Articles

Robyn Francis has been involved in community design and planning since the late 1970’s. The designer of Jarlanbah, NSW’s first rural community title, she has now brought together a team to undertake a major suburban eco-village project in Nimbin village. Djanbung Gardens, Robyn’s permaculture education centre, lies between these 2 innovative projects.

Robyn is passionate about the earth and nature’s abundant beauty. It is a passion she loves to share through her teaching, writing, music and the permaculture paradise she has created at Djanbung Gardens. An organic gardener since the early seventies, she is as comfortable up to her armpits in compost as she is discussing the intricacies of eco-village engineering and design with bureaucrats and corporates.

Robyn was the founding director of Permaculture International Ltd and ERDA Institute and has received numerous awards for her work including ABC Rural Woman and a Rivercare 2000 Award for her innovative composting toilet and wetland greywater system. Robyn enjoys making herbal and cottage products from her garden, exploring her Celtic heritage and finding new challenges to shift the dominant paradigm in a more sustainable direction.

INDEX of ARTICLES:

•What is Permaculture ? - a general introduction with examples of principles from a gardening context

• Do Nothing or Working As Little As Possible - continues on from the previous article exploring permaculture philosophy at work in the garden/farm.

• Dynamics of Culture & Relevance of Permaculture - Some thoughts on the issues of teaching & working in other cultures

• A Taste of the Bush in the Backyard - an introduction to some excellent subtropic bushfoods and tips on their culinary uses

• Jarlanbah - A community treading lightly on the earth

• The Mission - A Jarlanbah Oasis - A visit to one of Jarlanbah's residents

WHAT IS PERMACULTURE?
Robyn Francis, 2000

adapted from articles published in Greenhouse Living Magazine, 2000

What is permaculture?...
What is the difference between permaculture and organic gardening?...
These are questions frequently asked but not always adequately answered - and the answers can vary wildly depending upon who you ask.

Permaculture is primarily about design -
it’s about designing sustainable environments with the focus being on how we provide our needs in a way that works with nature’s processes and ecology. Based on the words Permanent (as in sustainable) and Culture (including agri-culture), Permaculture addresses all aspects of human culture, not only food production but how we build, how we organise ourselves and how we utilise all our resources including the human resource.

While organic gardening is certainly an important part of permaculture in practice, you couldn’t call an organic garden a “permaculture” unless it’s been permaculture designed, in which case it will be much more than just a productive organic garden. In addition to growing food, it will have habitats for wildlife, birds and pest predators; it will consider the elements, wind, sun and fire in creating microclimates for plants, animals and for the home; it will address the cycles of water, nutrients and energy from inside the home, throughout the garden and beyond; it will regard the home and garden as an integral part of the wider neighbourhood, water catchment and bioregion.

It helps to understand the difference between design, strategy and technique. Techniques are the “how-to-do” something, like various composting systems, how to set up an irrigation or watering system, different methods of mulching and planting, building a chicken tractor and so on.

Strategy is about “how and when”, the timing and sequence of jobs and events. Like my food forest, the strategy was inspired by the ecological process of natural forest succession. In the first year I planted fast-growing pigeon pea bushes and longer-term tree legumes to provide shade, frost protection, mulch and nutrients. The next year fruit trees were planted under the shade of the pigeon peas. Two years later the tree legumes were taller than the pigeon peas and the young fruit trees getting a little crowded so the pigeon peas were cut back or removed making room to plant the understory.

Now the pigeon peas are entirely gone, the understory and ground covers are well established suppressing the weeds, and the fruit trees are starting to bear under the tree legume canopy. Next year I’ll be cutting out half of the tree legumes to release all that natural nitrogen they’ve been storing in the soil and to let in more light for the fruit trees as they mature.

Design is about where we place things in relationship to each other and how we integrate the connections between them. It’s where we place the food forest in relationship to the whole garden or farm, and the way we pattern the relative placement of the plants, paths, water and other elements within the food forest itself.

I have placed my chickens next to the vegetable garden so I can easily throw the weeds to them and it’s not far to move their manure into the garden. The chickens have access to a small food forest which in turn provides a wind break for the garden and if I have major weed problems in adjoining garden areas I can let the chickens in to do the work as a ‘chook tractor’.

So first comes the design, planning out “what goes where”; then we need to devise our strategies, “what happens when”; and then you select the appropriate technique for the situation. Permaculture involves all three approaches. It is multi-dimensional - thinking and operating on all or many levels.

