Sustainable House Day, 17 September 2017

Would you like to open your home on Sustainable House Day?  Here's a message from ATA: Have you worked hard to make your home more sustainable? Would you like to share your knowledge and expertise with others? The Alternative Technology Association (ATA) is looking for homes to open to the public on Sustainable House Day on Sunday, September 17. If you have a sustainable home that makes you proud, we'd like you to nominate it to open. Be part of an award-winning community event, with 80 homes already registered for the day. By opening your home and sharing your passion and knowledge of sustainable living you can inspire and educate others. Share your journey of what worked, what didn’t and how it has changed your way of living. Sustainable House Day is a national event that gives people a rare view of exceptional homes designed, built or renovated with sustainability in mind and allow them to speak to and learn from homeowners.   All homes participating in Sustainable House Day must have a minimum of four sustainable features. The sustainable feature can be anything that goes towards sustainable lifestyles, energy saving and healthy home practices. Click here to go to the Sustainable House Day nomination page.

Calling Transition-minded West Hobartians

Many supporters of WHEN and followers of this blog have heard of the international Transition Towns movement.  We have links to it on our webpage (like this one) if you'd like to learn more about it. The "why" page is worth checking out!

WHEN sees itself as part of this movement, albeit with our current involvement fairly fluid and nascent. We also link up and collaborate with several like-minded groups in the foothills of Mount Wellington and greater Hobart.

We recently received the email below from a new group in Victoria, inviting us to a fascinating conference aimed at building understanding and a national support hub for the movement, to be held in September. 

If you are vitally interested in this movement and in taking West Hobart forward in this area, we'd love to hear from you!  Do contact us in the first instance via email:  whenvnet@gmail.com and we'll send you the conference program outline.

Hi to all Transition and like-minded Sustainability groups in Australia,

We invite you to a Transition Communities National Summit on Wed 6 & Thurs 7 Sept 2017 at William Angliss Centre near Flagstaff train station in Melbourne, organised jointly by a fledgling Transition Hub Australia organising team and MAV (Municipal Association of Vic).

Every Council and Transition group in Australia is being invited to this conference. As well as a learning opportunity with a plethora of marvellous information, it is a crucial opportunity, through conference fees, for Transition to raise the money to create, develop and fund staff to start up an Australia-wide virtual Hub.

We understand that you and some other Transition volunteers may find difficulty in paying the conference fee from your own pocket. However, we urge you to see this payment as an investment in a vibrant and dynamic Transition movement future. You will note that Transition volunteers are being asked to cover only the cost of attendance and hence will pay less than half the fee charged for Councils. We hope that your group could approach your Council to request funds to support sending a Transition member. Or, perhaps your group might consider raising funds to allow attendance at the Conference.

Melbourne transitioners are very happy to billet people from interstate or regional Victoria.

This is the first summit of this kind. Please encourage your Council to send staff members and Councillors and we hope someone from your Transition group can attend.

Please look at the attached program and please circulate to all in your network who may be interested.

Also please join Transition Towns AustraliaFacebook page and start posting on it.
 

Thanks and best regards

Barbara and Mary for the Transition Hub Australia organising team.

Gardening notes for July

Here are the July notes from Greg Summers:

JULY	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4
Broad Beans (2nd planting) Takes a month to show	x	x	x	x
English Spinach (no punnets - direct seeding only)	x	x	x	x
Shallots/Spring Onions	x	x	x	x
Small Cabbages - punnet into ground	x
Small Cabbages - direct seeding	x
Mini Cauliflower "Garant" - punnet into ground	x	x	x	x
Lettuce - direct seeding	x	x	x	x
Radish				x
Punnets
Lettuce - punnet into ground when ready	x	x	x	x

Keep warm and happy gardening.

Margaret

What's happening in the garden - June

Dear Garden friends The garlic is in and some bulbs are sprouting, the fruit tree pruning is almost done - such a big job. I'm raking up leaves from the street to add to the compost and to spread on the garden beds. Lots of lovely garden work!  I hope you are having fun too. Here are June's notes. JUNE Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Broad Beans (2nd planting) x Sugar Snap peas (2nd planting) pregerminate then sow x Snowpea (2nd planting) x direct sow and protect from birds until 100mm high Garlic bulbs  x x English Spinach (no Punnets - direct seeding only) x x

Margaret.

Survey on improvements to Hill Street

The Lansdowne Crescent Primary School School Community Association has released a survey to collect your views on a range of potential projects for improving the safety of walking in West Hobart, particularly for pedestrian crossing Hill Street. The SCA is trying to get a feel for the feeling of the general community on these issues.

Background information can be found in our recent post on the Council's current proposals for Hill Street.

It would be fantastic if you could spare a couple of minutes to complete the survey and then pass the message on to everyone you know that lives in, has kids that go to school in, or regularly visits West Hobart.  It is only 5 questions and takes just a couple of minutes to complete.  We will also be promoting the survey on our Facebook page.  Feel free to share it.

The survey can be found here:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DDGK2SV  

 

And don't forget to also tell the Council  directly what you think about the proposals.

Seed saving - workshop and seed swap

The good folks at Green Harvest Organic Gardening, based in Queensland, are making a trip down to Hobart, braving the cold, to present at the Seed Storm 2-day workshop on 27-28 May (Saturday-Sunday) in Hobart. 

The workshop aims to help home gardeners and growers increase their seed saving skills with a range of experts and hands-on experience saving seed. Green Harvest CEO, Frances Michaels, will be talking about seed purity, correct cultivar ID, cross pollination control, seed storage and drying techniques, seed viability and germination testing.

Green Harvest believes that seed saving has never been more important, as open-pollinated heirloom seeds offer the genetic resilience and diversity to sustain food production despite changing climatic conditions. Seed production has become somewhat of a ‘lost art’ commercially in Australia with the bulk of vegetable production using imported hybrid seed. The team is looking forward to meeting gardeners and growers who are interested in seed production being reintegrated into Australian agriculture and home gardening.

There will be a free community seed swap in Hobart Sunday 28 May: more details at www.facebook.com/seedfreak events. Join in and nab seeds!

More details at:

http://seedfreaks.com.au/events/seed-storm-2017/

https://www.facebook.com/seedfreak/videos/1676307365999877/