In January 2019, I embarked on a journey to the other side of the world; to live and work on Geoff Lawton’s world-renowned permaculture teaching site; Zaytuna Farm. What stretched ahead of me was a life-changing experience that left me more in love with permaculture than I had ever been.
Since the very beginning of my journey with Permaculture, fresh from completing my Permaculture Design Certificate with Shift Bristol (UK), Geoff Lawton had been on my radar as a permaculture ‘guru’ I admired.
The opportunity to volunteer with him was too good to miss. I was excited and nervous as I stepped off the plane in Brisbane, my jet lagged mind not quite feeling ready to enter an entirely new environment with a new group of people.
However, fast forward a few hours, and I’m sitting on a bench at Lismore Transit Centre, surrounded by my giant backpack, ukulele and various other random items I had deemed essential for my volunteering experience.
I soon spotted a rusty looking van approaching me, and inside was the smiling face of a man named Sam Parker-Davies, a Zaytuna volunteer who I would later learn is somewhat of a permaculture guru himself, and who would later become my dear friend.
I jumped in the van and we whizzed off through the beautiful New South Wales hills, thick with macadamia plantations and luscious greenery. I forgot about my nerves. I felt excitement and happiness overwhelm me, and knew I was about to embark on the most important journey of my life so far.
Arriving at Zaytuna; a permaculture paradise
Arial view map of Zaytuna farm. Source: permaculture.org.au.
Arriving at the farm felt surreal. It was familiar, having watched videos and farm tours based at Zaytuna in the past. As you enter the 66 acre farm, the buildings of the ‘Permaculture Research Institute’ fall on the right, and to the left are fields of tall grassland where some of the farm’s cows happily graze. The track into the farm is hugged by bamboo lined swales; an integral part of the farms water harvesting system. Maturing nitrogen fixing trees line the hedgerows, and fruit trees are dotted amongst them, forming the start of the food forest that winds through much of the farm.
As we wind down towards the farm’s communal areas, the kitchen garden comes into view. A multitude of various vegetables and fruit grow in abundance; aubergines and tomatoes, chillies and beans, papaya trees and banana palms dotted amongst the beds.
Rudy, a fellow volunteer, walking amongst Zaytuna's lush kitchen garden.
It’s not until later however, when I get a closer look at the kitchen garden, that I get to see the true magic that resides here. The soil! The soil is rich and dark. It looks almost edible. It is like a textbook ‘healthy soil’ example that you might have seen examples of during your PDC. The result of 17 years of minimal soil disturbance and the careful mulching and layering of deeply organic nutrient rich material. Taking handfuls of soil in my hands, I feel like I am squeezing a perfectly moist, fluffy chocolate cake. You can almost feel the humm of the millions of microorganisms that the soil hosts. This would be the first of the many key takeaways I got from my volunteering experience; that achieving perfectly healthy, nutrient rich soil organically is just a case of time, patience, and bloody good composting systems.
I soon got to look around the rest of the farm; the main crop, kitchen garden, nursery, food forest, water harvesting system, animal-grazed pasture land, chicken and duck systems and bamboo swales being the main areas.
On first impressions, it truly is a permaculture paradise.
Living arrangements for volunteers at Zaytuna
During my time at the farm up to 12 volunteers lived on site. I met them all the day I arrived, and was happy to meet individuals from a range of ages, backgrounds and religions, from all over the world.
We lived communally; sharing a kitchen, composting toilet/shower block, and communal area.
Each volunteer was designated their own sleeping platform; an open, sturdy metal structure with a corrugated roof and an elevated platform, designed to provide a protected shelter to pitch our tents. I loved my little platform, and it was great to have a space to call my own whenever I took a break from the communal activities
We ate communally for most of my time at Zaytuna, with a couple of volunteers on cooking duty each day. There was always the option of eating separately and we had an abundant permaculture garden to graze from whenever we desired! Each day we would harvest vegetables from the productive main crop and kitchen garden, and use them to cook up an absolute feast.
Just one of the many buckets of fresh food we harvested daily for our feasts.
Working on the farm
The working day began at 6am, where we would all meet for our morning ‘briefing’. This early morning gathering was one of the unique aspects of volunteering at Zaytuna. We didn’t simply list off our tasks for the day and go on our way. Geoff greeted us each morning with something that can only be described as a lecture, a story, a piece of wisdom from his plethora of permaculture knowledge. For up to 45 minutes we would sit and listen to whatever unexpected gem Geoff shared with us that day. It was an inspiring and unusual start to a working day that I came to look forward to greatly.
