It's rare to be inspired by talk of weeds, but so it was last month when I visited permaculture founder David Holmgren.

As he said those words, he grabbed a 'weed' and put it in his pocket. 

"For our salad later," he smiled. 

We chatted about all sorts of useful things so often dismissed because of their appearance or the labels we put on them.

Old jars, white pages with out-of-date numbers and broken bamboo - all used over and over again at his Hepburn property.

Soon enough, my eyes were open to the possibilities of the world and the objects in it and I soon realised how warped my own sense of necessity is.

It reminded me of Ghandi - "the world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed".

Such words have never been more relevant - with an increasing want for HD screens, the latest iPhones and shiny things to accessorise  life.

It's hard to turn away from excess but talking sustainability with so many in Daylesford, I'm starting to realise there is a true art in making do.

Look at the Chinese tangram puzzle - seven individual pieces that can be arranged in countless arrangements.

They're really just shapes made of wood - we are told that - but with effort, they can be turned into practically anything.

David and Su apply this to almost everything in their lives. Their philosophy? Want not, need not.

For me, it's a matter of survival, not of ourselves, but of our planet.

And it is possible.

As Henryk Tomaszewski says, "the economy of means is founded on the richness of thought".