Worms, weeds and clover - things ticking over at Perth Community Farm

We're very keen to keep things ticking over at the farm, in spite of all the current challenges - such an important project! It's time to build local food security and community and I would hate to see the site revert to a carpet of weeds after all the hard work everyone has put in over the last couple of years. A few of us are keeping on top of the weeds in the main growing area, plan to grow a few easy things, try a few experiments we can maybe build on in the future and keep on building up the quality of the soil.

Easy to keep a safe distance... Julia, Gary and I have got the worst of the weeds in the main growing area under control.

OIL... get your pants up !!

The oil issue is going to catch us with our pants down if we don't wake up!

Guardian: "Over a barrel" here

Some of us have been expecting an end to the age of oil for years, but I never though I'd see a negative oil price. How long do you think producers will produce the stuff if they have to pay to have it stored? Then if production collapses and demand rises again what do you think will happen to the price?
And what happens if and when governments stop propping up the oil industry with subsidies, (put at $20 billion annually in the US, see here).

And where we will feel our lack of pants most suddenly in the industrial world is in our stomachs, as oil's used every step of the way in our food production - figures vary but something between 10 and 20 fossil fuel calories for every single food calorie.

So get growing! 

It's time to produce our food locally. If you have a garden, get some fruit and veg going, if you don't, grow stuff in jars or pots on your window ledge, if you don't have a window get some lights! Or help locally, there's loads of people with gardens they can't manage themselves and there's brilliant community projects like our own Perth Community Farm to get involved with. Even if you're a complete beginner you'll soon learn and have a lot of fun. It can be hard work but it's also very rewarding to see your stuff growing. You get more and more of a feeling of self reliance and a soul-satisfying connection with the land around you. The alternative is empty shelves in the supermarkets and at home, and empty stomachs.
At some point soon we need to be thinking at a local government level about local food security and larger scale local food production - have you seen an electric tractor yet?

Fifty Pioneering Acres - a bit more about Lammas Ecovillage

So how do we move on from industrial agriculture to a sustainable way of producing food (...and everything else we need)? Here's a bit more about the Lammas project which certainly has at least some of the answers.
I thought it sounded brilliant when I first heard about it back in 2008 and went on to volunteer there several times. Check out their website too.

BEFORE: the fields of the 50 acre site were heavily grazed by sheep and didn't produce much of an income for one family

AFTER: a group of nine families bought the site and moved on, each developing their land and building their home on it in their own way. Planning permission was possible because of the Welsh One Planet Development initiative, many more sites have now been developed in this way. One of the planning stipulations was that each family should gain part of their income from working on the land, which they successfully do in various ways. I love the way it's teeming with life now!

There's a lot of preparation work in a project like this, planning roads, paths, fences, gates etc etc etc

Serious road making equipment, I wonder how many man hours it would have taken to put in the roads without fossil fuel...

Nigel and Cassie's plot, they're the couple I initially got in touch with and volunteered for, mainly on their roundhouse.

Start of the roof going up.

That's Simon Dale of grand design fame helping with the reciprocating timbers. His own website has more about his wonderful buildings and natural living philosophy.

That's me! Always though it was funny to be wearing hard hats when you were in much more danger from those wicked hazel spikes used to fix the straw bales to the wall.

The project attracted loads of volunteers and has had a wonderful rippling out effect of inspiration and experience. There's nothing like a practical demonstration of something - worth a hundred books.

Nigel, dry for once...

Nigel and Cassie's finished home.

At the top of the Lammas plot, This is Simon Dale's first house their, another roundhouse, nestling into the hillside.

Reclaimed windows form the inside of the Earthship style passive solar heating.

Simon let the roof timbers to the back of the house go down to the ground, making some useful storage space and allowing a very natural looking turf roof to sweep up over it.

The attached green house gathers the suns heat which is stored in all the earth mass.

Looking comfy!

Home sweet home.

Here's links to my original Ian's Eco Blog posts from 2009 about volunteering at Lammas:First Building Work at Lammas
Lammas: Nigel and Cassie's Roundhouse
Volunteers everywhere!
Simon and Jasmin's Roundhouse

FOOD! Dachas for Perth - why not?

