Foodtopia Dreaming Episode 10 Digging in for food holidays

Our resources were restricted so holidays this year were going to look different.  No matter.  There’s an opportunity in adversity.  I booked a few different campsites around the state in my favorite towns where food, sustainability, and farming were passions.  Courses were booked with sustainable foodies, garden tours arranged and the piece de resistance booked. Four weeks WOOFing on a market garden.

You are going to work on your holiday Eric?  Hell yes.  You know I can’t sit still.  It would give me more grief and stress to make me sit at a campsite reading a book than it would be working during holidays.

We start our holidays with five days camping in a bushfire affected community.  We are self-sufficient with our popup camper so we are able to get closer to the farmers that need a hand without drawing resources from them at a time when they have little to spare.  We all pitch in and help rebuild fences.  It’s hard work.  No doubt.  But the results are immediate.

The property we stay on is operated on permaculture principles. Understanding these helps us slip into the rhythm of the people and the land.  There’s no need to explain what a composting loo is, or that there’s a zero-waste policy, that showers are optional and can be found in unique places. Water is a treasured resource and used with great care.

Not much planting goes on.  That’s to be expected.  Water is scarce.  The land and soil need rebuilding.  The prearranged truckload of the organic compost arrives.  As does the fresh woodchip mulch.  Full of green leaves and moisture.  The first load is placed near to the house where it will be used immediately. 

The bare land is exposed around the orchard trees that survived the fire.  Mulch covers these wounds.  It will rain soon and the mulch will help to hold the soil in place and more water around the trees.

The second truckload goes to the compost area. We have a plan for it.  As the truck tips the warm wet mulch and wood chip into a pile, we get to work.  We layer in the three road kill kangaroos we found on the road duing our trip here.

By the end of the 5 days, we check the kangaroo compost as it is now called.  We know it is cooking.  Walking past it to the loo at sunrise on our last morning I saw steam rising from the top.  We scrape a little bark away and feel the piles surface, moist and warm.  There is a distinct forest smell.  The forest in summer after a downpour.  The land still warm but wet.

We are inquisitive about the temperature.  Our host brings out the compost probe.  It’s a serious device.  A meter long with handles and a dial you can read from a distance.  It’s a beautiful balmy 24 degrees this morning, reads the dial. The probe is plugged into the pile. The needle starts to move immediately. 

We’re thinking that it would stop at maybe 35 degrees. But no, on it goes 40, 45 then 50. It’s steaming in there.  Finally coming to rest at 62 degrees.  Our farmer host knows that the temperature will drop soon as the moisture cooks off, so organizes a sprinkler for the pile.  He knows that to keep the pile cooking will speed the breakdown of the carbon and the kangaroos. And the sooner he can use it in his garden.

Our 5 days are up and we are on the road again.  We thank our hosts and book in again for some more recovery projects they have planed.  We purchase supplies from our hosts farm gate stall and and fill eskys from farm gate shops we pass.  Finding a local farmers market just tops up our camper for the week ahead.

We get to the campground near the farm I’ll be WOOFing at for the next four weeks.  Unpacking the camper is hot work and our reward is a swim down the river. Holidays are a compromise, but this one is looking pretty good. We are each doing what we love.

Campgrounds have evolved.  This one is no different. The owners told us that being busy for three weeks of the year just wasn’t sustainable so they talked to the permanent residents and holders of onsite vans about what the future could look like for them.  The owners took the plung and helped the people to make changes.  Realizing the waste of valuable resources and campers time and land available was a no brainer. 

Campground Blitz’s started with food. Growing it, cooking it, selling it and of course composting it.  The blitz started in areas where there was a permanent population or permanent sites.  You didn’t just fix up the area around your site, you fixed up the whole campground.  And it was organized when most people were there.

The tradies in their utes from the big cities were encouraged to bring their tools, the gardeners brought seeds and seedlings, cuttings and fruit and nut trees.  Manure and compost were sourced locally and veggie patches dug, an orchard planted and the finance executives created a Co-op.

The permanent residents tended the gardens during the offseason and instead of the food truck, pizza night, or coffee van visiting each day, the Camp Ground Co-op ran the store, cafe, and evening dinners popups.  Cooking for the willing campers, with food from the Co-op garden. 

Arts and entertainment was sorted and the kids volunteered their time to learn life skills, have fun, and feel part of a collective community.  All abilities were welcome, respect was central and compassion for others and the environment core.

An on-site repair cafe evolved and a waste committee created.  These guys and gals were creative.  Learning how to look at solutions instead of problems was a challenge.  They made the park water neutral, people took their own rubbish home at the end of their stay and just the recycle bins were emptied by a contractor.

The waste committee or as they liked to be called TUUC, was big on green waste recycling. Nothing organic left the campground.  Compost buckets were provided to each camper and each morning the kids on bikes with trailers emptied the buckets.  It had to be done by 9 am as the buckets started to smell in the warm climate.  The kids used to circle the campground aimlessly.  Now they had a purpose.

When you checked in you were given your soap, shampoo, and conditioner and your dishwashing liquid for your stay.  Bottles were returned and refilled.  All products made locally and biodegradable through the greywater recycling system, the reed beds and fish purifying the water as it made its way to the orchard.  Water consumption drops when guests are engaged in the processes.

They know the stone fruit section of the orchard will ripen when the bulk of the campers are there, so the preserving process will be easy.  And the knitting and crochet groups will have to down tools to help,

The piece de resistance of the TUUC.  The toilets.  My friend Manu told me about them.  Well told wouldn’t describe the conversation the bursted with energy.  I recall it went something like this…
“Hey Manu, how was your holiday on the coast?”
Oh Eric, you know I love compost?  Well, the campground had composting loos.”
“Long drops?” I question
“Nope”
“Dry toilets, Rotaloos, bio loos?”
“Nicht”
“What then”
“Real composting toilets - like from the Humanure Handbook I showed you.  And you know what they did?  They gave campers their own composting toilet and container of cover material - a biofilter.  People would set up a little screened area on their site for their own toilet.  No need to walk to the communal block every time you need to go.  Full containers were emptied each morning by the bike kids and the biofilter buckets refiled.  It was normal.  There was the main ablution block if you didn’t want an onsite loo.  This ablutions block had composting loos too.”

I couldn’t stop him talking.

“Then they showed me the humanure compost piles.  With the separate piles of sawdust and the curing piles and the building piles. The digital probe thermometers link to the parks’ website, showing the temperature data on each of the piles and when manure was added.  How they handled a massive amount of humanure in a short period and how by the next year it had heated, cold and cured and placed around the trees in the orchard.  Perfectly safe, pathogen, and smell free. The EPA guys even drop by and do free tests on the compost before it goes on the orchard.  Not one pathogen has been found.”  Phew, Manu is excited about this, I so have to see it.

After our swim and cool off, the family reclines in camp chairs with books or crochet.  I cycle off to greet my WOOFing host for the next four weeks.  Normally you stay on-site WOOFing, but as a 50-year-old with family, they made an exception for me.

Our holiday was looking different as we opened up to opportunities. Tapping into a network of farms and people living sustainably is creating a richness to life.  Seeing people’s creativity for sustainable living, and in particular food is amazing.  Each person and property holds gems of information that build your knowledge, skills, and most of all, inspiration for the future.