Michael Green

Writer and producer

Drought-proofing your garden

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Gardens can thrive despite the drought.

It’s never too late to ready your garden for summer, says Anna Thirkell-Johnston, from Bulleen Art and Garden nursery, “but you’ve got to get onto it as soon as you can.” On October 15, she’s hosting a seminar on drought-proofing your backyard.

A number of tactics have begun to seep into common knowledge. Water tanks offer some independence from the mains: the larger the capacity, the better. Recycling greywater also boosts your supply, but it requires careful research and implementation.

When it comes to watering, it’s best to use a drip irrigation system and cover your garden beds with about ten centimetres of mulch – both steps will reduce evaporation and wastage.

But above all, Ms Thirkell-Johnston says, it’s important that people understand that soil is their biggest water storage device. “Organic matter is like a sponge in the soil,” she says. “Soils that have high organic matter hold a heck of a lot more water than those that don’t.”

She recommends gardeners build up their soil by adding compost and mulch to create humus – that’s the rich, dark and fertile soil that absorbs extra water. Moisture retention products such as crystals and wetting agents can be effective, she adds, but only if used correctly. Most people tend to use them too much.

On plant selection, Ms Thirkell-Johnston says there’s no substitute for study – search plant encyclopaedias or Google to find out what conditions suit the plant you’re considering.

Cam Wilson from Forest Edge Permaculture says a garden can be water-smart and productive. “A well-mulched backyard garden uses about one-fifth the water that a market gardener needs to grow the same amount of food.”

He recommends digging basins and trenches (about thirty centimetres deep) on the upper side of trees and shrubs. “If it’s been hot and dry, the soil doesn’t receive water very well. When you have a downpour, it rushes off the surface of your property,” he says. “The basins will intercept the runoff and hold the water, giving it time to infiltrate the soil.”

To avoid your yard “looking like a motocross track”, fill the trenches with mulch. “A tree-lopper can often drop off quite a large load of chips for $80 or $100.”

Drought-solutions can be attractive features. For a recent project, Mr Wilson created a dry creek bed, feeding from a shed downpipe. “It’s got disguised infiltration basins on the way down to water fruit trees, and they overflow into a frog-pond.”

He says it’s also crucial to shelter your garden beds from the hot western sun and from dry north winds. Try growing a grape on a trellis to the west – its deciduous leaves will offer summer shade.

To the north, he suggests planting a windbreak. “It reduces evaporation by a huge amount. I often recommend planting an Acacia hedge, which can be chopped back hard after summer to allow winter light. The prunings make an excellent mulch under fruit trees.”

Reducing household waste

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Forming new habits is the key to cutting household waste.

Australians end up throwing out one in every five bags of groceries we buy, according to the website Food Wise. But food waste isn’t the only problem. The Ethical Consumer Group says we each consume about 165 kilograms of packaging a year and only half is recycled.

Hugh Butcher is trying to ditch that excess baggage. He was one of over a dozen Melbournians who recently took part in the Ethical Consumer Group’s weeklong, zero-waste trial (you can find details, tips and blogs on the organisation’s website).

Mr Butcher’s main tactic was to adhere as closely as he could to the waste hierarchy: avoid first, then reuse, recycle and last of all, dispose. That meant buying products in bulk and carting reusable containers whenever he went shopping. “Common foods that I eat, like pasta and nuts, I now buy in bulk – not pre-packaged. It’s my new standard practice.”

Environmental consultant Jenny Henty says a group effort is the perfect way to begin to cut your household waste. “When you’re starting off, it’s really good to have like-minded people who are trying to do the same thing.”

She argues that food wastage is a critical issue. “A huge amount of water and energy goes into producing the food. And then, if it decomposes at the tip, it generates methane, which is a very powerful greenhouse gas.”

To avoid spoilage, Ms Henty recommends planning meals, shopping with a list and buying only what you need. When you throw food away, make sure it goes into the compost.

As for packaging, we can cut back by switching to reusable bags and containers. “I use cloth bags for my fresh bread and I’ve got net bags for things like beans and peas,” Ms Henty says. She buys her dry goods in bulk, takes her own containers to the butcher and chooses cardboard containers rather than plastic wrapping.

But at chain supermarkets, that can be tricky. “You’ve got to change your shopping list,” she says. “You need to buy basics and cook at home.” Try shopping at markets, health food stores or supermarkets that sell goods in bulk (including cleaning products).

