Guest post by Alisa Bryce

Water repellence is when water can’t filter into a soil. Instead it pools on top and often runs off, sometimes causing erosion.

Water repellent soil (or hydrophobic soil) develops for two main reasons.

1. When the soil has remained dry for a prolonged period
2. The soil particles become covered with a waxy coating

Fresh compost and mulches are a frequent source of waxy coatings. This is why it’s important to use aged compost and mulch.

In Australia, overhanging eucalyptus trees are another common culprit of water repellence. As the leaves decompose, the eucalyptus oil inside is released and coats soil particles.

To work out of your soil is hydrophobic, take a handful of dry soil and make a small depression in the centre. Gently pour a small amount of water into the depression. If the water pools, and does not infiltrate, your soil is most likely hydrophobic. The following table will help you ascertain the severity of water repellence in your soil.

The science behind water repellence

Water has cohesive forces, which attract water molecules to each other. Adhesive forces are what attract water and other substances such as soil. If the soil particles become coated with waxy material, they repel the water from the soil surface. The cohesive forces between the water molecule is now stronger than the adhesion between the water and the soil, forcing the water molecules together and away from the soil.

Dealing with a water repellent soil organically

Traditionally, water repellence has been managed by using wetting agents. Wetting agents help remove the waxy coatings from soil particles. Like a washing up detergent, they mix the waxes with water, which can then be washed away. There are some biodegradable wetting agents available, but these should be a last resort. In order for a wetting agent to work, they need to persist in the soil for around 6 months. That’s 6 months of chemicals residing in your garden!

Luckily, there are some natural ways to deal with water repellence.

1. Make sure your soil doesn’t stay dry for long periods. Quite often, if a soil has been dry or a long time, repellence will abate once the soil wets up again. It’s a good idea to check your soil moisture on a weekly basis. If the soil feels very dry, add some water.
2. Keep a garden with good topsoil depth and texture. Good depth means greater than 200mm. Good texture means a sandy loam or heavier. Having good texture and depth is important because if affects how fast the soil will dry out. For example, a shallow sand will dry out much faster than a deep, loamy soil. And the faster your soil dries out, the faster water repellence can develop.
3. Maintain healthy soil structure. A well structured soil will have about 50% pore space. Pores allow water to infiltrate, and plant roots to breathe. If your soil is compacted, you need to aerate. You can aerate by pushing a garden fork into the soil to create new pores.
4. Avoid using raw mulches – compost the mulch first to allow soil micro-organisms and bacteria to break down the waxy and oily material.

It is also important to regularly check your soil for development of water repellence. Catching repellence early is the best chance you have to manage it organically.

For more information on how to manage your soil organically, visit www.organicsoilguide.com. This recently released ebook details the best way to care for your garden organically, starting with the foundation – the soil.

“Running Water” by Jessica Melling

There are two very important reasons why we should all be doing our bit to help conserve water. There is the obvious money-saving benefit that comes with using less water but in my view the second reason is something most of us do not about nearly enough – the environment.

In the developed world, having easily accessible water is not considered a luxury, but although we take running water for granted, the fact is that less than 1% of all fresh water in the world is easily accessible to humans.

In under-developed countries, more than 884 million people lack easy access to safe, clean water, and this number is still growing. This means that only about one in every eight people has water when and where they need it. This alone should motivate you to use water sparingly, but in addition to this; using water, particularly hot water, contributes to global warming by increasing the emissions of greenhouse gases. The average family in the developed world uses about 500 litres of water per day, which produces around 1.5 tons of greenhouse gasses every year.

It is therefore, extremely important that we all try to conserve water. I recognise that you are likely busy in your everyday life so I wanted to offer 5 simple tips which are easy to implement and will lead to a dramatic increase in the amount of water you save and a big reduction in your water bills.

1. Fix Leaks

You may not think that a leaky faucet or shower head wastes a lot of water, but all those drops add up and a leaky faucet could waste up to 75 litres of water per day. So just imagine how much water a larger leak could be wasting in your property. There’s a reason why the water companies are so proactive about ensuring they fix leaks across their pipe network – if we all get involved and fix leaks in our own homes, just imagine the impact we can have.

