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Hannah Moloney - Whole System Change
50 Plays4 years ago
Hannah Moloney is a permaculture designer & much loved presenter on ABC's Gardening Australia. Host Mykal Hoare chats with Hannah about her new book 'The Good life: How To Grow A Better World' as well as her childhood, activism and home garden practices.
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Episode Links:
Good Life Permaculture Website
Good Life Permaculture Instagram
Good Life Permaculture Facebook
Firesticks
Homes For Homes
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Growing Media Links:
GROWING MEDIA WEBSITE
Instagram - @Growingmediaaus
Facebook - @Growingmediaaus
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Mykal's Links:
Instagram - @mykalhoare
Facebook - @mykalhoare
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Transcript
Introduction and Support Request
00:00:03
Speaker
Growing Media is a proudly independent podcast produced by me, Michael Hall, with zero corporate or network interference in our content. But this means we are running on the smell of an oily rag over here. So if you like the show and would like to make a small contribution, you could head over to our Patreon. You can find the link in our show notes.
Acknowledgment of Traditional Custodians
00:00:28
Speaker
The producers of growing media recognise the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is recorded and pay respects to Aboriginal elders past, present and those emerging.
Meet Hannah Maloney: Background and Journey
00:00:44
Speaker
G'day and welcome to the show. I am your host, Michael Haw. And my guest today is a rising star from the world of permaculture, working as a designer creating amazing permaculture gardens for urban and rural spaces. She's an author and television presenter, best known for her regular guest segments on ABC's Gardening Australia. Please welcome goat mum and educational tea towel designer from the Good Life permaculture, Hannah Maloney.
00:01:12
Speaker
How you doing Hannah? That was a great introduction. I hope you don't mind being referred to as a goat mum. How are the little goats anyway? Oh, they're beautiful. Every day, you know, I'm with them every morning and I see them every night, but I'm sitting in my garden office and I can look out the window. I can just admire the sun baking on their little deck. They're going pretty well, I think. Amazing.
00:01:37
Speaker
So I suppose before we dive too much deeper, why don't you start by telling us a little bit about where you grew up and where you kind of found your love of gardening.
00:01:46
Speaker
Sure, so I grew up in Leningen in Brisbane in West End so it's very much inner city environments and my dad ran a herb nursery just in a quarter acre block where we lived so we grew up in that herb nursery environment if you like and when I was around 12 I think my mum and dad bought the neighbouring property so
00:02:09
Speaker
Dad expanded the herb nursery into that garden and then my grandmother moved across the road and he expanded into her garden. We ended up with maybe around half an acre of herb nursery in the middle of the city.
00:02:24
Speaker
Yeah, it was, you know, at the time it's very normal. That's just what our reality was. But looking back, I can see it was a little bit odd and I can appreciate the effort that they went to to craft this different type of lifestyle amongst the big city. Well, that's right. Not a lot of people would have been living that way growing up when you did. Hopefully, I think that that's changing a little bit. But how did you end up in Tasmania?
Understanding Permaculture: Concepts and Misconceptions
00:02:48
Speaker
Oh, good question. So when I was growing up, I always wanted to travel, and I really wanted to travel Australia. So as soon as I was able, when I was 18, I just packed my bags and hit the road. You're out. And I then, yeah, I never went back.
00:03:03
Speaker
So I guess I, I chose to instead of going to university, I chose to kind of go on a self directed learning adventure. Yeah. Took me to lots of different places in Australia and was very much centered around learning around social and environmental justice issues of the times.
00:03:19
Speaker
So, you know, I went to Lumuro Detention Centre, lots of forest blockades across Victoria, Tasmania, and lots of sustainability activist gatherings and training conferences and really just threw myself in because I really wanted to learn about everything. And this is before the internet was really accessible.
00:03:41
Speaker
around 20 years ago, I guess. And the best way to learn this kind of stuff is to go and experience it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But that was that was very much my my unofficial university degree. Perfect. No better way really than like hands on experience.