After our meeting, the first couple of hours of the day were spent on a group task. We worked together and focused on achieving a specific goal that otherwise would take an individual far too long.
This group task changed depending on the needs of the farm. Every other day, we would tackle the regular turning of the compost. The impressive Berkeley method composting system that Geoff has at Zaytuna is one of the biggest practical takeaways I gained from volunteering there. The system was so efficient that we continually had an abundance of perfect, nutritious compost available for use across the entire farm, all made from waste organic matter from within Zaytuna farm’s system.
Geoff working on the oldest end of the compost system. Each pile is a week younger than the next, allowing us to have a continual supply of ready-to-go compost. Our regular compost turning made the process very efficient, with a pile going from freshly created to ready to use within 4 weeks.
Weekly, as a group we would set a new fence in order to rotate the small herd of cows into their next area. This weekly rotation system of cattle maintained the grassland throughout Zaytuna without the use of any machinery, and the huge volume of manure we collected as a byproduct made for excellent compost material, cycled back into the system each week.
For a time, we focused our mornings on the maintenance of the farm’s extensive food forest. This was the area of the farm that most excited me; the combination of planting trees, improving biodiversity, increasing C02 uptake AND producing food in a sustainable way all being vital in this time of climate crisis. Over a few weeks, we worked our way through the already well-established food forest planting a range of new fruit tree saplings including jackfruit, mango, avocado, pomegranate, guava, custard apple and mulberry to name a few. We used the ‘chop and drop’ method on the various leguminous and nitrogen-fixing trees already established in the forest, stimulating the release of nitrogen into the soil. We used the chopped material as a protective mulch for the new saplings. As we worked, we were surrounded by guava trees literally dropping juicy, sweet guavas at our feet that we munched on to keep our energy levels high.
A track through the extensive food forest. The bamboo sticks you can see on the left mark new fruit and legume trees planted as part of our food forest maintenance.
Some days, we would focus on the kitchen garden or main crop, weeding, building new beds, or sowing a bed of leguminous pigeon pea to fix nitrogen into the soil.
Fellow volunteer Ines working the farm's main crop.
These group tasks were a joy; not only for the intense learning and speed of completing a task, but the wholesome feeling of working on something together and achieving a common goal.
Fellow volunteers Edith and Christine working the main crop.
Individual responsibilities of volunteers
After our morning group project we would separate off into our individual areas of responsibility.
This was the aspect of volunteering at Zaytuna I valued the most. We were allocated an area of responsibility out of cattle, kitchen garden, main crop, food forest or nursery. We would remain responsible for this area for a few weeks, before rotating on to the next area. This gave volunteers the opportunity to really get to know an aspect of the farm in depth.
During my time at Zaytuna I spent much of my time responsible for the farm’s nursery. The nursery is where all new vegetable seedlings, tree saplings and cuttings begin their journeys.
Fellow volunteer Sam propagating cuttings in the nursery.
The nursery was also home to Zaytuna’s seed bank, containing seeds that had been recycled from plants grown on the farm, a beautiful example of the cyclical nature of permaculture farming.
Fellow volunteer Jess works on saving seeds to add to the farm's seed bank.
The biggest lesson I learnt from my work in the nursery was this: to know how to grow a plant, one must look to nature for guidance. Consider how the seed would naturally travel from the mother plant to the earth, and mimic this process. For example a seed encased in a sweet, juicy fruit would naturally undergo a fermentation process when the fruit hits the ground. Soaking the seed overnight triggers the same process, and initiating the germination process.
Having this responsibility was the reason why volunteering at Zaytuna was such a positive experience for me. I felt trusted, valued and independant. I felt my confidence as a permaculturist growing with each day I spent caring for the nursery. I grew incredibly attached to the plants I had sown and grown. Every time I saw a plant I had raised being placed in the kitchen garden or food forest, I felt so proud.
Me loving the nursery life and feeling proud of the baby passion fruit vines.
I grew to adore the nursery environment, and have since pursued a career in the early stage of plants production. I can safely say that without the independence Geoff gave us in our individual areas of responsibility, I would not have had the space to discover my personal love for nurseries and my skills in this area.