That might sound overwhelming, but it needn’t be so, if you take one item on at a time. “Step-by-step, you get into new habits that are no extra work,” Ms Henty says. “And if you reduce your supermarket buying, you can actually save a lot of money. When I cut out a lot of stuff I used to buy, I realised the food was better and I ended up happier as a result.”

At the end of his zero-waste week, Mr Butcher had only a few things in his rubbish bin – mainly wrappers from products he’d bought previously. “It was amazing what I got my waste down to,” he says. “I thought I was in for a massive shock, but it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.”

Green roofs

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Green roofs and walls are slowly taking root.

A small number of city roofs and walls are sprouting lush foliage, and they’re attracting lots of attention. “Everybody is getting excited by them. I think it’s time to rethink city-wide design,” says Green Roofs Australia vice president, Ben Nicholson. His organisation is holding its annual conference at Melbourne University’s Burnley campus from September 23 to 25.

Mr Nicholson says although green roofs are an old technique, the modern systems were developed in Germany just three decades ago. Plants grow in lightweight soils over waterproof and root-repellent layers on the roof. They can range from extensive (inaccessible and low-maintenance) to intensive (abundant and high-maintenance, more like a roof garden).

Either way, they act as a sponge for stormwater, reduce urban heat radiation and boost biodiversity. They can also double the lifespan of roofing materials and reduce the need for heating and air-conditioning indoors.

That’s an enticing list, but so far in Australia, green roofs are only gradually moving into commercial and residential use. Mr Nicholson warns against putting on “green bling” that won’t stand the test of time. “There’s a lot of research to be done to establish which species will thrive locally over the long term.”

The other big catch is the cost of retrofitting on existing homes. Mr Nicholson says that an extensive green roof can weigh four times the load-bearing capacity of most roofs. “So before you’ve even started the retrofit, there can be huge costs in getting the building ready to host a green roof. It’s much easier to design a new home with a green roof. Our rooftops could then be sites for urban agriculture or habitat creation – as well as improving the view.”

Sydneysider Jock Gammon’s business, Junglefy, is working on a green roof for the Melbourne City Council. He estimates that an extensive green roof on a new home will cost between $180 and $220 per square metre. There’s a lot to keep in mind, including the roof capacity, plant selection and rainwater runoff arrangements. “Do the consultation and designs at the beginning of your building project,” he advises.

If you’re dedicated to gardening on high, but you’re not planning to build from scratch, then a green wall is the best bet.

Junglefy sells a range of vertical garden products, including ecoVert, a self-contained system that will help you grow herbs and veggies up the wall. It starts at $625, plus an optional mains or solar-powered watering system. The plants shoot from pockets of coconut fibres, not soil, and feed from organic fertilisers. “It’s designed for apartment dwellers and people with small courtyards who hadn’t previously grown things,” Mr Gammon says.

For a lower-tech food-producing wall, try espalier fruit trees. With pruning and training, you can grow the trees in flat patterns against a trellis or fence – it’s a tried and tested method, in use since at least the Middle Ages.

Greywater

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Greywater can wet your garden no matter the weather, but you must use it with care.

With another dry summer predicted, gardeners will soon need all the moisture they can get. Diverting your greywater can seem like a simple solution, but Helen Tuton from Sustainable Gardening Australia warns that it’s not so straightforward. “The long term effects of greywater on soil health aren’t known,” she says.

Greywater is the used water from your shower and bath, bathroom basin and laundry (not the kitchen or toilet). Collection systems range all the way from buckets to the big bucks.

No matter how you catch it, Ms Tuton says one thing is crystal clear. “Greywater and edible plants just don’t mix. A lot of fats, oils and salts come out of greywater and just sit in the soil.”

Chemicals, harmful bacteria and other residues in our recycled water damage the good bacteria and fungi that live in healthy soil. “I always recommend that people turn their greywater off over autumn and winter,” Ms Tuton says. “The soil needs a chance to be flushed out with rainwater.”

There are two kinds of greywater: untreated and treated. You’ll need to hire a licensed plumber either way, because both will require alterations to your sewer pipes.

Brent Papadopoulos from Sustainable Plumbing Solutions says that for public health reasons, untreated greywater isn’t allowed to see the light of day. “It must be transferred out to your garden through sub-surface irrigation. It must not pool anywhere and it must be used within 24 hours.”

