I never thought blueberries were that nice, but when you have a sun-warmed blueberry off the bush, that's incredible. It's what it's meant to taste like," Katy White, of Shortland, says.
She and her partner, Matt Smith, have learnt over the years that homegrown food tastes so much better.
Four and a half years ago, the two moved from Mayfield West to Shortland, where they decided to get very creative and clever on their property. The couple have been together for eight years, she's a public servant and he's a mechanic. White does more of the gardening and Smith takes on the aquaponics.
They live with their two dogs, Lilly and Lola, and plenty of other life forms.
"I've always had vegie gardens, but I didn't know about permaculture until about two years before I met Katy," Smith says.
For them, permaculture is a bit like a life philosophy: earth care, people share, fair share. Don't take too much and share your produce. How can you minimise your impact, from growing vines to provide natural shade to learning to ferment?
"Everyday decisions we'll say 'is that permaculture? Is this a sustainable decision?' You have to choose the lesser of two evils," Smith says.
"There are many elements. I don't pretend to know a lot about it," White says.
Interesting fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers drape the path to their front door. The bees are buzzing and there are many interesting pods and blooms to investigate. And that's just the front yard.
They roughly designed their garden after they received a permaculture design certificate from Limestone Permaculture in the Karuah Valley. The certificate helped finalise their plans for different zones for different areas of their property.
The front is more of a permaculture example, and out back it's more of the typical summer vegie patch. The aquaponics go year round, as do the chickens.
The aquaponics run off solar and batteries. Aquaponics is a system that combines growing aquatic animals with hydroponics (growing plants without soil). Smith worked out how to run them after many hours of YouTube videos. Lachlan Storrie of Tree Frog Permaculture helped with the design and Smith also had a lot of trial and error.
"You've got to put the water in, circulate, and add water to it. Nitrogen fixing bacteria develops in the beds," Smith says. "Lachy can tell you all the technical terms about nitrates. Fish poo fertilises the plant and the plants suck the nutrients out of the water which gets cycled back to the fish for clean water."
They have silver perch in their aquaponics system and above they recommend growing things that like a lot of water such as silverbeet or leafy greens. They also grew turmeric and they've had a few fish fries with the silver perch.
In the front garden, the net house once grew broccoli and cabbages and now grows tomatoes. White grew leeks all through winter. They have perennial basil, which has smaller leaves but attracts the bees. She's still learning to grow from seed and she finds that root crops, such as carrots, are more difficult because the soil needs to be worked really well. Cherry tomatoes, zucchinis and snow peas are relatively easier to grow.
A lot of people complain about not being able to get their pawpaws to ripen, but they eat theirs green, shredding them in salads.
They're diet is mostly vegetarian. White loves growing Madagascar beans; she soaks them overnight and then puts them in the slow cooker. They grow heaps of chillis, and they make pickled cherry tomatoes, by skewering the cherry tomato and putting it in pickling juice (apple cider vinegar, water and salt). Then add garlic, basil leaf and pepper corns. They made last season's cucumbers into pickles too.
White is trying to be more conscious of the seasons and she follows a blog called gdonna.com for garden tips.
She probably spends an hour a day in the garden, not because she must but because she has fun pottering around, pulling off a snow pea or strawberry. She observes life; insects, bees, birds, skinks, a couple of black snakes. She puts hollow logs down so they hide.
"Because I'm working from home, I go out and eat my lunch and sit next to the beehive. I feel very pleased to say 'look what we've created'. There was nothing but grass here before," White says.
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