Before we get started though, we need to be very clear about what it is we’re trying to do or achieve. Permaculture makes us think carefully about our motives and aims and to weigh up the implications of the various ways we can realise them. Permaculture is a philosophy as well as a design system and a practical way of living.

At the heart of Permaculture lie three key ethics which form the bottom line for all our activities and systems. Stated simply they are
1. Care of the Earth - of all living & non-living systems, ecological regeneration and sustainability, biodiversity
2. Care of People - social justice and equity, self-reliance, co-operation, social responsibility and cultural diversity
3. Fair Share - distributing resources and surplus in an equitable way, community support and ethical economic systems, recognising the limits and consequences of growth on people and the earth, now and for future generations.

So permaculture is about earthcare, working in partnership with nature, learning the lessons of ecology and applying them to how we live. It is concerned with the well-being of all environments, from the city to the farm to the wilderness, and the interconnections between local, regional and global factors, past- present- future. Many excellent models exist for us to draw information and inspiration, in past and present traditional cultures, in natural systems, in experiments of the alternative movement, in the findings of mainstream biological sciences and disciplines.

Bill Mollison, co-founder of permaculture, once said “Permaculture wanders in the valleys between the mountains of the disciplines, where nobody else is at home.” In other words permaculture looks in particular at the relationships and interconnections between things (including the disciplines).

The architect is concerned with the house, the landscape designer with the garden, the electrician with the energy system, the plumber with the water and waste treatment. The challenge to a permaculture designer is to see how these things interact and work with each other and to design them in such a way that they all work together as a whole functioning system. We need to ask how we can use all the resources in the system in the most efficient and effective way, maximise self-reliance, minimise waste and unnecessary work and reduce or eliminate any negative impacts, not only within the system itself but in relationship to the neighbourhood and wider environment and community.

The ultimate teacher is nature itself. In nature everything is connected. As one species takes care of it’s needs it is inadvertently providing the needs for something else and contributing to the system as a whole. Nature doesn’t miss an opportunity, if there’s a niche something will occupy it. In our mono-cultural, mono-functional society we find endless under-utilised niches and opportunities, and we find too many open ended systems that generate waste rather than resources for something or someone else.

Pollution is simply a resource that isn’t being productively used in the system and work is what we do to meet unsatisfied needs. Permaculture aims to reduce both pollution and work and next we’ll take a closer look at how.

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DO NOTHING ~ or Working As Little As Possible
Robyn Francis

Efficient, labour saving, low maintenance, user-friendly are catch-cries we hear all the time, yet how much unnecessary work do we create for ourselves, often without even being aware of it? Eliminating unnecessary work is intrinsic to good permaculture design.

Bill Mollison describes work as what we need to do to fulfil unmet needs, so the more we can design things to work for each other the less we need to do.

I have a small flock of plump happy ducks working the orchard for me. They keep the weeds down and most of the pests, turning them into quality natural fertiliser for the trees and lovely duck eggs for us to eat - you should try a duck egg pavlova sometime! Of course keeping the ducks creates some work for us. We need to lock them up at night safe from dogs and foxes and let them out in the morning to go back to work in the orchard.

This brings us to the second permaculture perspective on work and that is to work where it counts and get maximum benefit from the energy and time we invest. With my ducks, locking them up at night is how I harvest their wonderful manure for the veggie garden. The duck house has a deep litter of straw which we regularly clean out and compost. Keeping the ducks in overnight means they also lay their eggs in the duck house and it’s much easier to collect them there from a clean straw nest in the morning than a frustrating search in every hidden nook and cranny of the orchard. Good design inherently solves more than one problem.

The Do Nothing Philosophy
Sometimes it simply a matter of letting nature do it’s thing - doing the work for you. In the late seventies I was co-owner of a 180 acre bush block on the mid-north coast. The forest had been bulldozed by the previous owner and the exposed hill slopes urgently needed reforesting. We could have worked incredibly hard setting up a nursery, raising seedling trees and planting them out. This would have meant using massive amounts of resources in the process; shade structures, pots, potting mix, watering systems and so on. Forests can regrow themselves, they just need to be given a chance. All the seed stock was there in the soil, the one thing stopping the forest from naturally regenerating was the neighbour’s cows eating off the young seedlings as they emerged. Once a cow-proof fence was constructed around the property the forest grew back with no further intervention or work on our behalf.