00:04:00
Speaker
Yeah and in that process I first came to Tasmania actually on a little break to ride my bike around with an old friend and ended up staying for around a year helping with forest or caves and always wanted to come back. This place is incredible and I was fortunate to live in a few other different great places before I ended up moving back and yeah you know I've been I've done a few little stints on the mainland but otherwise we've been settled back here for around nine years now and
00:04:30
Speaker
have no desire to be anywhere else. Fantastic. So I suppose then through that work that you were doing with yourself kind of taught university degree, that's how you would have found permaculture then.
00:04:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So growing up in a herb nursery in West End, which is quite an alternative community back then. I'd always heard about permaculture. My dad had a few books on the bookshelf, but I didn't really, I was like, oh yeah, whatever. That's like another type of organic gardening. Cool, good on them. But then when I was traveling, when I was 18, I was really fortunate to meet Anne-Marie and Graham Bookman, who run the food forest farm in South Australia.
00:05:11
Speaker
maybe one hour north of Adelaide and I just went I was like ah permaculture. It all clicked. It's obviously around landscape management but it's so much more than that so it's a holistic design framework you can apply to anything from building design to governance, economics, finance, culture and education and more and Anne-Marie and Graham are also just exceptionally generous and kind human beings so they really
00:05:42
Speaker
just really graciously stepped me through things informally, like we did a bit of work on their farm, the pistachio orchards, and I was able to see that this was not just a job, but as a lifestyle, and it's incredibly proactive and positive form of activism to countering some of the big issues of our times, including the climate emergency. So once I met them, I was like, oh, this is amazing.
00:06:10
Speaker
and very much latched onto it amongst other things in my life at that time. So quickly going back to your dad's herb nursery, did he run that as a permaculture system? No, he would never call himself a permaculture.
00:06:28
Speaker
But he has a lot of things that would align easily but he never trained in that. He comes from a really conventional agricultural trained background but is very much aligned with chemical free gardening.
00:06:43
Speaker
So looking back now, I can see that there was an incredible element of permaculture in action. And like millions of people all around the world, they're doing elements or lots of permaculture, but they don't call it permaculture because that's not how they've learned it or identified with it.
00:07:01
Speaker
Yeah, I don't mind. I'm like, great, just do it. Well, I think the great thing about permaculture is that in a practical gardening sense, it actually just makes the most sense to do it that way. Yeah. And I must quote David Holmgren, who's co-originator. He says permaculture is the common sense that's just not so common anymore.
00:07:22
Speaker
That is a good quote. It makes a lot of sense to me like yeah because you know they build on First Nations knowledge from all around the world. The other co-originator is Bill Mullison and they really acknowledge that the practical techniques and methods that you'll see in permaculture you'll find in lots of different cultures across the world because that's the common sense that makes sense about how you manage water or how you build soil health or
00:07:48
Speaker
how you grow trees really
Educating and Designing with Permaculture Principles
00:07:50
Speaker
well. These things are age old, they've been around for millennia.
00:07:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. So this term permaculture is like fairly recent in the lexicon. But the practices have been going back thousands and thousands of years really since to the start of farming and agriculture. Yeah. And permaculture, Bill and David, the beautiful amazing contribution is that they've got this very tidy design framework around it, which brings together a lot of things which were not lining up in a design culture.
00:08:24
Speaker
Yeah. So I suppose what are some of the myths or mistruths about permaculture that should be dispelled? Oh, OK. Well, I've already mentioned one that it's only about gardening or our farming. So it's about everything. And so it's a very holistic approach to redesigning our whole world, really, to be one that's abundant and just and fair for everybody. Another big myth is that permaculture is really messy.
00:08:53
Speaker
in the garden. There's chaos everywhere. The old chop and drop and all of that kind of thing. Yeah, just throw some seeds down the ground and walk away. Permaculture can be messy if that's what you want to create, but I'm all about straight lines and efficiency. And within that, I have beautiful food forests, which will look quite semi-wild if you like, but they're very, very planned and very strategic.
00:09:21
Speaker
consciously planned, conscious wilding, I suppose. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, permaculture gardens can be straight lines, they can be, you know, curvaceous spirals, a combination of everything. So, aesthetics is very much becoming into it. So, that's a personal choice.
