All articles on: Gardeners & Farmers
How to dry fruit

How to dry fruit

How to dry fruit Fruit drying is a rewarding way to preserve your summer harvest. Like many preserving techniques it is simple to do (one of the simplest) and the results are extremely satisfying. By the end of the season, your larder shelves will be adorned with...

How to create a living fence

How to create a living fence

This article first appeared in Sanctuary Magazine, the 55th edition (with a few changes made here for my blog). A big thank you to editor Anna Cumming for commissioning this piece for I really love writing about the things I really love. Living fences: Using plants to...

Tomatoes and Gnocchi

Tomatoes and Gnocchi

I have had a really lucky month. I planted dozens and dozens of tomato plants in spring. My plan had been to grow enough tomatoes to make a year's worth of passata. But I had grown far more than a year's worth and after reaching my goal of 100 bottles of passata and...

These photos

These photos

Two posts for this month to make up for the fact that I did not post in February. Although some of you will have seen this post on facebook or Instagram as I spread my pictures and experiences across all three and not always in any chronological order. I never want...

Femme de la fowl

Femme de la fowl

What a great name. Women of the fowls. French. In Italian it would translate to Le Donne del pollame. I really like the French version. Fiona and I met in Melbourne, at NAGA (The Northern Alliance for Greenhouse Action). We worked for Local Government as educators....

Had I known

Had I known

I'm  so glad I didn't know... about Mara & Mic,  Tammi and Stuart. About Rod, Alan, Maurice and Danny. I had not met Carol, Andy, Sammy and Sady, Peter and Claire. When we looked we looked for acreage, we looked at 40, 20 and 10. Forty was too big, how would we...

Sixty nine acres

Sixty nine acres

Once a fortnight the butcher shop at Jonai farm is buzzing with youth. I ask the women I meet there if they ever imagined working in a butcher shop, they all say no. So why now I ask? But I already know the answer, I just want to check that I'm right. The answer is...

Alison with one L

Alison with one L

I moved to Melbourne at 18. It was the very best thing to do. The diversity of people there meant that there was someone for everyone. The subcultures to be found in each suburb ensured that eventually I would find my tribe. At the time I was singing in a band playing...

My Neighbour Totoro (Mara)

My Neighbour Totoro (Mara)

Unlike many other children's films, the story Hayao tells, has a refreshing gentleness. A domestic family scene is the basis for unfolding adventures, which are rich in emotional colour but devoid of the intensity of many action packed children's dramas. Two sisters...

Edible garden – Daylesford

Edible garden – Daylesford

Growing your own food makes for rich culture; it is rewarding, invigorating and full of new experiences. Each year seed sowing is an exercise in hope. You never know if the seeds will sprout, but you hope they will and provide attentive care in the form of watering...

Culture grow

Culture grow

We sometimes think of culture as belonging only to ethnicity. You have culture if you are from an exotic country other than your own. We can perhaps forget that we are all creating culture by our social practices and behaviour. Behavioural repetition, rituals, cycles...

Gardens in the most unlikely of places

Gardens in the most unlikely of places

Everywhere I go I crave to see gardens...of any sort: vegetable, ornamental, succulent, shrubby, overhanging foliage and tendril-like branches. Roses or indigenous billowing spreads. My favourite gardens are usually sprawling, a little ethereal, wispy and I tend to...

German Garden Allotment

German Garden Allotment

Ralf's uncle has been tending a family garden allotment for 50 years. The garden is a 15 min walk from his home and is large enough to produce all of the families fresh vegetable needs. It is one of many along a strip of land set aside for community gardening. For...

Jonai Farm

Jonai Farm

About six month ago or so I was listening to Radio National's Bush Telegraph as they spoke about a free range pork farm in Central Victoria. The broadcast had an educational focus with the owners of the pig farm wanting to educate others (the listeners) and further...

Captains Creek Winery and Vegetables Farm

Captains Creek Winery and Vegetables Farm

Rod kindly agreed to let me visit his family farm a few weeks ago when I was in Blampied. I had texted him excitedly saying that I had done a bike ride from my new house in Eganstown to his family property 6km away, a test ride to see if I could purchase my weekly...

Tuscan WWOOFing

Tuscan WWOOFing

Just over three years ago, Ralf, Artemisia, Ahlia and I indulged in one of the best holidays I have ever had. On a Tuscan Farm, near Montaione, Italy, we met up with friends Ken, Amy and their children, who were working as care takers at the majestic organic farm...

Dragon Fruit Cactus

Dragon Fruit Cactus

In my Vietnamese neighbours garden you can feast. It looks sparse on first observations but a tour of the garden soon reveals a genuine bounty of foods. My neighbour and I can only speak to each other via our body language and gesticulation. I do not speak a word of...