Winter course in Self-Sufficiency

 Hi Everyone. We are offering training for this winter for off-grid self-sufficiency, prepping and survival in the wilderness of Tasmania. We have 200acres of regrowth pine forest overlooking the Tarkine rainforest. Looking for people who want to learn about cool-climate self-sufficiency. It will be cold and can snow but what we teach you won’t find anywhere else. Please see the photo below. If you are interested please contact Lisa or Gavin on ghfarmtas@gmail.com or txt 0459 263 525.

 

How our Sustainable Small Farm™ Christmas differs from a city family's

Our Christmas was spent harvesting food. No break for us. It was a cold morning for Christmas (8 degrees) and we had to bring in the wood and light our rocket stove, as  a bonus we heat our water and cook our breakfast on it. If we don't grow our food and bring it in we don't eat and have to buy the poison food from the shops – something we are determined to avoid, so today we harvested some bounty, I harvested: Potatoes, beetroot, Giant Russian garlic, 2 globe artichokes, and a handful of wheat, chives and fennel. Then we both picked fruit: 830g Black currants, 164 raspberries, 48 youngberries, 12 silvanberries, 13 loganberries, 2 marionberries, 4 blueberries, 1Kg of sour cherries, 4 strawberries and 1.6 Kg of red currants.

We harvested this as well as watered all the gardens (twice today as it was windy and I've got seeds in) and Lisa cooked our Christmas lunch. Lisa made a Christmas present of sugar-free raspberry cordial for our good neighbors over the road and dropped it by. After lunch, Lisa collected the eggs and cleaned the chooks' water and I thinned some red gravenstein apples and fed two buckets of them to the sheep. Then I refilled the water drums from the top tank off the shed – we water the gardens by hand at the moment with watering cans and bucket our water to the cabin for drinking and washing dishes. We're not complaining – we like doing this. Before enlightenment chop wood carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water. It's very Zen. There's something nice about it too. We use less water to grow all of our food than a city household uses normally without growing any of their food. What can you say? The proof is not in the Christmas pudding, the proof is in the doing.

This is how we live, in nature, dependent on her and the sweat of our bodies for our food, it doesn't just get bought at a shop 20 minutes away by doing some office job for some, often disreputable, company or the government. It is hard won, not easy, made harder by the harassment we get just trying to do the right thing – BUT that doesn't mean we stop doing it, stop living this way, stop doing the right thing. We live self-sufficiently, sustainably, honourably. We try like hell.

So please – when you think of moving to the country and being self-sufficient – don't think it's the easy life, the simple life – there's not much simple about it. It's not easier than city life, far from it it there is a lot to learn how to do, a lot to overcome and put up with (fight against even). It's not that simple but it is good. The good life. That is, when you've learnt how to become a country person and “re-wilded” your heart. When you've survived on what most city people waste and listened to them telling you how you can be sustainable when you've lived it for 20 years while they've never grown more than a tenth of what they eat and made none of the products they “need”. I'm not meaning to offend here – I'm just telling it like it is. The truth. We really are sustainable. We're the real thing. We don't get days off unless we have a friend who can feed animals and water our vegie gardens for us. We sacrifice our holidays for our beliefs, to be sustainable, to walk the talk. We celebrate every day we are alive because we know what we work for and fight for, and we know how good it is. We love this way of life. Despite all the hardships that make it difficult to do. Despite it being a lot easier to live in the city and conform.

In the morning we have the “good morning world” songs of the small birds, the fantails, fairy wrens and others. During the day we hear the magpie, crow, and yellow-tailed cockatoos with the whistler in the late afternoon. Wallabies run for cover as I go on an early night slug hunt to keep them from eating my beans and potatoes, and the owls bring the curtain of night down. Go to bed and let me be – I'm hunting mice and frogs. The world is good.

Then we do it all again the next day, and the next after that, with variations and mountains, valleys and seasons. Trees and fresh air, rain, hail, snow, sun and cloud. Tears, laughter and love. A real life.

So, as you can see, our Christmas on the farm is a world away from a city person's. We wouldn't swap though. Would you?

Merry Christmas from us all on the farm.

Tassie Tigers need keep their strength up. "Fezzy-boy Moo" needs rest and sunshine!

Cabbages in the office

**This is from 25th October as spring has hurried on now and it’s got busy and I haven’t had much time to post.**


It’s been a very wet spring here this season and my peas rotted in the ground - so did my neighbours, and even my friends in town, and they’re right near coast. Cabbages have done pretty well though. I think Lisa is sick of hearing about the cabbages. She calls them ‘Findhorn’ cabbages - after the community in Scotland that reputedly grew giant vegetables, helped by the plant spirits, or devas. She likes eating cabbages more than me, though - I’m just the grower. Maybe she just dreams of giant cabbages, she is of Scottish descent after all.