00:09:39
Speaker
And so people go, oh, I love permaculture, but I just really love my straight garden bits. I'm like, cool, just keep them and diversify what's happening within them. So how do you, so you said you're all about kind of straight lines. Does that follow through right into your designs as well for other people?
00:09:55
Speaker
Oh no, as every designer will understand is when you're designing for other people it's not about you, it's about them. And so a lot of my work is listening and understanding what the wonderful clients need and what they're looking for and then of course what can the landscape actually do as the other critically important element.
00:10:19
Speaker
So yeah, every property I design, I love. And often I'll go, well, I would never do this for myself, but it's so perfect for you and for this landscape. Yeah, fantastic. And that's a real joy to take myself away from me. I love thinking about other people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I suppose, so your business is good life permaculture, run with your partner Anton Vikstrom. And as we've been talking about, it's a design house. When you're designing for a client,
00:10:48
Speaker
How much effort on your part goes into educating them about permaculture? Obviously if they're coming to you with an idea that they want a permaculture garden, how do you make sure that they have the tools to actually be able to create that for themselves?
'The Good Life' Book and Systemic Change
00:11:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's a really good point. So usually by the time people find me, they've already been researching a bit about permaculture or they've been trying some things out. So it's very, very rare for me to take on a client who has zero experience or zero knowledge. And that's just from, I think that's the way how we present things through our website and how we communicate. So people go, yeah, we can help you. But we don't teach people how to grow food, for example.
00:11:33
Speaker
that's their skill set to take care of. I guess saying all that we do definitely make sure we go we're permaculture designers which means A, B and C and so people we can have a beautiful meeting point with skills coming together and we also have a wonderful collection of contractors we collaborate with as needed who
00:11:58
Speaker
trained in permaculture or very very very aligned and that's everything from excavator drivers to landscape builders and landscaping so we have a great team around us that we go okay this client really needs help on earthworks so we bring in Tim and he can help either do that or explain to them what needs to happen and step them through things accordingly. And I guess why they're doing that as well?
00:12:23
Speaker
Always, yeah. We always make sure we're proposing this. This is a concept that we're proposing and this is why we're proposing it. So it's not just a random thing that we're imposing on the landscape. So congratulations, you have written a book, The Good Life, How to Grow a Better World. Now, this isn't just your ordinary gardening book, is it?
00:12:45
Speaker
No, it's actually, I don't call it a gardening book, although it does include gardening. It's very much about how to live a good life in the face of the climate emergency, which we are living through. So I break it down by going, this is how we do it in our home, in our garden, in our community.
00:13:03
Speaker
But it's also how other people do it in Australia on small and really large scales looking at whole system change. So it's quite a holistic integrated book because I really think that's the kind of thing we need to start thinking about, not just our own gardening patches, but about our whole world. Let's dive deep into that thought on whole system change. What does that mean? Can you break that term down for us?
00:13:28
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So it's basically about how can we not just slap band-aids on issues that need fixing, but actually rebuild the whole system that we live in. And so we can look at different sectors in our society, so agriculture, housing, finance, anything basically, and go, look, what's not working here? Why isn't it working? How can we reimagine this and recreate something that benefits people and planet?
00:13:54
Speaker
Yeah, and not just for profit, which is usually the driving force behind a lot of these things. Yes. And so the good news is that organizations and people are already working in fantastic organizations to create these alternatives. So a few examples, for example, in Australia, like with land management around a fire. So we're seeing increasing wildfires, which is terrifying.
00:14:20
Speaker
The First Nations organization called the Firesticks Alliance, who are undergoing lots of training for people and country fire services as well around cultural burning, which is a cool burning technique.
00:14:35
Speaker
a completely different approach to fire, a hugely different relationship for white people to come to around fire and landscape management. So they're recreating a whole new system, yeah? And that's not the silver bullet. You'll have to have other things alongside that, but it is a significant shift in behavior, but also in mentality towards fire and landscape. So you can go to every single sector in our world and go, okay, how can we reimagine this?
