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.

Our resident blue tongue lizard, Barry, has returned.  Barry lives somewhere behind our back fence.  He likes to hunt in the vegetable patch and sun himself by the clothes line. This is fine by me because he keep snails, slugs and caterpillars to a minimum plus he’s good company.

He often likes to stick his tongue out at me, so I just stick mine out right back at him. Although, my pink, pointy tongue is nothing on his fabulous blue one. Barry’s tongue poking is probably more to do with him feeling threatened, rather than just wanting to be rude. (more…)

It’s raining here in Sydney, which makes a wonderful break from the intense heat we’ve had recently.

There’s nothing I love more than gardening in a light summer rain. The garden comes alive with dripping lushness and the soil smells sweet and earthy.

Today, I planted some of the native spinach I found last week into one of my vege patches. It’s in a spot I don’t really use much so I am hoping it will spread out quite a lot. This is an experimental patch to see how the spinach grows.

My son helped plant it, so we’ve called it Liam’s spinach patch. It was lovely watching him fuss over it, and then spend the rest of his time trying to catch rain drops on his tongue.

Today, when I was taking my son to his swimming lesson, I spotted some native spinach (Warrigal Greens) growing next to the pool’s car park.

A month back I wrote about finding native spinach at Smiths Lakes and I was annoyed with myself for not taking a clipping to plant back in my garden. Ever since, I have been on the lookout for native spinach in Sydney.

It was by sheer accident while I was getting the pram out of the boot that I saw the little green plants growing by my feet. They looked a lot healthier than the specimens at Smiths Lake, no doubt due to better soil and some shade.

I pulled up a few plants and transplanted them into pots back home. I have great plans for these little beauties. I want to use them to create an edible ground cover over some of the less productive sections of my garden.

I must admit spotting native edibles is quite exciting and something I could get addicted to. Anyone know of any other good edible natives that people can find growing wild in their local areas?

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.

I’ve harvested my garlic and it’s a tasty crop! I pulled up about 15 heads, some small and some quite big, which all together weighed roughly 1kg.

The garlic is crisp, juicy and potent…yum. (more…)