My office, the BC garden, is looking a bit improved but not as good as last year at this time - although I have concentrated on a brassica crop this spring instead of as many potatoes. We’ve got potatoes in to come on after the brassicas but it’s been so wet I wasn’t able to put as much time into the garden as I would have liked. Still, it’s not looking too bad, and we’ve got food in the “hungry gap”. In fact we’re still eating the last of the apples and there’s plenty of dried chestnuts left as well as some maize and beans. We won’t starve.

Together with the Earth, our work in the garden provides for our bodies and nature provides beauty. So, here’s my office - and 'cabbages' for our souls.

Growing with Love is about Caring

Growing with Love is about Caring:

From Cracking Clay to Something Wonderful in 18 months

 

Gavin Edwards
Good Heart Farm
Lapoinya, Tasmania

We bought the farm mid 2012. I made the first garden here, the Hobbit garden, thinking we were going to stay in the packing shed but the shed turned out to be too noisy near the road. So then we moved down the bottom to the cabin. Of course, I had to make another garden down there (the Magic Circle garden in 2013).

September 2014 saw Lisa wanting to go to a herb conference in Arizona. I was against leaving in spring - after all it was a major planting time - and if we don’t plant we have to buy shop food - yuk! Lisa was determined to go however, so I said I’d go and protect her (Women! I’m a sucker, I listened to my heart). Besides, it gave me a chance to hike the back trails in search of native edibles.

We were going to need to expand the garden anyway. So I built onto the back of the Circle and made the BC (Behind Circle) garden.
It took about three days.

 

We were about to leave - the day before I planted the beds out to potatoes - just finishing mulching before we left. Close call.
This is what it looked like in November 2014.

and December 2014

January 2015

 

We ate a lot of potatoes that year! In fact we were sick of potatoes. Luckily I had good lettuce and peas in the Magic Circle to break the monotony.



Later in the year my goodly neighbour, Stan, then gave us, you guessed it, sacks of spuds! I thanked him.

January 2016 - and we’d had very little rain all winter and spring. It turned out to be drought. The ground (clay loam) cracked, nobody had any grass - it was the worst drought this area had ever known. Wisely, I left some beds in the circle unplanted - I figured I might not have the water to water the crops with and as it turned out I was right. We had drought followed by 100 bushfires burning throughout Tassie. I watered all my beds in the BCg by hand with watering cans.

But inside the fence was a different matter. This is how it looked on the 29 January 2016.
 

 Yes, an explosion of Food!

The yellow vine above is Dutch Purple podded peas ripening - pea soup in winter - yum.

Lisa in the corn 16feb16

Cucumbers and squash above

A heritage cherry tomato here - planted late on the back fence. Had about 200 off two bushes.

 Pumpkins growing 21st Feb 16

"Pumpkin!"

The harvest basket 23 Feb 16. Button squash (Patterson Panache Juane et verte), cherry toms and purple beans.

 First of March
and the pumpkins are still exploding and threatening to take over the whole valley



Time to harvest some (no frost yet but somethings starting to gnaw one - so time to come out just in case)

7 March 2016

This was in the driest summer ever and watered with watering cans. No poisons or chemical sprays - totally organic - you CAN do it.

I call this Self-Sufficient Gardening™. It works.

If you want to learn how to grow with love please contact us at The Good Heart School of Self-Sufficiency™

Hope to see you there!

Spring 2015 Classes

Intro to Self-Sufficiency: Spring                           Sat 5  Sept 

Want to get back to basics and start learning self sufficiency? Don't know where to start? This workshop is for you. Learn about what you can achieve doing self-sufficiency on a budget and what is best done in spring. Cost $50   Time: 10am-3pm

Beginners Organic Vegetable Gardening              Sat 26 Sept   

Always wanted to grow veggies but not sure how.? Join Gavin in the veggie patch on our farm where he will share with you his 45 years of gardening know-how on growing great veggies Cost $35 , Time 1-4pm (ongoing Saturday classes once a month).

Wild Herb Walk and Medicine Making                Sat 10 Oct

Walk around the farm with Community Herbalist Lisa McAndrew, where she will show you how to identify wild herbs and how they can help you heal. Make and take home a bottle of wild medicine from these plants. Cost $25 Time: 1-3pm (ongoing Saturday classes once per month).

Saving Our Food Plant Biodiversity                        Sat 7 Nov 

Join Master Seed Saver Gavin Edwards as he explains the threats to our heritage and heirloom food plants, Find out about the work of our Food Plant Sanctuary™ and learn about how and why biodiversity is essential to sustainable food growing.  Cost: $25, Time: 1-3pm.

Self Sufficiency learn by doing                              Sept - May

Ongoing instruction in self-sufficiency and organic growing are offered for people who would like to learn by doing as we run our smallholding. (Cost per day is $25 for 3 hours learning plus 2 hours labour. Please notify us of the dates that you would like to attend. We will teach you what we are doing on our farm at the time.