00:15:03
Speaker
And the wonderful thing, as I mentioned, is that people have already started bringing these things into life.
00:15:10
Speaker
So what are some of those things that have already come into life other than cultural burning? Let's look at our housing sector. I'm from New South Wales and within the Sydney area we're just getting buildings thrown up. No thought to kind of how to live that good life and building homes that don't have what we need to move forward in the future.
00:15:34
Speaker
So what are some projects that you've seen that are working really well in that kind of space? Yeah, great question. So when we think about inner city living, it's getting increasingly more dense, and that's by necessity, and that can be a really great thing, but it can also be not a great thing.
00:15:55
Speaker
And I say that because often places are built, you know, a bit quickly and a bit on the cheap, so they're not good quality. Slapdash. Slapdash. You have to heat a lot. You have to heat them through winter to cool them through summer. Yeah. So some of that comes way back to basics around good design, which can be applied to multilevel apartments as well as single dwellings on the ground. But also I really think in Australia, we, a lot of us rent now because buying a property is way out of reach.
00:16:25
Speaker
And I think we need to do more of things like rent to buy models where renters can have a long-term lease, often around five years, and with the option of them buying that apartment or that property at the end of that timeline.
00:16:41
Speaker
And that means that when apartments or homes are built as a rent to buy model, the builders, the developers build them in good quality in mind because they know they have to last, but people won't sign up to... And they know that it's just not an investor coming in and saying, yeah, I'll take six of them and then just renting them out until they kind of degrade in a decade's time or something like that.
00:17:06
Speaker
So it's, it's a, it's a better safeguard to guarantee quality but also you're starting to look at long term community building so you go yeah cool I'm here for five years, which is a long time for winter. Yeah, potentially forever or a long time if I buy it.
00:17:21
Speaker
and so is everybody else in this apartment dwelling and that's a really different frame of mind. I used to rent, I think I rented 25 houses in 10 years because the rental market was so insecure and I wouldn't even bother meeting my neighbours usually unless we all, you know, would see each other often because I'm like why bother? I'm going to be out of here within a year anyway.
00:17:46
Speaker
So I think that could be a wonderful thing for Australian rental markets to actually start flipping it around and go, how can we create quality of life and quality housing? And I suppose through that sort of system as well, it'll actually help people take ownership of their lives and not start thinking of their lives as sort of disposable. And that would actually permeate through their entire life, not just their living situation.
00:18:14
Speaker
Oh yeah, so housing is a huge number one for human dignity. You can't function very well in the world without secure home because you're just worrying about where you're going to sleep the next night. So it's a really huge foundational thing. We need good secure housing for everybody.
00:18:32
Speaker
We have a big homelessness crisis in Australia as well and another great organisation working to solve that is called Homes for Homes, which was originally set up by The Big Issue. And that's a wonderful system where people who are buying or selling their house, they can donate a very, very tiny percentage to
00:18:54
Speaker
homes for homes and that percentage goes to securing good housing for people who have been previously homeless and so people with money can support people without money to access good housing and it's a really simple model that anyone can sign up to which is low input but high output
00:19:14
Speaker
Wonderful. Yeah, so and of course it's co-housing, social housing. It's all these models in Australia but also they're not flourishing more overseas but they could be flourishing here with some leadership.
00:19:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's right. I think if we had a government that was actually taking leadership on these matters and taking climate change more seriously as a whole, we would be in a much better state. And I think that with this whole system change,
00:19:45
Speaker
It's a chapter in your book. I suppose that needs to come from government as well. You know, from government to compost, it really has to be that whole system that works together to, as you say, grow a better world.
00:20:00
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So ideally, leadership and from become from politics, but also big industry because those two things hold a huge sway in our country, but also from media, which very much shapes a lot of our culture in Australia. So it'd be great to see those three things align with good ethics and values with climate safety in mind. Absolutely. But as you mentioned,
00:20:24
Speaker
Right now that leadership is not there as much as we need it.
