Plant it, grow it, use it, eat it! Here's our favourite resources on growing all types of good things – from microgreens to oak trees.
See below for planting guides, how-to's, books and resources, as well as interviews with amazing growers to get you inspired…
The whole plant, and nothing but the plant – a great way to ripen green tomatoes for future eatery – hang ’em up! There comes a time in every Autumn when the tomato plants need to come out, and with them, all the tomatoes that aren’t yet ripe. Maybe its because the first frost is about…
Recently we found something we’d always wanted to see – Glow in the Dark Mushrooms. No really, we did. Ghost Fungus, or Omphalotus nidiformis is actually quite common throughout southern Australia. Omphalotus nidiformis distribution, via Atlas of Living Australia Omphalotus nidiformis – Ghost Fungus Pronounced Omfa-lotus nidee-form-iss, this is probably Australia’s best known luminescent fungus. This type of…
Here’s another of our gourmet mushroom cultivation students who’s off and growing! Marita Smith lives in the Morton National Park just behind Milton on the South Coast of NSW and over the last year she’s been setting up an awesome local food initiative. We caught up with her to take a peek inside her emerging organic mushroom…
Every now and then we get to visit a small organic farm that truly blows our socks off. Old Mill Road, and the family who farm it, are one of those farms. I think I should let the images speak for themselves here, so in summary: Old Mill Road is a diverse biological farm supplying vegetables, eggs,…
I’m getting cosy with the seaweeds that grow near our place. It seems only fair – I’ve always made a point of understanding what wild land plants and animals are particular to wherever we live – what they indicate, the conditions they prefer, and what niches they hold in the ecosystem. But up until now, I wasn’t…
Think making your own aquaponics setup would be too hard and costly? Think again my friends. Here’s a straightforward and easy way to grow some waterwise greens in your home system. We made this super easy and downright cheap aquaponics system for the 107 Rooftop Garden in Redfern, Sydney, because we wanted to show folks how…
The definition of a weed is subjective, I know. They’re simply plants out of place, after all. And one person’s weed might be another person’s harvest, or food, or medicine. It’s true. However, when it comes to our current backyard veggie patch, we’ve been laying down some ground rules about what plants get to stay,…
The thing about farming on the small is that big machines just don’t make sense, and often aren’t affordable to your small, regenerative farming enterprise anyway. And yet, once you’ve brought 18 beds to a fine tilth to plant your precious carrots using hand tools alone, you could be forgiven for longing for the efficiency that…
Discovering new edible plants in unexpected places is fast becoming one of my favourite pastimes. This week, we’ve been scouting our local ‘hood for beaded samphire. Beaded samphire (Sarcocornia quinqueflora) is also known as sea asparagus or beaded glasswort. It’s an edge plant that grows in highly saline environments, like salt marshes, brackish water, or at the top…
String em up, baby! Climbing tomatoes often need a helping hand to reach their full potential. Here’s our two favourite methods for stringing up best ever backyard toms. Farm or patio, tomatoes are the go. I can’t imagine summer without them. In a small backyard like the one we’re living in just now, climbing tomatoes make lots of…
You know it’s going to be a good day when you jump out of bed, pull on overalls and work boots, and head for the door with your big straw hat, garden gloves in your pocket. It was raining in Redfern when we arrived in the morning, but that didn’t matter one little bit. It was…
A pocket full of seeds. Ever since I heard of the concept, I’ve loved this idea. The idea of always, always having something in your pocket to sprinkle on any bare patch of ground that you see. A day could start out completely ordinary. Nothing to see here. But then, you’re walking along, and you spy…
We all know darn well that there are many facets within our food system that have to change – and what we love most is that in just about every nook you look there are passionate folk who are doing their bit to help create change.