Vegies on the Verge in Marrickville 2015

House Notes – Vegies on the Verge in Marrickville

We will be running tours every hour on the hour.  Please book a tour HERE

In seeking to live sustainably, we are guided by the three Rs – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. We attempt to minimise waste in every aspect of our lives and we try to do this with minimal aid from technological additions to the house.

Our home includes:

• Productive verge gardens
• Permaculture
• Fruit trees
• Double glazing
• Rainwater tank
• Passive solar design
• Composting and worm farming
• Waste reduction
• Behaviour change

We keep our energy consumption low because we do simple things such as switch off lights when we’re not in the room, don’t leave appliances on standby but turn them off at the power source, have med-high star energy rated appliances (fridge, washing machine, dishwasher) hang the washing out to dry and do not use a dryer. In winter we wear warm clothes instead of turning up the heater (which is a gas heater) and in summer, we keep the heat out by closing our double glazed windows and drawing curtains and blinds in the morning before the day warms up.

We grow our own vegies, herbs and flowers on the verge in front of our house. This is a wonderfully sunny area and much more suited to growing vegies than growing grass (and weeds)! We have been growing our verge garden since November 2006. It has become a community galvaniser and as a result we know more people who live in the surrounding streets than we could ever hope to before.