PERMACULTURE IN ACTION” TOUR OF TENDERBREAK

After a long break over winter we are recommencing tours of Tenderbreak Permaculture Farm.

Bookings are required for tours on:-
Sunday, OCTOBER 24th, 2010 &

Sunday NOVEMBER 14th, 2010

Both tours run from 1:30pm to 4:30pm and include afternoon tea.

Our tours are suitable for anyone with an interest in permaculture, organic gardening, passive solar house design, tank water, mudbrick building, property design and layout, chooks and ducks, solar power, grey water systems and sustainable living. In fact our tours are a bit like doing a mini Introduction to Permaculture Course.

Although our property is a large bush block, we provide information and ideas that are suitable for both rural and suburban dwellers. The size of the groups is limited to ensure there is plenty of scope for questions and discussion. Contact us for more details or for bookings at tenderbreak@bigpond.com

Tenderbreak Permaculture Tours

After a short break over summer we are recommencing tours of Tenderbreak Permaculture Farm. Over 1000 people have attended one of our events. Some have even been twice. Bookings are required for the tour on:-

Sunday, MARCH 7th

It runs from 1:30pm to 4:30pm and includes afternoon tea.
Our tours are suitable for anyone with an interest in permaculture, organic gardening, passive solar house design, tank water, mudbrick building, property design and layout, chooks and ducks, solar power, grey water systems and sustainable living. In fact our tours are a bit like doing a mini Introduction to Permaculture Course.
Part of the tour looks at defensive strategies against bushfires. The fires of Black Saturday burnt most of our 96 acres, but we were able to save our house and most of our infrastructure. We can now give an account of what aspects of our fire plan worked well and what needs to be improved.

Although our property is a large bush block, we provide information and ideas that are suitable for both rural and suburban dwellers. The size of the groups is limited to ensure there is plenty of scope for questions and discussion.
Other dates are available for group bookings.
Contact us for more details or for bookings at tenderbreak@bigpond.com

Tenderbreak Permaculture Tours

Monthly tours of Tenderbreak Permaculture Farm will continue for the rest of the year.

Bookings are required and tours will be held on:-
Tour 1 Sunday, October 18th
Tour 2 Sunday, November 8th
Tour 3 Sunday, December 6th
Tours run 1:30pm to 4:30pm and include afternoon tea.

In the past 12 months over 1000 people have attended one of our events (Some have even been twice.) Our tours are suitable for anyone with an interest in permaculture, organic gardening, passive solar house design, tank water, mudbrick building, property design and layout, chooks and ducks, solar power, grey water systems and sustainable living. In fact our tours are a bit like doing a mini Introduction to Permaculture Course.

Part of the tour looks at defensive strategies against bushfires. The fires of Black Saturday burnt most of our 96 acres, but we were able to save our house and most of our infrastructure. We can now give an account of what aspects of our fire plan worked well and what needs to be improved.

Although our property is a large bush block, we provide information and ideas that are suitable for both rural and suburban dwellers. The size of the groups is limited to ensure there is plenty of scope for questions and discussion. Other dates are available for group bookings.
Contact us for more details or for bookings at tenderbreak@bigpond.com

PERMACULTURE TOURS STARTING AGAIN IN AUGUST

After a short break over winter we are recommencing monthly tours of Tenderbreak Permaculture Farm. In the past 12 months over 1000 people have attended one of our events (Some have even been twice).

Bookings are required and tours will be held on:-
Tour 1 Sunday, AUGUST 9th
Tour 2 Sunday, September 6th
Both tours run 1:30pm to 4:00pm and include afternoon tea.

Our tours are suitable for anyone with an interest in permaculture, organic gardening, passive solar house design, tank water, mudbrick building, property design and layout, chooks and ducks, solar power, grey water systems and sustainable living. In fact our tours are a bit like doing a mini Introduction to Permaculture Course.

Part of the tour looks at defensive strategies against bushfires. The fires of Black Saturday burnt most of our 96 acres, but we were able to save our house and most of our infrastructure. We can now give an account of what aspects of our fire plan worked well and what needs to be improved.

Although our property is a large bush block, we provide information and ideas that are suitable for both rural and suburban dwellers. The size of the groups is limited to ensure there is plenty of scope for questions and discussion. Other dates are available for group bookings.
Contact us for more details or for bookings at tenderbreak@bigpond.com

Petty's Apple Festival & Tenderbreak Tours

Like hundreds of others, we attended the annual apple festival at Petty’s Orchard in Templestowe on March 31st. There was a wide variety of stalls, displays and activities for people to view. Some of the highlights were tours of the heritage orchard with hundreds of varieties of apples, very informative talks by Freddie the “Snake Man”, talks about heritage apples and the yummy tasting tent where you can “taste test” a whole range of apples. This enables you to choose varieties to plant that you know you like. There was plenty of healthy organic food available for lunch- our favourite was Janet’s large plate of delicious organic pasta with pesto.

