My first taste of Hosta shoots

Last weekend I ate my first Hosta shoots - just two for now as I want my clumps of Hosta to grow without any set-backs. I simply boiled them and ate them and they were great - very close to Asparagus I thought. Here's a photo of them emerging from the ground with another shot of a shoot ready to cook. There's a couple of Youtube videos of people cooking Hosta shoots and I've embedded one here. In another post I'd like to look in more depth at the traditional home of Hosta eating - northern Japan.

I've published an article in The Conversation about the therapeutic benefits of gardening.  See the link below:
https://theconversation.com/the-science-is-in-gardening-is-good-for-you-65251

Here's the first paragraph. 

The science is in: gardening is good for you

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“That’s all very well put,” says Candide, in the final line of Voltaire’s novel of the same name, “but we must go and work our garden.”
I studied this text at high school before I became a gardener and professional horticulturist. We were taught that Candide’s gardening imperative was metaphorical not literal; a command for finding an authentic vocation, not a call to take up trowels and secateurs.
In fact, Voltaire himself really believed that active gardening was a great way to stay sane, healthy and free from stress. That was 300 years ago.
As it turns out, the science suggests he was right.


There's also a link to my colleague Steven Wells (nurse and gardener extraordinare) talking about his work as a horticultural therapist and garden creator in hospitals. 

As part of the Absolutely Famished Project of the Carlton Connect Initiative for the Melbourne Fringe Festival, I'm appearing at the following event later this month:

https://www.carltonconnect.com.au/my-veggie-garden-rules/

ThoughtLAB-14: My Veggie Garden Rules

Competition will be fierce in this series of My Veggie Garden Rules. Four new contestants don their gumboots and raise their gardening tools to battle for the title of MasterGrower 2050.

From its humble beginnings in 2016, MVGR is now in its 34th season and last year claimed the title of most popular reality experience fired straight to your neurons on demand.
With your insightful science rock band, Ologism, we invite you to advise, inspire, and cheer on your favourite contestant as they plan how to negotiate searing temperatures, limited water supply, and tiny plots of arid soil to produce the greatest quantity and quality of edible crop. Who will lay claim to the veggie garden to rule them all!
Date and time: Tuesday 27 September, 6pm-7.30pm Venue: studioFive, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne, Level 5, 234 Queensberry St, Parkville Getting there: Train stop – Melbourne Central, then tram. Tram stop – Melbourne University (Stop 1) Bookings essential, register here.
My Veggie Garden Rules is a ThoughtLAB-14 event presented by the Carlton Connect Initiative in partnership with Ologism and University of Melbourne Graduate School of Education’s studioFive where we invite a guest panel to interact with the audience to collaborate on ideas, analyse evidence and dream alternative futures.
The event is part of Absolutely Famished, a creative exploration of future food curated by Dr Renee Beale. Underpinned by scientific research Absolutely Famished imagines the 22^nd century marketplace.
Facilitator:
Dr Renee Beale, Creative Community Animator, the Carlton Connect Initiative
Panel:
Dr Chris Williams, Urban Horticulturalist, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne
Dr David Sequeira, artist and freelance curator
Bonnie Shaw, Strategy Lead, Smart City Office, City of Melbourne
Belinda Smith, Online Editor, COSMOS Magazine
Ologism:
Chris Krishna-Pillay, Darren Vogrig, Marty Lubran and Luke Fitzgerald http://www.ologism.com

This event is part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016.

Belated pics of some Autumn crops - April-May 2016

A giant turnip shaped Kumera sweet potato

Mixed sweet potatoes

Ginger plants and rhizomes mixed in sweet potatoes and yams

Leaf axils bulbils from Dioscorea bulbifera

Oca tubers grown from summer cuttings

Time to plant Oca/New Zealand Yam cuttings

I've written before about how you can save space and time with Oca by taking cuttings from mother or stock plants in mid to late summer into early autumn and plonking these into spare space that becomes available as another crop finishes. All the reasons for doing this are here: http://peopleplantslandscapes.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/oca-or-new-zealand-yam-harvest-how.html

It's all about being realistic about the fact the Oca will not start forming tubers until after the autumn equinox (March 20 this year in Melbourne). We have very mild autumns here, perfect for Oca, and as they strike so easily from cuttings, there's no need to devote vast amounts of space to Oca plants  in spring when nothing is really going to start happening until around late March.

