It’s amazing how much household waste can be reduced through composting organic scraps. I’ve been doing this for years so I don’t really notice any reduction in my rubbish anymore.

However, over the New Year break my family and I shared a holiday house on Smiths Lake with two other families. Since the house was a holiday rental there was no composting or worm farming facilities so all our organic scraps went straight in the bin. I was amazed at how quickly our bins filled up and how much was thrown out that could have been composted. It was enough to make me cry – well almost. (more…)

Why is it whenever I go away from my garden for a while things of worth die or get diseased while weeds thrive and take over?

This is what I returned to in my garden after two weeks away on holidays.

An almost dead Lotsa-Lemon tree – something had stripped it bare, a fig tree covered in scale insects, a passionfruit vine also almost stripped bare, my zucchini and pumpkins infested with white fly, and my two small guava trees dead from lack of water. Tears, tears and more tears.

But what have grown well are loads of huge weeds that have taken over whole sections of my garden.

Gardening can be so cruel sometimes…sigh. Looks like this weekend will be spent reviving my ailing garden.

I’m in Bellingen staying with some good friends who have 10 acres of delightful fields and forest. It’s really an amazing place, and so fantastic to be surrounded by so much space, open sky and nature.

As a city dweller it’s easy to forget these simple joys and I’m glad to be spending a week up here remembering such wonders.

Last night I went to sleep in a deep, darkness that only a house in the country can provide. With no city or street lights nearby, darkness enveloped me in a velvety, thick embrace. I fell asleep to the sounds of crickets and frogs singing and awoke to birds chirping and kookaburras laughing.

Today, I wandered the property on the lookout for edible plants and trees. I found oranges, avocadoes, macadamias, bananas and peach trees – a total edible meltdown. I am sure there is a whole lot more out there that I haven’t seen or can’t identify.

Since my friends recently moved in, the existing vegetable beds are overgrown with weeds but sparking my imagination as to what to plant and how to get them growing again. Firstly, I am thinking loads of black plastic to solarise those stubborn looking weeds.

It’s really hot up here, but this afternoon we are heading down to the river for a swim. The water is so refreshing – you dive in sweaty, sticky and a little grumpy but emerge happy and refreshed, it’s like an instant rebirth. Such simple pleasures … the thoughts of Sydney are far away.

Ever since I first read about Warrigal Greens or native spinach, I’ve been on the lookout for its green, semi succulent leaves.

Surprisingly, during my holiday last week, I found it growing all over the extremely rocky shores of Smiths Lake.  The leaves are quite fleshy and slightly arrow shaped with small raised bumps that help prevent the plant from drying out.

After identifying the plant online, I lightly blanched some leaves for about five minutes to make sure all the toxicity was removed. If eaten raw, the leaves and stems can be slightly toxic due to their high oxalate concentration. To remove these oxalates, blanching is recommended and make sure you discard the water after use.

Whilst cooking, the leaves released a strong smell of the salty lake they were growing next to but they tasted surprisingly bland like English Spinach only a little juicier. I think this plant would make a great addition to any recipe that requires spinach, not to mention my edible garden.

Warrigal Greens have quite a history, originally eaten by Australia’s aboriginals, then later by Captain Cook and his crew to stave off scurvy and now by restaurants as a native bush food ingredient.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take a sample for my own garden because I was heading up to Bellingen for a week after Smiths Lake. I really want to try and propagate this plant. Has anyone seen it growing wild in Sydney, if so where?

It’s 2009, and to mark the new year South Australia has banned plastic shopping bags.

There’s an interesting post over at the We Knit, Sew, Bake blog reminding people in the state to bring their own bags when shopping or they’ll have to buy reusable ones.

I think this ban is a move in the right direction, and hope this law will soon become national. It certainly has worked well in other countries I’ve been to.