Yarra Organic Coffee

A good friend of ours, owns Yarra Coffee (www.yarracoffee.com.au ). Helen and her family work hard to keep it going, and at the same time have a real commitment to sustainability and ethical business practices. She was really enthusiastic and supportive when we asked if we could utilise her spent coffee grounds. We now have an arrangement where we collect all the grounds from her Lilydale cafe each week and use them on our garden.

Coffee grounds are high in nitrogen, and make an excellent fertiliser for fast-growing vegetables. They also contain calcium, magnesium and potassium and can be lightly raked into the soil, or added to water and used as a soluble plant food. They are particularly good to use with plants that prefer slightly acidic conditions such as blueberries. In the general garden, spread small amounts in each application and avoid plants that don’t like acidity.

Coffee grounds may also help reduce damage from slugs and snails. Apparently they are repelled by the grounds and if the caffeine is absorbed through their skin it has fatal results. We’ll do a post reporting on our experience later in the year.  Some people go even further and mix up a special batch of strong coffee for use as a foliar spray to protect plants. There would have to be a lot of plant damage for us to give up our cup of precious Yarra Coffee to use it as a spray. We’ll probably stick to using the coffee grounds in the garden after drinking the coffee ourselves. Perhaps we are too addicted?
Like humans, worms also like coffee, and it promotes worm activity in both the compost heap and in the garden. As worms have no teeth they need to grind their food up, and use the coarse grounds as “grinding stones” in their gut.

A final benefit of coffee grounds is you get one last whiff of that tantalising aroma whilst you work in the garden. Unfortunately it doesn’t last all that long, before the coffee starts to break down.

PS: If you happen to be in Lilydale and would like to try one of Helen’s coffees or buy a bag of roasted beans, her shop is at 182 Main St., Lilydale- just up from the railway station. If you have a local cafe, try asking them if they would like to decrease wastage and recycle their coffee grounds.

Time for a Coffee Break



Morning Coffee Time

We have become rather addicted to coffee. Not in a “can’t do without sense” but in a “once a day, mid-morning coffee break” way. In fact it is more of a ritual than anything else, which we miss if we happen to be somewhere else. This is how it goes...

Freshly ground coffee beans

About mid morning our inner metabolism will use a subtle urge to prompt the brain that it is time for a break from whatever project we are working on. Heather will go inside and measure out the required amount of organic and fair-trade Yarra Coffee beans into our hand-cranked grinder. She will spend a minute or so grinding the beans into a fine powder, inhaling that irresistibly inviting aroma that freshly ground beans give up. In fact the gorgeous smell of freshly ground beans is as “heady” as the taste.

Percolating on the wood stove

She will then pop the coffee grounds into our percolator and place it on the hotplate of our wood stove for a few minutes. When it is suitably brewed she will pour out two cups and then we will sit for 15-20 minutes under our verandah. We sip, inhale the aroma, observe the world in front of us, chat, dream, philosophise and generally send out good vibes to the world. All this in no particular order, but in the main, it is an opportunity to stop and quietly enjoy those few minutes in time.  Then with renewed vigour and inspiration we get back to our project.

Watching the world pass by as we enjoy our coffee

Yarra Coffee sell a wide selection of coffee beans. Our favourite is the certified organic and fair trade coffee from East Timor. Apart from its superb aroma and flavour, it has reasonably low food miles compared to Africa or South America. And, after what the East Timorese have been through in recent years, they probably can do with all the support they can get.

Our hand cranked grinder

In the News Again

A few blogs ago we talked about reporter Natalie and photographer Lucy producing an article about our place to promote Sustainable House Week. Although they were confident the article would make it to the printing presses, we realised that other stories may take precedence on the day. Up until last week we had heard nothing so assumed our doubts were correct. That was until the phone started ringing, with people letting us know that the article had indeed been published. In fact it had been published in three different local papers (in the Fairfax Media Group) and what’s more we featured on the front page (in full grey haired glory)!

One result of all the publicity is that our tour on September 11 quickly got booked out, and we had to set up two more tours. The first of these on September 18 is now full and the one on September 25 has only a few places left. Let us know if you are interested in joining one of our tours and we will email all the details.

Our "Steamy" Adventure begins

Our “steamy adventure” is all about our desire to use a steam engine to provide backup power for our solar system. This dream began in our heads about 30 years ago but at last the real thing is getting underway.

Heather first became fascinated by the power of steam energy in her childhood. On holidays in the 1950’s, her family often set up their caravan near country rail lines. From these locations they frequently encountered steam locos being used to haul freight. Often, the family would make detours just to catch sight of a huffing and puffing train hauling its load along.

Much later (in the early 80’s), we read articles about innovative people using steam technology to generate electricity. A few years later, whilst visiting an alternative energy display, we came across Rod Mueller with a working version of his “Liberty” Steam Engine. By then we had purchased our bush block at Dixons Creek, and the dream of using our wood to drive one of Rod’s engines to generate power took shape.

A Liberty Stream engine in action

During this time, Heather and her friend Jean, decided to do a boiler attendant’s certificate with volunteer workers at the Puffing Billy Railway Society, in Belgrave. This involved hours and hours of theory as well as doing 300 hours of practical work operating steam engines to put the theory into practice. Although it was hard work, Heather enjoyed working with a variety of locos as well as the “Wattle” steam boat and steam engines being used for other purposes. Eventually we found out that Rod’s boilers did not need a qualification, as they had a surface area less than 40 square inches. But at least Heather developed a good understanding of how these machines work.