Activism and Public Profile
00:20:28
Speaker
So people are just cracking on and they're doing it, you know, and that's what I'm just trying to show. We don't have to wait for permission and we don't have to wait for somebody else to start doing these things. We need to keep pressuring them to do it because it's critically important. We move away from fossil fuels and that's from biggest industry and politics. But in the meantime, let's start doing cool stuff together.
00:20:47
Speaker
Well, that's right. And not only fossil fuels, you've actually got a few figures in your book. You know, households are throwing away 3.1 million tonnes of edible food a year. You know, $20 billion lost to the economy through food. It's kind of insane. And, you know, 25% of veg produce doesn't even leave the farm.
00:21:10
Speaker
How do we solve this? There's no joke. It's multiple layers of change required and that's from everything from growers to the big supermarket chains putting in orders for food and what they will and won't accept needs to change.
00:21:27
Speaker
down to people, the consumers, the eaters, that's you and me, what we buy, how much we buy, how much we're wasting. So there's many different stops along with food chain that can be fixed. So that's on farm, in the big corporate offices and in our kitchen tables as well. But the very least what we can do is only buy what you need and then if you happen to have scraps left over, compost everything.
00:21:51
Speaker
Compost, compost, compost. It's one of the number one things they can do to prevent methane gas emissions being emitted. Don't send it to landfill, send it back to the earth. Yeah, lovely. Growing Media is a proudly independent podcast produced by me, Michael Hall, with zero corporate or network interference in our content.
00:22:14
Speaker
But this means we are running on the smell of an oily rag over here. So if you like the show and would like to make a small contribution, you could head over to our Patreon. You can find the link in our show notes. So obviously I've been seeing you on social media getting more and more involved in activism as your own personal profile is starting to rise. How important is that aspect to what you do?
00:22:40
Speaker
Yeah it's good observation, it's everything for me and I came to permaculture because I could see that this is a really positive form of activism that will nourish me and nourish others around me. So and I have been really, it's been a gradual evolution in the public arena about how I communicate that because
00:23:04
Speaker
you know, people can be put off by activism. They go, oh, that's the aggressive confrontational thing.
00:23:11
Speaker
But I'm starting to speak up more and more about it because everyone can be an activist. There's different types of activism and there's something for everybody. So I think I want to help change that narrative. Go, no, no, we can all be activists together. And that can happen in your office building, at your school, wherever you work or living. There's a role for everybody. And so I've really decided to re-embrace that language. Go, yeah, I'm an activist and I'm really proud to be one because it means I
00:23:39
Speaker
I really, really care. And you're helping to affect change as well. I think when we have leaders, you know, as you were talking about before the media, when we have people in the media or leaders standing up for what they believe in, I think it becomes easier for the little guy to stand up for what they believe in as well. So you're fighting the good fight. I think it's fantastic. Yeah, no, thank you. And I think, you know, I don't think activism is easy, but I think it's better
00:24:08
Speaker
for us to have a crack at doing it and it is infinitely easier when we do it alongside one another and support each other knowing that we'll do it differently to the next person but that we're all connected and it's all towards the same thing.
00:24:19
Speaker
Do you find when you do post on social media that you do get a bit of backlash from some of the posts? Yeah, oh, for sure. After gardening, I'm like, oh, actually, this is a permaculture page. And permaculture is a holistic design system to creating a better world. Yeah. So I try to link that in quite clearly. People don't have to follow me, obviously. You're welcome to be wherever you want to be online.
00:24:43
Speaker
My, my efforts are just going towards joining the dots of people and using every opportunity, every space I happen to have currently to do good.
Gardening in Tasmania: Challenges and Innovations
00:24:59
Speaker
more opportunities I get, the more important it is for me to not shy away from that because, um, I just think why waste this time? You know, I don't know how much longer I'll be here on the earth or have these different opportunities presented me. Like why waste this opportunity? That's right. No, exactly. Um, you live in Tasmania.
00:25:19
Speaker
which is a fairly long way away from where I live. I'm in the Blue Mountains. But we do have climactic similarities, so I take a little bit of an interest in Tasmania. But what are some of the challenges unique to your geography?
