 up front, including the current federal government subsidy.

“The first step is to make all the savings you can by improving your building shell,” he advises. “Solar electricity is the cream on top.”

Read this article at The Age online

Greg Hatton’s factory

In Architecture and building, Environment on

WHILE Greg Hatton shows me around the old Newstead Co-operative Butter Factory, he carries a tap and a pipe wrench with him.

In fact, he carries the tap and the wrench for the whole afternoon I visit, as he wanders around the factory – his new workshop and part-time home – with his elderly dog Kevin limping along behind.

When you spend time with Hatton, a self-taught furniture-maker, designer and landscaper, you get the impression he always walks with a tool in hand and a plan in mind. It’s just as well, because right now, he’s got a hell of a lot of renovating to do.

Last week, he tried welding – out of necessity, before relocating a tank. “I’ve never been scared of having a crack at something new,” he says. “That process is always really rewarding. It’s the way I approach everything: if someone else can do it, I can do it. All I’m missing is the knowledge.”

In late 2009, he bought the old butter factory on the outskirts of Newstead, a small town in central Victoria. It was constructed in 1904, a time when grazing had overtaken gold mining as the area’s main source of income. Most recently it was a candle factory, but Hatton, who still spends part of his week in Melbourne, is giving it another life.

Tap in hand, he ambles through the huge building, deciphering its curiosities and conjuring its hereafter. The places where the giant drive shafts and cream churns were located will be soon converted into apartments, common areas and exhibition spaces.

Already, the space is a designer’s dream: character literally flakes off the old tiles, bricks and beams; its varied textures are cast alternately in sunlight and shadow.

“I’m trying to make things I want to furnish this place with,” he says. “But I’ve been playing catch up with orders ever since I plonked everything down in the new workshop.”

Hatton is seriously busy, but he’s content. It wasn’t always this way.

After studying environmental management at university, he worked as government fisheries officer. Recently, Hatton recalls, his old boss contacted him, reminiscing that he’d been “a square peg in a round hole” as a public servant.

After six years, he quit and set about chiselling a niche he could fit into. He began crafting chairs from willow branches, gathering the sticks by crawling along blackberry-infested riverbanks. His choice of material had two upsides: willow is considered an environmental weed and, when he fetched it himself, it was free.

Ever since, Hatton has insisted on using recycled or reclaimed materials. He’ll buy offcuts from local timber mills, pick up couches by the side of the road or ask beekeepers for their discarded hives.

At the core of his work is a strong environmental ethic, something he ascribes to his parents, “semi-hippy birdwatchers” who dragged him “around every national park known to man” on holidays from suburban Croydon, in Melbourne’s east.

“A lot of my work is based on the principle of using the pile of materials I’ve got,” he explains. “I try to do that in the most aesthetic way, and that’s the challenge.”

Hatton’s distinctive materials, together with a DIY attitude, have become his trademark. He says he “actively avoided” studying carpentry or cabinet making.

“I try to put things together with old bolts and bits of wire instead, and that’s where the aesthetic for my furniture comes from. As soon as you go down the cabinet-maker mould, you end up making stuff like all the other cabinet-makers. A little less knowledge is sometimes better.”

In his workshop, Hatton shows me a four-poster bed he’s building. The base and slats are made from hardwood seconds and the corner uprights from unsawn Sugar Gum posts that are thin and sinewy, but hard and heavy as stone.

(A piece like this starts at about $3500, depending on the detail. A solid outdoor table, with benches, goes for about the same).

But his simple approach shouldn’t be mistaken as rough or slipshod. Behind all his work lingers a single-minded attitude to design.

“I try to make my things so they’ll last a hundred years. You always see rustic furniture that looks too heavy or clunky. I try and add classic lines to create something that’s not going to date too much,” he says.

Lately, he’s become interested in lighting: one of his fittings employs leftover landscaping netting; another, opaque plastic floral buckets. “I’m always trying to experiment with different materials so I’m not constantly doing the same thing. Everything has to have a little bit of fun or quirkiness to it, otherwise I get bored.”

