Vern Howell and Duck Dave for all their amazing work – too much to list!

Dale Harris of StudioInk design for the poster and endless technical help.  He’s also good at fencing (creating a fence.)

My Uncles and Aunties, and Grandma in Boort for the help with sand, colonial wire and 5 beautiful gates.

Castlemaine Garden Supplies for a discount on all the soil, gravel, compost and mulch, and delivering it in such neat piles.

Forest Creek Nursery for a discount on seedlings and trees and being so nice.

Tara Gilbee for her beautiful photography and gardening in between.

Sprout Bakery for the generous donation of 5 loaves of yummy organic wholegrain bread.

Aunty Anne Gelsi for making & delivering  heavenly slice & bikkies early in the morning.  essential to permablitz- bikkie with cuppa!

Rebecca & Iris for awesome huge pot of fried rice and lovely sweet chinese dumplings in syrup.

Gary for super yummy vegan curry.

Tim Read for equally yummy pot of pumpkin soup.

Sas for the trays of seedlings she grew herself and donated to Castlemaine Permablitz.

Ian Lillington for the lovely olive tree, and Steven and Maureen for delivering it!

to all our fantastic permablitzers, kitchen goddesses:and feedbackers: 

Yoshi, Helena, Lochi, Arwen, Louise, Jovian, Pippa, Dale N, Willow, Ella, Dave M, Lisa, Vanessa, Jacqui, Harrison, Isabelle, Zak, Myra, Luke, Oliver, Rowany, James, Yau Ga, Hin Hin, Sunday, Annette, Spring, Alan, Gary, Priyah, Helen S, Sandy, Sue, Nikki, Lucy, Chelsea, Jason, Eva. 

James working diligently, with a smile

Lovely Sass, who also donated seedlings she grew herself.

 

just a few of our gorgeous gardeners…

                     

                                                                                                    

Chelsea, amazon digger! she came from afar & stayed the latest )

 

bark is beautiful!

a big part of the preparation for a permablitz is gathering the materials needed for the big day.  Some blitzes need more things than others, depending on what the host requires for their garden.

for mine, i required:

bush posts, for interior fences, Guildford gravel (cream colour) for the paths, mushroom compost, organic mulch, large rocks for the swales, pedestrian gates, wire, seedlings, fruit trees and tools.

the idea is to have everything neatly stacked/in piles where its accessible to the crew on the day. 

so a-collecting we went!

Hamish cutting bushposts from sustainably managed forest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks and Blessings to the Fryers Forest eco village for allowing us to resource some of the bush posts from the thinning for our fences.

Hamish's hat, reluctantly removed for safety requirements. (chainsaw=earmuffs)!

Don (uncle) and Joy (aunt) helping Oliver & i put the gates on the trailer.

I wish i got a photo of Kevin (uncle) and i shovelling builders sand that fills the bottom of my trailer!  it was excess from a brilliant decking project he was constructing.

also thankyou to Lindsay (cousin) and Dean (cousin) who put air in my car  tyres on the way back through Boort.

ain’t family grand.

as i understand it, the standard rule for a permablitz is to have a few consultations with a qualified, experienced permaculture designer and draw up a basic design for your backyard.

-what are the most used areas, the ones that have a specific purpose; eg: clothes line, kids area, tool shed, firewood etc.

-what sort of plants/trees are you thinking of planting?  no use planting a quince tree if you hate eating quinces!  something that came up for me was that my folks are allergic to wattle, so that had to be struck off the planting list.

-consider pets’ needs – i plan to have chooks, so we decided to incorporate their run in the orchard area, thus needing a fence with chook wire!

- i have a toddler who likes cars, and standing on roads to look at cars broom, so a very important part of the design was to make a kids area with a sandpit, fenced.

here’s basically what Hamish and i came up with:

the first day, planning the design of the garden.

draft designs for front and back garden, list of materials needed.

Driven by Hamish MacCallum, the group aims to intergrate a diverse amount of people from Castlemaine’s amazing community – by way of sharing knowledge and skills about edible, sustainable organic food gardens and coming together as a community to bring food gardening to people’s doorsteps.  

the following is a direct quote from Permablitz Melbourne:

“Permablitz Defined

Permablitz (noun): An informal gathering involving a day on which a group of at least two people come together to achieve the following:

• create or add to edible gardens where someone lives
• share skills related to permaculture and sustainable living
• build community networks
• have fun

Permablitzes are free events, open to the public, where you learn a lot, share food, get some exercise and have a wonderful time.”

 please visit Permablitz Melbourne at :  http://www.permablitz.net/what-is-a-permablitz for more information!

its a great page – i particularly love their motto - “eating the suburbs one backyard at a time!”