We’re really lucky to have three special local guest speakers presenting on the night - Doctor Pamela Abuodha from Kenya who is an expert in assessing the susceptibility of coastlines to climate change, Irina Bruckner an artist originating from Kazakhstan and Lindley Berrie who is passionate about sustainable living and an active member of the local BushCare program. The screening will be held in the Level 9 function room of the Wollongong City Council Building from 6:00pm until 7:30pm - see the Sustainable Illawarra calendar of events for more details.

As Oxfam is eager to share these women’s stories and encourage action on climate change, the films are also available free to view on-line at http://www.oxfam.org.au/explore/climate-change/what-oxfam-is-doing/sisters-on-the-planet. If you’re keen to help spread the word and host your own screening at work, in the community, or at home, you can also contact Oxfam for a free copy of the DVD.

Inspired by the constant rain, many strange and beautiful fungi rose to show their delicate heads...

The last of the sweet Pink Iona grapes were savoured...

And the first of the acerola cherries enjoyed...

The change of autumn is in the air...

But bottles of summers treasures will remind us of the season past for some time to come (many thanks for the lovely homemade plum jam Cath and Jillian!) ...

We hope wherever you are, that February was magical in your garden...

Food co-ops are a brilliant ways to shop while building community and supporting organic farmers and local food producers. They’re run collectively, with an emphasis on making sustainably, ethically grown, minimally packaged whole foods available at affordable prices. In our travels around Australia we visited many inspiring food co-ops such as Alfalfa House in Sydney and the Friends of the Earth Co-op in Melbourne.

Exciting news for the Illawarra is that a group of wonderful, committed, co-op lovers have been busy setting up the Flame Tree Community Food Co-op – and the co-op shop is opening this Saturday the 27th Feb! The shop is located at 3/374 Lawrence Hargrave Dr in Thirroul - enter via the white metal gate 50 m east of Ryans Hotel. The co-ops sells a range of bulk and mostly organic foods, including nuts, grains, pulses, spices, teas, bread, dairy, honey, oil, flour and pasta, as well as green cleaning products. They prioritise organic, local and unpackaged food and groceries. The Co-op hopes to link with local growers and producers such as organic farmers, market gardeners and community gardeners to boost the local economy and decrease packaging and food miles.

The co-ops opening hours will be Wednesday 2pm-6pm, Thursday 2pm - 6pm, Friday 2pm-6pm and Saturday 10am-4pm. By becoming a member of the food co-op you can receive a 10% discount – we’re signed up already! If you volunteer at the co-op for 8 hours a month you can receive a permanent 25% discount, or you can get a one-off 25% discount for every 2 hours volunteered. To find out more about this wonderful co-op visit http://www.flametreecoop.org.au.  We wish the co-op crew all the best for a brilliant opening day!

What are your favourite inspiring ‘sustainable food’ films? Ours would have to be:

• Establishing a Food Forest - The Permaculture Way Series
• The Power of Community
• Food Inc
• In Transition – From Oil Dependence to Local Resiliance
• The Future of Food
• Black and Gold – A Film about Coffee and Trade
• King Corn
• Our Seeds: Seeds Blong Yum

Thanks to Dave at Permaculture Power, we also recently discovered the fantastic site Ecoveristy, which has an amazing collection of on-line clips you can watch for free.

Films we have heard about that we would love to see include:

• Dirt! 
• HomeGrown - the 21st Century Family Farm
• Homegrown Revolution
• Rare Chicken Rescue

Corn loves warm weather, good rich soil and a fair bit of water. We’ve found corn is easy to grow from seed, and takes well to being transplanted from the seedling tray to the garden when they’re about 10cm tall. The weather has been quite wet and humid here lately, and it’s been amazing to see how the corn we planted out only 4 weeks ago has shot up into giant stalks of corn  over 2 metres tall!

Not all our corn has grown this amazingly tall – most plants averaged about 1.5 metres in height. To ensure the cobs fill out with kernels properly we’ve planted the corn in patches of at least 15 plants, spaced only about 20cm apart. Each kernel on a cob of corn needs to be fertilised by pollen from other corn plants to form. If pollination doesn’t occur properly, you end up with bare patches without any kernels on your corn cob! The little silvereyes below are flitting about on the corn flowers.

We harvest the corn when the kernels have just turned yellow. Just peel away a bit of the husk to check.  Our favourite way to enjoy corn is lightly steamed with a little butter and freshly cracked pepper. But we also love to eat them fresh and raw off the plant. This surprises a lot of people – but if you’ve never had fresh raw corn before, next time you have the opportunity give it a go!

In anticipation we’ve been watching many bunches of bananas become plumper by the day...

In excitement for getting backyard bees next spring, we’ve built a top bar bee hive...

In relief on hot humid days we’ve cherished the sound of falling rain, 

And listened to the sounds of gentle workers creating healthy soil... 

A delicious, moist chocolate pie that’s eagerly devoured by all, has no refined sugar, eggs or dairy and doesn’t even need cooking??? We didn’t think it was possible either until we discovered this yummy recipe on our travels to northern NSW, which is a heartland for scrumptious, real food. We take this yummy pie to parties often and are always asked for the recipe – so we thought you might like it too!