Rod builds the units at his engineering works in Goolwa, South Australia. Originally he started making boilers and engines for people who wished to install them in boats. Soon he was getting orders for machines to be set up to generate power, when people realised this potential use.  

Our boiler (with door) in Rod's workshop

Over the past 30 years we have not lost sight of our dream- however a multitude of things needed to be done first (building our house and setting up our gardens for starters). In more recent times one of the factors that held us up was the fact that setting up steam engines is quite complex and we were waiting for someone else to do it so we could call on their expertise if needed. Then last year some people in Healesville (about 30 min away) set one up. They kindly showed us their system and offered to help us if we needed it. At last we were ready. We took the plunge and ordered our very own steam engine. Over the next few months we will record our “steamy” story on our blog. Hopefully it will not take another 30 years to get it all set up.

For more information about Strath Steam’s products their web address is www.strathsteam.com  and Rod is very helpful.

National Sustainable House Day

National Sustainable House Day (NSHD) is celebrating its 10^th birthday this year on September 11. This annual event is held Australia wide and gives people the chance to visit houses that have been designed, built or fitted out with sustainability in mind and talk to owners, receiving unbiased advice.
For the first time we are running a tour of Tenderbreak Permaculture Farm as an ancillary event to Sustainable House day. This occurred quite by accident. We had already set September 11 as our next tour date and a friend suggested we link up with the local Sustainable House Day activities. We followed up this great idea and this lead to one of the local papers (Yarra Ranges Weekly) asking if they could include our place in a promotional piece they are putting together. So last week the reporter, Natalie and Lucy, the photographer came out and had a chat, a coffee and a short tour. The article should appear in the week prior to September 11.

If you would like to join our tour on that day you are very welcome. Bookings are essential as we have a limit of 20 people. The tour runs from 1:30 to 4:30 and the $15 per adult cost includes afternoon tea. Email us for more information at tenderbreak@bigpond.com. If you cannot make it on that day email us and we will let you know when the next tour is on

Of course there are plenty of houses open on that day in every state in Australia. Details of open houses can be found on NSHD website www.sustainablehouseday.com. If you live in the western suburbs check out Gavin’s house, which is a terrific example of how to incorporate sustainable ideas in housing, the backyard and most importantly in the way we live. See Gavin’s blog at www.greeningofgavin.com for more information about his place.

For more details about the tour of Tenderbreak see the “Ancillery Events “ page of the Sustainable House Day  website.

Solatube skylights

It lights up the stove area

As mentioned in the last post, our verandah works well, but it does reduce the amount of light coming in through the kitchen window. We deliberately chose narrow strips of opaque laserlite for the verandah roof to make sure we were not going to get too much heat in the summer. We have overcome the decrease in window light by installing a “solatube” in the kitchen ceiling.


This clever device “captures” light in its dome on the roof, and efficiently transmits the light through the roof cavity into the kitchen. We placed the solatube above the stove so the cooking area is now bathed in good light even on a dull day. The kitchen has ended up with about the same amount of light as before, but more strategically located.

Excuse the mess but look at the light

We installed another one in the garage and it lights up the area in the middle, that doesn’t get much window light. Solatubes are so good they even capture enough moonlight (when the moon is bright) to bathe the area in subdued light in the middle of the night. This is handy because we store firewood in the garage and do not need to turn the light on some nights.

The dome looks small but provides plenty of light

The solatube works so well, it took a few days to get used to the amount of light that came through the diffuser that is mounted on the ceiling. At a glance it looks like someone had left a light on, and our first reaction was to “turn off the light”. But of course the solatube is completely passive and works purely by capturing sunlight. If you are interested in looking at their display their website is www.diamondskylights.com.au .

A New Verandah

We always intended to have an undercover area outside the kitchen door. It is shown on our original plans as a future sunroom. However, time and money constraints meant it was put on hold when we started constructing our house in 1999. So up until this year we have existed without this key part of our house design.

Over the past 12 months we have focussed on developing a design for this undercover area that meets our needs (described in a previous post). The result is a multipurpose verandah (and pergola- yet to be built) attached to the northern and western walls of the house. We decided on steel construction largely because of the reduced fire risk but also because of the low maintenance, the wider spans that can be achieved and the ease of getting permits.

The verandah looks like it was always there.

As owner builders of our mudbrick house we gave serious consideration to doing the construction ourselves. However after thinking it through, we eventually decided to use a company that specialises in steel verandahs. Mike and Ken from Custombuilt Verandahs in Bayswater, did a great job. They worked with us to solve some of the complexities of the job and completed construction in a week (whereas it would have taken us several months). We are happy to recommend them.

We are now enjoying the benefits of the verandah (and wished we had built it years ago). Even now, in the middle of winter, it is very enjoyable sitting outside eating lunch or having a cup of tea as we look out over our garden and dam. The thermal mass of the mudbrick wall and the concrete patterned paving keeps the temperature mild (unless it is a cold wind). There are always dozens of birds to attract our attention in the garden, and our dog “Blue” enjoys watching them too as he reclines on the front door mat.

It looks spacious - but we have lots of ideas for using the area

The large undercover area has already proved to be quite handy as the weather gets colder and wetter. We have rigged up a temporary clothes line for drying sheets and given Blue plenty of exercise playing “fetch” with his ball.
We know that our verandah design works well in winter. We are now looking forward to seeing how it works in summer when temperatures climb to over 40 degrees. In the meantime we are working out the detail of the other ways to put this new space to work- but we will take our time doing that (between tea breaks).