From Tai’chi to Bushcare, and from Upcycling Fashion to a range of workshops like learning about the Frogs of the Blue Mountains and How to Build a Survival Garden, the Planetary Health Centre’s Skill Share Saturdays are providing a regular opportunity to learn new skills, save money, connect with community and contribute to restoring the health of our planet. Last month, an Upper Mountains Seed Saving and Gardening Group were also launched.
Key Points:
- Skill Share Saturdays are held at the Planetary Health Centre on the 1st Saturday of every month
- Learn Tai’chi, Fashion Upcycling, How to Protect Wildlife, Bushcare, How to Grow Edible Gardens and more
- An Upper Mountains Seed Saving and Planetary Health Gardening Group was launched at Skill Share Saturday this month
Many of us feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the challenges we’re facing locally and globally. Skill Share Saturdays, held at the Planetary Health Centre on the first Saturday of every month, are a way to re-set and put aside a few hours each month to have some fun and learn something new to manage some of these challenges: whether it’s learning how to do gentle exercise and find a calm centre with Tai’chi, or learning how to tackle all those fabrics and old clothes filling our wardrobes to give them new life and keep them out of landfill.
Tai’chi led by Virginia Field, who has more than 30 years’ experience.
Last month’s Fashion Upcycling Workshop
There’s even the opportunity to be mentored to establish new social enterprises, and to connect more deeply with the natural world as we regenerate the Planetary Health site to create habitat for wildlife with the Planetary Health Bushcare group.
Last month’s Bushcare: “Such a beautiful way to do our bit to give back to nature after all the damage we’ve caused.”
Last month participants viewed our exhibition of the Frogs of the Blue Mountains, learnt how to use the FrogID app, and were introduced to how to build frog ponds. They were delighted to see both frogs and an echidna enjoying the ponds we’d built in a previous community workshop.
Learning how to use the FrogID app in the Frogs of the Blue Mountains exhibition
Frogs of the Blue Mountains and their calls
A participant photographing a frog in our pond.
Our resident echidna enjoying our pond
How to Build a Survival Garden
Our first How to Build a Survival Garden workshop attracted 30 participants who enthusiastically launched an Upper Mountains Seed Saving and Gardening Group at the end of the session. We were keen to collaborate to build resilient, community-wide food systems and to ensure that we grow and save a wide variety of seeds to support the vanishing biodiversity in our cultivated food crops.
We discussed the way that gardens help us survive mentally and emotionally through providing spaces of beauty, joy and hands-on connection with the natural world and each other, as well as fresh locally grown food to supplement our diets.
The session started with a tour of the Centre’s Water Demonstration Site to address the critical importance of managing water to protect all life and our capacity to grow food in the future. We looked at Drip Irrigation, Wicking Beds and a Composting Seat as we discussed how to increase life in our soil and improve its water-holding capacity with worm farms and composting.
The workshop then addressed other natural systems that needed to be taken into account to build healthy and resilient food systems and began an exploration of cultures around the world who have had reliable ‘survival’ foods during major global stressors like the Great Depression.
This exploration included a case study of an Israeli academic in Galilee who has grown all his own food on 750 sq m for the last 12 years, and a range of hardy and nutrient-rich crops that, in many cases, have a long storage life which helps reduce food waste.
View the slideshow here:
A Sydney participant in the workshop shared how she now grows Loofahs so she can scrub her veggies without releasing microplastics into the waterways. She shared her seed so we can do the same.
We tasted Yacon and shared their rhizomes, as well as sharing Purple Congo Potatoes, Oca, Turmeric, and seeds for Salsify, Egyptian Spinach, Red Mustard, Echinacea, Parsley, Chard, Radish, and Red Noodle Beans.
We also agreed to start a quarterly Upper Mountains Seed Saving Get Together.
If you’d like to join the Seed Saving and Gardening Groups contact [email protected] or ring 0407 437 553
Take Action:
- Save the Date: Skill Share on first Saturday of every month at the Blue Mountains Planetary Health Centre
- Book in for Tai’chi in May here https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/saturday-morning-tai-chi-and-qigong-at-the-planetary-health-centre-tickets-1325749836449
- Book in for Build a Cold Climate Edible Garden here
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/build-a-cold-climate-edible-garden-tickets-1329209053059 - Contact [email protected] to suggest skills you’d like to learn, skills you can share, and/or if you’d like to join the Upper Mountains Seed Saving and Planetary Health Gardening Groups
Share this article:
More from around the region
Our Planetary Health newsletter is now out! Read about the Trainee Administration Position available with the Planetary Health Centre, our upcoming workshops, and the Heroic Communities of the Blue Mountains who are finding housing for older women; creating inclusive and creative alternative media with zines; sharing their faith in the value of compassion, love, kindness, gratitude and joy; and sharing skills for improving physical and mental health and restoring habitat for wildlife, reducing textile waste and growing seeds and edible gardens.
