Local Food Connections

Lucinda Flynn has a thriving permaculture garden at her home in Hurstbridge, Melbourne. Passionate about sustainability, she has built a life in her local community, making decisions about her children's education and her work based upon proximity to her home. Lucinda and her husband Sean founded a business, Going Green Solutions, operating from a shop in Hurstbridge for 15 years, which they describe as  'a team of people passionate about sustainability, reducing carbon emissions and waste, and helping Melbourne householders live more comfortably, without spending a fortune on energy bills'. Going Green Solutions supports community groups, not-for-profits and social enterprises that share this committment. Find out more here:https://www.goinggreensolutions.com.au/about-us/ Local Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song, You are What you Eat.

Many people have heard the term 'Permaculture' but are unsure of what is meant by it, often thinking of Permaculture as, in the words of its co-originator David Holmgren, 'a cool form of organic gardening'. But it is actually 'a design system for resilient living' that covers not only the natural environment, but the built environment and even the social one. David Holmgren has refined the main ideas  of Permaculture into 12 design principles. Today is the first in a series of discussion of these and it is my pleasure to welcome back Claire, who practises Permaculture at home in Mooroolbark.Local Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song, You are What you Eat.

In this episode of  Local Food Connections my guests are Vicky Ellmore and Lynn-eva Bottomley and we're discussing the Farmer Incubator Pop-up garlic program, part of a small international movement that seeks to train young and aspiring farmers to take part in a localised food system that re-generates not only the soil but community connections. The program aims to teach not just about crop production but about the realities of farming including access to land, finance and markets. Local Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song, You are What you Eat.

Sarah Swierzy and Collette Couper are members of the Murundaka Cohousing Community which is based in Heidelberg Heights in Melbourne. Murundaka (which is a local Wurundjeri word meaning 'a place to stay or live') is an all-rental, values-based co-operative-living community. First established in 1986, it was once made up of eleven free-standing houses but there are now 18 custom-built apartments and 2 free standing houses. The apartments are built on two residental blocks of land which sustain many fruit trees and veggie plots (both individual and communal) all fed by an on-site compost system and a worm farm.The residents of Murundaka are members of the Earth Common Equity Rental Cooperative and the Common Equity Housing program, both of which are part of the cohousing movement in Victoria and nationally through the Sustainable Living Foundation, addressing not only the problems of environmental urgency, but the huge shortage of housing and unaffordable rents. Local Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song, You are What you Eat.

David Holmgren with Bill Mollison is the originator of the world-wide Permaculture movement, a paradigm-shifting approach to the design of our biological, physical and social environments.This conversation is about the recently-premiered film, ‘Reading Landscape’, a collaboration between David, the late Dan Palmer, and filmmaker Dave Meagher. The film shows us how to restore a natural relationship, known to indigenous people but lost to most of us, with the land that sustains us. The film was crowd-funded by almost 500 people and is offered free to all. You can register to watch 'Reading Landscape' by going to https://holmgren.com.au/permaculture-news/Local Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song, You are What you Eat.

When Bev Middleton retired from full-time work and full time caring, she wanted to make a contribution to saving the environment. After a stint as an activist, and a chance meeting with a regenerative farmer on a plane trip, she became passionate about soil conservation and began to learn about the role of soil in sequestering carbon, so that it is not released into the atmosphere to cause global warming.Today Bev discusses the importance of building healthy living soil to grow food that can sustain us without harming the ecosystems that we are part of.https://soilweekaustralia.com.au/about-soil-week-australia/https://localfoodconnect.org.au/ Local Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song, You are What you Eat.

As well as being leaders in the movement towards a sustainable future, Paul and Robin Gale-Baker are experienced psychotherapists. In this episode they discuss the importance of managing relationships in community organisations, given the inevitability of conflict, while harnessing our capacities for listening, self-reflection, co-operation and leadership. https://sustainablemacleod.org.au/https://localfoodconnect.org.au/ Local Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song, You are What you Eat.

Robin and Paul are founders of Sustainable Macleod which aims to build a resilient local community, encouraging residents to shop locally, produce and share their own food, use environmentally-friendly transport and undertake other activities to promote sustainability. While their focus is on the Macleod area, north of Melbourne, Robin and Paul are part of a world-wide transition movement towards a way of living that is fairer for all and more likely to result in the regeneration of the natural world. https://sustainablemacleod.org.au/You can read more about Robin and Paul here: https://localfoodconnect.org.au/community-gardening/robin-and-paul-gale-baker/ Local Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song, You are What you Eat.

In this episode, Angelo Eliades of Deep Green Permaculture talks about what to do in the veggie garden in October here in temperate Melbourne. Find out more about Spring planting here:https://deepgreenpermaculture.com/https://localfoodconnect.org.au/community-gardening/spring-veggie-garden-preparation/Read Angelo's story here:https://localfoodconnect.org.au/community-gardening/angelo-and-savoula-eliades/Local Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song, You are What you Eat.

Virginia Solomon, her husband Stephen, and their three children, including a 4-month-old baby, moved to their rambling multi-generational home in Research in 1992. Research is 25 km from the centre of Melbourne, and the house is a suburban farmhouse with a northerly aspect on two thirds of an acre of land. When they moved in it had 28 mature fruit trees, a huge raspberry patch, a couple of underground cellars, solid fuel heating and cooking, and three years’ supply of wood.  It now has much more. You can see the house and garden at Virginia's web-site: http://www.ecoresilience.net.au/ https://localfoodconnect.org.au/community-gardening/virginia-solomon/  Local Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song, You are What you Eat.