Interview with Sonya Wallace originally featured in the Relocalize - Volume 2, Issue 2 - February, 2007

We spoke with Sonya Wallace, coordinator of Creating a Sustainable Sunshine Coast - Nambour to Mooloolah (CASSC) in Queensland, Australia, about how she got involved with the Relocalization Network, plans for 2007, and her advice for groups and individuals interested in starting their own local gardens. Check out Sonya's Organic Gardening blog on relocalize.net.

How did you get involved with the Relocalization Network? How long have you been involved?

I first heard about the Relocalisation Network through the Australian website ‘Aussies Living Simply’, both Andi Hazelwood and Cherie McGregor from RWBI are members there and they started a thread on it.

It really kicked off for me when I met the wonderful Andi during our Permaculture Design Course last October. She did a great presentation on relocalisation and we were all very inspired. I had the time to put into running the website and it mirrored my beliefs and the way I was living my life anyway, so thought I’d give it a go. We are lucky here on the Sunshine Coast, it is such a proactive area, lots of permaculture groups, lots of interesting events and courses on all the time and now, lots of relocalisation groups popping up all over the place.

What initially sparked your interest in getting involved?

My interest in peak oil was sparked a couple of years back when I first saw The End of Suburbia DVD at a permaculture course I was doing. It really got me thinking about what our lives would be like when oil either ran out or became so expensive we couldn’t continue just using it (or abusing it) the way we are. The idea of using ancient fossilised fuel that takes million of years to form in the ground to power our meager lives always seemed quite unsustainable to me.

I’ve been reading about and studying Permaculture for more than decade now and that has always had an emphasis on using less and being aware of the amount of natural resources you are consuming. When you look at the amount of oil used in food production alone, not to mention the amount of water used to irrigate our food commercially (70 per cent of all Australia’s water goes into commercial food production), I see permaculture and organics, preferably in the home garden setting, as a solution for future food production.

The visions of both Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in creating the ethics and principles of Permaculture way back in the 70’s is only now, I believe, being fully realised.

I see the future as being very positive though. If we want it to be. It can be about building communities, getting to know your neighbours, enjoying the truly important things in life like spending time with friends and loved ones, sharing and eating great food, getting off that horrible depressing consumer merry go round of trying to keep up with the Joneses, working less and living more – sounds great to me!

Since seeing The End of Suburbia, I’ve bought my own copy plus The Power of Community and The Future of Food and we’ve joined local permaculture groups where we have regular public screenings of these important films, which are always very well attended. I also spend time creating permaculture gardens in local primary schools and time volunteering at our local community farm at Yandina. I read a lot of books (big fan of books) like Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers, Clive Hamilton’s Affluenza, and Ian Lowe’s The Big Fix. I believe peak oil, climate change and our water crisis are all inextricably linked.

My husband and I live in a very small (but lovely) house with a composting toilet, no air-conditioning – just good air flow (this is the sub tropics, it’s going to get hot!), we recycle our grey water onto the garden, we have a couple of acres of organic permaculture food gardens, lots of chooks, worm farms, a great little cob oven and enough compost bins scattered through the garden to start a small dalek army.
We are planning on fine tuning the house even further with a solar hot water system, additional rain water storage, improving air flow and cooling naturally and one day adding solar panels to the roof – ahh, but to dream!

I really think people want to do something about this situation and if they know there are small, but significant, things we can all do, it will offer them hope for the future and for their children and grandchildren.

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced as a Local Group Coordinator getting started?

I think biting the bullet and getting started, selecting a name for the group that encompassed that you want to achieve and just letting people know about it. I started it off just before Christmas, so most things around the place were in wind down mode, but I’m looking forward to getting the word out there more this year and increasing the membership and seeing where the members want to take it.

Like a lot of things, it’s all about networking. I recently did a radio interview which generated interest and we have some events coming up this year through my permaculture networks that will fit nicely with the relocalisation network – things like the Australian version of the Al Gore Climate Change presentation – I’m helping to organise one of the Sunshine Coast evenings.

Word of mouth is a great tool, but it takes time.

Finding out information and discovering what’s going on and sharing it with others is my key strategy for the site – for example our local Council is producing a ‘local food suppliers’ directory later this year, so I’ll post details about that on the website and write a letter of congratulations to the Council for their pro-active initiative!

Must add that I’ve found the technical support in getting started and the ease with which posts can be added to the site really impressive too. In my previous life I wrote for government and universities websites and I find the support at the relocalisation network to be excellent (I’m not just sucking up here, I really mean it!)

You've recently got your permaculture certification and started an organic gardening blog on relocalize.net. How has your experience with your garden been so far?

Getting my Permaculture certificate was fantastic – I’ve been meaning to do it for such a long time and it was with a great group of people too. I’m also completing my Certificate IV in training, so I can ‘officially’ teach Permaculture and organic gardening in the community.

We bought this place as an established garden, formerly a teaching facility, in 2005 and it’s ten years old this year, so it was really a case of the garden doing what it does regardless, and us just trying (struggling?) to keep up with it!

Lots of learning, but it is fun, some big disappointments along the way – crops failing badly, big hail storms, chooks [chickens] being taken by predators - but the successes are very rewarding – eating fresh organic food from your own garden is the best and it’s great to invite friends over and have the table laden with food fresh from the garden – or if we have to buy it – from local organic producers. Our health and fitness have also greatly improved too.