Hatton’s source for the buckets-cum-lights is his partner, Katie Marx, a florist who specialises in large shows and installations. She is pregnant with the couple’s first child, due at the end of the year.

After my tour of the workshop, we all retire to the concrete slab at the back of the factory, for afternoon tea in the sun. “It was through work that we met,” Marx laughs. “I hired some logs off him – and that started the rot. I still get called ‘The Florist’.”

Recently, for Hatton’s 40th birthday present, she tracked down an old windmill to install on the butter factory’s disused well. The only catch is that it’s still standing in a paddock about 8 kilometres away.

But that’s no worry for Hatton – it’s just one more project to complete. He’s got it on his mind, alongside the concrete air-conditioning tank he wants to convert into a swimming pool, and the handcart he wants to build so they can ride the abandoned railway line that runs nearby.

“It’s quite risky when you say, ‘Fuck it, I’m going to make things for a living’,” he says. “There are a few minor heart attacks along the way. But that just makes you resourceful.”

Just before the sun sets, he wanders off again, finally heading around the corner towards where that tap needs to go, Kevin hobbling along in his wake.

This article was published in Smith Journal, issue one

Backyard aquaponics

In Greener Homes on

Grow green around the gills with backyard aquaponics

Next to a warehouse in Northcote, there’s a long, white greenhouse. Inside, leafy greens and silver perch are growing together.

It’s a community-scale aquaponics system, run by CERES Community Environment Park as part of its Food Hubs project, which aims to create intensive food production sites in the city.

“Aquaponics is a form of gardening where you grow vegetables and fish in a symbiotic manner,” says Stephen Mushin, the scheme’s coordinator. “The fish wastes are converted into nutrients for the plants.

“It uses about one-hundredth of the water of a regular farm, so it’s especially suited to the dry Australian environment. And it’s suited to urban areas because of its space efficiency.”

That means it works well in backyards too: aquaponics is becoming increasingly popular with householders.

“The most exciting thing is that it’s a way of farming some protein at home,” Mr Mushin says.

“A large part of ecological footprint is in the food we buy and the way we dispose of food waste. By harvesting in your garden you can reduce packaging, water consumption and food miles. It puts food production in your face.”

If you buy a ready-made kit, it’ll cost you a few thousand dollars; if you build it yourself, it can set you back just a few hundred. Mr Mushin says well-designed systems require few ongoing inputs – they can run using water from your roof and need only a small amount of power for a pump.

On October 22 and 23, he’s teaching a short course on aquaponics at CERES, together with biologist Dr Wilson Lennard. Over the weekend, participants will construct a system combining a garden bed of 1 square metre, with a fish tank of 1 cubic metre.

Dr Lennard says rainbow trout is the best catch, because it tolerates a broad range of water temperatures. Depending on the species and conditions, the fish can grow from only a few grams up to about 750 grams in a year.

For the garden beds, he says, veggies will grow well in washed river gravel, which is cheap and widely available.

His most important advice, however, is to research well before plunging in. “You have to make sure you know what you’re doing. That’s mostly about looking after the fish – if you get the fish care right then the plants usually look after themselves.”

To keep the system in balance, you’ll need to test the water’s pH several times per week, keep an eye on its temperature and check nutrient and oxygen levels.

“People who have kept aquarium fish before usually have no problems because the principles are the same. If not, then I always suggest starting small to see how you go,” he says.

Dr Lennard specialises in commercial aquaponics, but he says that even on a small scale, it’s an economical option. “You need few fish and very little fish-food to produce enough nutrients for a lot of plants.”

Like normal gardening, he says, aquaponics will get you out and about. “It’s a good way to get back in touch with the planet – we all live such indoor lives nowadays. And it connects you even more to ecology, because it’s an ecosystem approach. It helps people understand water and nutrient flows, and how animals, plants and bacteria interact.”

Read this article at The Age online, or check out this excellent video on CERES Aquaponics, made by SCOUTFILMS:

CERES Aquaponics from CERES Fair Food on Vimeo.