Today, February 28, I put this theory into practice as I now do every year. I pulled out some mostly dead heirloom tomatoes (with poor resistance to wilt!) and replaced them with Oca cuttings from a spot I had planted with Oca in September. The photos below more or less show the whole process: from the bed with the dead tomato plants, the tree kale bed with the Oca mother plants, the cuttings ready for planting and the cuttings pushed a few inches into the ground and mulched. I didn't add any fertiliser given the amount preparation that went into the tomato bed in spring. I'll post about the progress of this bed a couple of times up to harvest in say late May or June. It's a great trick and makes Oca one of the most convenient, easily grown crops in our warm temperate climate.

Tomatoes - embarrassingly dead and diseased, time to go!

Tomatoes cleared

Oca stock or mother plants growing under a Tree Kale

Mother plants cut back and stems removed as cuttings

Oca cuttings ready to be planted in old tomato bed

Cuttings planted and mulched February 28 - they should be ready to harvest from mid-May into winter

5 weeks since the cuttings went in - growth to April 2

I'm speaking at Eat Drink Talk Think at Shebeen, Manchester Lane March 1

from: http://eatdrinktalkthink.com/

Eat Drink Talk Think

Networking and conversations for a sustainable food future

Eat Drink Talk Think: Autumn 2016

February 16, 2016Jen

Eat Drink Talk Think is a networking and conversation night about sustainable fair food, held on the first Tuesday of each season. Each event hosts inspiring short talks around a theme followed by discussion and networking. The evening gives those working and volunteering on sustainable and fair food projects an opportunity to meet, be inspired by others’ projects, discuss ideas, forge new relationships, imagine new collaborative projects, and stay connected with what’s happening.
The Autumn 2016 edition of Eat Drink Talk Think asks the question
“How are people using the food system to welcome refugees in Victoria?”
Event details:
Tuesday March 1st, 6pm-9pm
Shebeen, Manchester Lane, Melbourne
The evening’s speakers include Dr Chris Williams from the University of Melbourne, Meagan Williams, Victorian co-ordinator of the Welcome Dinner Project, and Russell Shields, manager of the ASRC Food Justice Truck.

Chris is a lecturer in urban horticulture at the Burnley Campus of the University of Melbourne where he runs a Novel Crops Project. The project aims to bring new or underutilised crops such as Sweet Potato into home food gardens and edible landscapes. Many of these plants represent culturally appropriate foods for diverse migrant or refugee communities in Victoria and Chris and his students have worked on food growing projects that link novel crops to communities who want to see these plants in their gardens or on their plates! Chris will talk about the Novel Crops Project, including an ongoing trial in the City of Dandenong, Victoria’s most ethnically diverse municipality.

Meagan is the Victorian co-ordinator of the Welcome Dinner Project, which brings together newly arrived Australians and established Australians over a meal in someone’s home. The project uses food as a place to bond and build community, and the format of the dinners allows a form of equality and stripping of labels that is really powerful.
Russell is the manager of the Food Justice Truck, an award-winning, mobile fresh food market that enhances food security for asylum seekers in the Victorian community by offering locally sourced produce including fresh fruit, vegetables, grains, legumes, tea and bread at a 75% discount to people seeking asylum. It’s a social enterprise initiative by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) and was launched this year to tackle the growing food insecurity felt by more than 10,000 people in Victoria who are on bridging visas.
Tickets $8 online, or $9 on the door.
Purchase your tickets.
About us
Eat Drink Talk Think is endorsed by 3000 Acres, the Victorian Eco Innovation Lab, Open Food Network, Sustain: The Australian Food Network, Melbourne Farmers’ Markets, the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, the Fair Food Challenge, and more.
Sign up to our newsletter to receive invitations to future Eat Drink Talk Think events.
This is a not-for-profit event. Once costs have been covered proceeds will be distributed as donations to the three speakers’ projects.

