TristanRyall
12-06-2010, 01:53 PM
Gday all,
Now that I'm getting closer to my plan of escaping the city and getting back home to the mountains, I thought I'd come in here and get a bit more active in the discussion of all things permaculture.
I have around 2500 acres (1000ha) of mountainous grassland and sclerophyll forest in the Snowy Mountains near Cooma. It has a 150 year history of reasonably light sheep grazing, a small amount of failed landclearing (everything grew back twice as thick, and the bulldozer is now being slowly consumed by the forest), and otherwise not much of the environmental vandalism of chemical farming. For the past thirteen years, the land has been largely fallow, and in that time I've seen many native species (especially the herb layer) start to regain territory right across the property.
Our neighbours are biodynamic farmers on one side, conventional sheep farmers, hobby farmers and a goat farmer. It's quite interesting to have a smorgasbord of land management techniques all around. It's a real-life experiment to see whose technique is most successful. My money is on the biodynamic farmers, who have taken a rocky riverside hill and turned it into a very productive piece of cropland with an ever increasing topsoil layer.
Once my fiancée and I are finished university (currently completing an architecture degree) we're hoping to start developing our permaculture garden/farm on the property, and encourage my Mum to do the same on her patch nearby.
I'm currently a quarter of the way through Introduction to Permaculture, and halfway through Peter Andrew's 'Back from the Brink.' It's been interesting to see things occurring on my land explained by Peter, and noticing things that I hadn't really thought about before that indicate the health of the land or the presence of one feedback loop or another that is the land managing itself. Thankfully we don't have any of the salinity problems he speaks about, as the vegetation layer was never destroyed and we've never irrigated. But many of the things he speaks about are apparent. It's exciting the way permaculture and Peter Andrew's work just slots into everything I've observed myself about my little patch of the Snowy Mountains and how it's ecosystems function.
So for now, I'll keep learning, keep researching, and keep observing. I hope to study permaculture at Mulloon Creek near Canberra next year sometime. And hopefully there is much I can learn from you folks here in the forum and perhaps I can teach you all a thing or two.
Looking forward to joining in the discussion!
Tristan
Now that I'm getting closer to my plan of escaping the city and getting back home to the mountains, I thought I'd come in here and get a bit more active in the discussion of all things permaculture.
I have around 2500 acres (1000ha) of mountainous grassland and sclerophyll forest in the Snowy Mountains near Cooma. It has a 150 year history of reasonably light sheep grazing, a small amount of failed landclearing (everything grew back twice as thick, and the bulldozer is now being slowly consumed by the forest), and otherwise not much of the environmental vandalism of chemical farming. For the past thirteen years, the land has been largely fallow, and in that time I've seen many native species (especially the herb layer) start to regain territory right across the property.
Our neighbours are biodynamic farmers on one side, conventional sheep farmers, hobby farmers and a goat farmer. It's quite interesting to have a smorgasbord of land management techniques all around. It's a real-life experiment to see whose technique is most successful. My money is on the biodynamic farmers, who have taken a rocky riverside hill and turned it into a very productive piece of cropland with an ever increasing topsoil layer.
Once my fiancée and I are finished university (currently completing an architecture degree) we're hoping to start developing our permaculture garden/farm on the property, and encourage my Mum to do the same on her patch nearby.
I'm currently a quarter of the way through Introduction to Permaculture, and halfway through Peter Andrew's 'Back from the Brink.' It's been interesting to see things occurring on my land explained by Peter, and noticing things that I hadn't really thought about before that indicate the health of the land or the presence of one feedback loop or another that is the land managing itself. Thankfully we don't have any of the salinity problems he speaks about, as the vegetation layer was never destroyed and we've never irrigated. But many of the things he speaks about are apparent. It's exciting the way permaculture and Peter Andrew's work just slots into everything I've observed myself about my little patch of the Snowy Mountains and how it's ecosystems function.
So for now, I'll keep learning, keep researching, and keep observing. I hope to study permaculture at Mulloon Creek near Canberra next year sometime. And hopefully there is much I can learn from you folks here in the forum and perhaps I can teach you all a thing or two.
Looking forward to joining in the discussion!
Tristan