Sustainable Living on a Small Farm: How We Developed Our Working Model

Teaching Sustainability to Children The very definition of sustainability compels us to live within the means of the planet so that future generations can also meet their needs. Many global trends are escalating towards disaster. In the face of looming climate change and depleting oil reserves, just to name two of them, the only certainty we can have about the approaching … [Read more...] about Kids and Sustainable Living

Can you boost your health farming organic foods? Absolutely! In fact simple steps to a healthier life start in your own backyard. Reaping the benefits of leading a healthy lifestyle relies on good nutrition, the only reliable source of which is produce that is both organic and minerally balanced. Here we look at why… Proper functioning of the chemistry of life in all … [Read more...] about How to Boost Your Health Farming Organic Foods: Simple Steps to a Healthier Life

Happiness and Budgeting for Simple Living Green consumption is an intelligent response to many of the problems caused by our affluent society. On one level it is a way of taking personal responsibility for our impact on the planet. And more personally, ethical, intelligent consumption is a positive step towards our own happiness, offering a simpler, less stressful way of … [Read more...] about Green Consumption

Easy Ways to Reduce Your Impact on Earth Every person on Earth uses some of it. Your ecological footprint components comprise the choices you make to sustain your way of life. WHAT DEFINES AN ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT? More precisely, your ecological footprint is the area of viable, functioning land and water ecosystem that it takes to sustainably: Produce the resources you … [Read more...] about Calculating Ecological Footprint Components

Creating sustainable safe places to live is what Permaculture landscape design is all about. You can either create it yourself by applying Permie design principles, or take advantage of someone else's talent and hard work by finding an organic self-sufficient property for sale on our forum. Early in 2007 we bought this 5 acre property in the Perth hills. See below how we … [Read more...] about Creating Sustainable Safe Places to Live with Permaculture Landscape Design

For families downshifting to sustainable living, deciding what is good life style is the first step to finding, planning, and developing the ideal self-sufficient small farm. So start your adventure to a better life by defining your sustainable living aspirations. Each of these aspirations will require specific natural resources to be present on your perfect property. Here … [Read more...] about What is Good Life Style for Families Downshifting to Sustainable Living and… Will That Property Deliver?

An Easy, Cheap Land Surveying Process Explained Tackle land surveying basics early in the farm development process with this cheap land surveying process explained here for setting out farm buildings, earthworks and dams. Land surveying begins with constructing yourself an accurate but cheap land surveying instrument. Such an instrument is the Hose Level, which you can … [Read more...] about Land Surveying Basics

What is Living Soil? What is living soil? It is the key to sustainable soil structure management and fertility! A primary goal of sustainable living on a small farm is obviously to produce an abundance of safe nutritious food – enough to meet your needs as well as a surplus to barter with others or value add for addition income. To achieve this goal, you must first … [Read more...] about Sustainable Soil Structure Management and Fertility

Building a Green Home Here we share our straw bale house building experiences so you can learn about straw bale home construction. Interested in building a green home? Straw homes are a great option! Advantages of Straw Bail Homes Straw homes offer many advantages when building a green home. Straw bale home construction doesn’t require a lot of skill. Straw bail … [Read more...] about Straw Bale House Building

Installing an Electric Fence Using this efficient little solar fence charger we’re installing an electric fence for pasture rotation and temporary grazing. "Your solar electric fence charger is the best solution to manage my strip grazing. The horses really respect it. It worked so well and made strip grazing so easy I ordered another one!" Rachael Mathews, Prestige … [Read more...] about Using a Solar Fence Charger

Sustainable soil structure management and water conservation for small farm Permaculture can be achieved using strategic earthworks. We’ll show you the basic types of earthworks to make the most of the water that falls on your farm property and how to plan and build them to maximize soil and surface storages. As they are disruptive to the landscape, you’ll want to have … [Read more...] about Small Farm Earthworks for Sustainable Soil and Water Management on Permaculture Properties

Is it possible to sow pasture grass seeds without cultivating? Are seed balls the answer? We set out to test this method on our small farm Permaculture property and see for ourselves. Like many small farmers, we don’t own a tractor or have easy access to big machinery for cultivation and sowing. And the presence of lots of rocks on our land is a big constraint to using … [Read more...] about Using Seed Balls to Sow Pasture Grass Seeds on a Small Permaculture Farm

How to Install a Fence Post Installation and More New to the land? Planning to have livestock? Here’s a pasture fence field put up guide to help you get it right. It covers how to install a fence, from fence post installation to galvanized wire fence attachment, and includes fence cost and building a fence pictures. PASTURE FENCE PLANNING Before pasture fence field put … [Read more...] about Pasture Fence Field Put Up Guide