Welcome to Little Tern Farm

Little Tern Farm, is situated on Yaegl Country, in the Clarence Valley of NSW, Australia.

We purchased the land in 2021, from the lounge room of our suburban town house, during one of the many pandemic lockdowns. We knew we wanted a different life for our family.

It wasn’t until we started researching our dream house design that we discovered Permaculture. Fast forward a couple of years later..

We are passionate about helping other young (& busy) families connect back to nature, grow abundance at home to provide nutrition & food security, and care for Mother Earth by developing sustainable living practices simply and easily.

We love sharing our knowledge as we learn ourselves to empower families to create their own sustainable oasis (& you don’t need an acre to do it!)

What is Permaculture?

Permaculture is a sustainable design system that integrates agricultural practices, ecological thinking, and community living to create resilient and self-sustaining environments, grounded in three core ethics: care for the earth, care for people, and fair share.

It is guided by principles such as observing and interacting with nature, utilising renewable resources, and designing for diversity, which collectively foster harmony between human systems and the natural world.

 

Some of the ways we apply the permaculture principles in our daily life…  

Principle 2. Catch and store energy

  • Our farmhouse design

    Working with local Yamba building designer, Navrin Fox, we have adapted the Booken Blend House to meet our needs and climate, achieving the highest NatHERS rating of 10 stars, simply meaning our home will catch & store energy from the sun, have no ongoing costs & will leave a smaller footprint on Mother Earth.

    Booken Blend House

  • Preserving & pickling

    We love learning different ways to preserve, pickle, jam and ferment our harvests. By doing so we catch and store our harvests for later on when fruits & vegetable may not be in season or when garden may not be producing in abundance. Catching & storing our harvests also increases our food security and builds our resilience

    Fermented turmeric

Principle 3. Obtain a yield

  • Our permaculture-designed kitchen garden allows us to grow in abundance, harvest daily, nurture our seedlings and collect fresh eggs

  • We have two food forests planned; one is currently being planted out & the soil for the other is being prepared by our chickens. The plants for each food forest have been designed according to the amount of rainfall they collect

  • Our fedge holds a special place in our hearts. The first thing we ever designed and planted on the farm was our fedge, with the idea that it would 1. Be a living fence, 2. Provide privacy for our home, 3. Give back to our neighbors, with everything grown in our fedge being shared in our streetside stall for free

Principle 4. Apply self-regulation & accept feedback

  • Farm Tours

    Permaculture farm tours embody the principle of "apply self-regulation and accept feedback" by encouraging visitors to observe and engage with the ecosystem, fostering a conversation about sustainable practices, and encouraging us to reflect on participant insights and experiences.

  • Workshop sign

    Workshops

    Workshops are an interactive learning environment where we all learn new skills and connect while fostering a culture of growth and adaptability within the permaculture community.

Principle 6. Produce no waste

  • One person's trash is another persons treasure

    We love Facebook Marketplace, garage sales, Gumtree, Op shops & swaps for finding second-hand goodies. The tiles in our house & our gorgeous deck bathtub and freestanding tap were all FB marketplace bargins!

  • Christiaan and food tubs

    Community composting

    We collect food scraps and spent coffee from a number of local families, cafes and disability houses. We would love your food scraps too & in exchange we will give you compost for your garden! Our food scrap tubs are recycled icecream containers from Grafton prison

  • Reuse, repurpose & recycle

    Our fence posts are milled from a tree we had to cut down, our mulch is left overs from a local tree lopping company, our stepping stones recycled from other peoples garden makeovers. Before we buy anything we always opt to reuse, recycle, repurpose and upcycle first

Principle 7. Design from patterns to details

  • We consulted with Geoff Lawton (The guru of permaculture) to design our mainframe design which included the positioning of our 5 permaculture zones. Designing your property using the permaculture zones allows for accessibility, efficient energy use and integration.

  • Our kitchen garden, designed by Cas as part of her Permaculture Design Certificate is situated between the main house & the shed office. The dream has always been to pick salad for lunch & veggies for dinner as we walk from the office to the house. The kitchen garden is also perfectly situated for short computer break walks & hearing the chatter of the chickens while typing. Our pilates reformer also overlooks the beauty that is the kitchen garden.

  • Have you heard of a food forest? Food forests are a low-maintenance, sustainable, plant-based food production system. A food forest ultimately mimics nature by designing & planting fruit, nut, shrubs, herbs, vines and vegetables in the 7 layers that are naturally found in a forest. We have 3 food forests designed for the farm. Our ‘fedge’ (food forest hedge) is thriving & we are preparing the soil for the other two food forests. Everyone needs a food forest!

  • Our animals plays a huge part in creating our balanced sustainable ecosystem that is Little Tern Farm. Our 17 chickens help us to improve our soil, eat pests, process our food scraps, create compost for the farm & of course produce eggs. Our 4 guinea pigs eat the majority of our weeds and help to fertilise the kitchen garden soil. We are soon to introduce ducks on the farm who will also produce quality natural fertiliser for the fruit trees.

Principle 8. Integrate rather than segregate

Our purpose-built chicken coop borders our kitchen garden and food forest to allow for our chickens to free range, easy eggs collecting and composting of the girls deep litter

Principle 9. Use small & slow solutions.

  • Tiny house kitchen

    Kitchen

    Our little kitchen is equipped with everything we need, including a full sized oven, stovetop and fridge.

  • Master bedroom

    Master bedroom

    Our cozy bedroom fits our queen sized bed donned with flax linen, a bedside locker and two person wardrobe

  • Kids bedroom

    Our home might look small from the outside but inside it has two bedrooms

  • Bathroom

    Imagine showering under the stars, or with the sunshine shining down on you, our shower skylight was the best decision

  • Lounge

    Compact and cozy, our little lounge room is the centre of our home

  • Deck

    The deck adds a another room to our home, even equipped with a freestanding bathtub and large table for family meals

Principle 10. Use and value diversity

Diversity in what we read, learn, grow, and in our income streams and our community.