Geoff’s teaching
Geoff impressed me with his genuine care for an individual’s learning on the farm. Geoff and Nadia Lawton both dedicate their lives, and sacrifice their privacy, for the sake of spreading permaculture throughout the world. Geoff’s teaching style came in a few forms; with his long tales and drops of permaculture wisdom in our morning meetings, the random adventures he would take you on (I once found myself venturing around the farm with Geoff fixing various irrigation malfunctions, and learnt more about irrigation in that single afternoon than I had in all the time on the farm so far), and his drive-by lessons he would deliver by bicycle throughout the working day. You would be potting away in the nursery and suddenly from behind you’d hear a screech of brakes and a swoosh of bamboo leaves, and Geoff would appear, usually with his daughter Latifa and the two farm dogs, Jackie and Possum, in tow. He would deliver some instruction, the odd gem of wisdom and then off he would go, pedalling to the next volunteer far off in another part of the farm.
Most of all, Geoff trusted us. Unlike the over the top health and safety regulations and stifling rules I have often found in previous work places, Geoff trusted us to figure things out, to learn for ourselves the best way to do things. When volunteers inevitably made mistakes, I noticed Geoff’s attitude was one of acceptance. I learnt that his philosophy was that mistakes need to be made in order to learn, and the losses and damages that happen as a result of these mistakes he accepted as an expected part of running a permaculture education site.
Geoff is a unique character. His humour and bluntness certainly takes some getting used to, but he goes about his work with a twinkle in his eye and is incredibly generous with his knowledge. My respect for Geoff is huge, especially due to the time, care and energy he put into individuals learning on the farm.
Me and Geoff working on the newly established food forest. Geoff worked with us every day and was very hands on with his teaching. Source: the Permaculture Research Institute.
Farm life
It didn’t take long for the farm to begin to feel like home, and my fellow workmates like family. Community living is an intense and wonderful experience.
Outside of work hours we visited the local towns of Lismore, Nimbin and Byron Bay. We quickly found our favorite places to cool off and relax after a hot day of work.
We loved visiting the local waterfall, Tahuti, a few miles from the farm. A secluded wilderness with beautifully clear, cool water. It was a dream to plunge into Tahuti’s depths, washing away the grime, sweat and chicken mites from a day at Zaytuna.
On the weekends (provided it was our weekend off from animal care and watering duties) we often made our way into Byron Bay for a weekend of surfing and exploring the town.
Key takeaways from my time at Zaytuna:
It is difficult to narrow down the vast array of lessons I will take with me from my time at Zaytuna.
Practically I was most impressed with the composting system and the general health of the soil, the animal rotation system, the irrigation/dam system, and the food forest. If I were a new volunteer at Zaytuna I would focus on learning as much as possible about those areas.
The water harvesting system at Zaytuna is unbelievable, with the series of dams, swales, rooftop harvesting systems and tanks getting us through the crippling drought that we went through during my volunteering. I'll never forget feeling the first drops of rain falling after the long dry spell, and hearing the whoops of joy coming from all the far reaches of the farm. We were all so excited to see the system of bamboo-lined swales fill with water.
One of Zaytuna's bamboo lined swales. These swales are an integral part of the effective water harvesting system at Zaytuna.
Another key takeaway for me was the benefit that giving volunteers and employees autonomy can give. Geoff designating us responsibility for our own areas of the farm accelerated my confidence as a permaculturist. This is where I truly fell in love with permaculture, and as a budding newbie to the world, I got to stretch my wings and learn what I loved about it.
If I ever realise my dreams of running my own permaculture project one day, I will certainly take a leaf out of Geoff’s book and give my volunteers the space to grow and learn through taking responsibility.
Reasons you should go and volunteer on Zaytuna Farm
For anyone considering volunteering at Zaytuna Farm, I can confidently recommend going for it! It has been wonderful reflecting on my time at Zaytuna. I look back on it as a transformative time in my life. I am so grateful to Geoff and Nadia Lawton for the learning experience they work to provide.
You can find out more about volunteering at Zaytuna farm here: https://zaytunafarm.com/get-involved/volunteer-programme/
When I applied, it was helpful that I already had a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC). If you do not already have one, you can do your PDC with Geoff at Zaytuna. He offers a range of courses to help you accelerate your permaculture learning. More information on the courses offered by Geoff at Zaytuna and internationally can be found here: https://zaytunafarm.com/courses-events/. Geoff and Nadia Lawton also run international projects, such as the Greening the Desert project in Jordan.
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