We have lived here in Western Sydney for over 40 years developing a permaculture property on 600m2. We have a street library, street pantry, fruit tree circle, banana circle and herb ‘wedding cake’. We have had a stand alone solar energy system of some description on the property for over 35 years and are currently off grid in that regard. We have almost 20,000 litres of water storage in tanks. We run 14 annual veggie patches sequentially with our chook tractor and have various perennial veggies in place too. We have a home built solar oven, solar cooker and solar food dehydrator. We have two greywater systems on for the bathroom which goes to the banana circle and one to the constructed wetland, and from there to fruit trees or the banana circle also. We have two microbat roosting boxes, a bug hotel, bird and insect waterers. We have also installed low tech, low cost high efficiency irrigation for our trees and veggies. We have plantings and structures around our house to minimise the effect of summer heat. Our 1970s house and small block are remarkably productive!