The coronavirus has underlined just how reliant we are on a very long and fragile supply chain for our food. We've got used to getting not just luxury items but staple every day foods from all over the world. How much of the food we consume here in Perth was produced anywhere nearby? I'd guess about 5%? We're very vulnerable here to all sorts of upheaval: there's talk of a lack of people to work in the fields, let alone our changing weather patterns and the reliance on fossil fuel for our industrial agriculture.

Petrochemical use in every part of industrial food production, transport is just one. Notice the current oil price of $26 a barrel. If it costs $60 to produce that barrel of oil how long do you think companies will be producing it?

Meanwhile, the Russians grow about half of their own food on their "dachas" - sort of mini country estates. As I understand it, any Russian can apply for one of these at no cost to himself for the use of the land.

This is from an article in the Small Farmer's Journal.
"Dacha gardening accounts for about 3% of the arable land used in agriculture, but grows an astounding 50% by value of the food eaten by Russians. According to official government statistics in 2000, over 35 million families (approximately 105 million people or 71% of the population) were engaged in dacha gardening. These gardens provide 92% of Russia’s potatoes, 77% of its vegetables, 87% of the berries and fruit, 59% of its meat and 49% of the milk produced nationally. There are several studies that indicate that these figures may be underestimated, as they don’t take into account the self-provisioning efforts of wild harvesting or foraging of wild-growing plants, berries, nuts and mushrooms, as well as fishing and hunting that contributes to the local food economy."
So what's stopping us doing something like that around Perth?

Intrepid! Early Days at Lammas Eco Village

This is a repost from "Ian's Eco Blog", all about my times exploring what a sustainable way of life might look like in the flesh. Back in 2009/2010, I heard of inspiring work going on at the Lammas Eco Village in Pembrokeshire, Wales and made several trips to help out there. This was in the very early days of the project, strictly for the intrepid...
I spent most of my three weeks at Lammas helping Nigel and Cassie Leishman in building their roundhouse. They had the upright wooden framework or henge built (to left of picture above) and the start of the 18" low circular wall which will carry the straw bales forming the rest of the walls. Amazingly, they are living on site in a truck, a yurt and an army tent with their three children during their building work. It was tough going through the terrible November weather and they get huge respect from me! Nigel is managing to grin and wave in the photo in spite of the weather and all my terrible attempts at humour...


Everything takes much more effort than when you're living in a nice little suburban box. Water has to be carried in. Cooking, washing up and chopping wood are done partly by torch light and then there are the composting toilets.... you certainly don't hang around doing a crossword in these. Simon's is mostly open to the North and only partly covered by a tarpaulin to the South so it's quite an experience to use in wet and windy weather. The door blew off Nigel's and is just propped up as strength permits. You get used to them though, they are a great leveler and peel away yet another layer of suburban middle class attitude.
We just did as much as we could during the daylight, sheltering from the worst of the rain and gales. At nights we fired up the stoves and got warmed up again. I used to read stories to the younger two kids by wind-up torchlight which was good fun - the kids seem to be quite happy with their way of life, composting toilet and all. They squabble a bit like any kids but I don't remember them ever moaning about the cold, damp or mud - great kids!

Fellow volunteer Ailsa and I helped Cassie build up the stone wall. My only other experience of stone wall building was recently at Tombreck but I really got into it and we developed a way of making a strong wall with the rough stones laying around the site - "Use what you've got" - a good motto. The spikes set in the wall will help to keep the bales in place.

One morning the weather didn't look too bad so Simon and the volunteers helping him on his own house further up the hill all came down to help us to put up the timbers for the reciprocating roof. (Nice bit of cooperation and skill sharing on the go there.) These are really clever structures - each pole is resting on its neighbour, there is very little in the way of cutting or fitting to do and there is supposed to be very little outward horizontal force directed into the structure. Two hours had the first ten main beams up. They were big bits of wood to move around though and I was glad to see them all bolted together eventually.



That's me up on the roof fixing smaller branches from around the site on to the main roof poles which will take the bales, pond liner and turf forming the completed roof.