Horticulture at Burnley turns 125 years in 2016!

 All great cities have colleges or campuses that teach horticulture! Melbourne is no exception. I teach and research at the Burnley Campus of the University of Melbourne where 2016 marks 125 years of horticultural education, engagement and research at the laboratories, nursery, historic gardens and field station of the campus' eight hectares. There is much to celebrate for this anniversary in the design, management and maintenance of gardens, vegetation and landscapes by generations of Burnley graduates. Click on the link below for more information and register to get updates for the 2016 events. I will write more about Burnley's history throughout 2016


http://ecosystemforest.unimelb.edu.au/burnley125years/events

In 2016 we invite you to help us celebrate Burnley’s historical achievements in education and discover more about the school’s plans for the future.

Events will be held at the Burnley campus throughout 2016.
The following timeline is your guide in lieu of the full program. Stay tuned for details.
To receive further updates on the 125 year celebrations program please register your contact details here.
We look forward to celebrating with you in 2016.

February

Burnley Garden Party Launch

March

Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show Installation

April

Burnley Alumni Event and Open Day

May to November

Seminar Series

December

Greening Cities Conference

Coles selling two varieties of sweet potato as "White Sweet Potato"

In Australia supermarkets sell about two to three varieties of Sweet Potato - the orange Beauregard, the purple Northern Star (with the white flesh) and the white Hawaiian Sunshine (white flesh with purple streaks). In Melbourne the biggest grocery retailers, Coles and Woolworths, usually only sell Northern Star and Beauregard. Last week I noticed that my local Coles were selling Hawaiian Sunshine - or so I thought! In fact they were selling Hawaiian Sunshine along with some other off-white Sweet Potato as a generic "White Sweet Potato". Apart from their different colour and texture these two "white potatoes" had different internal colours. How do I know this? I broke the tops off a couple to make sure. I saw this at the Coles in Northcote Plaza (the Coles that used to be Bi-Lo). And then I had to go to Ivanhoe Coles in the afternoon and I saw the same set-up. You can see my photos below. And what's the big deal you might say? Well, I think this is really odd and a bit insulting to consumers. It would be like selling Butternut and Queensland Blue pumpkins in the same bin as "pumpkins" or Valencia and Navel oranges as generic "oranges". Not cool I say!

Coles Northcote

Coles Northcote

Coles Ivanhoe

Anyway, if Coles are helping Sweet Potato growers introduce new varieties then that's great but let us know what's going on! It is remarkable when you consider that there are around 6000 Sweet Potato varieties grown across the planet. Papua New Guinea, our nearest neighbour, is a hot spot for Sweet Potato diversity and yet we stay stuck mostly with boring old Beauregard which is the biggest seller in Australia by a long shot. Of course Beauregard has its virtues including high yield, ease of harvest (the tubers are close to the main stem) and disease resistance etc. Its the variety that has brought Sweet Potato back into Western diets as a mainstream food after its development in Louisiana in the 1980s.

I'm going to look into this practice of "lumping" varieties together and see what's going on...

Yams in the Burnley Demonstration Garden 2014-2015 growing season

We're well into the depths of winter here in Melbourne - in fact there's a one-in-60-years Antarctic Vortex on the way - but we've just finished harvesting last summer's yams from the demonstration garden in the Field Station. In this post I'll just show some photos of the garden as it grew over summer and autumn and some of the yams we patiently dug up. Unlike other roots crops that emerge from the ground without a fight, yams grow straight down and deep, so if you don't want to break them you have dig carefully around them to as much as 40cm, probably deeper in more optimal climates. I'll get into some more of these growing issues in later posts. 

