March – Permaculture Food Gardening in Subtropical Australia

March – Permaculture Food Gardening in Subtropical Australia by Ewa Bekiesch, Permaculture designer, educator, sustainable living consultant, and healthy food advocate. March is the month when we get busy! Very busy! Even though it still feels like summer, we do have autumn. The winter sowing and planting have started and I am excited about it! I also look forward to the following weeks when I can spend more time in the garden. The summer heat and humidity didn’t make it very easy lately. General jobs in March Note: This is the monthly edition. If you haven’t read my ‘Autumn Gardening Jobs’ article yet, start there: Autumn – Permaculture Food Gardening… Read More

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Autumn – Permaculture Food Gardening in Subtropical Australia

Autumn – Permaculture Food Gardening in Subtropical Australia by Ewa Bekiesch, Permaculture designer, educator, sustainable living consultant, and healthy food advocate. March, April, and May are autumn months. The days are getting shorter and the summer heat is slowly going back. Very slowly, I would say. The ‘summer bugs’ are getting fewer, which is a bonus! We can start to sow and plant the winter crop. Yes! The time of radishes, brassicas, and other subtropical winter veggies has finally arrived. Yummy! While March is still very hot and humid, the following two months will bring some relief, and the garden work becomes a pure pleasure. I promise! Listening to nature… Read More

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February – Permaculture Food Gardening in Subtropical Australia

February – Permaculture Food Gardening in Subtropical Australia by Ewa Bekiesch, Permaculture designer, educator, self-sufficient and sustainable living consultant, and healthy food advocate. Hot and humid! However, nature is generous with rain at the moment and we appreciate every single drop and enjoy the food we harvest at this time of the year, and there is plenty to harvest! We are not running out of jobs in the garden, however, we are limiting the work to the early morning and/or very late afternoon hours. In addition to the summer gardening jobs listed below, February is the month when I prune all sorts of my perennial and self-seeding bushes. Especially Pigeon… Read More

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January – Permaculture Food Gardening in Subtropical Australia

January – Permaculture Food Gardening in Subtropical Australia by Ewa Bekiesch, Permaculture designer, educator, self-sufficient living consultant, and healthy food advocate. January and February are the hottest months in Australia. The gardening hours are limited at this time of the year but we don’t stop growing food. I usually sort my jobs by priority and the list below shows pretty much my food forest summer priorities. Most work is done in the morning and late afternoon. It doesn’t make much sense to grill yourself during the day. Sitting on the veranda and enjoying a cold drink while planning your autumn garden or reading an interesting book is a much better… Read More

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December in the Garden- Permaculture Food Gardening in Australia

December in the Garden- Permaculture Food Gardening in Australia by Ewa Bekiesch, Permaculture designer, educator, self-sufficient living consultant, and healthy food advocate. Summer is here! Hot and humid days are going to be our companions for the next three months or so with more or less rain however, this doesn’t stop us from producing healthy and delicious food! There is no “food-growing brake” in a self-sufficient homestead. Firstly because we love naturally grown food without any additives, and secondly because many different foods are happily growing during this time of the year. This article might give you some ideas about what can be done, sown, planted, and harvested in the… Read More

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November in the Garden- Permaculture Food Gardening in Australia

November is the month when we can literally watch the food grow. The winter crop is gone, the last cabbages are transformed into sauerkraut and we concentrate on cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, capsicums, and co.
This article might give you some ideas about..

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October in the Garden- Permaculture Food Gardening in Australia

October in the Garden- Permaculture Food Gardening in Australia by Ewa Bekiesch, Permaculture designer, educator, sustainable living consultant, and healthy food advocate. The days are longer, temperatures are higher, and Mulberries and strawberries are having a ripening competition. October is also the time when we need to protect our ripening nectarines, peaches, blueberries, and co. This article might give you some ideas about what can be done, sown, planted, and harvested in the garden in October in warm and subtropical parts of Australia. Note: this article is based on my experience and the work I do in the food forest. Feel free to comment below if you would like to… Read More

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September in the Garden- Permaculture Food Gardening in Australia

This article might give you some ideas about what can be done, sown, planted, and harvested in the garden in Australia during the month of September. Feel free to comment below if you would like to add or ask something.

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The Black Elderberry, European Elderberry – Sambucus Nigra

The Black Elderberry, European Elderberry – Sambucus Nigra Story and images by Ewa Bekiesch – Permaculture Designer, self-sufficient living consultant and educator, gardener, healthy food lover Mythical… Magical… Medicinal… Beautiful… Delicious… And it loves to grow in our backyards all over Australia! The Black Elderberry, The European Elderberry – Sambucus nigra I don’t see many of them growing around and that is why I love to share with you some information about this beautiful and useful plant. It is very pretty, frost resistant, bees love it, chickens love it and you can use it in so many ways! According to Wolf-Dieter Storl (trained professional anthropologist) the Black Elderberry was the… Read More

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Manihot esculenta – Cassava, Manioc, Yuca

Story and Images by Ewa Bekiesch, Permaculture designer, educator, gardener and healthy homegrown food advocate. Ewa has a degree in Sustainable Living from the University of Tasmania and a Food As Medicine certificate from the Monash University. Manihot esculenta – Cassava, Manioc, Yuca Versatile, delicious, drought-tolerant and quick and easy growing vegetable. Cassava is a perennial woody shrub up to 3-4m, native to South America, growing best in tropical and subtropical regions around the globe. It is a very hardy plant and grows in nearly any type of soil. We grow it in our food forest for quite a few years now. I have planted it in many different spots and… Read More

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