Category: How-To
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Building a garden bed
When faced with a new site, working out where to start can sometimes be a daunting task. There are so many different ways to build a new garden bed. In some parts of our garden, the soil is very difficult to dig and/or there are roots of large, protected gum trees that we don’t want…
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Inexpensive, Water Efficient Raised Garden Beds
Raised garden beds don’t have to cost the earth. Hopefully these beds give you inspiration as to what can be made with some know how and timber and tin that would have otherwise ended up in the dump. Using a tin floor in your raised garden bed allows for the water to be collected in…
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Loofa Processing
Simply wait for the outer shell of the loofa to dry off on the vine then pick and peel the outer shell off. Shake the seeds out and you are good to go.
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Ornamental Edible Gardening
Vegetable patches are wonderfully productive areas however they aren’t always as attractive as the rest of a garden. With annual plants in different stages of dying back and compost piles they may be beautiful to a gardener’s eye, but they are decidedly less so to a visiting relative or passer-by. As a result, food production…
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Edible Ornamental Gardening
Let’s face it, vegetable patches aren’t always the most aesthetically pleasing. Yes, to a gardeners eye an abundant veggie patch is a thing of beauty, but the accompanying compost piles and dying annual plants can be decidedly less so, especially to a visiting relative or passer-by. For this reason, the humble veggie patch is often…
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Pumpkin Vinegar
Article by Dr Druce Batstone. Recovered 3060g blitzed pulp from 3233g deseeded JAP pumpkin. Overnight with tbs of pectinase at 40C. Blitzed OK without vinegar. Seeds were 109g. Next morning, used immersion blender to breakup pulp. Extracted 2067g juice, leaving 555g solids. Hand squeezing only. Some losses + evaporation of 448g. Added 500ml of mature…
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Ginger Shrub
Article by Dr Druce Batstone. I harvested about 3kg ginger. I wanted to make pickled ginger. I’m getting less big ginger rhizomes this year. I could only be bothered with bigger pieces for pickling. The smaller pieces were used to make shrub (cordial). Ginger Shrub1730g scraped and washed ginger.Blitzed with 0.5l rice wine vinegar. Added…
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Green Christmas
For those wishing to celebrate Christmas with a lighter environmental impact, consumable gifts are a wonderful idea, especially for those difficult to buy for people who already have everything. Need some inspiration, why not try these wonderful gifts and decorations from recycled materials and the garden. Christmas tree ornaments made from seed pods. In this…
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Late November in Olga’s annual veggie patch
We have been making the most of the cool, overcast weather here in Brisbane at the moment by taking the opportunity to put in a summer crop. We spent the morning digging over Olga’s annual veggie patch and planting corn, capsicum, eggplant, dwarf beans, perpetual spinach and summer lettuce. We also added a few more…
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January Harvest in the Food Forest
What a wonderful time of year for a backyard abundance. We have local mangoes, black sapote, bunya nuts, greens by the wheelbarrow load, native mulberries, Brazilian cherries, Panama berries, macadamia nuts, pepinos, tomatoes, beans, tamarillos, lilly pillies, blueberries, Sandpaper figs, tumeric flowers, paw paws and so much more. It’s such a joyful experience to walk…
Brisbane Edible Gardening 