00:25:37
Speaker
Sure so we definitely have the four seasons down here quite sharply and sometimes four seasons within one day and so I happen to live in Nippaluna in Hobart on the coast so it's a bit more moderate than other parts of Tassie but overall it's a cool temperate environment so it means that the windows of planting are very very important you don't want to miss them. Yeah yep I feel that.
00:26:02
Speaker
So if you miss them, you've missed the season, really. So paying attention about what has to go in when and what has to be direct sown or propagated inside. That's probably the biggest thing for our climate. Having grown up in the subtropics where you can kind of plan anything, you know, not anything, but a lot most of the time. Yeah.
00:26:22
Speaker
Down here. Okay, I cannot forget this. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's been one of the biggest things that I've learned as well I grew up in Far North Queensland, so Just north of Cairns in Port Douglas area and I get the same thing, you know tomatoes in winter, you know that type of thing When I moved down here, I was like, oh wait, what like I've got a
00:26:42
Speaker
I've got to actually plan now seriously. Yeah it's a lot more planning is a good point Michael so I plan a lot more here and then we do certain things to extend the season like we have a small cold frame which is like a mini hothouse if you like so we can grow short growing bush tomatoes and basil and eggplants in there more easily because we'll still get some frost here you know um
00:27:03
Speaker
in spring, so we got to make sure we don't lose anything. Nice. So you have a lovely big pink home and I think you're on just under an acre, is that right? Yeah, around 3,000 square meters. Yeah, yeah. So and you've got beautiful sweeping views. What has been some of the biggest challenges on your specific block?
00:27:29
Speaker
Yeah, so our property is incredibly steep, which is one of the reasons why we could afford it. It was a bit of what the real estate affectionately called a dud property. But it's not such thing. All earth is good earth, you know? It's a weird concept. What makes it a dud? Just the steep slope.
00:27:48
Speaker
Yeah, so we didn't have, there was no driveway to access the property, so you had to walk up through our neighbour's garden, up a hundred metre staircase. So it was, you know, for the first four years we lived here, that's all the access we had. And we now have a driveway, we were able to extend a different neighbour's driveway out to our place, which is
00:28:05
Speaker
Very helpful. But without a doubt, the biggest challenge is how to navigate that steepness to make it, you know, have good access easily across the slope and good productivity and good water management. So we did a lot of work with excavator to terrace it.
00:28:22
Speaker
And we didn't have a budget to do retaining walls, so we did large earth banks in between small flat terraces. And effectively what we've done here is we've turned most of it into a perennial system, so all those earth banks and border gardens all perennial.
00:28:39
Speaker
and a lot of it's edible as well. And then all the flat bits are annual vegetables or some social spaces and a cold frame and animal systems. So the bits that we have to work on are the flat bits. That makes it a lot more easy for you then.
00:28:58
Speaker
Yeah, you can push a wheelbarrow around easily. Yeah, I'm on a dreadful slope as well and I'm on, you know, 1200 square meters and we don't quite have the space to be able to put in those kind of like flat areas and it's really getting good size. Yeah, I think it's important to show that you can do something on any type of landscape, but it will look wildly different. So you just have to respond to what's possible and your own capacity and your own budget.
00:29:27
Speaker
What's your biggest success that you've had with the garden? What are your crops that you have your best kind of yield from? Oh, good questions. We are just nailing carrots at the moment. For multiple years, actually. And it's always nice indicator because to get a good carrot, you need good friable soil, good drainage. So it's always a nice indicator that, yeah, the soil is good, you know.
00:29:50
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, as you said, you need friable soil. But with your own garden, do you dig or do you work on a no dig?
00:29:59
Speaker
Oh yeah, so we work on a no-till system. So we don't have, like the no-dig gardener often has the layers. Don't add layers. Soil's quite good here. But we do have a no-till gardening approach. We've both worked in market gardens. So we'll use silage type in between crops to help any plant residue break down and to activate the soil food web. And we'll often, you know, we'll dress it with compost seasonally.
00:30:27
Speaker
and we do annual or bi-annual soil tests to make sure minerals are all in balance.