So you find that sometimes the easiest way to get things done is to do nothing at all. In the veggie garden I let many plants self sow. There’s a bed right now full of crisp fresh rocket, lettuce, celery and flowering calendulas all self-sown from last winter. Where they grow too thickly I thin them out to transplant into other beds, saving me the work of raising seedling punnets. It’s really a matter of knowing when and how to act, when to do something or nothing.

No-dig gardens and sheet mulching are the most effective ways to reduce work in a veggie garden. Digging stimulates the germination of weed seeds in the soil, so you find that digging the garden makes weeds and weeds makes work. You can also plant low hedges of lemongrass or borders of comfrey around gardens to stop grasses like kikuyu and couch invading from neighbouring lawns.

Another option to reduce work in the garden is to employ a few chickens. They’re great little workers demolishing the weeds and fertilising the garden as they go and there’s no workers comp or superannuation to worry about. Of course the chickens need to be confined to the area you want weeded or they’ll have a big garden party and eat the lot!

Design for Convenience
We unwittingly create a lot of work for ourselves by not thinking things through thoroughly. Permaculture is packed with basic practical common-sense concepts that make life so much easier. The concept of zonation for example is really about design for convenience. It’s about where we place things according to how much attention they need, how often we need to visit, use, harvest and maintain that particular item, plant, animal or system.

An out-of-the-way veggie garden will soon turn into a weedscape. Distance and inconvenience invites neglect whereas close proximity and convenience is conducive to better management. Some things we can afford to neglect so they can safely be located in more out of the way places. A nut tree can be safely planted where we only need to check it a few times a year whereas a peach or nectarine needs a good location to monitor fruit fly and harvest the soft fruit as it ripens.

The same principle applies to how we pattern the planting of veggies and herbs in the garden. Some plants are harvested regularly over a period of weeks or months like celery, silver beet, open hearting lettuce, broccoli, tomato, capsicum and so on. These plants are best sited close to pathways within easy reach. Zucchinis need a prominent place in the garden and if they’re not checked daily you’ll soon end up with massive zucchinis over a half meter long and there’s only so many stuffed baked zucchinis you can enjoy in a season.

Other veggies take a long time to grow to maturity and then you harvest the plant once and that’s it, like cabbage and cauliflower. These you can plant behind the pathside veggies in less accessible places. Many root crops are treated similarly. Some veggies in this category also need a lot of space like pumpkin and melons and are best planted where they can rampage without smothering all your other garden beds. They love to scramble over fences and also make a wonderful living mulch under fruit trees.

I’ve installed a second hand kitchen sink in the garden right next to the chook yard. It really simplifies life and mess in the kitchen as I can wash all my root veggies there and return the soil and water to the garden, throw the tops and scraps to the chickens.

A herb garden close to the kitchen is one thing I can’t live without, planted with my favourite culinary herbs. It’s so good being able to simply step out of the kitchen door and grab a sprig of parsley or chives, a quick bunch of basil and a fresh bouquet garni to pop in a pot or garnish a dish.

Making the Right Connections
There’s also the art of sequencing things, planning your routines and pathways so they lead you conveniently from one job to the next. If you’ve a small nursery tucked away in one corner of the garden, the compost bin in another and the chickens right out of the way, you can quickly find yourself running all over the place. Look at the jobs that need to be done daily and try to link them along a single path so when you dash out in the morning you go through the nursery to water seedlings on your way to feeding and letting out the chickens, pop the scraps the chooks don’t like in the compost bin and return via the veggie garden in case there’s that zucchini needing harvesting on your way back to the house.

All it really takes is thinking a lot more about what things need and how we can simplify what we need to do then explore ways we can design the system to reduce the workload and maximise the benefits.

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DYNAMICS OF CULTURE & Relevance of Permaculture
Some thoughts on the issues of teaching in other cultures
Robyn Francis

Cultures are dynamic and human memory short - I have been alarmed at the rapidity of change, at the loss and erosion of sustainable traditional practices as ‘Green Revolution’ techniques and concepts introduced only a few decades ago have been accepted and applied unquestioningly in the ‘developing’ world. This has been compounded with the introduction of centralised education and schooling which gives the young little opportunity to learn traditional skills in the traditional way together with the infiltration of the cash economy and the general devaluation of farming as a profession.

