Pip Magazine Issue 3

BERNADETTE O’LEARY Bernadette is a recycled natural resource management professional, formerly working for governments and NGOs on environmental planning/ programs/projects/processes. She retrained as an editor as a pre-retirement project, got accredited and now subedits Pip articles. After spending most of her adult years in Canberra, she now lives between a tiny town block and forty hectares of bush in the Bega Valley, NSW. Bernadette brings her science training and environmental ethics to her interests in bushland management and gardening, but is only a beginner food grower and seed saver. A PDC has not yet come her way. PAUL GOODSELL Paul is relatively new on the permaculture block. He stumbled upon the concept back in 2010 when he was helping establish a guerrilla community garden on a disused block in the back streets of…

Issue three, here we are. Pip Magazine is now into its second year of publishing and it is growing strong. What began as a crazy, out-there idea is now well and truly a happening thing. As they say, it takes a community to raise a child, well it takes a community, a permaculture community, to raise a Pip Magazine. Yes, there are few key people that pull it together and make it happen but it is the whole permaculture community that support it and help it grow. If you the reader didn’t buy the magazine we wouldn’t be here. If all the people that gave to our crowdfunding campaign didn’t do their bit, we never would have printed the first issue, if all the newsagents and stockists didn’t have Pip on…

TORRI SUPERIORE ECOVILLAGE, NORTHERN ITALY Not far from the north-western coast of Italy, near the French border, is a beautiful and fascinating ecovillage created out of a crumbling medieval village. The Torri Superiore Cultural Association was founded in 1989 to restore and re-inhabit the abandoned village and create a cultural centre. Torri was an early adopter of permaculture in Italy, and continues to lead permaculture education programs. The restored stone village is surrounded by farming terraces, many of which the Association manages as permaculture gardens and orchards. It also tends free range chickens and produces many homemade products such as bread, pasta, olive oil, honey, jam, yogurt, ice-cream, culinary herbs and herbal teas. To produce the olive oil, the Association worked with neighbours and the local community to restore the old water-powered…

CLASSIC HOLMGREN David Holmgren’s book Permaculture: principles & pathways beyond sustainability (2002) is still in demand around the world. With editions now in ten languages, it is reaching more people than ever. The new e-book format allows people to carry it with them anywhere. Another advantage of this format is that the website links (and there are many) have been updated; with a web connected device you can look up the references instantly. And the footnotes are linked throughout the text. This e-book will enable people in countries where postage costs are prohibitive to finally get hold of David’s book at an affordable price. The e-book is available in e-pub format for $19 from www.holmgren.com.au We are also selling printed copies in our shop at www.pipmagazine.com.au WHO GIVES A CRAP? who gives a crap® is…

AUSTRALASIAN PERMACULTURE CONVERGENCE (APC) 12 March 7–15 2015, Penguin, Tasmania. Our planet is going though the most rapid rate of change in its history, and we face a future of surprises, threats and opportunities. We in the permaculture community have a key role to play in both mending the present and creating our preferable future. To be part of this future we need to take stock of where we are as a design system. That’s why Australia’s permaculture community of practitioners is coming together in March on the shores of Bass Strait in beautiful Penguin, Tasmania, for APC12. Here we will reflect, take stock and re-imagine permaculture’s role in a future that can be different from the usual depressing, business as usual scenario, and energise ourselves for the tasks ahead. APC12 will be a…

Botanical name: Acca sellowiana (formerly Feijoa sellowiana). Common names: feijoa, pineapple guava. Origin: South America; widely cultivated in New Zealand. Description: an attractive evergreen shrub with edible fruit; the rounded leaves are green on top and cream below; flowers are pink with prominent red stamens; fruit is oval and green. PERMACULTURE USES: The utility and adaptability of feijoa make it a useful permaculture plant – a feijoa hedge has become a permaculture cliché! • Fruit is eaten fresh, scooped from the inedible skin, or made into jellies, wines, crumbles, smoothies and many other delicacies. • The flower petals are fragrant, sweet and edible. They can be removed carefully from the flower without affecting the subsequent fruit, and then used as a garnish, in fruit salad or just as a treat while in the garden. • The plants can…