Ever since I first read about Warrigal Greens or native spinach, I’ve been on the lookout for its green, semi succulent leaves.

Surprisingly, during my holiday last week, I found it growing all over the extremely rocky shores of Smiths Lake.  The leaves are quite fleshy and slightly arrow shaped with small raised bumps that help prevent the plant from drying out.

After identifying the plant online, I lightly blanched some leaves for about five minutes to make sure all the toxicity was removed. If eaten raw, the leaves and stems can be slightly toxic due to their high oxalate concentration. To remove these oxalates, blanching is recommended and make sure you discard the water after use.

Whilst cooking, the leaves released a strong smell of the salty lake they were growing next to but they tasted surprisingly bland like English Spinach only a little juicier. I think this plant would make a great addition to any recipe that requires spinach, not to mention my edible garden.

Warrigal Greens have quite a history, originally eaten by Australia’s aboriginals, then later by Captain Cook and his crew to stave off scurvy and now by restaurants as a native bush food ingredient.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take a sample for my own garden because I was heading up to Bellingen for a week after Smiths Lake. I really want to try and propagate this plant. Has anyone seen it growing wild in Sydney, if so where?

It’s 2009, and to mark the new year South Australia has banned plastic shopping bags.

There’s an interesting post over at the We Knit, Sew, Bake blog reminding people in the state to bring their own bags when shopping or they’ll have to buy reusable ones.

I think this ban is a move in the right direction, and hope this law will soon become national. It certainly has worked well in other countries I’ve been to.

Merry Christmas everyone and have a great silly season.

See you back in the new year.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Unfortunately my back has really been playing up since I had my baby five months ago. This means that I haven’t been able to get out into the garden or update Greenfoot as much as I want.

Instead of planting out my summer garden, I’ve had to resort to watching my garden develop very randomly. Besides all the weeds, it’s amazing and quite delightful to watch edible plants pop up all over the place.

For a start, many potato plants have returned to one of my raised garden beds. It seems no matter how many times I pull these up, potatoes keep returning. It’s always a bit of a gamble what sort of potatoes I get, but that just makes things more fun.

A rampant tomato vine that sprung from some compost has taken over the other raised bed. However, because I haven’t staked them, the quality is a bit hit and miss.

Mulberries from a cutting I took from another tree have ambled up part of my back trellis. I have been espaliering this for the last year. Espaliering is quite good for my bad back because I don’t need to bend down too much. My husband also helped me partially net it so birds don’t take too much of the crop – however my young son does, which is ok. At the moment picking tasty mulberries with my son is a daily afternoon ritual.

My passionfruit vines are also taking off on the trellis after many years of possum savaging, but that deserves another post.

My garlic is ready to dig up, and I have managed to plant some zucchinis and my regular space saver pumpkins. I do want to try and get some basil and rocket in for the summer months, so hopefully I can do this soon.

Has anyone out there got a bad back but is still managing to garden? If so what are your tips?

My free Greentech Australia tickets have arrived. If you are in Sydney, Greentech is from November 7-8 , and from the time of writing free tickets were available at the Greentech website.

Greentech is all about green building, design and technology. There are some great speakers, talks and exhibitions. Find out more.

I love this book! Smart Permaculture Design is no ordinary gardening book. The author, Jenny Allen, has such a great way of writing. She tells an enticing story about her permaculture garden in Melaney, Queensland, while also teaching readers about permaculture principles and design.

Her words are poetic, dramatic and informative and she adds just enough spice to keep you drooling through her beautifully illustrated book. Read the rest of this entry »

While we were in Canberra for the long weekend, my family and I visited Floriade. I spend a lot of time in Canberra, but I have never managed to visit this epic flower event.

Floriade bills itself as Australia’s biggest flower festival and although my gardening heart lies with edibles, a day of wandering amongst fabulous colourful flower beds seemed too good to miss.

The beds, made up of many different blooms, form giant pictures to reflect this year’s theme of Films that shaped our nation. Films such as: Muriel’s Wedding; Happy Feet; Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; and Babe were all there. Some of the designs did take a bit of imagination to grasp but the pretty, bright flowers were great to wander about in anyway.

There were also some good showcase gardens and exhibitions. One of the exhibitions we stumbled across was an example of an Eco Villa. Eco villas are low cost, long-lasting and environmentally friendly housing. I think they would make a good external studio or office. One to keep in mind for when we eventually buy some land ;-).

This year Floriade turns 21 and runs from 13 September to 12 October 2008. The event is free.

As the hot summer months approach it’s important to ensure gardens are in excellent shape waterwise.

Here’s a little article I wrote for G magazine a while back. Just saw it online.

The Alternative Technology Association (ATA) also recently released an excellent book about conserving water around the home.

The book, Water not down the drain, tells you about:

• Choosing rainwater tanks and harvesting rainwater
• Supplying rainwater to the house and garden
• Setting up a grey water diversion system
• Grey water treatment systems
• Grey water health and environmental concerns
• Creating a rain garden to capture storm water
• Cutting greenhouse emissions while saving water

Interested? You can order it online through the ATA.

I am constantly harassing my husband to switch off unused and standby lights in our house. Wherever he goes in our house he seems to leave a trail of lit, vacant rooms and a plethora of standby lights on.

The one light he especially loves to leave on is his computer monitor light, which I religiously turn off nightly.

So, he did make me giggle when he sent me this article about the Intelliplug. It’s a plug that contains a switching system that automatically switches off attached peripherals when the PC is turned off. In other words, when the PC is turned off at the end of the night then monitor and speakers will automatically power-off too. A PC monitor on standby overnight can use the same amount of energy as a microwave would need to cook six dinners. Although, my husband denies this

Anyway, the Intelliplug is available in the UK but not here yet. Hopefully, it is on its way – maybe in time for Christmas. Or maybe there is something out there already in Australia, which I don’t know about yet?