For months I’ve been meaning to write a review of One Magic Square by Lolo Houbein, and then today I heard a great interview with her on the radio. She has a new book! Outside the Magic Square: A Handbook for Food Security. Who can resist a title like that? But that’s not the...
Read More »
‘The compulsion to identify with consumer products reaches deep into our lives – from our choice of homes to what we put in them.’ (The Joy of Less, Francine Jay, 2010) I’ve been reading (the kindle edition of) The Joy of Less: a Minimalist Living Guide, by Francine Jay, and also her short ebook...
Read More »
It’s getting decidedly colder where I live now, in Canberra (Australia’s capital city), and I don’t think Kim Kardashian’s ever even been here, though she might have eaten some of our tomatoes. Gardenate tells me that I live in a cold/mountain zone, though I think Canberra really falls somewhere between cold and temperate. We...
Read More »
Our Earth is changing. It is no longer the same planet that our grandparents or even our parents inhabited; however, this does not mean that it is time to throw in the towel and leave it for the next generation to figure out. Rather than waiting for others to change, getting busy ourselves can...
Read More »
I love waking up in the morning to find that my neighbour has left a basket of eggs on the back porch. I take great solace in knowing where my food comes from and how it is raised. We have a reciprocal exchange of food with our neighbours; they give us eggs and we...
Read More »
‘I’ve realised wanting to do too much is almost as toxic as wanting too much stuff.’ (Tricia Hogbin @ Little Eco Footprints) I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of ‘slow’ lately, as embodied by the slow movement, and I’ve been wondering: is our fast paced lifestyle inherently unsustainable? I don’t mean unsustainable...
Read More »
Editors Note: I asked David to look into organic cloth diapers/nappies, to see if they were worth the money. His take on all the options there are when looking at cloth nappies these days certainly had me laughing, and when it comes to the savings over disposables, I’m laughing all the way to the...
Read More »
Vertical gardening is just plain trendy right now, and it’s definitely a trend worth considering. If you’re green as well as green fingered (and I’m guessing as you’re on Sustainable Suburbia that’ll be about right!) this method of food growing will suit you (up and) down to the ground. The carbon footprint of this...
Read More »
My post on How to Make Yogurt is so popular (about 1/4 of all visitors to Sustainable Suburbia visit that page), and has generated so many comments and questions, that I figured it was time to formalise some of the answers into a kind of FAQ of yogurt making. So I’ve spent the last...
Read More »
Growing your own food is not only self-satisfying and rewarding, but it also provides food security. Using organic methods to grow food ensures that it is free from chemicals and contributes to a healthy environment. Organic gardening nurtures ecosystems and maintains the health of the soil, insects, water and people in the environment. With...
Read More »
Apples form the basis of folklore. ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away’ is a well-known phrase. Though this may be something of an exaggeration, apples are a healthy addition to children’s lunch boxes, perhaps even to give to their favourite teacher? A staple food throughout history, an apple was the biblical fruit...
Read More »
In a miracle of nature, luscious raspberries grow on bramble bushes, belonging to the genus ‘rubus’. This is in the rose family, and includes other fruit bearing plants, such as the blackberry. Like roses, raspberries are fragrant and beautiful, and come in a range of colours – from bright red through to purple and...
Read More »
It is no great surprise that most of us love the notion of large orchards set with plump, sun-kissed fruit and the delights they bring us; however, with plots of land getting smaller, orchards are often more of a dream than a reality. Fortunately, we can enjoy delectable fruits from the smallest of yards...
Read More »
Editors note: Between this article and reading Barbara Kingsolver’s discussion of asparagus in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, A Year of Food Life, I am determined that I will be growing asparagus in my garden very soon! If you like Asparagus, you are not alone. It may surprise you though, to know that you will be...
Read More »
In the second in our series on decluttering your home, Kirsten McCulloch visits her grandfather’s house and is challenged to examine the motivations behind her cluttering ways. In the break between Christmas and New Year I visited my Grandfather’s somewhat empty house on the New South Wales central coast. Empty, in the sense that...
Read More »
Developing a more personal and intuitive connection with the earth, and in particular with our own little patch of land, can be a valuable aspect of learning to live more sustainably. Whether your brand of sustainable living involves turning your backyard into a permaculture food forest or buying food grown locally by someone else,...
Read More »
Sustainable Suburbia is host to a set of Linky Lists designed to cover all the variations of sustainable living blogs, from urban homesteading to slow food to living frugally and more. The categories, which certainly have a lot of crossover points, are: Suburban and Urban Homesteading; A Country Plot: Out of Town Homesteaders/Self-Suffciency; Parents...
Read More »
Eco-friendly cars have been growing in popularity, as the effects of global warming continue to make headlines all over the world. Manufacturers of green cars are constantly trying to improve the functionality of electric and hybrid cars with the aim of eventually replacing the conventional automobile with zero carbon emission models. There are a...
Read More »
‘Decluttering’ has become such a popular trend in recent years that the phrase ‘how to organize’ is searched 1,500,000 times in Google each month, ‘what is clutter’ 246,000 times, and even something as specific as ‘how to declutter your home’ receives 8100 monthly searches. So why is decluttering – or at least talking about...
Read More »
The Riot for Austerity was first started in 2007 by Peak Oil writer Sharon Astyk, with the goal of reducing her family’s resource use by 90% of the American average. This was the amount Peak Oil expert George Monbiot predicted those in affluent countries would need to reduce their impact in order to avoid...
Read More »