early November 2014 - freshly planted

My office turned into a curing shed for yams...a diversity of shapes and sizes...look weird but taste great

Melbourne Food and Wine Festival - Eat Think Talk Grow and Food Production for Urban Landscapes (new subject)

Next week I commence teaching a new subject in the Master of Urban Horticulture called Food Production for Urban Landscapes (FPUL). Apart from the excitement of generating new lecture content and therefore going back into study-mode myself there is the added excitement of creating a hands-on vegetable growing program for the students. As far as I can tell (and I'm happy to be corrected!) this will be the only full semester allotment style food growing prac at the Masters level in Australia and possibly at the Bachelor level too. At any rate months of work have gone into developing plant material for the program not to mention purchasing tools and equipment, re-doing water pipes in the historic Burnley Field Station etc etc.

Meanwhile FPUL demonstrators Jenny Pearce, Lia De Gruchy, Engagement Officer Jenny McCoy, nursery crew Sascha and Nick and me have been putting together a display of veggie planter boxes over the last few months as part of the launch of the University of Melbourne's farmers' market - http://www.carltonconnect.com.au/think-eat-talk-grow/

We'll have interesting stuff for people to look at, touch and taste such as Kang Kong (water spinach), sweet potatoes, yams etc. Our stuff will still be growing while you can buy produce ready to go from various farmers and producers. It's going to be under or near the Raymond Priestly Building from 10.00am-3.00pm next Wednesday March 4 from 10.00am-3.00pm so please come by and say hello if you're on the Parkville campus of the University of Melbourne. I was quoted briefly in the Age about this morning. I'm looking forward to running the workshops and activities with local primary school students

http://www.theage.com.au/act-news/plotlines-festival-workshop-grows-interest-in-urban-horticulture-20150227-13kb3h.html

We'll be spreading the good news on how you too can grow "feral" quantities of delicious Taro under your Hills Hoist!

Eating Monstera deliciosa

I've been watching the fruit on my Swiss Cheese Plants for the last week because I could see that they were ripening. Sure enough this morning two of them looked like they were falling apart so I decided to pick them. You can see from the photos that they don't look that appetising but I've had them before and they were really tasty. My two plants are neglected and only receive extra summer watering irregularly so it's no surprise that the ripe portions I pulled off this morning were only in small amounts. I'm hoping that the unripe bits will soften up over the next couple of days. In the meantime the bits of gloop I pulled off and consumed were yummy, a cross between pineapple and banana (as you will often see it described). So keep an eye on your humble Monstera, forgotten in some obscure part of your garden - usually "down the side". By the way, Monstera is in the same family as Taro, the Araceae and the fruit, as with a taro tuber, contains calcium oxalate. This means that if you eat it when not fully ripe it may sting or irritate your lips or throat - you have been warned!

Surinam spinach - Talinum triangulare

I've wanted to write about this plant for a long time. As with so many perennial edibles in Australia I found it on the Green Harvest website. It's another useful food plant from South America along with Cassava, Sweet Potato, Potato, Chillies, Achira, Yacon etc etc. It is very heat tolerant and this is one reason it has become a popular vegetable in West Africa. It is quite ornamental too with pretty pink flowers and succulent green leaves. It is indeed heat tolerant and last year when temperatures in Melbourne climbed into the 40s for a week my Surinam Spinach plants didn't miss a beat. Although it is meant to contain fair amounts of oxalic acid I don't find it has any of that slightly floury aftertaste that you get from say Silverbeet, also high in oxalic acid. The edible portions of the plant are the stems and leaves and because of their succulence, with a touch of sourness, they help bulk up a stew or soup and are really quite delicious.  Surinam Spinach is easy to strike from cuttings and to my delight has started to self-sow in my garden - a handy way to get new plants each year. They will also overwinter in Melbourne although only just, and it's easier to strike a few cuttings and keep these new plants in a sheltered position or polytunnel/hoop house during the colder months until they race off again in mid to late spring. Definitely worth it.