2. Invest in a Low Flow Toilet

Flushing the toilet is of course a basic hygiene requirement but believe it or not toilets use about 40% of the total daily water consumption in a household. Using a more efficient flush system for your toilet could greatly reduce that percentage and save you a lot of money in the long run.

3. Use Water Efficient Shower Heads and Faucets

Today, we use nearly 50% more water than we used to. This is partly down to the fact that showers have become more powerful and household appliances use more water to run. Showers and faucets make up about 35% of our total daily water consumption. By using more efficient faucets and shower heads, you can still enjoy your showers, but with the knowledge that you are not using more water than you need to.

4. Turn Off the Water While Brushing Teeth or Shampooing Hair

Leaving the water running while you brush your teeth or massage the shampoo into your hair is not only entirely unnecessary, it can also waste hundreds of litres of water. By simply turning off the tap while doing these things, you can save money and the environment.

5. Insulate Your Homes Water Pipes

When taking a shower, you probably need to leave the water running for a few minutes to warm up before you get in. By insulating your water pipes, the water will heat up much faster, and you can save water by not leaving the water on for longer than you have to. It also pays to have your water heater checked at least yearly, to ensure that it is working as efficiently as possible.

By James A, a freelance writer working on behalf of Sydney Water Tanks

I have recently come across this inspiring artist, Oles iz Luboistoka. As you’ve probably gathered, he is not an English performer. He is a Russian singer and song writer, who lives in an eco village called Luboistok. The village is comprised of family domains, who strive to be in harmony with nature, improve the space they live in and be happy (please see the Ringing Cedars series for details on family domains).

I am so moved by his music that I’ve decided I must share it with the English-speaking world. I’ve picked one of the songs called “Swamp and River” and tackled its translation in the most accurate manner. You can listen to the song below (as well as download it). It’s completely legal, Oles offers ALL of his music for download on his website!

Болото и Река (Swamp and River)

Болото и Река, Олесь из Любоистока
(Swamp and River by ‘Oles iz Luboistoka’)

translation by Tatyana

A stagnant swamp asked the river,
“Where does your endlessness and speed originate?”
The river answered playfully, all bubbling with cheer,
“All that I have received I simply give away.”

But the swamp was not content, his thoughts were madly fighting:
“For what? How much? And where did she come from anyway?!”
Collecting petty evidence the swamp was sadly writing
A list of river’s flaws all night and through the day.

“The river is unstable, she shifts, she bends with splatter,
She’s always running downhill, overflowing with youth,
But her re-education is just a simple matter,
Because of her transparency she cannot grasp the truths.”

The river in the mean time—with clear bright emotions—
Embraced all little springs, where rivers find their birth,
And to the very last drop gave her body to the ocean,
Thus continuing the water’s cycle around the Earth.

Still in the same place, the swamp just stood unmoving,
Still pondering the river’s re-education theme,
But then the swamp remembered, that in his youth he dared
To also dream of being a clear mountain stream.

Russian Lyrics and Guitar Chords

Source: http://www.luboistok.ru/songs/boloto_i_reka

For those of you who can read Russian (and perhaps even play guitar), here are the Russian song lyrics along with guitar cords. Meet you by the campfire!

If you’ve enjoyed this music and poetry, you can download all of the songs by ‘Oles iz Luboistoka’ on his website for free (click where it says ‘Даром’). Keep the positive vibes coming : )

http://www.luboistok.ru/songs

Guest post by Yvonne Lee of www.bargainhunter.com.au

I first came across the concept of Aquaponics a few years ago. I think it was from reading some discussion forums on Aussies Living Simply, but it could have been from a number of places. I even bought the Murray Hallam DVD and made my husband and a couple of friends watch it with me. At the time we had a pond with a few koi and so we rigged up a simple system to cycle some water into a laundry bucket which had some holes punched into it and some blue metal. I managed to grow a few vegies in there quite well and the water did become a lot clearer. I can’t find a picture of the very first laundry bucket system but here is a picture of the pond we had:

Later, we ended up building ‘strawberry’ towers attached to the pond. It was an amazing system and quite (in my eyes) elaborate. This definitely cleared the water a lot better and gave us some tasty strawberries. This time we used PVC pipes and clay beads and a timer based water pump.