Follow the link here:
https://bit.ly/42l8W9O (link in profile)
#jobs #planetaryhealth #housing #housingforolderwomen #skillshare #bushcare #ediblegardens #heroiccommunities #zines #seedsaving #interfaith
It was gloriously sunny and we had a fabulous day of sharing at the Planetary Health Centre yesterday, from T`ai-chi to workshops on the Frogs of the Blue Mountains, Fashion Upcycling and How to Build a Survival Garden in the Blue Mountains. We finished with a Bushcare session in which we enjoyed the beautiful bushland on the site and removed invasive weeds to expand the habitat for wildlife around our swamp. We were joined by frogs in our pond and the little echidna who returned for a swim! Thank you to everyone who shared so generously. We tasted Yacon and shared rhizomes, Purple Congo Potatoes, Oca, Turmeric, and seeds for Salsify, Egyptian Spinach, Red Mustard, Echinacea, Parsley, Chard, Radish, and Red Noodle Beans. Our next Skillshare Saturday will be on the first Saturday of May. If you`d like to be notified of all our workshops, and the meetings of our Seed Saving and Gardening Groups, subscribe to receive the fortnightly Planetary Health newsletter at any of our Local News sites like www.katoombalocalnews.com (links in profile) #skillshare #planetaryhealth #taichi #qigong #frogs #bluemountains #katoomba #fashionupcycling #upcyclingfashion #survivalgardens #seedsaving #loofah #community
Our Skillshare Saturdays are on the 1st Saturday of every month and we`re looking forward to a beautiful sunny day tomorrow for our first Morning T`ai-chi & Qigong. Fashion Upcycling is booked out this month, but we still have a few places for Frogs of the Blue Mountains, Building a Survival Garden and Planetary Health Bushcare. Bookings via Eventbrite (links in profile). For more information ph. 0407 437 553
#skillshare #planetaryhealth #sunnyday #katoomba #bluemountains #taichi #qigong #frogs #seedsaving #survivalgardens #bushcare
Imagine, if just once a month, everyone gave a few hours back to nature to repair the damage we`ve done. We would so quickly restore the habitat of so many species struggling to survive and provide the habitat for many more to flourish. Once a month, for three hours, our Planetary Health Bushcare group does just that. We`re repairing the damage of human impact and being immediately rewarded by our time in nature and the great company of the other members of our Bushcare Group. We`ll be meeting again this Saturday 5 April at 1.30pm and all are welcome to join us and learn more. Contact Karen Hising at [email protected] or call the Bushcare Office on 4780 5623 if you`d like to give it a try.
For more information about the Planetary Health Centre and how you can get involved contact the Planetary Health office on 0407 437 553
#bushcare #biodiversity #wildlife #habitat #regeneration #planetaryhealth #community #allinthistogether #bushcare #katoomba #bluemountains
In our `How to Build a Survival Garden in the Blue Mountains` workshop on Saturday 5 April, we`ll be starting an Upper Mountains Seed Saving group and sharing seeds, tubers, recipes for more unusual foods, and information about the many ways we can create more food system diversity and resilience. Learn about skirret, salsify, collards, cardoons, sea kale, Good King Henry, mangel wurzel, oca, yacon and more. Places are limited so bookings essential here (link in profile) : bit.ly/4kVAUA8
#foodsystems #foodsecurity #fooddiversity #foodresilience #biodiversity #planetaryhealth #healthydiet #plantbased #katoomba #bluemountains
Was that a frog or cricket you heard? Check out our video matching the photos of the 20 frogs of the Blue Mountains Mountains with their calls so you can learn the difference. View our exhibition, learn how to use the FrogID app, and how to build a frog pond and frog hotel, at our workshop this Saturday 5 April at 9am. Bookings via via link in profile. You can view our full video on YouTube (link in profile). Subscribe for more great content. #frogs #bluemountainsfrogs #planetaryhealth #katoomba #frogcalls #exhibition #workshop
A huge thank you to the Blue Mountains Interfaith Group for organising an inspiring afternoon that brought community together and renewed our sense of connection, hope, wonder, shared purpose and commitment to care for our extraordinary planet. We had a full house with the Frogs of the Blue Mountains looking over our shoulders! Next Saturday 5 April we`ll be launching Saturday morning T`ai-chi and Qigong which will continue on the first Saturday of every month. Bookings essential here (link in profile): bit.ly/3Rn9RzY #interfaith #hope #wonder #commitment #connection #community #planetaryhealth #katoomba #bluemountains #taichi #qigong
