Permaculture and mental health

We are living in challenging times. The care crisis, the climate crisis, and in many cases the housing crisis hit many of us in Europe and around the world. Where are we heading? What will the future bring? How can we cope with overpopulation and biodiversity loss? How can we cope mentally, facing all the damage we cause as humans and all the hardships we create to fellow living creatures?

One way might be permaculture. I strongly believe, feel, and experience that learning about permaculture and participating in permaculture and social permaculture practices are very good and sensible actions to contribute to the common good and also our own self-care and mental health.

Continue reading “Permaculture and mental health”

Frog habitat from a bathtub

It is so amazing to observe Nature, doing her thing!

I managed to recycle an old bathtub recently. Also, I managed to collect a bunch of tadpoles from a forest. They are just now turning into adult baby frogs.

I would like to share some pics about the process with captions. Today they started to come out of the water. One of our aims as permaculturists is to create more habitats and increase biodiversity. I already have the truck tire pond in my garden but there is fish in it, probably a bit more than ideal, so frogs stopped propagating there some time ago. This new bathtub pond will hopefully serve as frog-propagation habitat and I am not going to put fish in that one.

First, a slightly mesmerizing video:

Continue reading “Frog habitat from a bathtub”

Primary school permaculture in Malta

Introduction

It is amazing to see how permaculture is gaining momentum in many places around the world. It is not a marginal subculture anymore as it used to be even some years ago. By now it is a strong and legitimate movement that makes an awful lot of sense. Social, environmental and economic rationale proved that permaculture is one of THE answers to many environmental and social challenges and crises humanity is facing in the present times. Joining the movement St Joan Antide Primary School in Malta initiated an Erasmus+ project called: School Permaculture Garden. It is a two-year-old project with partnering schools from Macedonia, Croatia, Iceland. Continue reading “Primary school permaculture in Malta”

Spreading the WORM, #spreadingtheworm

We are launching our new project in Malta called:

Spreading the Worm!

At Juno Heights Garden we organised a number of Open Days in 2017-2018.
Chatting with our visitors I realised that people are often really interested in household scale, worm-based composting, called “vermiculture”. Also, I keep getting random requests for worms.

Kitchen scrap, paper, cardboard, kitchen paper towels, leaves, old pot soil, dust, even cotton-based clothes can all be recycled with the help of worms. The outcome of the process is worm manure or worm compost (and worm tea), that can be applied to the soil to improve its quality. Moreover, worm compost is richer in nutrients compared to “normal” compost, as it is animal manure, not only decomposed plants.

And…

One of the most beautiful permaculture ideas is: “Share the surplus”. I often have a surplus of worms, who are rather active multiplying in my worm tubs and bins. Continue reading “Spreading the WORM, #spreadingtheworm”