An untreated diverter system costs between $700 and $2500. “They need regular checking and filter cleaning by the homeowner, otherwise they get blocked,” Mr Papadopoulos says. “Some systems might need attention twice a week. It just depends on the family: what they put down the drain and how hairy they are.”

Treatment systems are much more expensive – from $5,000 to $12,000 – and they require a permit from your local council. On the plus side, however, they’re eligible for a $500 Federal Government rebate and they produce much more versatile water.

“They harvest the same greywater but then they treat it and clean it up to a class-A standard,” Mr Papadopoulos says. “It can be stored and used in the home to flush toilets, wash clothes and also for above-ground irrigation like the good old-fashioned pop-up sprinklers.”

If you’re planning on gathering greywater, Ms Tuton recommends switching cleaning products, especially in the laundry. It’s important to buy products low in sodium and phosphorous. Washing detergents marked NP are phosphorous free, but for full information on different products, refer to independent testers Lanfax Laboratories.

According to Ms Tuton, there’s another puddle for greywater gardeners to avoid. “We’re finding that people are drowning their plants. They’re killing them with love,” she says. “Just because the water’s there, doesn’t mean you need to use it on the garden.”

Towns in Transition

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Concern about the environment and climate has led people in communities across the globe to take matters into their own hands – and to enjoy themselves while they’re at it.

One blazing hot Saturday morning – the day that will later become known as Black Saturday – a dozen locals gather around the wooden bench in Mark Kilinski’s kitchen, in the Geelong suburb of Bell Post Hill. Under his instruction, they’re filling and shaping pierogi, Polish dumplings.

Everybody is talking or laughing, or doing both at once. It’s pure peaches-and-cream: people are making friends, their conversations almost too good-natured to be true. “It’s much more fun to cook together, isn’t it?” marvels Anne, who lives just across the road. “That’s the thing about community,” chimes Dee, a wide-eyed, rosy-cheeked librarian from the local school.

The activity has been organised by Transition Bell, a group of locals dedicated to transforming postcode 3215 to deal with the twin challenges of climate change and peak oil [see below]. They want to re-make their suburb into a food-producing, low-energy, low-emission, tight-knit neighbourhood.

For well over a year, the group has been an official member of the thriving international Transition Network. The first transition town – Totnes, in Devon, England – was launched in late 2006. Now there are over 200 worldwide. In Australia, there are 18 official transition initiatives and dozens more preparing to sign on.

The movement took-off last year, following the publication of The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins, cofounder of the Totnes project. Interest now extends well beyond the English-speaking world, to continental Europe, South America, Asia and South Africa.

An updated Australian and New Zealand edition of the book came out in March. Subtitled ‘Creating local sustainable communities beyond oil dependency’, it details a grassroots approach to sustainability, in which each group strives for change, aiming to live better with less.

Naresh Giangrande, another founder of the Totnes transition town, visited Australia recently as part of a six-country speaking and training tour. “Two years ago, if somebody had told me that I would be in Australia on a worldwide tour teaching people about transition towns I would have said to them, ‘You’re crazy, it will never happen that quickly’,” he says.

In Totnes, residents have started a slew of projects, from community gardens and a local food directory, to business swap meets and eco-makeovers. They’ve even created their own currency, the Totnes Pound, which can only be used in the town.

Giangrande says the biggest achievement so far has been to build broad support among the town’s 8000 residents, rather than just among the usual suspects. Given the gravity of the problem, he argues, it’s crucial to engage people from all walks of life.

“The fundamental message is that our system is unsustainable. It’s not really a question of should-we-or-shouldn’t-we [change]. We’re going to have to,” Giangrande says. “We’re not going to have any choice once peak oil and the effects of climate change become apparent. We’re going to have to make do with fewer resources and with less energy.

“It’s not just a bit of tinkering at the edges; we need to completely rethink just about every system that we depend on for life – for the food we eat, for the clothes we wear, for the buildings we live and work in, and for our transport.”

Despite the daunting change he envisages, Giangrande sees cause for both optimism and joy. “We’ve created the present system and we can create something else. Let’s harness the collective genius of our communities to create something even better than what we have now.

“For many people the environment is very scary because if you take a close look at it you realise that we’re in quite a deep hole. Transition is one of the few things that comes with a message of hope. We all can be involved and a whole bunch of small actions by people all over the world add up to something rather big and rather wonderful,” he says.

