I’ve long had the feeling that more and more people are getting into things like growing their own food, keeping chickens, and living sustainably. But then my own interest in these areas has been growing over the past few years too, so I wasn’t sure if it was just that I was paying more attention [...]

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 [...]

I somehow missed this announcement when it came out a couple of weeks ago, but Sydney Water are happier with dam levels and have eased their water restrictions.

They’re calling the new rules the “Water Wise Rules” – because we’ve all learned from the drought and heavy restrictions, and are now much more water wise.

The new [...]

In our never-ending quest for more gardening space, I’m thinking of building some raised beds on top of the concrete in our backyard. A 2-foot-deep bed around the edge of the area wouldn’t impact our usable space much (we already have pots etc all around the edges), but would give us a fair bit of [...]

If you live in Australia, did you know that you can now access green retrofits for your house for free?

Check out all the sustainable retrofit rebates available here in Australia. Make sure you scroll to the bottom and find your state ones, too.

You could get a rainwater tank, a solar hot water system, solar electricity, [...]

Have a read of the current water restrictions rules from Sydney Water.

Kids can run under sprinklers any time of the day, you can hose windows and walls any time, and you can wash your car at any time. You can also leave your hose running unattended to top up pools or fill containers, and you [...]

You may have noticed that I’ve just added a new page to the menu bar above these posts, Australian Rebates.

I’ve tried to collect all the information I could find on Australian federal rebate programs, as well as all the different rebate schemes for the various states. There are a lot of good opportunities in there [...]

Two of the most obvious things to look at when trying to live more sustainably are your usage of electricity and water. We had to record these in the first Super Challenge survey to set a baseline starting point, and I was actually pretty shocked at how much of each we use.

For the past quarter, [...]

Yesterday we had our Sydney Water “Love Your Garden” session. For $33, a qualified horticulturalist comes and inspects your garden and gives you advice on its watering needs.

Our horticulturalist (let’s call her Linda) arrived bang on time. She was very friendly and knowledgeable, and understood right away where we were coming from. I explained about [...]

I didn’t realise it until we signed up for the Sustainable Illawarra Super Challenge, but our local councils and other organisations put on quite a lot of free and low-cost workshops, talks, demonstrations, tours and other events. Just have a look at Sustainable Illawarra’s What’s On page to get an idea.

In the spirit of this [...]