Category Regulars

After a tough few years of bushfires and Covid-induced travel restrictions, a new major music festival will provide the NSW Sapphire Coast’s economy with a much-needed boost. And sustainability and community are high on the list of priorities.

The NSW’s Sapphire Coast will play host to a new major music festival which will have a strong focus on sustainability and community. Set to be held in Pambula over 23–25 September, the Wanderer Festival will be the first of its size in the region, with over 70 local and international acts including The Dandy Warhols, Ziggy Alberts, Sarah Blasko, The Teskey Brothers and local Indigenous choir Djinama Yilaga among many others.

If you’re interested in making a tufted rug and don’t fancy the idea of using a hook to pull each individual thread through, then a tufting gun is what you’ll need. There’s a few different versions on the market; ones that form looped pile, ones that make a strand pile, ones that do both and even pneumatic tufting guns which use compressed air. But if you’re starting out, a simple strand pile tufting gun like this one is the probably the best place to start.

In simple terms, once you’ve threaded the gun with your chosen colour and thickness of wool, and you’ve stretched the specific backing fabric tightly over a frame, you press the gun firmly against the stretched fabric and then guide the moving gun across it to produce a design.

Much like a sewing machine, the gun has a foot which sits against the fabric. Once you pull the trigger, the sharp channeled needle then pushes the wool through the fabric before a small pair of snips pop out of the channel and snip off the wool so it’s left embedded in the fabric. But it will keep firing the wool into the fabric really quickly, and almost feels as if it’s self-propelled, so you need to have a design in mind before you start.

This book brings to homes what Nornie Bero energetically gives to diners in her two Melbourne-based restaurants which champion Torres Strait Island flavours and Australian native produce.

Part autobiography and part cookbook, Mabu Mabu begins as the fascinating story of how a girl who grew up ‘with a spear in my hand’ in the far east Torres Strait ended up as the executive chef, CEO and founder of Mabu Mabu, a restaurant in Melbourne’s Yarraville and Big Esso, a 130-seat restaurant and bar in Federation Square.

When Nornie arrived in Melbourne as a young woman of colour in the late 1990s, it was the city’s multiculturalism that struck her. ‘And how we share culture is through food,’ she writes. ‘But, looking around Melbourne, I realised there was little understanding of Australian Indigenous food, and definitely not of Torres Strait Islander food. I knew it was time to change that.’

We love seeing what kids are growing with their families in their gardens, so snap and email us an image of what you’re harvesting at the moment. Send the photo to editorial@ pipmagazine.com.au – and you might even pick up a snazzy prize! This issue’s winner is five-year-old Ilona Arnott from Kalaru, NSW.

We’d love to receive your feedback, questions, ideas or to see if we’ve inspired you to embark on any projects. Email your letters and photos to editorial@pipmagazine.com.au

Accessibility

I’ve had a life-long interest in gardens but as I age – I’m now nearly 77 – I’m not so agile. I’m interested in tips for composting, worm farms, weeding and herbs. But I can’t kneel down.

Dianne via website

You must have amassed a wealth of knowledge over the years and this is where sharing a garden can be such a great idea. You could share that knowledge with a more able-bodied person and together you could do great things. Otherwise everything raised is the go; raised beds, raised worm farms and smaller manageable compost systems. We’ll keep the articles coming. Robyn

The recent detection of varroa mite (Varroa destructor) at the Port of Newcastle in New South Wales poses enormous challenges not just to Australia’s commercial honey industry, but to the pollination vital for producing the food we grow and eat.

Why is everyone up in arms about varroa mite?

Varroa mite is a parasite which feeds on both the brood and the blood of honey bees, weakening the colony, spreading viruses and, if left unchecked, eventually killing the hive. Varroa mites breed on larvae and pupae, which can cause malformed bees and reduced populations. Weak bees means a lower rate of how many bees return to the colony after foraging during the day, too. Until recently, Australia was the only honey-producing country in the world that had successfully kept varroa mite out.

With the rising cost of fresh produce, there has never been a better time to grow your own leafy greens. While growing lettuce in winter is straightforward, things get trickier with the arrival of summer’s hotter temperatures which sees the fragile plant wanting to wilt or bolt to seed. Instead, why not invest your energy in establishing perennial leafy greens in your garden. Permaculture staples like Okinawa Spinach, Mushroom Plant, Lebanese Cress, Brazilian Spinach and Sambung Nyawa are the best of the best when it comes to low-maintenance and productive leafy greens.

These perennial powerhouses are must-haves whether you live in an apartment or on acreage. They are hardy, delicious and highly nutritious. Just as happy growing in a pot or in the garden, they will provide your family with an abundant supply of fresh leafy greens all year round and best of all, as hardy perennials, you can pretty much plant and forget. Delicious eaten raw or cooked, these nutrient-dense plants are far more hardy than lettuce or spinach, so come summer when those European crops are either bolting to seed or wilting in the heat, these perennials are at their productive best.

Soul Fire Farm is an 80-acre farm located on land historically stewarded by the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of the Mohican Nation, more recently known as Petersberg, New York.

The Mohican people were forcibly removed in the 1800s to a reserve in Wisconsin, 1600 km away. This farm is a way to restore seed sovereignty, build relationships with the land and community, and uproot racism in the food system against the Afro-Indigenous community.

Directed by Leah Penniman, author of Farming While Black, the farm organises food justice workshops for urban youth, creates home gardens for city-dwellers living under food apartheid, shares wildcrafting skills, coordinates a native seed exchange and actively engages in ecosystems restoration. It also offers a harvest delivery for households which reaches over 160,000 people each year.

This triple-fired enamel mug is a reminder from the Ngangkari traditional healers in the remote western desert of Central Australia to take a moment for yourself and relax. Handmade in Poland, the eight centimetrediameter mug features words in language on the outside which mean ‘take a long, slow breath’ and ‘Have a cuppa, take a deep breath and relax’ is inscribed on the inside.

BUDDING FILMAKERS

In a bid to educate the next generation of environmentally conscious smartphone consumers, the 2022 MobileMuster Student Film Competition is underway with student’s being urged to submit a one-minute film based on this year’s theme of The Science of Recycling. Open to individuals, groups or classes from the following five categories – Lower Primary (Years 1–4), Upper Primary (Years 5–6), Lower Secondary (Years 7–9), Upper Secondary (Years 10–12) and Tertiary (university, TAFE or college students) – there’s up to $30,000 worth of prizes up for grabs. Entries close 30 September. For more info, head to www.mobilemuster.com.au.