This in turn is largely a result of the shift from subsistence farming to commercial agriculture which in turn is exacerbated by the corruption of local wealthy families, their exploitation of the poor, and the control of international markets which keep prices artificially low - especially at the producer end - in the name of the ‘free economy’ and globalisation. The end scenario is that the rural poor are poorer than ever before, the young are increasingly alienated from their culture and see little or no future in farming or village life.

In Bali one rarely sees a young person working in the fields or rice paddies - it’s the old folk out there and one wonders what will happen when they are simply too old to continue such hard physical labour. I’m informed that it’s not only in the relative affluence of Bali that this is happening, it’s a phenomena occurring in all too many places, countries and cultures.

I was invited to teach a PDC in Indonesia in March 1999. Thirty-five participants from all over Indonesia, from very different cultures and climates from Sumatra to Kalimantantan to West Timor, converged in Bali for the course. There was concern amongst some participants and organisers as to whether the course would be truly appropriate or whether it was just another kind of colonialism - an Australian concept taught by an Australian teacher. This is a trap and a risk that I am acutely aware of and careful to avoid. In many respects it depends upon how the teacher sees permaculture as well as the way it is taught.

The risk is greatest when the teacher sees permaculture as a kind of formula and teaches sheet-mulching, banana circles, mandala gardens and Zones 1 to 5 - there are a lot of things, ideas and design strategies in permaculture that people can readily turn into perma-dogmas. When this happens then - yes - it’s a new perma-colonialism. You don’t need to do a PDC to make a herb spiral, chook-tractor or create a food forest - these things can be easily done from the plan, from the books.

What I see as being the most valuable thing about permaculture, and the greatest challenge for a permaculture teacher to teach, is the process of lateral thinking and questioning, of developing the art of analytical observation - not just of things but more importantly of the processes at play, of seeking and interpreting information and applying it appropriately to the situation at hand. The greatest challenge is that these ‘process’ skills cannot be simply taught - like one can simply teach how to make a tyre pond - the best one can do as a teacher is to try and facilitate the student’s own learning of these process skills through example and by providing opportunities for the students to practice, explore and interact.

At the end of the Bali course the most rewarding feedback from students was “Thank you for teaching me how to think” along with “Thank you for helping me see my culture in a new way and the importance of our sustainable traditions that are being lost.”

As westerners we take so much for granted, especially our ‘freedom’ of thought. It was a cultural shock for me to fully appreciate how repressed human thinking and creativity can be. My Indonesian course participants explained how their education is all rote learning with no room (and severe penalties) for original thinking, questioning or creativity, how this is re-enforced by the day to day reality of living in a controlled and corrupt socio-political environment.

Living in some traditional cultures can also be ruthlessly thought-repressive, the young (including young adults) have no say, do as they’re told, and ‘you do it this way because this is the way it’s done and because it’s what you’ve been told to do’. There are no other reason’s why and to question is to defy authority. The opportunity for innovation is severely limited.

This lack of analytical questioning and creative thinking leaves a culture exceptionally vulnerable, especially when an expert, respected as a figure of higher authority, comes along and says ‘don’t do it that way-do it this way’. Change can be, and frequently is, accepted without question or thought. People may feel intuitively uncomfortable with some of the changes and concerned about the results as they manifest over time, but lack the knowledge to understand why it’s not working and lack access to information to look at alternatives.

Permaculture as a process of analytical observation, lateral thinking and creative problem solving together with a basic understanding of ecology and natural process certainly draws upon examples of sustainable traditional systems from around the world. Yet it pays to remember that most of these systems evolved countless generations ago as a result of trial and error without necessarily understanding the why’s, or if the why’s were initially understood that information has not always been passed on. (Beware of the ‘noble-savage’ syndrome).

I have found when teaching permaculture in developing countries and with indigenous peoples that my students are exhilarated with their awakening awareness of process and creative thinking, and of having a framework of principles of sustainability by which to look afresh at their culture and measure the relative sustainability of remaining traditions, introduced practices and a fresh enthusiasm to rediscover (recover) the traditional practices, knowledge and wisdom that is rapidly being lost.

Culture is dynamic, just like an ecosystem is a dynamic system, continuously evolving and adapting to new influences and changing factors around and within itself. The risk in human culture is that the good practices that have sustained in the past can be so easily lost and replaced with new techniques and values that erode human security, well-being and the environment and resource base it depends on.