The instructions on how to build these are similar to these ones found on Instructables. We would have modified it to our needs and the PVC pipes we used were 80mm. We even painted them so they wouldn’t be stark white.

We planted basil, strawberries and other small herbs in these towers and they were pretty successful. We didn’t have the load of a normal aquaponics systems as we only had up to 9 koi at any time and the water pump was only turned on during the daylight hours via a timer.

Early 2011, we had to move house and we decided to rent out our place where we had this system installed. The system was dismantled and the pond filled in. But what to do with the fish? As we were renting ourselves we couldn’t just dig a pond like we did previously. After a lot of searching I found a poly farm trough which would be big enough to sustain our fish (we felt it cruel to try and find a smaller ‘pond’ for them to swim in). Most of the other pond options were either too small or too shallow or needed to be dug into the ground. And I wasn’t keen on a keeping them in a tank.

After a short period of time for the fish to settle in, version two of the PVC aquaponics system was developed. The first system was hung from a beam but this time we didn’t have anything to hang them on so instead the water ‘channels’ would sit and rest on the pond.
This system consists of 5 pots per channel and in each of the pots has a heap of holes drilled into it and the medium are clay beads. I used seedlings rather than seeds to pot them up. Rather than strawberries I have a mix of basil, lettuce, cos lettuce, rocket and parsley growing.

One thing to note is that we used to have the water return outlet to cause bubbles to be created (thinking that some oxygen would be good for the pond) but had three fish fatalities! They were sizeable koi so I was quite devastated. My theory is that the fish jumped ‘up’ the water flow so they could try and spawn. The system was modified so that the water was returned straight ‘down’ and just at the level of the water to cause minimum splashing.

Guest post by Yvonne Lee of www.bargainhunter.com.au

It’s currently mango season and I’ve been consuming a heap of mangoes. I have been buying cases of mangoes (16 to a box) for around $10 – $20. I started buying up early due to the (then) ridiculous prices of bananas. Now the bananas have dropped in price to $0.99 per kilo I’m still buying my mangoes but have backed it off a bit. I’ve noticed the mangoes are coming from all around Australia now.  Early in the season I bought ones from Northern Territory and now it seems as if my mangoes are from QLD but I’ve also seen Western Australian mangoes in the stores. I’m not sure if they have always come from those places and I hadn’t paid attention to them previously. Nowadays all the mangoes seem to have labels on them so they are easier to identify where they are from.

With the glut of mangoes at our place I was filling up our ice cream container for worm food really quickly, especially since the pit took up a lot of space in the container! I decided to google how to grow a mango tree from a pit. It seemed a logical thing to do…anyway there were some wonderful pictures, instructions and YouTube videos which helped me.

Did you know the pit of the mango isn’t actually the seed…it’s the seed inside a casing! The first step is to break out the seed from the pit. This is dangerous work and I found the safest (for me) was to use a vegetable peeler and “peel” the edge off so I could open the pit to get to the seed.

This is a picture of the clam like pit opened up with the seed inside:

I then carefully extracted the seed from the pit shell…

This is then soaked in a shallow tray or bowl of water with water changes whenever the water is a bit manky. In time (maybe a couple of weeks?) a little shoot comes up and leaves sprout. This is a picture of one of my recent successes:

The first one has been potted and been sitting outside. It’s looking a bit sad and limp but I’m not sure if it’s because it doesn’t like the soil or the weather. At least it’s still alive!

I’ve also got a few more ready to pot soon:

Some of the other seeds which didn’t look decent enough after I got them out of the pit, I put in the worm farm. Lo and behold a few of them sprouted. I tried to pot them up but some bug ate the leaves so the chances of them surviving are very slim. I think I’ll keep them inside if I find anymore.

One thing I did find in one of the pits I opened up was a bug (a black beetle)! It crawled out (and creeped me out a bit). It obviously ate the mango seed – I have no idea if these beetles normally survive or bore their way out at some stage. Strangely enough that batch the beetle was found in was one of the BEST ever tasting mangoes – I’m kicking myself now for not making a note of the name of the mango farm/brand. I went back to the fruit shop and they didn’t have anymore.

