Hi, I’m Bee, a practicing regenerative farmer, managing plants & animals to grow carbon rich soil.

I have been an organic grower for most of my 60 years. I grew my first food plants at 14: a comfrey, a sage and a pumpkin plant. I took my first produce, a big Jarrahdale pumpkin, on a surfing trip for the weekend and ate it raw for 3 days straight. My friends thought I was pretty mad. I always wanted to be a farmer.

Over the years I’ve seen food become an industrial commodity that isn’t safe to eat. Longer shelf life, more packaging , more additives and preservatives, people forgetting or not learning how to cook. As a teachers aide I saw kids lunches change from a salad sandwich and fruit years ago to the standard lunchbox of today which contains industrial food like substances full of fake flavours and colours, bickies and long shelf life “cheese” in little plastic compartments, and the “fruit rollup” which is 1 % fruit and a whole lot of sugar. Sadly a lot of that sugar is high fructose corn syrup, from genetically modified corn. Most foods in the supermarket contain GM soy. There is now a large area in the staffroom devoted to photos and names of children who have severe food allergies and or asthma. Autism in the US and here is growing at an alarming rate, ADD and ADHD is common. More and more research is finding links from pesticide to impaired cognitive development in children.

I believe Permaculture holds the answers to the big challenges of our world: peak oil, climate change, and illness (both physical and mental). Did you know 80% of our taxes in Australia are spent on the Health system?

I like the main principles of Permaculture which are “Care of Earth” and “Care of people”, through which we become responsible for our own health and our own waste, we turn the problem into the solution and we create habitats to increase biodiversity and wonder. Bill Mollison said “you can solve ALL the world’s problems in a garden” . How very true.