In the same way Permaculture also needs to be seen and taught as a dynamic system of thinking, planning and design which is adapted and reinvented in each new culture and context into which it is introduced. Permaculture needs to constantly adjust and adapt to the changing needs, perceptions and demands of a changing world. Indeed, this is the only sustainable future for permaculture as a concept and as a movement or it risks stagnation and becoming frozen in the dogmas created by its perpetrators.


Robyn Francis is well known as a designer and teacher of permaculture since 1985 and was founding director of Permaculture International. She continues to pioneer new frontiers in her work and share this accumulated experience through her courses. Robyn established and manages Djanbung Gardens Permaculture Education Centre and the ERDA Institute Trust at Nimbin in Northern NSW.

This article was published in Permaculture International Journal in 2000

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A TASTE OF THE BUSH in the Backyard
Robyn Francis, 1999

“Good food is at the heart of bushfood permaculture. Local native species conservation takes on a new and more immediate meaning. Some bushfoods are amazingly productive, with the added advantage of being packed with intense, wild flavours. It’s just the beginning of a rediscovery process” - Peter Hardwick

Meeting Peter Hardwick, leading researcher into sub-tropical bushfoods and Bundjalung ethno-botany, ten years ago revolutionised the way I saw bushfoods and their potential to be an integral part of the garden and everyday cuisine. This article provides a brief glimpse into some of my discoveries from working with Peter and fellow pioneers inventing a whole new Australian cuisine and exploration of rainforest-foods in the landscape and permaculture design.

I love cooking and using fresh herbs and spices from the garden - spices are the soul of fine food. The fruits and aromatic leaves of the tropical and subtropic rainforests where I live in Eastern Australia provide a whole new palette of spices, fragrances and flavours for the adventurous cook. These uniquely Australian flavours, merged with the creativity of a multicultural society, give rise to an endless array of culinary innovations.

Breakfast: Wattle seed pancakes with Atherton Raspberries, a generous serve of Macadamia cream and scattering of Midyen-berries, a cup of fresh brewed Wattle coffee

Lunch: Bunya nut gnocchi with Warrigal Green and Macadamia Pesto, - ‘pass the Dorrigo Pepper please’ - garden salad tossed in a vinaigrette of Macadamia oil and Davidson Plum vinegar, and a cup of refreshing Lemon Myrtle tea

Dinner: Steamed Australian bass wrapped in Palm Lily leaves and Lemon Myrtle, served with Avocado and Finger lime salad and baked Dum-dum yam, accompanied with a glass of Small-leaf Tamarind wine. For desert; Macadamia icecream topped with Davidson Plum sauce and a nip of Anise Myrtle liqueur to round off the evening

The best news is that a lot of the culinary delights of the sub-tropic rainforests can be easily grown in the backyard - and you don’t have to live in the sub-tropics to grow many of them if you have a mild microclimate. A little thoughtful planting and you could forage the backyard to lay a sumptuous meal for a tropical bushfoods dinner party...

The potential for integrating bushfood plants in your garden landscape can be most rewarding - and not only for the taste buds. A bushfoods garden will naturally attract native birds, butterflies and many beneficial insects. The diversity of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants provide endless possibilities for creating visual interest in the garden landscape with their unique foliage, form and colour.

Here are some of my favourite bushfoods for the home garden and some tips for using them in the kitchen.

Small-leaf Tamarind Diploglottis cambellii
This endangered species from Northern NSW is an attractive hardy small-medium sized tree producing 3-lobed pods containing a bright red fruit. The clean tangy juice is perfect with seafoods, Indian and Asian dishes and makes a delicious salad dressing.

Lemon Myrtle Backhousia citriodora
A small rainforest tree, Lemon Myrtle can be pruned to shrub size. The leaves contain aromatic oils, similar to lemon grass but richer. Great in Asian dishes and as a herb tea it’s aromatic flavour is unsurpassed. Lemon Myrtle has become my favourite herb for fish. It makes a zesty herb vinegar for salad dressings and can be used to flavour deserts.

Anise Myrtle Backhousia anisata
Keep pruned as a medium to large shrub. The rounded aniseed aroma of the leaves makes a delicious herb tea, hot or iced. Peter Hardwick makes an exquisite liqueur by seeping the leaves in spirits with a little sugar.

Riberry Syzygium luehmannii
A small rainforest tree, it bears prolifically in full sun. Riberries are ripe around Christmas and can be frozen fresh for future use. The small red fruits have a unique aromatic flavour with undertones of cinnamon and clove. They make great conserves; jam, jelly, chutney and relish. I like using the fruit in poultry and other savoury dishes.

