Some old projects...

At risk of these blog becoming all about my eating habits here are some early shots of things I was doing in Melbourne a few years ago. These were my first forays into the homestead scene, deeply inspired by Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne who run \http://rootsimple.com/ (an awesome blog and resource) and wrote "The urban homestead" and "Making it" two of my most favourite books ever.
Indeed around this time my housemates would rarely see me without a well dog-eared, ragged copy of "the urban homestead" by my side!

A worm farm, this worked pretty sweet. Rats broke into the other one though, they just chewed throught the polystyrene and ate everything in there, including my poor worms. As simple as chucking a handful of worms in with some scraps. Pay extra attention to not over-feeding the worms

 Toilet roll seedling trays. In a climate like Melbourne's you can get away with stuff you can't do in dryer areas like W.A. This setup dryed out so fast in W.A. but worked awesome in Melbs. They make planting so much easier just plant the hole thing and the cardboard quickly decomposes

Blueberry in a self-watering container. This is still alive with my old housemates years later! Must have done something right...

Little salad garden we experimented with, right outside my "shed-room" door. I was sleeping in a swag in a dinky shed to cut down in rent expenses. I planted nasturtiums to keep the bugs from coming in the windows.

Super simple compost pile. We just kept throwing stuff in and forgetting about it, everything breaks down eventually. We got really good compost in the tyre wells...

Another haybox cooker, featuring sexy bracelet

First rocket stove attempt, I balls-ed up the insulating material so it became really frustrating to use. Expect a detailed post on rocket stoves in the future.

My rock n roll patch. I loved this. Quirky things like this really breathe life into a garden and give it a personal touch.