Fire Mountain Permaculture

Fire Mountain Permaculture

A permaculture practice, centred around our constantly evolving permaculture demonstration garden and nursery

Fire Mountain Farm is embedded in vibrant rainforest on the side of Cambewarra Mountain, on Dharawal Country, two hours south of Sydney. 22ha in size, the farm looks down on Nowra and the coast, while Kangaroo Valley is on just the other side of the mountain.

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Local wildlife, rich stories

Fire Mountain Farm is situated on sits on Dharawal Country, land never ceded. The name comes from the meaning of Cambewarra in the Dharawal language, which is “fire mountain” or “mountain fire”. The symbol of the farm is the Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoo, which in traditional stories is intimately tied up with the mountain.

We share the mountain with many other local inhabitants, including wombats, wallabies, echidna, snakes; plus many, many birds.

Many garden rooms, many ideas

Our mission is to challenge the status quo, embrace innovation, and create meaningful, lasting impact through everything we do. Driven by a vision to inspire change, push boundaries, we deliver work that truly makes a difference.

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Growing bountiful plants

Our on-site nursery propagates a few thousand plants a year, many of which are “food forest” plants that are hard to find elsewhere. (We also propagate local rainforest species, grown from seed collected from our own patch of paradise.)

SEE THE NURSERY PLANT LIST

Follow us on Instagram

Our Instagram account is where we post regularly on our activities and ideas, encompassing permaculture, preserving, native plants and much more…

How a grafted citrus tree is created, all the way from planting seeds to create the rootstock, through to grafting on the scion wood. A lot of time and effort goes into each tree! #permaculture #foodforest #citrus

“Bark grafting” has allowed me to not just bring 15 new varieties of fruit tree into my orchard, but it also allows me to remove lanky growth and to their establish a better vase shape. What grafting techniques have you been using? #permaculture #foodforest #orchard

I’m not convinced the chickens can be of help when grafting fruit trees, but apparently nobody told them! 🤣 #permaculture #foodforest #orchard

I’ve pulled a heap of newly-grafted citrus trees out of my greenhouse where they were sheltering over winter. I’ll be progressively taking them down to the #KangarooValley market, but you can beat the queue in my spring sale! I’ve got yuzu, sudachi, bergamot, Australian calamondin, chinotto, rangpur lime, lemonade and more. Plus a selection dwarf yuzu and bergamot that are perfect for pots!

Don’t be afraid to make big interventions at the start of setting up a permaculture site, using every piece of equipment you have your disposal! #permaculture #foodforest #forestgarden

I’m steadily installing wombat gates around my house field, to let the wombats come and go but to stop the beagle from escaping and the wallabies from getting in. I’ve purchased a number of these really beautifully made gates from the Wombat Protection Society of Australia (WPSA), and I’d strongly recommend them. If you’ve got a wombat problem, maybe this is part of your wombat solution? #wombat

Modern swales are flat, not round (*updated with diagrams*). This is one of the things I learned at the permaculture earthworks course run earlier in the year by @permacultureaustraliaofficial. #permaculture #foodforest

Chopping down trees in spring is a big part of syntropic practices, as it produces a burst of growth for surrounding trees, when the roots let go of their nutrients. It seems brutal, but it’s all part of managed succession! #permaculture #foodforest #syntropicfarming

The wonderful thing about having a beagle is that he loves to roam across the mountain. The problem with having a beagle is that he roams too much! So I’m putting in so-called “wombat gates” where gaps have been pushed into the fence around the house.