Macadamia Macadamia spp.
Needs no introduction as a superb nut but I recommend grafted varieties for the home garden. To make Macadamia cream simply blend the nuts with some water in a vitimiser as a luscious topping for a whole range of sweet and savoury dishes.

Davidson Plum Davidsonia pruriens var. jerseyana
This slender rainforest plant will grow and bear in the tiniest garden space. It prefers a shady location. The fruit grows on the stem early summer. The flavour is intense and too tart to eat as a fresh fruit. A little Davidson plum goes a long way to colour and flavour icecream and sweet sauces. It gives kangaroo goulash a rich fruity tang and can be steeped in brandy and sugar as a liqueur.

Fingerlime Microcitrus Australasia
A small thorny shrub well-loved by finches as a nesting site, the small oblong fruit contains caviar-sized round globules of exquisite lime juice - perfect with avocado and seafood. A versatile plant it can handle full sun or shade and even some frost.

Broad-leaf Palm Lily Cordyline petiolaris
An essential plant for that real rainforest feel, the leaves are traditionally used for wrapping food - similar to Asian use of banana leaves. Soften the leaves in hot water for a few minutes before wrapping your fish parcels, a Lemon Myrtle leaf on each side of the fish, and tie with string or secure with toothpicks then simply steam, bake or pop onto the B-B-Q.

Native Ginger (Dargahn) Alpinia caerulea
An attractive understory plant, the seed pods provide an interesting spice to experiment with. Try chewing a pod as a breath freshener.

Atherton Raspberry Rubus fraxinifolius
This variety of native raspberry is a delicious table fruit. Suitable for the larger garden, it needs management so it won’t take over or grow it in a large tub. The fresh fruit freezes well and makes a great garnish and sauce.

Midyen-berry Austomyrtus dulcis
An attractive shrubby ground cover, popluar in native landscapes. The pale fruit is small and lightly freckled with a subtle hint of vanilla and cinnamon. Delicious fresh and makes a superb bushfood muffin.

Warrigal Greens Tetragonia teragoniodes
Known to many gardeners as New Zealand Spinach, it makes an attractive ground cover and bears best in partial shade. Once established it will readily self-sow year in and out. Use the same as silverbeet and spinach. Blanched and chilled it makes a delectable salad or cold side-dish, especially with a serve of Macadamia cream.

Scrambling Lily Geitonoplesium cymosum
This delicate rainforest vine has attractive leaves and dainty white flowers. The young tender shoots are delicious, somewhere between asparagus and French beans in flavour and texture, making a tasty garnish and a delight to simply munch on fresh in the garden.


Robyn Francis is known internationally for her permaculture work in education, design and consulting, as writer, presenter and founder of Permaculture International. The designer of Jarlanbah, NSW first eco-village, she continues breaking new ground in eco-village and community development. Robyn ‘walks her talk’ at Djanbung Gardens, a 2ha permaculture cornucopia and training centre in Nimbin where bushfoods permeate the gardens, course menus and cottage craft selection. She has worked extensively with Peter Hardwick developing Bushfood courses, workshops, landscapes and culinary creations over the past 10 years.

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JARLANBAH - A community treading lightly on the earth
Robyn Francis, 2000
An article published in PIJ (Permaculture International Journal) #75, 2000

I enjoy wandering up the path weaving through my tropical food jungle, over the invisible boundary line and straight onto a Jarlanbah track. No fences obstruct my way, nor the freedom of the wallabies and other wildlife we share the land with. This is how it should be with neighbours when they respect each other and the wildlife - only things that have to be kept in or out need fences to bar the way.

Within Jarlanbah there’s a marked absence of fences. They do exist, there’s domestic animal enclosures and gardens needing protection from wallabies, but Jarlanbah is free of fences as territorial statements dominating the landscape. Many boundaries have been defined with vegetation, hedges and trellises, some simply melt into the community land with no visual definition. I wonder how much energy is represented in the useless barricades that define land ownership in so many human settlements.

Looking up the main ridge it’s hard to imagine the barren pasture of six years ago. Now you can just catch glimpse of only a couple of the nine houses that exist up there between the trees and food forests on the north-facing slope. The glimpses of some rooftops reveal solar panels and solar water heaters. Solar access was a key consideration in the design and layout of lots and the by-laws encourage use of passive solar and energy efficient house design.

