THE QUEEN OF COMPOST
Hannah Moloney is an exponent of permaculture. Here she tells how she maintains such an enviable work/life balance
Most of us strive for the perfect work/life balance, seeking a clear divide between our 9-5 office personas and home lives. But for Hannah Moloney such a division doesn’t exist, and the 35-year-old couldn’t be happier.
Moloney, her husband Anton Vikstrom and their three-yearold daughter Frida (pictured) live in a hot-pink house on a ¾ acre property in South Hobart. They run Good Life Permaculture, a business dedicated to sharing sustainable gardening and teaching “lots of hands-on practical skills for living the good life”.
Their “small city farm” is home to a thriving vegie patch, a fruit and hazelnut orchard, two milking goats, chickens and honeybees. It’s the perfect place for Moloney, who grew up on her family’s herb farm in Queensland.
As a two-year-old she would play in the garden as her dad worked nearby, and as she got older she helped tend to plants in the nursery and built cubby houses among the mango and macadamia trees with her siblings. It gave her inside knowledge about farming and gardening and an appreciation for food.
But by the time Moloney hit 18 she decided she’d had enough of the “full-on” 24/7 lifestyle of farming more than 300 varieties of herbs and swore she’d never work on a farm again.
Within months of leaving in search of adventure, though, she realised she missed it. Permaculture was her passion. Moloney travelled Australia, establishing a name for herself as a teacher, designer, business owner and compost queen.
She spent two months in Africa working on programs supporting farming women in Tanzania and Uganda, and travelled to the Solomon Islands to teach permaculture.
In 2012 she and Anton moved to Tasmania, inspired by the state’s amazing natural resources and its “not too big, not too small’’ feel. They started their business the following year, looking at ways to make landscapes resilient and regenerative.
Moloney runs workshops around Tasmania on everything from establishing a permaculture garden and growing food to beekeeping, brewing beer and creating compost.
“We have all types of people, all ages and all backgrounds,’’ Moloney says. “The common theme is people who are really looking to reconnect with some hands-on skills and want to take more responsibility for where their food comes from and reconnect with what matters.
“You can grow some herbs and salad greens. You can do that in one square metre. You don’t even need earth as you can do it in a raised-garden bed.”
She’s not aiming for self-sufficiency, but rather community sufficiency, promoting a swap, trade, buy and sell philosophy.
“We have some of the best food in the world in Tasmania, but most of it is exported,’’ she says.
Becoming a mum made Moloney even more passionate about food. “Frida’s really lucky, it’s just normal for her. If she wants to eat a carrot she can go and harvest one,’’ Moloney says. “As a parent I think ‘how can we make sure everything we do right now is going to benefit future generations’.”
Moloney will run a free Compost Workshop in Hobart on October 6. For other workshops visit goodlifepermaculture.com.au