To RSVP please email ghfarmtas@gmail.com and state which workshop you will attend.

Copyright Lisa McAndrew, 2015. All rights reserved

Journey of the Heart

Little did I know when I first decided to embark on a journey to a simpler life in the country all those years ago in Western Australia, that I would learn how to heal my body, heart, soul and spirit.   At the time urban living represented everything that was wrong about the world. It represented the loss of our spirit, the loss of our wholeness. I felt that there was something fundamentally wrong with my life at the time  and I could not put a finger on what it was. Beyond the fact that I wanted more room to grow vegetables and the ability to capture my own rain water and provide for myself, my heart was breaking and crying out for freedom. It seemed that I was boxed in on all sides, not just by houses but by the weight of societal expectations to conform.  There seemed no room for creativity, life, nature or love in the harshness of the urban landscape.

And so without even really articulating this all to myself, I followed my heart and moved from the city to the country, meeting my now husband on the way. I  found a home on a beautiful small farm in the country,  where my husband and I practiced self sufficiency and life should have been good. However life is not always simple and the simple life was a lot more difficult that I expected. My health broke down, I was in a strange town where I knew very few people, I knew nothing of living on a farm, was newly married and local politics were rife. I was quickly discovering that my idea of a peaceful rural town had no basis in reality. Self-sufficiency it seemed was not something that was welcomed and appreciated by all. The simple act of growing your own vegetables had grown into a huge political agenda with various forces at work against us, just us two, both of who were unwell. We both wanted nothing more than to live the good life. Growing our own food and providing for ourselves. 

And so the journey took an unexpected and difficult turn. Friends, community members, neighbors, government and big business all turned against us. I struggled with this onslaught of divisiveness, greed, envy and hate. I was brought up in a Christian household, where my kind parents would often do volunteer work to help people in different capacities. To me it was an extension of their being, a sign of their goodness and their desire to share their love with the world. I could not comprehend the experiences that where happening to us. I became more and more unwell. We moved for a while, but then when I miscarried we returned to the farm, sick, broke and with our heads barely above water. I became sicker with every piece of hate and jealousy that was sent our way.

Finally I decided that I had had enough of all of it and that I needed to heal. And that I would need to heal myself. My body, mind heart and soul turned to this. I read books,  prayed, meditated and spent time in nature. I learnt about herbs, nutrition and healing. Nature taught me patiently as she is wont to do with those that will be her student. I finally became a human being not a human doing and discovered the heart of life.

Self sufficiency I realised, was not so important for the acts  of growing, building and cooking, etc that we did, but for the love that was put into them. I found that actions done with love create purpose and happiness. My life slowly became infused with love, joy and peace. In 2012 we moved to a new farm in Tasmania, calling it Good Heart Farm. Here in a place that supports our well-being we are creating a testament to the love of the heart, created with human hands.

Living in the country has become a part of who I am. It has allowed me the time to build up a relationship with nature, with plants and trees and animals. It has enabled me to be me. I have cast off the expectations of others and society and am free. But with freedom comes responsibility, because when you fulfill your destiny you are required to truly be who you are and stand up in the world. I am a healer, a herbalist, a teacher, a community outreach worker, a wife, a sister, a daughter and a friend. My life is to be who I am. To serve the world. To channel the love of the divine into creating heaven on earth. 

My journey was not peaceful, nor has it ended. But I don't regret one day of it. My journey to the country to find the good life became something much more. It has been a journey of discovery and healing. 

May you walk the path to love and healing.

Good Heart Farm Internships

 Good Heart Farm™

Internships 2015

Fantastic Learning Opportunity!

We have intern positions available on our farm for the autumn season.

We are looking for genuine, enthusiastic and creative people who are interested in learning about self-sufficiency and organic farming.

Be on the leading edge of knowledge, experience living on an organic farm and learn about the heart of self-sufficiency by joining us on our farm.

Good Heart Farm™ is located in the North West of Tasmania, on the edge of the Tarkine Wilderness.


We run the Good Heart School of Self-Sufficiency™ and Lapoinya Food Plant Sanctuary™ on our farm.  We are committed to teaching, promoting and preserving the Art of Self-Sufficiency as well as Saving Food Plant Biodiversity for the future.

Internships are for 6 to 8 weeks, starting March 2015. Accommodation is provided.
The internship is an exchange of our teaching for your help with work on the farm. This is a unique experience!  

Topics that you will learn about during your time with us include:

Organic Food Growing (including Organic vegetables, herbs, nuts, raising animals for meat and Organic Orcharding)   Herb Lore    Foraging & Wildcrafting   Food Preserving    Traditional Cooking    Building    Seed Saving   Recycling    Ethics and Philosophy of Self- Sufficiency    Saving Food Plant Biodiversity    Upcycling   Appropriate Technology   Traditional Arts and Crafts...  and more.

Come and join us and help us change the world!