Equipment: Food Processor, 9 inch pie dish

Ingredients:

Crust

-2 ½ cups desiccated coconut

-350g pitted dried dates – soaked for 15 mins in hot water

Filling

-2 large or 3 small bananas (the riper the better)

-250g pitted dried dates – soaked for 15 mins in hot water

-5 heaped tablespoons fair trade cocoa powder

-2 tablespoons raw honey (optional)

-1/2 ripe avocado (optional)

*Use organic ingredients where possible

1. First make the crust. Take 350g of soaked dates and add them to a food processor with the desiccated coconut. Make sure there are no date pips hiding in the dates, and save the soak water. Process until combined. Add a little soak water if it seems too dry.
2. Place mixture into pie dish and press down firmly to form the crust, attempting to get an even thickness
3. To make the filling, process the filling ingredients in the food processor until thoroughly mixed into a smooth, creamy moose. Then simply spread onto the pie crust.
4. Sprinkle coconut, nuts or berries on top for a finishing touch.
5. Set in the fridge for a least a couple of hours before serving. This pie is also divine frozen. As with many pies, cutting the first piece out can be a challenge! But once the first piece is out, getting out the following pieces is much easier. 

We’d love to hear of any yummy sugar free dessert recipes you know of...

Flavoursome, with a soft, juicy flesh, our home-grown grapes are quite different to any other grape we’ve tried. Fresh from the vine, they’re tantalisingly sweet like a lolly. We’ve even likened the very ripe grapes to tasting like the bright coloured lollies called ‘nerds’ we used to eat as kids!

Grapes are such an incredibly rewarding plant to grow – we planted our two grape vines only 16 months ago, and we’re already enjoying the fruits! We also love how they provide shade over our front deck this summer, but let the sun through in the winter as they’re deciduous and die back in the cooler months.

For more information about growing grapes see our fruit tree profile on growing grapes.

Just like with building a house, we’ve found putting the time into creating a design for a productive food garden is invaluable. Though it’s always tempting to run with a burst of enthusiasm and pop a fruit tree in here and a seedling there, having a good design can save so much work, time and possible heart ache in the long run.

We spent three months working on our garden design, while we were focusing on green renovations to our home. In creating a garden design, there are many things to consider about the place you’re working with, but we found the most important ones to be: 

• Sun and shade – being aware of where the sun rises and sets in the summer and winter,  where the shadows of trees and houses fall, how you can use deciduous trees near the house to provide cooling in summer and warmth in winter
• Winds – which direction the winds come from (we get fierce westeries in late winter), where there is protection from wind (like on the eastern side of our house), and where you can create protection from the winds (like we did on our western and southern borders)
• Water – how water falls on the property, what areas retain water well, what areas are always dry, how the garden slopes, where is it best to create swales and place water tanks, where greywater leaves the house, how can you best place irrigation...
• Complimentary uses – what things in the garden work well near each other? For example, having the plant nursery, tool storage area, and a sink for washing the veggies next to the veggie garden. It’s also important to think of how the garden and the house can work well together, such as having greywater from the washing machine and showers going to fruit trees. Similarly, what things won’t work well together – like a huge tree right next to the veggie garden that will always be taking the water and nutrients from the veggies.  
• Frequency of use – How often do areas/trees need to be checked or harvested? High use areas such as the veggie bed are best right at the back door.
• Keeping good relations – Neighbours may not be too fond of a chicken house or frog pond right near their back door!
• Council regulations – Particularly in urban areas, there may be restrictions on things such as the number of chickens you can keep, what you can plant on the verge - it’s worth finding out to avoid having to change things down the track. 

Some of the most helpful gardening books we found in designing our garden were: 

• The Permaculture Home Garden, Linda Woodrow, 1996
• Smart Permaculture Design, Jenny Allen, 2002
• Introduction to Permaculture: A Designers Manual, Bill Mollison, 2000 

Just as important as knowing your site, is knowing what plants do well in your local climate, and how to choose a spot in your garden that they’ll just love. We’ve found fellow local gardeners, community gardens, and on-line places such as Daleys fruit tree forum are the best way to find out what plants grow well in the area. Once you know what trees grow well, when selecting a spot for them in the garden, it’s helpful to think about the plant’s water, sun and soil requirements, tolerance for wind, size, and how often they need harvesting.

For a more detailed overview of the landscape design for our property, click the image below and/or refer to the various topics on the sidebar under ‘The Food Garden’.  It’s been really exciting over the last two years watching our design come to life on our 920 square metre suburban block.  Our trees and veggie garden are providing us with such abundant harvests already! 

Happy Earth Landscape Design
(Click to enlarge) 

This year amongst the many things we’re looking forward to are more of our fruit trees starting to bear fruit (our garden still so young being just over 2 years old), making a bee hive, getting a couple ducks – and having our green wedding right here in the veggie patch!

Some of our favourite memories of the last month of summer 2009 in our garden were...

Creating meals from our abundant harvests of corn, cucumber, zucchini, chilli, onion, carrot, tomatoes and more - we haven’t bought any fresh vegetables in about four months!

Watching dragonflies magically emerging from their shells on the stems of water chestnuts in our garden pond...

Seeing our garden and silkie chooks featured in a copy of the Wellbeing Organic Garden magazine...

Tasting our first grapes that dangle tantalisingly from the front deck...

Cheering on the pumpkin vine climbing over the chicken house...