Tag: growing

How to Grow Your Own Mango Plant

Post author By Tatyana
Post date December 30, 2011
1 Comment on How to Grow Your Own Mango Plant

Guest post by Yvonne Lee of www.bargainhunter.com.au

It’s currently mango season and I’ve been consuming a heap of mangoes. I have been buying cases of mangoes (16 to a box) for around $10 – $20. I started buying up early due to the (then) ridiculous prices of bananas. Now the bananas have dropped in price to $0.99 per kilo I’m still buying my mangoes but have backed it off a bit. I’ve noticed the mangoes are coming from all around Australia now. Early in the season I bought ones from Northern Territory and now it seems as if my mangoes are from QLD but I’ve also seen Western Australian mangoes in the stores. I’m not sure if they have always come from those places and I hadn’t paid attention to them previously. Nowadays all the mangoes seem to have labels on them so they are easier to identify where they are from.

With the glut of mangoes at our place I was filling up our ice cream container for worm food really quickly, especially since the pit took up a lot of space in the container! I decided to google how to grow a mango tree from a pit. It seemed a logical thing to do…anyway there were some wonderful pictures, instructions and YouTube videos which helped me.

Tags balcony garden, DIY, fruit, fruit tree, gardening, grow your own, growing, guest, kitchen garden, mango, sprout, sprouting, Sydney, Yvonne Lee

Community Food Get Inspired Stories Sydney Local

Behind the fence of Sydney’s Community Gardens

Post author By Tatyana
Post date May 7, 2010
6 Comments on Behind the fence of Sydney’s Community Gardens

City of Sydney has graciously sponsored a series of Sydney Community Garden tours, which is a fantastic opportunity to learn and get inspired. My partner and I have been fortunate to join one of the groups on Sunday May 2, 2010.

How it all began…

The tour started with all of us meeting up at Greg Hewish Memorial Community Garden, located on the corner of Ogden Lane and Marriott Street in Redfern. As soon as we walked in, we felt a sense of order and strict alignment at this Community Garden. It utilises raised beds to cater to people with handicaps, and it is thoughtfully divided by graveled paths and brick walls.

Here we began our learning as well. First, we met Russ Grayson who fed us loads of useful information throughout the tour (this information is making its way slowly to this website). We walked around and took some photos, and shortly after loaded into a 21-seatter bus, sponsored by the City of Sydney.

Here we also met Annie Walker, who is the City of Sydney liaison on the subject of Community Gardens. She is wonderful and super pleasant to talk to, and I do believe this tour is largely her achievement. Thank you!

Tags Angel Street Permaculture Garden, Clovers Community Garden, Community, community garden, food production, glebe, Glebe Community Garden, Greg Hewish Community Garden, growing, Newtown, permaculture, Sydney Local, tour

Galleries Get Inspired Mushrooms / Fungi

The Lovely Mushroom: 32 Stunning Photographs of Fungi

Post author By Tatyana
Post date April 22, 2010
2 Comments on The Lovely Mushroom: 32 Stunning Photographs of Fungi

After watching Paul Stamets’ documentary on the transformational power of fungi, I have a whole new appreciation for this being we call “mushroom”. If you think about, mushrooms have been with us for centuries. Indigenous people have used “magic mushrooms” in their ceremonies and rituals. Today, thousands of people travel to Amsterdam every year to partake in this ancient (and fun!) practice.

But there is more. People stranded in the woods often survive eating mushrooms and berries (if you know what to pick, of course). I myself have childhood memories of mushroom picking in the woods with my parents, and then drying the mushrooms for the winter. And my favourite appetizer has always been…pickled mushrooms!

Wait wait, there is still more! Besides being useful to humans, fungi are an essential part of Earth. Fungi can survive in severely polluted areas. They can clean the soil and prepare it for plants to grow on. It’s not an accident that the “biggest living thing” on Earth is indeed a mushroom, Armillaria ostoyae.

As a tribute to this magnificent organism, I have created a gallery of 32 beautiful and inspiring fungi photographs. Please, learn more about the mushrooms and use them in your Permaculture designs to benefit the Earth and the people.

All of the photographs below are licensed under Creative Commons license.

Fungus on willow