There were several displays by permaculture groups and stalls selling plants. We couldn’t resist buying a cool climate banana plant for our sister-in-law who uses the bananas and leaves in her Thai cooking. Snake Gully Cider had demonstrations of cider making and for those with a sweet tooth, John the ice cream man sold delicious organic ice creams. The photo above shows our stall (the one with the yellow and red flags). Thankyou to Belinda ( http://belindas-simple-life.blogspot.com/ ) for providing this photo and the one at left of the "Tasting tent".

As we have done for the past few years we had a stall selling some of our veggies and our friend’s bird & rat proof chook feeder (We’ll do a post on this great product soon). Our daughter, Sally (Mustang Sal’s Nature Photography) had a great display of some of her framed photos and the photo cards that she creates.

It was a very successful day with Sally selling quite a few cards and we sold most of the veggies. We also had a chance to speak with dozens of lovely people, many of whom had already been on one of the tours we run at Tenderbreak Permaculture Farm. This is the main reason we go to festivals and markets like this. We love chatting with people about the social, environmental and economic issues that have arisen over the past few decades and discussing what we can do to resolve these. We share what we have learned on our journey towards a more sustainable life, and love hearing about other people’s experiences.

The markets also provide an opportunity to promote our “Permaculture In Action” tours. Our April 5th tour was booked out with 15 people attending. Although we advertise the tours as going from 1:30 to 4:00pm there was so much to see and talk about, we finished up around 5pm. Our May 17th tour is close to being booked out, so we have decided to add additional tours on MAY 3rd and MAY 24th. If you would like to attend one of these tours contact us and we will book you in and send you a map showing how to get here. If these dates are unsuitable send us your email address and we’ll put you on our mailing list and keep you informed about future tour dates. If you would like more information about the tours we can send you a pamphlet with all the details.

Congratulations to Pete the Permie and the other organisers for a wonderfully interesting and informative day at Petty’s. We are looking forward to next year’s festival on the last Sunday in March- make sure you put it in your calendar now.

Permaculture Tours

Back to the Open Day.

Earlier this year we were asked by Yarra Valley Permaculture Group to hold an open day on our property, as part of celebrations to acknowledge 30 years of permaculture.
So what was there for people to see? As outlined in previous posts, we have gradually been bringing our permaculture design into reality. Our farm is designed with an emphasis on sustainability, energy efficiency, self sufficiency, no use of poisons, re-used and recycled materials, living in harmony with the environment, integration of small animals, taking advantage of the natural topography, nutrient cycling, developing defences against wildfire, multiple functions and zoning.
Other features of the property, include use of plantation timber for the house frame, electrical power from our off-grid solar system, tanks and dams supplying all water needs, heating and cooking through wood fired appliances (there’s plenty of fallen timber), chooks and ducks supplying eggs, bees providing honey and extensive fruit and vegetable gardens.
Apart from guided and self-guided tours of the above, volunteers gave talks about Permaculture and food security, put on a display of rare breed farm animals, ran interactive “composting worms” discovery sessions, a wildlife photograph gallery and stalls sold organic refreshments, books, plants and seeds.

As you can see –there was a very full program of activities for visitors to choose between and judging by the comments in our visitor’s book most people found the day rewarding. In fact the plethora of positive comments inspired us to commence a program of small group tours for people who missed out on the open day or those who wanted to look round without the pressure of crowds and limitations of timetables. We ran three of these during November and intend to continue in 2009 on a monthly basis (or more if demand warrants it).
The open day motivated us to start this blog which provides more detail about our story and how Tenderbreak Permaculture Farm came into existence. It also allows visitors to keep up to date with new developments as they occur. In the next few blog entries we will look at some of the features of our farm in more detail.

The success of the Open Day also motivated us to commence small group tours of the property - especially after positive feedback from many visitors who commented that they were inspired by our house and garden tours. The tours cover everything covered on the open day and more, without the pressure of large crowds. By limiting the size of the groups there is plenty of scope for questions and discussion. Apart from having a look at the many features described above, we also provide some insight into how permaculture has influenced our thinking and helped us develop our farm. If you would like to find out more about our “Permaculture in Action” small group tours please email us at tenderbreak@bigpond.com.