Logo primary
Logo secondary
Djanbung Gardens Permaculture Education Centre
Djanbung Gardens Permaculture Education Centre
Details
Commenced:
01/01/1993
Submitted:
05/02/2011
Last updated:
07/10/2015
Location:
74 Cecil St, Nimbin, NSW, AU
Phone:
+61 (0)2 66891755
Website:
www.permaculture.com.au
Climate zone:
Sub-tropical





My Projects

(projects i'm involved in)

Permasphere

Permasphere

Fontainebleau, FR


Followers
allie godfrey Bron(wyn) Elliott Carly Gillham Charlie Jones Chris  Partridge Chris Wallis Coralie Tate Craig Arnett Darla Schoenrock David Rivera Ospina Desmond Ford Doris, Sze-chit Cheung Eloise Fisher Fatemeh Ghafourian Gamashbashi Fiona Campbell Fionn Quinlan Gemma Hurst Gemma Schuch Grifen Hope Helder Valente Hubert de Kalbermatten Ian Trew James Reid Jody Wall Josef Blümel Kalinya  Farm Kelly Reiffer Lu Zhao Marcus Pan Markos Toscano Morales Ole Deschout Robyn Francis Salah Hammad Stephanie Ladwig-Cooper Tammy Turner Thomas Winterer Tia Silvasy Tim Hamilton Ute Bohnsack Valeria Andrews Vanessa Monge Augusto Fernandes Vic Gaffney Wendy Lehman

Back to Djanbung Gardens Permaculture Education Centre

Pigs at Work

Project: Djanbung Gardens Permaculture Education Centre

Posted by Robyn Francis about 13 years ago

Pigs are amazing biological ploughs – their snout designed for excavating the earth - read the story of our pig tractor garden at PCA Djanbung

Pigs are amazing biological ploughs – their snout is exceptionally strong and designed for excavating the earth in search of tasty morsels buried underground, especially tubers and roots, and also fungi and insects. In Permaculture there is frequent reference to use of pigs as tractoring animals and I’ve always been intrigued as to how effective they would be.

This is the story of Polly and Pudge, two lucky pigs living at Djanbung Gardens...

In 2006 I was gifted a pair of 4-month-old piglets for Djanbung Gardens, supposedly miniature, though now fully grown are about half the size of commercial or large pig breeds. The pigs, named Polly and Pudge, were initially kept in a mobile pen (made from 6 old metal bed bases) to get to know them and their behavioural patterns to inform the design of an appropriate system to integrate them into the scheme of the gardens.

I soon discovered that within a day or 2 of being put on a fresh spot they would have the entire area turned over and within another day or two had seriously compacted the earth. With the combination of our heavy clay soils and high rainfall, the issue of compaction was exacerbated and their pen would become a quagmire after rain. Okay, you might think, ‘happy as a pig in mud’, however muddy conditions are conducive to parasites and problems with footrot.

The good thing about having Polly and Pudge in the mobile pen initially was that it gave me an opportunity to observe their behaviour and identify potential problems to inform the design for permanent housing, for health, hygiene and ease of collecting their manure for the compost heap.

Pig Tractor Garden

I’d seen pig pens in New Zealand using old roofing iron for fencing so in spring 2009 we created our first pig tractor garden in an grassed area that had been reserved for future main crops, well away from the intensive vegie garden.

The pig tractor area is in part of the original permanent pasture and compacted from almost a century of grazing before the covered with well established pasture grasses: kikuyu, couch, paspalum, summer grass etc. They had a great time digging up the soil and after a five days had completely demolished all vegetation and tilled the soil.  To establish the garden we used the Gundaroo tiller to loosen the compacted soil below the pigs tractoring, then shaped the beds, mulched them and planted cassava, sweet potato, potato, pumpkin and gourds.

the above extracts are from a more in-depth article and photo journal at permaculture.com.au

 

Img 9592 Pignmainbldg

Comments (1)

You must be logged in to comment.

Neil Clark
Neil Clark : I'd love to hear more stories and insights from the author's experiences with Polly and Pudge, and potentially explore ways to incorporate pigs into a small world cup's own aquaculture projects in the future.
Posted 4 months ago

Report Neil Clark on Pigs at Work

Reason:

or cancel

Courses Taught Here!
Project Badges
Commercial Community Demonstration Educational
Administrators
Robyn Francis - Admin
Team Members
Tracey Lewis - Garden Manager 2015 season

Report Djanbung Gardens Permaculture Education Centre

Reason:

or cancel

Hide Djanbung Gardens Permaculture Education Centre

Reason:

or cancel

Hide Pigs at Work

Reason:

or cancel

Legend of Badges

Note: The various badges displayed in people profiles are largely honesty-based self-proclamations by the individuals themselves. There are reporting functions users can use if they know of blatant misrepresentation (for both people and projects). Legitimacy, competency and reputation for all people and projects can be evidenced and/or developed through their providing regular updates on permaculture work they’re involved in, before/after photographs, etc. A spirit of objective nurturing of both people and projects through knowledge/encouragement/inspiration/resource sharing is the aim of the Worldwide Permaculture Network.

Member

Member

A member is a permaculturist who has never taken a PDC course. These cannot become PDC teachers. Members may be novice or highly experienced permaculturists or anywhere in between. Watch their updates for evaluation.

Male memberFemale member

Permaculture Matchmaker

One of these badges will show if you select your gender and the "I'm single, looking for a permaculture partner" option in your profile.

unverified

PDC

People who claim to have taken a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course somewhere in the world.

verified

PDC Verified

People who have entered an email address for the teacher of their PDC course, and have had their PDC status verified by that teacher. Watch their updates for evaluation.

pri_verified

PRI PDC

People who’ve taken a Permaculture Research Institute PDC somewhere in the world.

pdc_teacher

PDC Teacher

People who claim to teach some version of PDC somewhere in the world.

pri_teacher

PRI Teacher

With the exception of the ‘Member’ who has never taken a PDC, all of the above can apply to become a PRI PDC Teacher. PRI PDC Teachers are those who the PRI recognise, through a vetting board, as determined and competent to teach the full 72-hour course as developed by Permaculture founder Bill Mollison – covering all the topics of The Designers’ Manual as well as possible (i.e. not cherry picking only aspects the teacher feels most interested or competent in). Such teachers also commit to focussing on the design science, and not including subjective spiritual/metaphysical elements. The reason these items are not included in the PDC curriculum is because they are “belief” based. Permaculture Design education concerns itself with teaching good design based on strategies and techniques which are scientifically provable.

PRI PDC Teachers may be given teaching and/or consultancy offerings as they become available as the network grows.

pri_teacher

Aid Worker

The individual with this badge is indicating they are, have, or would like to be involved in permaculture aid work. As such, the individual may or may not have permaculture aid worker experience. Watch their updates for evaluation.

pri_teacher

Consultant

The individual with this badge is indicating they are, have, or would like to do paid permaculture design consultancy work. As such, the individual may or may not have permaculture consultancy experience. Watch their updates for evaluation.

community

Community Project

Community projects are projects that help develop sustainable community interaction and increase localised resiliency.

Report Pigs at Work

Reason:

or cancel