Lots of photos from the Kiama Sustainability Expo and Kiama Community Garden Open Day, held on Sunday. There were lots of local organisations and businesses present, as well as celebrity gardener Costa from SBS. What a top day!

A complete summary of the costs for our first foray into raising our own pigs for meat, from piglet purchase right through to slaughter and butchering.

Effective midnight tonight, the NSW Government has announced a revamping of the Solar Bonus Scheme – the gross feed-in tariff for solar electricity has been reduced from 60c per kWh to 20c per kWh.

I spent most of Sunday helping to staff the Jamberoo FutureCare table at the Shellharbour Solar Expo, at Shellharbour Workers’ Club (who actually have 22 kW of solar panels installed themselves – see photo).

The expo was organised by Jamberoo FutureCare, in conjunction with Shellharbour and Kiama Councils. There were a number of solar power and solar hot water suppliers there, displaying their products and giving people quotes. There was also a wind power company and a few other energy-related displays. FutureWorld had the table next to us, which was great …

We went to the Dapto Markets on Sunday morning to try to buy a few things we need around the yard. What an awesome place!

The markets are a great place to buy second hand clothes, toys, tools, etc for very good prices. Or if you’ve accumulated a whole bunch of that sort of stuff yourself, you can book a stall and sell it off! There are also regulars at the markets selling fresh fruit and vegetables, plants, hot food, CDs, and all sorts of other things.

One of the main things …

There was a very good segment on ABC TV’s Landline show last Sunday, How Green Was My Valley, on the challenges faced by dairy farmers as our climate slowly changes. You can watch it online.

The first 10 minutes or so focuses on a Victorian dairy famer, and the problems he faces when water allocations are cut back in dry years.

Then the story moves on to Jamberoo dairy famers Michael and Lynne Strong, from Clover Hill Dairies. They talk about the warming climate trend, and some of the methods they use …

My friend DiscoPig is getting a new vegetable garden started on the common area in the block of flats where he lives, along with a few of the other residents. He liked my DIY tumbling compost bin, so we set out to find some suitable plastic barrels.

This proved to be harder than I expected. Last time I looked (8 years ago!) you could get drums from pet feed stores, country stores, etc. Most of them no longer seem to stock them.

A horse-owning friend at work mentioned to us that horse-people …

I love discovering new local green businesses. Today for some reason I checked out the public noticeboard in the Kiama View shopping center, and noticed a business card for Eco Manifesto. It didn’t have much information on it, but the name intrigued me so I looked them up when I got home to see what they were about.

Eco Manifesto is a family-run business operating out of Gerringong, selling sustainable living products like beeswax candles, personal care products, homewares, green cleaning supplies, books, toys and more.

The owners, Chrissy and Simon, started …

If you need some hardware supplies for your green projects and you live in the Illawarra, you might be able to pick up some good bargains at Magnet Mart’s Albion Park Rail store from tomorrow.

They’re closing down, and ALL STOCK MUST GO! (Sorry, that has to be in all-capitals because that’s how it’s always said!) Prices are being marked down by up to 75%.

If you pick up a bargain, leave a comment and let us know!

If you’re in Australia and have been thinking about getting a grid-connected solar power system, there’s a really good deal right now with Earth Utility. If you order before 15 December 2008, it’ll cost $2,500 installed (after rebates, RECs, etc and excluding utility connection costs).

WARNING: Earth Utility appears to be in trouble (updated 28-04-2010)

I just rang them, and the story is that they need to receive your application forms (downloadable from their web site) no later than Monday the 15th. So if you’re interested, you’ll need to fill them out …