The residential lots are small, just 2,000 m2 or half an acre. A manageable size providing plenty of space for gardens, food forest and some poultry. Some lots have small areas of lawn (I prefer to call them mulch-meadows), and other yards have no lawn at all, opting for carpets of sweet potato and other productive ground covers in the landscape. These gardens also support the microclimate of the homes and consider the solar rights of their neighbours.

There are many ways that energy conservation can be achieved. Not only in the home, but in the garden, the management and use of land and in reducing motor vehicle use.

The Jarlanbah story began in 1991 when I was invited to visit a 55 acre grazing property in the process of being rezoned for rural residential. The owner felt uncomfortable about doing a regular subdivision and was interested to see what a permaculture concept might involve. He liked the concept and I was engaged as the design consultant. Over the next 2 years Jarlanbah Permaculture Hamlet was designed and approved by council, followed by a year’s work constructing roads and installing services and in February 1994 the first residents moved on.

Now Jarlanbah, 6 years on, has grown to a 24 household community applying permaculture in a diversity of ways in the design of their houses, edible garden landscapes and in the co-operative management of the community land. There are still 19 lots to be occupied.

Reduce Motor Vehicle Use
The issue of energy use needs to address transport and the contribution of the domestic motor vehicle to greenhouse gas emissions and a plethora of other environmental, resource and social problems. The Australian trend of buying large areas of land and setting up communities in remote rural areas, long distances from service centres like towns and villages, has resulted in motor-vehicle dominated lifestyles for the residents.

I had been waiting for many years to find a situation within walking distance of a well serviced village or town centre to design a hamlet or eco-village settlement where motor-vehicle-free living would be a viable option. Jarlanbah being just 1.5 km from Nimbin’s village centre was ideal. While Jarlanbah residents still own and use motor vehicles, many choose to walk or cycle into the village. Within the community people walk to each other to visit, distances are close and there is a network of grassed tracks linking areas throughout the community land.

Infrastructure and services
The topography of the land determined the road layout together with ensuring all lots had adequate solar access for passive solar house design. Internal services for phone and electricity had to be provided along with water for fighting fire. A single trench was used to lay these service lines, reducing the energy and space needed for installation.

Water self-reliance is ensured with by-laws requiring each lot to have a minimum rainwater storage capacity of 45,000 litters for domestic use. There is no town water or sewage. The by-laws also contain comprehensive guidelines for human waste (sewage) and greywater treatment. Composting toilets are promoted as the preferred option and have been installed in most of the houses to date. Treated waste water is recycled for irrigating food forests and gardens on the private lots. The use of water conserving devices in the home is also enshrined in the by-laws.

Demand reduction grid system
The cost of creating a stand-alone alternative energy system for 43 lots on 55 acres was prohibitive so the emphasis was on reducing energy consumption. While Jarlanbah is connected to the grid, the system is unique in that the internal lines are owned by the community.

Normal grid electricity connection to a house is 63 amps. On Jarlanbah this has been reduced to 20 amps or residents can choose a 5 amp trickle feed to recharge batteries for an individual stand-alone solar system. 20 amps is sufficient electricity for basic household appliances like running a fridge, vacuum cleaner, wash machine, TV, computer and so on, but will not cope with the energy consuming monsters like electric cook stoves, water heaters, space heaters and air conditioners. In this climate good passive solar design can deal with space heating and cooling, though most homes have some form of wood heating appliance to supplement this on cold winter evenings. Natural gas cook stoves are used and some homes have wood-fired cook stoves, and solar or gas water heaters.

The community-owned internal electrical grid will enable Jarlanbah to generate its own electricity and move it around within the community in the future when such technology becomes more affordable. Electrical grid wires can also be used for communication systems.

Energy efficient house and landscape design
In the concept plan, residential lots were located to maximise solar gain for passive solar design. Also a set of building standards were developed to ensure general application of energy efficient design and to encourage use of appropriate materials.

My rationale as the designer, was that eventually our standard building codes would need to address issues of energy and resource use as well structural soundness in building design. This was taken up by Lleichhardt City Council in Sydney some years later when a councillor, inspired by the Jarlanbah model, convinced her council to create guidelines for energy efficient housing. Leichhardt Council’s innovation has inspired other councils including Manly (also in Sydney) and Waitakere City Council in New Zealand to follow suite. Soon the national Australian building code will include a compulsory minimum energy efficiency rating as a standard component of building design approval.

