The Deep Living Project- Exploring Regenerative Living..

Identifying Edible Weeds

I had a chance to go for an edible weed foray with my friends Adam and Annie from Eat That Weed.
It was early autumn here in south eastern Australia and quite dry but we still managed to find some of their favourite edible weeds including dandelion, purslane and sow thistle.
They shared with the Deep Living Project why weeds are important to pay attention to and how to broaden your diet by including some super charged edible weeds jammed full of nutrients to keep you healthy!
This is a great place to start if you're new to edible weeds and a great way to learn to see your landscape as a foodscape.
Adam and Annie have written an incredible book featured on the video called "The Weed Foragers Handbook" that you can find at eatthatweed.com

How To Grow Tulsi - Sacred Basil

Joel Orchard from Future Feeders tells about his Tulsi bushes growing around the market gardens. The tulsi plant is a perennial bush that is used for medicine, to make tea and for religious ceremonies in India.

Polycultures and Companion Planting - A Story of Three Sisters

The three sisters also known as the three wives is a companion planting technique developed and refined by a number of different native american tribes using corn, climbing beans and a squash variety. There is a synergy between the three crops in a handful of different ways. The corn provides a trellis for the climbing beans, the beans, being leguminous, fix nitrogen and the squash plants, with their rambling nature, smother out weeds.

Attracting Beneficial Insects to the Garden

Tim, my neighbouring gardener at the community gardens, shared some observations he made around his well established mugwort plant. Mugwort is no stranger to me, my partner is a Chinese Medicine practitioner and uses mugwort extensively in her practice. What I didn’t know was that mugwort is a haven for beneficial insects. Tim noticed a dozen or so different species of beneficial insects on and around his mugwort plant even when it wasn’t even in flower.

Propagation from Cuttings

CERES Plant Propagation brings back some memories. I volunteered for a day when it was first launched. The CERES team was prepping the site for the first polytunnel and I spent the day potting on dozens of herbs with a handful of other volunteers.

Five years later and the Propagation Enterprise has grown steadily. They now have a dedicated propagation area, sheltered from the elements with benches at the perfect height so you're not hunching over and messing up your back, they've built two more polytunnels and have a shade house to harden off the seedlings before planting out on the farm.

I spent the day filming the goings on at propagation. They rely on volunteers to help prepare the seedling trays, plant the seeds and pot on the seedlings but CERES Prop is never short on volunteer numbers! Trading work hours to learn the in's and out's of plant propagation is a pretty good deal, I'd know, I spent six months volunteering there.

Meg Stewart, one of the Propagation Managers showed us a simple plant cutting technique to help get your herb garden growing on the cheap. 

You'll need
• A sharp pair of secateurs or a knife
• Some free draining potting mix (low in nutrients)
• A well established Stock Plant to take cuttings from
• A sheltered spot out of direct sunlight to let your cuttings strike (form roots)

You can boil down taking herbaceous soft stem plant cuttings to 3 simple steps

1. Remove most of the leaves from your cutting leaving a few near the top
2. Cut the stem just below a plant node
3. Plant the cutting in moist free draining potting mix

That's about as simple as it gets. Meg goes into detail in the short video, talking about plant nodes, stem and root cells and the reason why it helps to remove most of the leaves from the cutting.
Some easy to strike herbs would include

• Mint (this one is easy peasy!)
• Pineapple sage (featured in the video)
• Vietnamese Mint
• Lemon Balm

Remember to keep your cuttings in a nice dappled shady spot and the potting mix damp while your cuttings form roots. After 2-4 weeks give the cuttings a gentle tug. If there's some resistance it's a pretty good sign that your cuttings have formed roots. But don't get too excited and pot them on just yet! Let them get established and really take hold for another week or so and then you can pot them on to their own individual pots.

Happy Growing!

Pasture Raised Chickens- Regenerative Agriculture on New Zealand Taranaki Farm

Taranaki Farm is truly a wonderful place to witness. The farm focuses on producing pastured poultry, beef and pork, with laying hens moved onto new pasture every few days. It is a great combination of high tech and old-world, using electric fencing to keep the animals on fresh grass. This style of animal management helps to keep the animals parasite free, eliminates the problems of over grazing and gives the pastures a good hit of natural fertility! Ben Falloon the Taranaki Farm steward is passionate about regenerative agriculture and was more than happy to show us his systems that he's worked out to keep the farm highly productive and chemical free. Instead of telling people what Taranaki Farm is about he prefers to show them and runs farm tours.

He has inspired us so much here at The Deep Living Project that we are thinking of doing a whole series on regenerative agriculture!

How To: Worm Farming- Market Gardening and Soil Fertility

Here Joel Orchard from the Future Feeders shows us their approach to boost soil health and feed the soil on their 2 acre market garden plot. Worm farms are easy to maintain, produce an excellent soil improver, and can be set to run through the irrigation system for a more passive fertilising approach.
Brilliant!