***

The Sunshine Coast was the first Australian community to become a part of the transition movement and, at about 300,000, the group caters to an unusually large population. For over two years, Sonya Wallace and others have been preparing an Energy Descent Action Plan to present to the Sunshine Coast council. It will be a blueprint for a regional makeover, from households “all the way up to legislative change, transport systems and all the big picture stuff that you can’t do as an individual or as a community.”

Beneath the broad Sunshine Coast group, small transition towns are sprouting. Wallace lives in Eudlo. Among other initiatives, her 850-strong community is starting a food coop, a seed bank and informal car-pooling, and running backyard permablitzes. “We’re trying to get people to talk to their neighbours and build some community resilience,” she says.

In mid-November, a storm walloped Brisbane’s northern suburbs, causing severe floods, structural damage to thousands of homes and even a Prime Ministerial visit. Amid the devastation, however, came an unexpected sense of community. “As this massive storm went through, people came out of their houses and started talking to their neighbours. They’d never spoken to their neighbours before,” Wallace says. “It generated street parties.”

A similar, though more dramatic story emerged following Black Saturday. In The Monthly, author Richard Flanagan wrote of his visit to Kinglake: “Beyond us the police teams were turning over tin, turning up more and more dead, yet everywhere I looked I saw only the living helping the living, people holding people, people giving to people. At the end of an era of greed, at a time when all around are crises beyond understanding and seemingly without end, here, in the heart of our apocalypse, I had not been ready for the shock of such goodness.”

Scientists predict that the climatic changes wrought by global warming will lead to more frequent extreme weather events, such as droughts, fires and floods. For Wallace, the transition project is partly about preparation. “We’re trying to get people to work together before a crisis hits, because then it’s a bit too late to work out who the workers are and who has the skills.”

Back in the Bell Post Hill kitchen, before the hot sky fills with smoke, Transition Bell’s founder, Andrew Lucas, is adamant that his group’s activities be enjoyable. “It is a really inclusive thing, not just a sustainability group filled with environmentalists. [The transition towns idea] doesn’t tend to alienate people because you’re talking about what we can do to look after each other. That sort of thing is missing in communities at the moment.”

The Bell area has a long-standing mix of residents from different backgrounds, especially Eastern Europe. Lucas says there’s an enormous amount of practical knowledge behind closed doors – like the recipe for pierogi. Among other things, he hopes neighbours will share their cooking, preserving and gardening know-how.

“We declared that this postcode will be the fruit tree capital of Geelong – pretty hilarious, because it’s not like we have anyone competing,” Lucas says. “There’s another postcode, Transition South Barwon, and they’re talking about becoming the shiitake mushroom capital.”

Last year, at Transition Bell’s request, a local nursery offered a 50 per cent discount. Residents cleared their stock in one weekend. Lucas wants to organise more bulk eco-buying deals with nearby businesses. “You can get people motivated to take action, you get much better discounts and you’re putting money back into local businesses as well, so it’s a win-win,” he says.

All up, today’s neighbours-cum-pastry-cooks make about 300 dumplings in just a few hours. Conversation whisks through organic gardening, household efficiency and renewable energy, as well as future activities for the community.

But as always, the proof is in the eating. Janine, a first time attendee, sits at the table, her plate already empty. “Delicious,” she says sweetly. “We want some more.”

Transition, peak oil and climate change

The transition concept is pushed along by twin threats: peak oil and climate change. Peak oil refers to the point in time when global oil production reaches its maximum rate, and afterwards, begins to fall. There is no agreement on its timing, but many observers argue that supply has passed its peak, or will soon do so.

In The Transition Handbook, Rob Hopkins writes that “the end of what we might call the Age of Cheap Oil (which lasted from 1859 until the present) is near at hand, and … for a society utterly dependent on it, this means enormous change.” Both peak oil and climate change, he continues, “are symptoms of a society hopelessly addicted to fossil fuels and the lifestyles they make possible.”

 Can I borrow a cup of sugar?

Saying hello to your neighbours is the new black. Here are some complementary getting-to-know-you schemes:

Started in Melbourne last year, The Sharehood is an ingenious website that, together with a simple letterbox drop, will help you to not only meet the family across the road, but also borrow their circular saw.

A basic training program in eco-living, Sustainability Street can work in your street, school or local sports club. It has been run in over 200 places across Australia since 2002.

A permablitz is a working bee with a veggie twist. Volunteers from a network of permaculture gardeners and your neighbours (if you can convince them) come to your house and work with you to transform your garden into an organic food producing Eden.