The October permi8 gathering was held on a gorgeous spring day at Shae's place. It's been about a year since my last visit, and the food garden has come on in leaps and bounds in that time. (Yes, the recent rain has something to do with it too, I'm sure). We admired her mixed vegetable beds and shade trees that stretch from the back door to the food forest Shae is creating at the back of the block. Notice her pretty and practical garden border, made by weaving tree prunings between wood uprights.

We had a good chat as we looked at the new plantings she's done in the food forest, noted the way the older fruit trees had been pruned, and watched the chooks busily scratch around. Shae is improving the soil by depositing all her green waste (clippings, prunings and veg peelings) on the ground here and letting the chooks dig it over as it breaks down. It's continually adding organic matter to the soil, yet Shae describes it as 'lazy gardening' because once she dumps the materials the chooks do all the work. She's already reaping the benefits as the plants respond to the improved conditions by thriving instead of struggling. All the plants are heavily mulched and she has installed an irrigation system from her water tank.

We also went to work, to help place exclusion bags on the fruit trees to thwart the dreaded fruit flies.

We headed inside where Shae shared some you-tube clips and discussed her recent experience at a Change the Dream symposium. She spoke very passionately about it and clearly it has had a really positive impact on her. You can read more about it, in Shae's own words, here. Several permi8 people were excited to hear that the symposium is coming to Albury in November (details at that same link), so they too can participate.

Finally, we finished up with some swapping of seeds, cuttings and other 'show and tell', all while enjoying the always-impressive array of homemade goodies people had brought along and a cuppa!