Eat Australia

Morisset gets bush tucker garden - Local News - News - General - The Herald

A BUSH tucker garden has been established at Morisset to help disadvantaged groups learn about gardening and Aboriginal culture.The 3000-square metre project, officially opened on Sunday, is called the Yunung Community Garden.The garden received its name because it was shaped like a turtle, Southlake Community Services executive officer Chris Cootes said."Yunung is the Awabakal word for turtle," he said."When we were designing the garden, we showed it to an Aboriginal elder and he said 'that looks like a turtle'."Mr Cootes said the garden was established as a place for disadvantaged groups to learn skills."It's all about building the community and that's exactly what the garden is doing," he said.He said the garden included bush tucker as a way to "engage the Aboriginal community".Additionally, organic vegetables were grown using permaculture principles.The garden was built in a paddock next to the Morisset Multipurpose Centre.

via www.theherald.com.au

I LOVE the move toward bush tucker gardens over the last few years. In northern Australia - Qld and NT in particular - there's even moves toward bush tucker school kitchen gardens, which neatly combines three wonderful moves into one - kitchen gardens (backyard self sufficiency), school gardens (get the next generation young!), and bush tucker gardens (which ALSO ties into the community garden move).

Now they just need to add some chook into the equation and it's about got the lot :)

catchup again ...

The reason I keep dropping off the earth is because I prefer to do my blogging from home, and our 'net reception is - being rural - bodgy at best. We've been trialling NextG but it's borderline at best, and unreliable ... I need reliability over anything else; speed, cost, included downloads.

So we're finally biting the bullet and going with our last resort, satellite. If we'd done that when we got here, we'd be out of the minimum 18-month contract by now ... but regret is one of those silly things one should never indulge in. So we're signing up.

And now back to the food-related stuff!

1. It's cold. The blood oranges are colouring up beautifully. I am SO proud, although I'd like them to stop sitting in orange phase and start getting the blood-streaks so I can pick them!

2. I've enclosed the Tahitian Lime in its very own greenhouse, to survive this winter. I'm so proud of this tree; after all its trials and tribs, it's still determined to go beyond surviving into thriving.

3. Most of my warrigal greens have died, although they'll re-seed in spring (I hope), but the two patches stripped by the chooks are coming back rather well indeed. Particularly since I enclosed that garden in netting (hah! Take that, chooks and other assorted birdies!!).

4. I feel like a real gardener. I have put down compost and straw and dug in soil and put down lime ... I have seeds of random winter greenery popping up from almost-organised 2-3 week sowing intervals and - ta-DAH! - green manure sprouting excellently ... I even sort of have irrigation in spots. MUCH better than last year!

5. The local nursery is selling midyimberries. Gracious. Apparently they're someone's "2007 plant of the year" or something. However, decidedly to my irritation, they're calling the plant "bush snacks", and the word "midyim" doesn't appear anywhere on the label. For those of us even on the fringes of the bushfood industry, this is incredibly annoying. I am NOT going to call my small white sweet berries "bush snacks" for anyone; but if this plant takes off, I risk splitting interest. I had a little rant about the topic at the nursery and they watched in highly entertained fascination, evidently recognising a botanic obsessive at work.

Anyway, I bought five and am planting them just outside the house, in the bare patch the dogs run across. This area will be planted with native wildflowers (yes! Pretties!! Inedible pretties!!) and the spreading midyims, which will keep the general theme very well indeed, without blocking light.

6. We have also bought two olive trees. These will be rather ceremoniously planted in the two raised beds and surrounded with appropriate mediterranean plantings come spring.

AND!