Hello world

Hi guys

I've been a keen gardener for many years, I'm a one time agriculture student (Scotland) and current horticulture & sustainability student (Melbourne). I study part-time evenings as I have two littlies at home and other than my husband, have no family here I can abandon them with!

My main areas of interest are in sustainability and regeneration of agricultural, brownfield and bush land. Oh and soils!

I volunteer at a local indigenous plant nursery where I am learning a lot about the wonderful plants of the Dandenong Ranges where I live.

I already try to be as sustainable in my gardening methods etc as possible, but am trying to learn more about permaculture and include those principles within my own garden. It's pretty much a test site at the moment, whereby my vegetable patch has expanded to hugelkultur beds under the large gum trees in our front garden and I'm adding trees with edible produce wherever I can.

We are on a typical Aussie plot of just under a quarter acre, with 4 large gums, a large acacia and numerous large shrubs / small trees. My aim is to create a food forest that includes both indigenous and native Australian plants, with some of the more traditional permaculture exotics. With it being a small plot, everything is close to the house!

Anyway, that's me and no doubt you'll see me around asking lots of questions - just hope I don't get too annoying! :blush:

Welcome to permies Kerry
I've lived in Edinburgh and Melbourne and loved them both; the Dandenongs are beautiful!
Have you checked out http://forums.permaculture.org.au/? You'll be able to get Aussie-specific info there too.
If you're keen, it's well worth putting a bit of climate/geographic info in your profile: the Southern hemisphere rules, but most permies members are upside-down and have piles of Autumn leaves right now.
I love my evergreen country, but sometimes I'm really jealous of all those leaves!

John Polk wrote:Go to Modify Profile, Forum Profile Information; Personal Text
Enter location
Scroll down to Change profile, and click it.

And the more questions the better, I say

Hi Leila and thank you for the welcome!

I lived in Edinburgh too, Leith in fact, which despite being 'interesting' (ahem) is somewhere I really enjoyed living. The Dandenongs do however top it quite a bit and we're so lucky to live here

I just joined the permaculture.org.au forum as well actually as I'd spotted a few people on here referring others there. I've been in Aus for 4 years now and although settled, I'm still at that strange stage of being confused between whether I want north or south for full sun and getting a grasp on the huge difference in plants here. Sure, there's the old garden favourites that everyone has the world over, but most Aussie plants I had no experience of until I moved here

Thanks for the tip on the profile. I'll go and figure that out now.