It’s good to see my compost bins are getting around.

I spied my lovely bins on this DIY composting blog – actually they did ask permission to use my Flickr image. Glad I, and my bins, can be of service ;-).

Good to know we are helping to spread the composting word.

It has been raining heavily in Sydney for a couple of weeks now and my worm farm catchments are overflowing. With so much worm wee (juice) and rain I am also running out of plants to put it on.

Rain, particularly heavy rain, is just one of the reasons you need to protect your worm farm from the elements. Luckily my worm farms are out by the shed and under some native trees so they don’t get directly rained on and are protected from harsh sunlight (when it isn’t raining).

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Chickens seem to be making a come back to suburban gardens across Australia.

And why not? Chickens eat your food scraps, fertilize your garden, eliminate bugs, keep your kids entertained and best of all produce tasty, fresh eggs. (more…)

I love Autumn in my garden. It’s lovely and cool but not too cold, plus there is still a lot of sunshine about.

Sydney’s autumn weather is great at the moment and I have managed to plant out my vegetable patches. I’ve also (with the help of hubby) emptied out all my compost bins, which cooked nicely over the summer, over the patches.

There’s nothing better than the smell of fresh, new, crumbly compost. A symbol of life really.

This is what I’ve planted: (more…)

There is nothing better than a good music festival and one of my favourites is Womadelaide, in Adelaide, SA.

Besides the impressive music, relaxed vibe and child friendly feel the festival’s waste management practices are really inspiring. Red wine aside, these practices are enough to leave anyone with a happy, warm, nicely wasted glow.

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If you eat canned tuna in Australia then there is a good chance you are swallowing a creature on the brink of extinction.

The health benefits of eating tuna have long been promoted but how is eating Tuna affecting the health of our oceans and the longevity of the species?

Many cans of tuna contain fish that are almost extinct. Already Northern and Southern Bluefin tuna stocks have collapsed and Bigeye, Yellowfin and Albacore Tuna are decreasing. Destructive tuna fishing practices also lead to the widespread slaughter of hundreds of thousands of turtles and sharks.

So how do you know if you are eating a threatened species?
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I just had to share this picture. A button squash is meant to be small right? Well not in Bellingen, NSW. Vegetables grow freakishly huge up there.

On a recent trip to a friend’s house in Thora – near Bellingen, we picked the hugest yellow button squash I have ever seen. It was bigger than my hand. In fact all the vegetables growing in my friend’s garden were freakishly huge. (more…)

This year I left my garlic a little late to pull up. By the time I got to it all the stems had died down and mostly disappeared. So when I started to dig up the heads, I couldn’t find them.

Well I did eventually but I had to dig around a lot and I accidentally broke up a few of the heads, which is not ideal. I also probably missed a few, so no doubt some are still underneath the soil somewhere. (more…)

I have to admit I have become a bit of a lazy gardener. It is not intentional - more of a mix of  having a really bad back and lack of time due to my job and two little kids.

Never-the-less I love getting out into my vege patch and still manage to keep it full and productive. Rather than work too hard though, I love to make things in my garden work for themselves. That is why I really love companion planting, minimal fuss fruit and vege plus wild and self seeding plants. Also every-now-and-then I stumble upon a plant or process in my garden that is pure accidental genius. One such example, which I have been using for a few seasons now, is my lemongrass plant. (more…)

A friend of mine has a fantastic worm farm that lives in the corner of his garden. When I say “in”, I mean literally in the vegetable patch.

The worm farm is basically a bottomless bucket that has been sunk into his vegetable patch. The top of the bucket is level with the top of the vegetable patch’s top soil. (more…)