Guest post by Sharon Lee of FlavourCrusader

Urban honey has grown in popularity worldwide, particularly in Europe. I note that Melbourne city has picked up the trend, but what of Sydney?

“Sydney also has many city beekeepers who’ve been producing rooftop and backyard honey for many years,” said Lyndon Fenlon of Melbourne’s Urban Honey Co.

Meet Richard Foote. His bees reside in suburban Sydney. His method of production is to simply cut the caps then divide the honeycomb into sellable portions. He sells his honey online, and also through Flemington and Penrith markets.

Extraction demo by Doug Purdie

Doug Purdie’s hives reside in community gardens, rooftops and backyards across central Sydney. He honey is branded The Urban Bee Hive and is sold through FoodConnect Sydney and the Sydney Sustainable Markets. He extracts the honey and bottles it.

During an extraction demonstration, I reached out for a small sample of honey. How good could it possibly be?

Oh my.

The honey is much sweeter with a distinct rich flavour. It tastes alive!

But why does urban honey taste different?

Honey 101

Honeybees collect nectar from flowers with their long, tube-like tongues. The nectar is stored in their special honey stomach; inside, it mixes with proteins and enzymes that convert it into honey. Once their stomachs are full, the honeybees then return to the hive and drop the honey into the honeycomb, and repeat the process until it’s full. They then cap the honeycomb with beeswax.

To remove the honey, producers cut the caps then spin the frames in an extractor until the honey flies out onto the walls of a drum, which then drips into a tank. The honey is then cleaned; most debris can be skimmed from the top.

During the cleaning process, producers heat the honey briefly then strain it. Others also pressure-filter their honey to remove pollen; the honey is heated to a higher temperature for this.

Packers buy honey from many producers then blend it together. Sometimes they blend local honey with that sourced from overseas; this is more common with larger-scale production.

The urban honey difference

Purdie, Foote and other small-scale honey producers do not heat or pasteurize their honey, nor do they blend it with honey from other sources. When you buy honey from them, it comes raw from the single source.

It’s fresh too – Purdie’s bottles come dated – mine was packed in August.

The urban honey producers also note that the city landscape is filled with trees of many varieties. As the urban trees bloom and grow different species become predominant; their honey changes in flavour.

Purdie particularly loves his honey in December. If I were you, I’d try it then, too.

Note: raw honey should not be fed to infants under twelve months of age.

The latest issue of Sprout Magazine, titled “A BREADUCATION”, just hit the shelves a couple of weeks ago, and with this arrived my complementary copy. Magazine’s publisher and editor Diane Jardine is incredibly warm and wonderful, and she always forwards me a copy, when there is an article I’ve written. This time it was a “Winter Planting Guide” (if you would like to see the pages of the article, please click the images below).

Cover

page 1

page 2

I really enjoy reading Sprout Magazine. It’s amongst the only food and conscious-living magazines that focus on our dear local Sydney. It’s one thing to read about hypothetical actions that we could take. But it’s a very different feeling you get, when you read about an exceptional bakery, who cherishes and practices the traditional ways of making sourdough starter with naturally occurring wild yeast (as opposed to chemically derived starters), and then have the ability to visit this place and to look for their products in your local store.

Specifically, in this case I am talking about Brasserie Bread bakery. This issue of Sprout features an interview with chef and baker Michael Klausen, who shares the history, values and public offerings of Brasserie Bread with the readers. Brasseries go beyond just striving to make the best bread possible, but they also educate consumers and wholesale buyers about the benefits of choosing Artisan Bread. They even offer a variety of baking classes, so we can all appreciate the values of tradition, and maybe even make our own loaf! I plan to attend one of their courses myself.

This issue of Sprout Magazine also features an article about ancient grains (quinoa, spelt, einkorn and others), a seasonal shopping guide, plenty of cold-weather recipes and books/DVDs reviews. It’s an issue not-to-be missed. You’ll enjoy it!

Stay warm, thanks for reading .