Valley's End Farm | Terra Permaculture

It was a year without a keyword. I suffered pain, but I laughed a lot. My good friend travelled far, and I found a Sister. I spent some very nurturing time with my folks. And together in lockdown, we appreciated everything the farm and our family gave each other. Somewhere, my resilience got tested and…

My journey to be as plastic-free as possible is a winding path that has taken me many places… canvas produce bags, reusable take-away coffee cups, bamboo toothbrushes, cloth nappies, bulk food and most exciting of all… subsistence gardening. Along that journey, I have been looked upon with disdain, mockery and exasperation. Now it’s more like admiration, approbation,…

Bored? No way!  Autumn is a busy time for gardeners when we work at restoring the fertility of our soils that have suffered the demands and stresses of Summer. Whether you tend ‘edibles’ or ‘ornamentals’, here is a list of restorative actions you can do now. –          Aerate your lawn with a garden fork, top dress…

Ingredients Rice flour ¾ CUPMillet ¼ CUPCorn ¼ CUPTapioca 2 TBSPChia seeds 2.5 TBSPSugar 1 TBSPSalt ½ TBSPButter 120gIced water 8 TBSP Method Mix ingredients together. Knead lightly, enough to form a ball (Note: it will come apart but you should still be able to form a ball – not too dry, not too wet…

I have a thing against nasty chemicals, synthetic fragrances and unnaturally bright colours (and I am not even mentioning palm oil or plastic here – these two are top of my hate list!). So when it comes to washing dishes, I have been using fragrance-free “eco friendly” tablets in our dishwasher, those that are neatly…

With the cool temperature, stinging nettle has been shooting up again. Yippee! Here is what you can do with it. 1. The best ever Winter soup! Harvest large, dark green, leaves to make the best tasting soup you’ve ever eaten: 4 potatoes 1l chicken/veggie stock 2 cups stinging nettle leaves salt/pepper cream parsley (to garnish)…

A sprig of mint is found wilting in a single-use plastic punnet. The supermarket discards it, and with it, hundreds of other punnets. Straight to landfill. The mint was grown in Victoria – fertilised – irrigated – harvested – washed – dried – prepared in 50g bundles – packed in a plastic punnet and labelled.…

I know most of you have a lemon tree by the front door, maybe a Tahitian lime too, and mandarins, oranges, grapefruits, and keffir limes?! Now is the time to get ready to process all these goodies, because, clearly, we cannot give them all away to work colleagues, or worse, let them rot on the…

Since I commenced my exploration of the never-boring world of edible gardening, I have struggled to find a green vegetable that replaces spinach (which refuses to grow well here. It beats me!). Silverbeet is an acceptable alternative but I can’t bring myself to like the taste at all. So I kept looking for that spinach-like…

Hey folks, We’re opening our farm gates this year again for the Harvest Festival. Check the calendar (on the right) for tour dates and time. And follow the link to review the full programme

What is freedom? To many, this is the state of not being enslaved or imprisoned. To others, it is to not suffer restriction of movement, action, thought or speech. To me, freedom is the extravagant amount of food I pluck out from the ground and that I later serve for dinner to my family. Freedom…