Saltgrass

Bilbies, great desert skinks, malleefowl and stick nest rats. Burrows, mounds, and many kinds of excretment. Clues, fragments, and ancient relics. No matter what team you were on, everyone on Desert Discovery was told to keep an eye out for these rare and unlikely species or what they may have left for us to find in the landscape.  Transcript and show notes available on the Saltgrass Website .

Meet the invertebrate team as we peel back bark, turn over rocks and shine lights on sheets to catch insects and arachnids out in the Australian desert. One of the smallest teams on Desert Discovery they were looking at the some of the smallest critters, but they had their eyes open to all levels of life.  Transcript and show notes available on the Saltgrass Website .

In the last episode we had a chat with Mayor Toby Heydon and YIMBY co-founder Lucy Young to explore the impacts of the rolling out a Food Organics / Garden Organics (FOGO) kerbside waste service in the shire.  It seemed clear there was a lot more to say! So this episode we are joined once more by Lucy and also by Anthony Jansen who runs Greenaway , a garden organics waste service. Together we talk...

This episode was recorded from a live show on MainFM on 4th of May 2026. The Mount Alexander Shire Council is soon to vote on whether our shire should have  FOGO bin, that is, a Food Organics / Garden Organics kerbside waste service.  Saltgrass host Allie was joined in the studio my Mayor Toby Heydon and YIMBY co-founder Lucy Young to discuss the proposed service and why it may or may not be the b...

Citizen science is a bit of a buzz word, but what is it really all about? Desert Discovery did not start out as a citizen science group, at first it was a group of nature lovers having adventures together. Over time the group's focus has shifted more and more towards citizen science. So, in this episode, we unpack what citizen science is and also how Desert Discovery became a citizen science group...

Join us on the first full day of the Desert Discovery Yeo Lake Project. Allie hitches a ride with the Botany Team to find out what a day of data collection looks like for them. We hear team leader Alan Bedggood talk about how it all works and share in the enthusiasm of the participants.  Links and transcript at saltgrasspodcast.com

Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth. The majority of people live in the major cities that hug the coast line, and as much as Australia is famous for the 'red centre', many Australians have never been. This season Allie, Saltgrass' host, will take listeners on an adventure to a remote desert location in Western Australia with citizen science group Desert Discovery. This first episo...

A little window into what is coming!

A quick update before we launch into season 6! Allie talks about why it's been a while between seasons and what has changed since last time you heard from Saltgrass.   Season 6 is coming really soon... for reals!

Handing out popcorn can get you arrested these days, especially if you do it in a bank.   In this episode I chat with three activists who did just that over a year ago. Then, earlier this year they went to court to argue that they had to do it to prevent great harm from happening, that is to prevent the bank's connection to future fossil fuel extraction. Activists often get represented as ratbags...

This is the final episode of the three about the housing crisis and what my local community is doing about it. In this episode we hear about some of the creative solutions including community groups building housing specific for their needs, Council utilising existing sites to build affordable housing, adjusting council laws to allow more flexibility for tiny homes on wheels, working out how to us...

In these three episodes we will explore how housing is a key climate issue and we’ll look at how the housing crisis is impacting where I live, in regional Victoria. In this second episode we are looking at what deliberative development is and how co-housing and community building can be a part of our housing solutions.  In the next episodes we’ll explore what the local community is already doing a...

How is the housing crisis linked to sustainability? In the next three episodes we will explore how housing is a key climate issue and we'll look at how the housing crisis is impacting where I live, in regional Victoria. In this episode we will look at how the land lies, what is the problem? In the two following episodes we'll explore what the local community is already doing about it and also at s...

I know it has been a while since there was anything new on Saltgrass, so here is a quick (6 min) update for you.  In summary: There will be 5 new episodes coming out soon which will wrap up season 5 of Saltgrass and then we will get stuck into season 6.  Also, Saltgrass won some cool awards :) Yay!  

This is the full audio from the Connecting Country event called ‘Revegetation Success in a Changing Climate’ The event featured presentations from Sasha Jellinek from the University of Melbourne and Melbourne Water, Oli Moraes - Project Manager at Djaara and Tess Greives from the North Central Catchment Management Authority (NCCMA)  

Connecting Country is a not for profit organisation which works closely with landcare groups and others in restoring neglected and damaged ecosystems. Hadley Cole and Bonnie Humphries from Connecting Country join Allie to discuss how landcare groups contribute to various restoration efforts, and how the unprecedented nature of climate change and its impact on existing ecosystems makes the task com...

Today we are going to Village Dreaming Farm and Orto cooking school. Mara and Ralf live on about 15 acres just outside of Daylesford – about a 30min drive south of where I am in Castlemaine. They have been there since 2015 and in that time have transformed the empty paddocks of former grazing land into a small farm that follows regenerative and permaculture principles, with a kitchen garden, orcha...

Are you good at composting? I certainly haven't been in the past. But with the help of a community composting group called YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) I have become a kitchen scrap saviour, a leaf collecting ninja and I make steaming hot compost.  In today's episode I talk to Lucy Young, Joel Meadows, Mikaela Beckley and Claudia Lang about what this group is all about and why they are passionate a...

Recent episodes have been looking at the farmers out at the Harcourt Organic Farming Cooperative. We've been out there to explore how farming and agriculture might be done in a way that is earth, biodiversity and humanity friendly. Each and every one of the farmers talked about how important the support of the local community has been, and how much enthusiasm they have received from people who get...

It has been almost a decade of effort and love and garlic from Gung Hoe Growers – supplying our local community through the local farmers market, selling to cafes and restaurants and providing boxes of veg to seasonal and annual subscribers. Many have felt sadness on hearing that Gung Hoe will not be renewing their lease out at the Harcourt Organic Farming Cooperative. This episode is a big chat w...

We are heading back out to the Harcourt Farming Cooperative – this time to talk to Tess Sellar who runs a herd of 10 or so dairy cows and supplies organic milk and yoghurt to our local community. Tess uses regenerative farming practices, re-usable glass containers and does countless other things to make her micro-dairy as low impact as possible. Trigger Warning: Please note that this episode conta...

Following on from the last episode about the Harcourt Farming Cooperative, today we are looking at The Orchard Keepers.  They are part of the  grand experiment of this farming cooperative, having taken over the orchard management a couple of years ago.  They are using organic and regenerative practices and they are not just farmers, but they are visionaries and committed activists through the work...

This is the first of four episodes that will be released about the Harcourt Organic Farming Cooperative. Long term listeners may remember two episodes from season one that captured conversations with farmers from the cooperative as it was just beginning back in 2018.  I’ve been following the process of this cooperative with interest since it began because it is a fascinating case study of alternat...

Plastic Free July had humble beginnings in back in 2011 when Rebecca Prince-Ruiz had the idea of refusing to buy or accept single use plastics for the month of July, just to see if she could.  She asked people around her if they wanted to do it too and now it is a global movement with an estimated 140 million people from 195 countries participating in 2022.   I wanted to Talk to Rebecca, not only...

How can local councils and Traditional Owners work collaboratively towards climate and environmental goals? Today's episode explores one way to get things going. Back in November 2022 Djaara – the Traditional Owners in Central Victoria where Saltgrass is made – invited representatives from local councils to gather on Country and workshop how Djaara and councils can co-design climate strategies and...