Role on ABC's Gardening Australia
00:30:33
Speaker
So we can sometimes reapply minerals as needed. But it means that we're never digging and turning the soil upside down. It means that once we pull a silage tarp off, we can literally plant the same day with no weed, pressure, nothing. Great, how good's that? What kind of soil are you on? We're on Dolorite bedrock, so we've got heavy clay soils.
00:30:57
Speaker
It's quite strange because we're on top of a hill but we have quite a deep layer of topsoil ranging from
00:31:03
Speaker
you know, 30 centimeters up to half a meter, which is quite good up here. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting. Is that from previous gardeners, do you think? Well, apparently a long time before we got here, but apparently these grow berries to sell, which go really well in our region. Yeah. So, yeah. And I think so the soil is quite good. It definitely needs a lot of organic matter and good water management, otherwise it will crack and dry out.
00:31:32
Speaker
So we're very attentive for the soil. What were some of the minerals that you sometimes have to put into it?
00:31:39
Speaker
Oh, well, we used to do an annual application of Kipson, which helps bind the clay particles together to make it more friable. And then we do, I actually can't remember the soil report. We haven't put anything on for around two years, but we got it tested recently and they said, you don't have to put anything on, it's really good. Oh, great. So it was all the micronutrients. Yeah, that's cool.
00:32:05
Speaker
People around Australia, thousands of people around Australia know what your garden looks like because you are a special guest presenter on ABC's Gardening Australia.
00:32:17
Speaker
How did you get that gig? That's a pretty amazing kind of job to have. It's so sweet. They contacted me a couple of years ago and said, oh, did you want to come on? This is a one off guest. Of course. And that was so lovely. So they did like a little story about us and where we live and what we do.
00:32:35
Speaker
And then they, you know, I worked really hard and made sure I was really nice to them. You suck up. I'm a long time fan. Seriously, it was just their decision. They decided to invite me back as a guest presenter. So I looked into a series of these six stories and then it just rolled on from there. So how many years have you been doing it now? Three or four?
00:33:05
Speaker
No, I think we're, I don't know, maybe into a third year. Third year. Yeah, so I'm a sporadic guest presenter amongst other guest presenters, but I'm so, so privileged and stoked and humbled to be there because they're a wonderful team of people and so respected. So it's a really, it's a really special thing for me to be involved. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. What's been your kind of best, your favorite story that you've done?
00:33:32
Speaker
Oh, well, um, I can tell you the most popular one is around a chicken feeder I made. Oh yeah. To this day, I still get emails from Denmark or Africa going, I just made a new chicken feeder. It's amazing. Oh, how good. I love that because it's the simple things that are really, you know, anyone can make, because if I can make it, then anyone can make it. I'm not that great at building stuff. Yeah. Um, and it's, I love being able to make information accessible and available to a lot
00:34:00
Speaker
of different people no matter where they are. I will say I think that's what your segments really bring to the show is I always kind of go what is she going to be doing this week? It's always something very practical and it's always something very interesting that a lot of other people don't do or you know don't know that they want to do until they watch it.
00:34:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's the thing. Find what resonates with people and what people can connect with and what's really accessible for people to jump on. Yeah. Well, thank you very much for doing the show today. Thanks so much
Conclusion and Resources
00:34:38
Speaker
for having me, Michael. No worries.
00:34:43
Speaker
Do what you love, live the good life, enact whole system change to grow a better world. Pick up The Good Life, How to Grow a Better World by Hannah Maloney. A great read to enact real practical steps to combat the climate crisis.
00:34:59
Speaker
You can find out more about Hannah at her website, goodlifepermaculture.com.au and goodlife underscore permaculture on Instagram. All of that will be linked in the show notes. As well as that, you can find links to the organization's Fire Sticks Alliance and Homes for Homes that Hannah mentioned today.
00:35:19
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening, guys. It has been a great show. I know we got a little bit off topic, but hey, it's probably gonna happen more. You can follow the pod at Growing Media Oz on Instagram, and I'm Michael Haw, M-Y-K-A-L-H-O-A-R-E. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the show. It'd mean the world to me if you could also tell two of your best buds. I just want to get the word out there. Hooroo! See you in a fortnight.