Today is my mother’s birthday and to celebrate her life I ate the last fig from a tree she gave me. It was everything you would expect from a freshly picked fig - soft, sweet, juicy and a truly melt-in-the-mouth experience. Except the fig has an extra special significance because it was from a tree my mother gave me when she first got sick.

My mother passed away at the end of last year after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease and so to me the fig tree represents her, and is a wonderful reminder of mum in my favourite place – my garden.

It is a lovely little tree that I keep in a half wine barrel, which is surrounded by succulents.

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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…)

Today is  Blog Action Day and the theme is climate change. So what better day to write about a climate-saving feature packed house that I visited in Sydney on Sustainable House Day.

Visiting John’s sustainable house in Gordon was more than just checking out rainwater tanks, solar panels and a vege patch. It was more of a journey through John’s concepts and philosophies in life, which all in some way focused on sustainability. (more…)

It seems the rain in Sydney is over for the moment, and I’ve been enjoying the garden while it has been wet.

I really like planting out seedlings when it’s drizzling in spring. Seedlings seem to establish themselves better in the dirt and there is nothing better than the smell of good, damp, living soil.

I have replanted my three garden beds with some of my favourites – Tom Thumb tomatoes, sweet basil, lettuce, rocket, zucchini and shallots. My son ate the first mulberry to turn black today, small limes are forming on my tree and I am ever hopeful for the flowers sprouting on my avocado tree.

My garlic is still growing nicely, the native spinach is thriving and I have no idea where I am going to plant my space saver pumpkins this year. There is no room left!

How’s this for a low impact bath. My kids recently had a bath in my brother’s backyard.

The bath was found lying around my brother’s property – he previously used it as a worm farm.

The water was collected in a tank and the heating came from burning reclaimed wood (see the ashes under the bath).  The air conditioning and heating – well that was provided by Mother Nature.

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…)

For Earth Day (today) I’ve created a feral fruit tree map. Unfortunately, my area is a little light on feral fruit but I will add to it when I find more during my walks around the neighbourhood. So far I’ve spotted a mulberry tree, errant passionfruit vines, quite a lot of lilly pilly trees and some warrigal greens (native spinach) – although not a fruit, these greens are very edible.

In case you’re not sure, feral fruit is basically any fruit you can glean from a public space like a park, by the road side or overhanging a fence. It’s not only free, but grown locally and chances are its organic. (more…)

I’m always on the lookout for edible plants when walking around my neighbourhood. Today the streets were blooming with lilly pillies.

Lilly pillies are originally rainforest plants and native to Australia and south-east Asia.

People love using them as hedges. The ones near my house spend most of the year as leafy, green, glossy bushes. Occasionally, they break out in fluffy white blossoms and then today I noticed little dark pink cherry-like, apple shaped berries. A quick Google back home and a lilly pilly confirmation.

Since my travels into the world of native spinach, I’ve been looking into what other native edibles grow in my neighbourhood. I now know lilly pillies are everywhere. (more…)

Yay! My book is here. Well not exactly my book exclusively – a book I’ve contributed to. Yep, this is a blatant plug but it’s the first book I’ve written for, and it does relate to Greenfoot because the copy is about composting and building a worm farm.

The book is called Growing Stuff: An Alternative Guide to Gardening and it’s published by UK company Black Dog Publishing. It probably won’t hit shelves here in Australia until next month.

The book follows on from the two books - Making Stuff and Making Stuff for Kids - and it covers all sorts of gardening stuff from getting started, planting edibles and flowers to attracting wildlife plus a few other quirky things. It contains loads of practical advice, greats pictures and how-to guides.

For more info about the book, download the press release. Or check out what I’ve written about composting and building a worm farm.