Winter is a wonderful time for growing greens and brassicas in Blackheath. On Sunday at Blackheath Community Farm we harvested cauliflower, kale, land cress, rocket, radish greens, a variety of lettuces and silverbeet. As well as being delicious raw, they can all be cooked as well.   Check out our recipe for Orechiette with cauliflower and walnut brown-butter pesto …

June Local News. You can download this month’s Local News here: Blackheath Local News June 2020  

  There’s an excitement and a lovely crunch as you run your finger down the side of a dried bean pod and split it open to collect the seed. If you haven’t done so already, now’s the time to collect your bean seeds to ensure a crop for next summer and potentially also meals over this winter. Some dried beans, …

  Winter has arrived! It’s the first of June and today I harvested my kiwi fruit. Kiwis, or Chinese Gooseberries, grow really well in Blackheath. They’re quite amazing as a winter fruit crop because you can keep them for a very very long time without them rotting. They’re low calorie and high in nutrients, and a large crop could see …

  If you’d like a steady supply of homegrown food fast, whatever you do, grow radishes! Now is a great time to plant them because in summer they tend to bolt. You can use radishes to define rows between slower growing vegetables like beetroot and broccoli to remind you where you planted them, and, because they’re the fastest growing vegetable, …

After devastation, the restorative forces of nature begin the process of healing. On the 22nd December 2019, Australia’s biggest forest fire, which had already destroyed an area seven times the size of Singapore, raced up the gully below Clarence St and burnt to within 10m of Eva and Bill Johnstone’s property, just above Pope’s Glen in Blackheath. It burnt all …

Food, mothers and kindness bring people together – even during a pandemic. Tonight I felt nurtured by my mother’s dearest friend in Blackheath, who sent me home with a brown paper bag filled with small jars of medlar and quince jellies to taste test. She was eager for me to compare the two.   Carole Lee My mother used to …

The Allium Family LOVES winter in Blackheath. While Allium is Latin for garlic, this plant family also contains all the leeks, onions, garlics, chives, scallions and shallots. If you haven’t already done so, now’s the time to plant your seeds or bulbs. Here are some of my onion seedlings emerging now.     It’s also the time to go looking …

It’s almost five months since the ‘megafire’ burnt through the native section of Blackheath’s Campbell Rhododendron Gardens on the 21st December 2019, leaving Blackheathens with a charred landscape and a charred psyche.     The Fires were followed by flooding rains in early February which removed much of the top soil. Stones were left suspended on tiny sandstone towers … …

  Left alone to do its thing, nature creates the most extraordinarily biodiverse ecosystems. One of the world’s most respected biologists, E O Wilson, said that we needed to set aside half the world for nature so that it could support and regenerate enough biodiversity to support all life on earth.     Check out just what nature is capable …