Our chooks supply us with fresh organic eggs, we have enough Arabica coffee plants to supply us with coffee all year round, we have fruit trees, vines, vegetables, salad plants, herbs and nut trees. Lots of ginger, limes, galangal, curry trees and plenty of tropical fruits to keep us going.
I’m planning on running short courses from here to teach others how to compost, worm farm, care for the soil, grow vegies, recycle garden waste etc etc. It would be nice to have the house as an example of a more sustainable way of life for people to see too – and to show that being sustainable doesn’t mean being uncomfortable or going without the ‘nice’ things in life.

Our main focus here is on the soil – I read a great quote once about a good farmer farming the soil, not the plants. It’s something I’m learning a lot about, care for the microbial life in the soil and your plants will be strong and healthy and will be more resilient so suffer less pest and disease problems. Everything must go back to the soil.

What are some other projects that you are planning for 2007?

Well, I’m pretty satisfied with my life, so really just to keep doing what I do and to continue volunteering within the community, to get the house more efficient, to live more simply, to eat better, to get fitter (gardening will do that), to laugh more and have more fun, to get some solar panels and a solar hot water system on the roof, to understand the garden better, to use the car less (already sold one, so we are on our way, buying solar panels with the money from the sale), to eat more and more food from the garden, to spend more time with my husband and just to enjoy life.

What would be your advice for people who want to get started growing their own food?

Don’t wait until you have acreage or the ‘perfect’ place (it doesn’t exist), just start growing food in whatever you have available where you are right now. You can grow a lot of food on a balcony or in pots for example. Grow pots of herbs near your kitchen door and start making all sorts of yummy teas – mint, chamomile even stinging nettles make a great (sting free) tea, eat a little something from the garden every day. Buy some organically certified potting mix and get started. Grow pick-n-pluck lettuces, Lebanese cucumbers and cherry tomatoes in pots or a polystyrene box free from the supermarket. Take a salad from your garden to work every day.

Join local gardening groups. Permaculture groups always have unusual and hard to find plants for sale and there will always be someone there who can help you with a problem.

Put your energy and time into caring for the soil – compost to make humus and keep worms to harvest their castings – as part of your crop rotation system grow green manure crops and turn them into the soil – build the organic matter content – it will help aerate the soil and will actually help it retain water.

Learn how to design your garden – good design is part of your pest and disease management and the first step to a successful chemical free garden.

Healthy soil is alive, full of microbial life – bacteria, fungi, beetles, spiders, earthworms and they all need air, water and food, care for your microbes and they will care for your plants and ultimately you. If you put chemicals in your soil, you kill these little creatures so then you need to add food and nutrition using ‘unnatural’ sources that cost you money and are probably made using fossil fuels.

Add minerals – Australian soils are severely depleted in minerals and organic matter.

Mulch, mulch, mulch – either buy bales, or grow your own sugar cane and vetiver grass to cut and mulch with, or grow a living mulch over the soil like Pinto Peanut, never ever leave your precious soil bare and exposed to the elements.

Read good local books on food growing suited to your microclimate, go to events and expos (we have the Queensland Home Garden Expo here on the Sunshine Coast every July and there’ll be plenty of workshops and lectures on organic growing and demonstration gardens too).

While you are setting up your garden and building the soil subscribe to a local organic Community Supported Agriculture group and receive a weekly box full of organic food so you can start to eat with the seasons and discover what grows well in your local area.

Grow what you love to eat, what grows well in your garden and grow lots of it, learn to preserve it and give excess away to neighbours and friends, or invite them over for a wonderful harvest feast!

Celebrate good healthy food, good organic locally grown wine and good company and pay respect to where your food comes from.

It seems there is never enough time in a day - if you had some spare time, what would you do first?

I’m pretty lucky I guess, there isn’t much more I’d rather be doing than what I am doing now.
Although, perhaps doing more within the community, a big project like starting a new community garden somewhere local, lobbying government more about relocalisation – letter writing, letters to the editor, getting more involved in educating others and hopefully inspiring them to act… you’ve got me thinking now!

At the end of the day, what do you do to unwind?

Every afternoon, when the garden is all shady and cool, my husband and I, with our very present Staffordshire Bull Terrier, head down to the garden to sit on the lawn, glass of wine in hand just to unwind and enjoy the garden. We let our little Pekin bantam flock out to free range each afternoon and they are fun to watch, chasing bugs, making a mess of my lovely neat mulching (doh!), chasing the dog, and generally pretending they are wild jungle fowl for an hour or two before I tuck them safely into bed for the night.

Our garden is well established and very bio-diverse so there is always something new happening (and lots of surprises!), yesterday we saw a baby rail bird for the first time foraging around. At various times of the year there will be King Parrots, Rainbow, Pale Faced and Scaly Breasted Lorikeets, Kookaburras, Pheasant Coucals, elusive Green Catbirds and Whipbirds, Tawny Frogmouths and Butcherbirds in the garden – not only do we have a great supply of chemical-free bugs, slugs and grasshoppers for them to eat, we also have a LOT of birdbaths full of fresh clean water around the garden.

At that time of the day the turtles from the dam are out sunning themselves, the stick insects are busy getting cozy in the trees, and if you look closely you’ll see hundreds of tiny green tree frogs everywhere and everything seems right with the world!

--

Sonya Wallace is the Coordinator of Creating a Sustainable Sunshine Coast - Nambour to Mooloolah (CASSC) in Queensland, Australia. You can contact Sonya Wallace through her contact form. Note: you must be logged in first.