Morel mushrooms are not something I was expecting to find often in the Australian bush. Infact, we’d only heard rumours about them existing at all. Until we came across Morchella australiana. When I think of Morels (Morchella species), I think of the Pacific North-West of North America, with it’s lush deciduous early-spring forests and salmon berries…
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Scoring a patch of dirt to start an urban farm in Sydney is no mean feat. But Pocket City Farms have done it, thanks to their passion, green fingers and ability to adapt. Just the skills you need for farming. Perfect. Pocket City Farms is a small group of normal folks with a big dream – to grow good clean…
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If you live in a cold or temperate climate, Spring can be a bit slow when it comes to starting seedlings. Here’s how to make DIY Glass Cloches for Early Spring Plants. When I look at all my little seedlings, slowly putting out their first leaves in my greenhouse, all I can see right now is…
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There’s many different ways you can get mushrooms growing where you live, and which method works best for you will depend on various factors, as with growing anything… your time, space, budget, climate and so on. BUT as we all know, mushrooms will find a way. Nearly always. So it’s just a matter of figuring out…
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Greywater is a fabulous, though often underused, household resource that should be used wherever possible. Here’s a home made 3 bathtub greywater system that’s simple but effective. If you live in an area where water is precious at certain times of year (and when is it not?) then catching, storing and using every drop you…
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Eat your foraged greens, wherever they may be. Anyone for a seaside sandwich? Sea lettuce is easy to find and forage, and it’s packed with goodness. In NSW (the regulations in other states vary slightly), sea lettuce is the one and only seaweed that normal folks may forage and harvest in it’s live form, straight…
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Enokitake are a delicious wild mushroom that’s a great addition to any food growing system, so we were excited to find them growing unannounced in the black currant patch at Melliodora. Time to encourage and cultivate! Talk about stacking functions. So David was taking Nick through the process of pruning the black currant patch recently,…
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While I was travelling in Java recently on a design exchange, I became very good friends with Tempeh. We even learned to make it – village style. Everywhere we went in Java, tempeh was sold freshly made and wrapped in banana leaf at the markets, or often as a meal option in the small warungs…
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A backyard full of kids toys, chickens, veggies and bees is one kind of backyard that we love. Kids and bees, though. Can they happily co-habit? The answer is Yes! We caught up with Emily Gimellaro from Wilton recently about how she keeps bees in a warré hive in her backyard chicken run, alongside two…
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If you live near the coast, seaweed can be a fantastic resource to forage for fertilizing your garden. There’s lots of easy ways to use it to increase the health of your soil, and your veggies and flowers too. First of all, check the local regulations where you live around collecting beach-cast seaweed. Collection is…
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The range of different natural building techniques out there are many, and all of them are exciting. But when to use which technique? Here’s a starting guide for choosing what to build your walls from. Though all very different, and used for different reasons, all the natural building methods below have some common aspects. And the…
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The future of small scale organic farming belongs to those who are willing to find a way to grow, regardless of where they begin from. Linda Machon is a perfect example of a farmer who has made the most of what, and where, she has found herself. The concept of the multi-enterprise small farm makes…
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If you’re wanting home-grown eggs but don’t have quite enough room for chickens, keeping backyard quails are a super option – they’re easy care, lay protein rich eggs, don’t need much space and are great fun to have around. There’s many different breeds of quails, and some are more suitable for backyards than others. Let’s start with…
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