Category 18

Broad Beans

broad beans

Vicia fava – vicia was the name for vetch in Latin and fava for the bean itself.

Origin

Broad beans have been cultivated since prehistoric times in Europe. They were unearthed in the ancient city of Troy, found in Egyptian tombs as well as with Bronze Age artefacts in Switzerland, so their exact origin is difficult to determine. It is recorded that Romans used them as voting tokens and they reached China by the first century CE.

Description

Broad beans are a hardy frost-tolerant plant. They are also called horse beans, fava beans and, in northern Africa where a smaller version is common, tick beans.

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Growing Corn: Sow, Grow, Cook

corn

Sweet and juicy, dried and ground, grilled, boiled or popped, it’s easy to understand why corn is a favourite all-round staple.

Fresh, frozen, ground into flour or made into porridge, polenta and tortillas. Hugely versatile, you can snack on corn raw, feed it to livestock, turn it into syrup, even convert it into ethanol. Originating in Mexico and spreading rapidly through the Americas, the humble grain has established itself as an essential in gardens and kitchens all around the world.

Varieties

There are two main types of corn, field corn and sweet corn. Field corn varieties can be ground into flour, used for stock feed and other applications, while the fresh corn we all recognise is called sweet corn.

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Fruit Fly: Protect Your Crop

Australia is home to more than 150 native species of fruit fly, but only a few of them pose a threat in the garden.

There are two main types of fruit fly. The Drosophilidae family, often called the vinegar fly which is the one you see around compost bins and fruit bowls. It’s tiny, between two and four millimetres in length, and can range in colour from pale yellow through to black.

The other is from the Tephritidae family which includes the two main flies affecting Australia’s backyard gardeners and commercial growers. There’s the Queensland fruit fly (Bactrocera tryoni), which is found on the east coast of Australia and, although it can’t fly too far, spreads easily by jumping from backyard to backyard. It’s hugely adaptable to its environment, so as climates change and backyards become more productive, this insect is becoming increasingly invasive and can’t be ignored. It’s larger than the vinegar fly, around seven millimetres in length, it’s reddish-brown in colour and easily identifiable by its distinct yellow markings.

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Help Yourself: Eating The Suburbs

man

Becoming an urban forager means tapping into a resource of free and abundant food. But whether it’s foraging edible weeds, redistributing excess produce or even diving into a dumpster, there’s far more you can gain than just a free meal.

The savvy urban forager can dine out on gourmet cheese, berries, herbal teas and locally grown olives without ever stepping foot into a shop. But the philosophy goes further than just eating for free. You’ll reconnect with nature, save food going to landfill, learn plant names growing in your yard, parks and bikeways and connect with your neighbours.

Wild harvest

Wild harvest means collecting food that is often unknowingly growing around us and many of us discard as weeds. There is a bounty of culinary and medicinal plants ready to be put to good use. Close to the ground you will find dandelion, nettles, wild fennel, plantain and chickweed, while apples, figs, olives and riberries are a few examples of what can be found on trees and shrubs.

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Flour, Water, Salt: Sourdough 101

bread

More than just a food fad, sourdough is an ancient practice of breadmaking that has captured our imaginations for centuries.

Among many things, a sourdough starter bubbling away on your kitchen bench means you’re taking care of your gut health through the proper preparation of grains. You’re connecting with nature in the form of the microorganisms and wild yeasts that are hanging out in your kitchen, and you’re slowing your life down in a nourishing way.

What Is It Exactly

Sourdough is the way people have made bread for centuries. Before commercial yeast and the quick-rise industrial loaf, bread was made using three simple ingredients: flour, water and salt. A sourdough bread culture – or starter – is made with a mixture of flour and water which, with time, captures wild yeasts from the air in your home and forms a relationship with the bacteria on the grain. When a small amount of this bubbly, active starter is added to bread dough it causes the dough to rise slowly over many hours.

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Self-reliance: A New Normal

A rise in interest in permaculture during the pandemic has highlighted the important role its practices play in building household and community resilience.

Faced with limited access to goods and services, many Australians turned to permaculture practices as a solution to the pressures associated with the coronavirus pandemic. From the early days when panic buying cleared supermarket shelves, to the recent higher-level lockdowns, more people are recognising the benefits a more sustainable and self-reliant lifestyle can have during a crisis.

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Burning Issue: Fire-Proofing Our Future

scorched landscape

Fire is an intrinsic part of the Australian landscape. With the opportunity to both reduce carbon emissions and build community resilience, Australia should be leading the world in transitioning to renewable energy to reduce the severity of bushfire.

Fire has become more destructive since European colonisation. And due to climate change and changes in land use, Australia has experienced even greater destruction over recent decades.

Australian landscapes were once effectively managed by Indigenous cultural burning practices, but stopping this has left us with denser forests more vulnerable to fire.

Traditional land uses of grazing and forestry which have contributed to both the prevention and control of bushfires have declined in recent decades. They have been replaced by residential, recreational and conservation uses that increases our vulnerability.

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Medicinal Herbs: Beneficial Bounty

calendula

Growing your own medicinal garden is easy and the benefits of having fresh herbs on hand – both medicinal and edible – are immeasurable.

It’s difficult to know the age and viability of dried herbs, so growing varieties which are suited to both your climate and soil conditions will ensure you have the highest chance of gaining the best therapeutic and culinary outcomes.

While germinating seeds and striking cuttings in a greenhouse will deliver great results, you can also have a lot of success by direct seeding and planting cuttings straight into the ground. As well as allowing the plant to establish a stronger root system by not disturbing it when transplanting from seed trays, being in the ground means seedlings require less-frequent watering in hot conditions.

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Drawing Inspiration: Brenna Quinlan

brenna quinlan

A much-loved permaculture illustrator and educator, Brenna Quinlan’s drawings guide communities away from consumerism and towards living a life brimming with meaning, beauty and community connectedness.

Brenna lives at the idyllic Melliodora property established by the co-originator of permaculture David Holmgren and his partner Su Dennett, where she practises, educates and illustrates permaculture. Her articulate watercolour paintings have been used in numerous books including Holmgren’s newest Retrosuburbia, as well as Milkwood: Real Skills for Down-to-Earth living and Farming Democracy: Radically Transforming the Food System from the Ground Up, and in just three short years has cultivated an Instagram following of more than 25,000.

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Upcycle: Hooded Beach Towel

This long, enclosed and wearable towel is the perfect project to give new life to tired towels. Great for coming straight home from the pool or the beach without getting changed and ideal for when you need to discreetly change out of your bathers somewhere public.

Treat you or your family with a practical addition to the beach bag this summer that will both reduce waste and save you money. Using the towels from the back of your cupboard, or some bright-coloured or patterned towels picked up in an op shop, this wearable beach towel means the kids can stay in the water for longer. And with enough room to be able to get changed within it, accidentally exposing yourself is a thing of the past.

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