[ July 4, 2010; 2:00 pm; ] The next Jamberoo Community Growers meeting is this Sunday, 4th July, at 2:00pm in the Jamberoo Anglican Church Hall (next to Jamberoo Primary School). The speakers this week will Robert Curll and Darren Collins, talking about green manures, building up garden soil, and overwintering garden beds. All the good stuff you can be doing now [...]

Thanks to the web site IfItWasMyHome.com, this map gives some perspective on the size of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf Of Mexico (click to see full-size image).

I’ve centered the spill around Kiama (NSW, Australia) to show its sheer size in relation to the Illawarra region.

You can see that if the spill area [...]

I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak at the launch of Kiama Council’s new Kiamasphere web site on Thursday.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ll probably know that our sustainability journey really got going when my family joined the Sustainable Illawarra Super Challenge. It gave us the impetus to stop [...]

I’ve had an old second fridge in the garage for a long time now, and I’ve been meaning to try out the Fridge BuyBack scheme to get rid of it. It’s extremely energy-inefficient.

If your fridge meets the requirements (over 10 years old, over 250 litres, working second fridge) and you have less than 6 steps [...]

[ June 24, 2010; 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm. ] After the great turnout and positive feedback from our “Food, Inc” movie night, Jamberoo Community Growers is putting on another one! The movie we’re showing this time is “In Transition 1.0″, an upbeat movie suitable for all ages looking at Transition initiatives from around the world: http://transitionculture.org/in-transition/ A Transition Initiative (which could be a town, village, university or island [...]

[ July 11, 2010; 10:00 am to 1:00 pm. ] Slow Food Saddleback Inc invites you to… live off the land (without cattle or sheep rustling) and impress your friends and guests with your inside/out cooking skills at a Camp Oven Cooking Workshop! Learn to cook (and eat) a slow-cooked, three course meal from the experts at the ‘Camp Oven Cooking Club Inc’ at 10:00 am, Sunday 11th July, 2010. Venue: [...]

A few weeks ago I attended another Sustainable Illawarra workshop – “Starting a Backyard Veggie Patch” at Jamberoo Primary School. Megan then attended the repeat of the workshop a week later. It was great that we were both able to do effectively the same workshop without need to organise child care!

The workshop was delivered by [...]

What a great turnout we had at yesterday’s Jamberoo Community Growers meeting!

Don Cairns, former resident of Kiama and Kangaroo Valley and now living in Nowra, gave an excellent talk about growing food through the season.

Don has been gardening for many years, and understands our climate and weather patterns very well. His tips and local knowledge [...]

[ August 22, 2010; 9:00 am to 2:00 pm. ] Venue: Berry Poultry Pavilion located at the Berry Showground Alexandra Street Berry NSW Date: Sunday 22 August April 2010 Time: Poultry Shed will open from from 9am to view the birds. The Auction will commence at 10.30am. All buyers much register prior to bidding. Penning fee: $3 per pen maximum 3 birds per pen and no commissions. Limited pens [...]

[ June 28, 2010; 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm. ] TAFE NSW Illawarra Institute Dapto Campus My Productive Backyard Course Information and Enrolment Session The Outreach unit at Dapto Campus is running FREE practical workshops on organic gardening and sustainable backyard food production every Thursday from July 22nd until September 16th through the ‘My Productive Backyard Course’. At this information session, you can find out more about [...]