The design and evolution of Jarlanbah is an inspiring example of permaculture design for sustainable community development which embraces diversity within a framework of by-laws embodying ecological principles. The management of community land, the process of learning to work together and the individual stories of peoples homes and gardens and experience of community life weave a rich tapestry of human endeavour.

Tours of Jarlanbah are conducted on the second Saturday of the month when you can wander from Djanbung Gardens, up through the food forest and over the invisible boundary line to explore the ongoing evolution of a permaculture community in practice. Further details contact Ph 02-6689 1755 or Email: permed@nor.com.au

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A visit to one of Jarlanbah's residents:
The Mission - A Jarlanbah Oasis

"We have been able to create for ourselves here on Jarlanbah a quality of life that most city dwellers can only dream of: Without giving up the comforts and conveniences of modern life we are living lightly on the earth in a beautiful house, hand made from natural materials, surrounded by a lush and productive garden set amongst spectacular scenery, within easy reach of the well serviced village of Nimbin and the vibrant, diverse community it supports." - Nigel Reid

Nigel and Yoko Reid have created an oasis of food and a sanctuary for sustainable living on their Jarlanbah lot. The timber frame house is clad with recycled roofing iron covered with a thick render of clay, sand, sawdust and cement and bonding agent. The visual effect is similar to rammed earth. Recycled materials are used extensively including old railway sleepers, recycled windows and doors.

The north-facing walls have ample windows for direct winter sun-gain with a good balance of covered verandahs and shade areas for the warm sub-tropic climate. Clerestory windows have bamboo blinds for fine sun-shade adjustment, and in mid-winter the sun comes streaming in to warm up an earthbrick wall running east-west across the centre of the house, dividing the kitchen-dining-living area on the north side from the bedrooms on the south. The earthbrick wall also gains heat from the wood-fired cook stove in the kitchen and open fire place in the living room. Between the bedrooms an indoor deep rock pond provides a thermal mass bank to moderate temperature extremes, cooling in summer and warming in winter.

The house is positioned towards the northern end of the lot to maximise garden space for fruit trees without compromising the sun or the beautiful views to the north, and to ensure a sense of privacy and sanctuary in the home. Nigel and Yoko invited me to work with them on the design of their edible landscape, creating gardens and niches with a diversity of atmosphere, character, microclimate, function and production.

A tropical food jungle on the southern side protects the house from cold winter winter winds and in summer creates a cool shady retreat. This merges into a windbreak planting of bamboos and rainforest bushfoods sweeping around the south-west corner creating a suntrap for the veggies and fruit trees nestled between it and the house. A chook-tractor dome is rotated over the circular beds.

On the eastern side of the house the kitchen garden is interspersed with a few deciduous fruit trees, persimmon, Japanese plum and a low-chill black cherry, which provide a visual and cultural bridge introducing the Japanese garden and water features along the relatively narrow section of garden to the north of the house.

The Japanese garden features a series of interconnected ponds with pebbled pathways, rocks and stepping stones. The ponds reflect the winter sun and warmth into the house and impart a sense of tranquility. The views of the Nightcap Range are framed with strategically placed poinciannas, a deciduous tropical legume tree with a spreading shady canopy.

Nigel and Yoko have installed a ‘grid-interactive’ power system. Solar panels on the roof generate electricity for the home which, when insufficient for needs, is supplemented with electricity from the grid. Conversely, when electricity use in the home is less than the solar power generated, the surplus is fed back into the grid. There’s two electricity meters, one reading what is drawn from the grid, the other what is fed into it. Of course, with Jarlanbah owning its own internal grid system, any surplus from Nigel and Yoko’s is fed into the community system.

What Nigel and Yoko most appreciate about Jarlanbah:
- Amenity: Jarlanbah is not too spread out and in close proximity to the Village
- Lot has good solar access and great views
- Land was degraded so we're involved in earth repair
- The land was cleared so we had a blank slate to work with
- No selection process for buying in, so plenty of diversity (avoids fascist attempts at purity)
- General commitment amongst community members to live lightly on the earth, therefore, for example: neighbours are restrained in agricultural chemical use
- Advances have been made in decision making processes - we've learnt a lot about ourselves and true participation
- Underground power
- Self reliance in water harvesting and treatment
- Climate allows year round vegetable production and a great variety of fruit, both temperate and tropical
- Great social diversity in Jarlanbah and the broader Nimbin community

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