‘Traditional country wines and beers; a bit of Christmas fizz
Strawberries, cherries and an angel’s kiss in spring
My summer wine is really made from all these things’
Nancy Sinatra
Actually, I do not include a recipe for Nancy’s Summer Wine but I will describe in this workshop just how you would go about making it. More than individual recipes it will be about demonstrating simple processes to make cheap and tasty wines. As well as wines, we will consider ‘long drinks’ such as cider, ginger beer, and lemon beer and a method of turning wines into fruit vinegars. Making country wines is a very old tradition – you may recall the vet’s experience with parsnip wine in ‘All Things Great and Small’. The wines and drinks I make are from fruit, vegetables, and flowers from our garden or that are found locally. We use what is in excess or what might otherwise, be discarded – guava pulp for example. I can demonstrate the use of the hydrometer and the arithmetic of sugar – bring your pocket calculator if you wish. We will go through the gear needed, sample recipes and additions that make good wine. This may lead to consideration of what to plant to supply stock. I shall make some simple cider (bring a two-litre plastic bottle of cheap apple juice – not from the refrigerator section but from the shelves in the supermarket – preservative free) and we will turn it into cider.
For summer quaffing I shall explain and demonstrate how to make beers – lemon beer and hibiscus delight (a Yandina speciality). After the workshop participants will have a good grasp of the fundamental processes of Traditional Country Winemaking, and a knowledge of the equipment and ingredients needed (as well as cheap substitutes) that they will be able to apply this to a variety of material.
Click here to book for this winemaking workshop
About The Presenter
Leaving his job as Headmaster of a boys boarding school in NSW, Phillip Richards took his family to carve out a farm on a 40 ha bush block of regrowth on sandy degraded granite outside Childers. Gaining organic certification (BFA) they sold vegetables through an organic produce agent in Brisbane as well as into the Sydney and Melbourne markets. Cows, pigs, goats all sorts of poultry helped increase the fertility and caused constant mayhem. They have been on the Sunshine Coast for many years and have 1.7 ha along the South Maroochy river and are self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables and have recently begun growing grains (maize, millet & sorghum) for both chook food and for our consumption.
Phillip writes for Grass Roots (in the past for Earth Garden) as well as G magazine, Owner Builder, and lately in PIP Journal (article on coffee) and Australasian Poultry (grains and sprouts for chooks). He was formally the organic editor for suite 101 a now defunct ezine.
This week you will go on a journey as you learn about coil weaving. You will learn how to begin consistently and how to add new fibre into your baskets, how to finish neatly and all about the importance of tension. You will also learn about how to bring up sides on a basket and how you can keep tension consistent by using an aid such as a metal or plastic or wooden bowl about the size and shape that you want your basket to become. Please bring something like this as a weaving aid as it will prevent you from making your basket too 
small. Also please bring , a wide-eyed blunt needle. This is a good time to collect materials from the garden; if it looks interesting or you’re curious about its use, bring it along.
This workshop with Tom Kendall provides an interactive platform to get an understanding of how to create systems to increase productivity on your property. It defines the value of creating your own fertility systems and gives you an understanding of what is lacking and what needs to be added to improve fertility. In the first workshop Tom will give participants an understanding of fertility systems, and the information for participants to go home and discover what may be lacking on their property. In the second week possible system implementation and /or improvements will be discussed. Tom will emphasise low outside input systems, so it is affordable and feasible for everyone.
of the PRI Sunshine Coast Inc and PRI Luganville, Vanuatu and runs PDC courses and Permaculture training for the PRI Sunshine Coast Inc. at the Kendall Permaculture Farm Education and Training Site. Tom has a talent to identify and repair damaged and eroded landscapes, focusing on soil health and transforming damaged land to highly productive land. He repaired 7000 acres of dry land farm which had been conventionally farmed for many years and which was experiencing loss of top soil and erosion, by converting it to organic / bio-dynamic practices and making it profitable again. He also repaired around 10 acres of degraded, low fertility, sub-tropical ex-banana farm land, which is now a lush, flourishing Permaculture Demonstration and Education site on the Sunshine Coast. All land improvement was done on a low budget with minimum outside inputs, and was designed to derive an income from the land. Being brought up in a remote area of Western Australia, he was taught from very young to be inventive, innovative and self reliant, a practise he still continues today and teaches to his students.
Choice is yours, because once you know the technique you imagination is the only limit.
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