Re-write the story: routine cooking is boring
This is the final part in our six-week series on the counterproductive stories we tell ourselves in the kitchen – those hurdles that mess with our mojo and prevent us…
DIY
Down in the Garden: Growing Chooks
One of my happiest childhood memories is of my mother’s bantam collection. I say ‘collection’ because this flock of birds must have featured just about every variant available at the…
Down in the Garden: How Not to Kill an Orchid
Your gardening writer is not an avid orchid collector and grower, but I am slowly coming around to them as I begin to understand the passion and seducing attraction of…
Down in the Garden: It’s Coming Up Roses
Walk into any nursery or gardening section on the Central Coast right now and you will be greeted with what appears to bags filled with sticks. These are the much…
Down in the Garden: It’s Harvest Time
As the leaves fall, turn red, gold and amber and the cold quickly descend on us, this weekend we celebrate ‘The Central Coast Harvest Festival’. In your garden, you may…
Down in the Garden: Cover up with Screening Plants
If you can’t stand living with that heat reflecting metal panel fence, the windows of your neighbours blinking into your home or the view of the local shops, then screening…
Down in the Garden: The Perfect Pots
No matter how or where you garden, or if you barely garden at all, I’m pretty sure that nearly all of us have a plant living in a pot somewhere…
Down in the Garden: Marvellous Mushrooms
Just as gardening has had a huge jump in popularity of late, so have other plant-based interests including mushroom foraging and growing. Autumn is the time for this peaceful nature-based…
Down in the Garden: A Native Bee-Friendly Garden
Bees have enjoyed celebrity status the past couple of years and rightly so. They even have a day dedicated to them with Thursday 20th May now declared World Bee Day….
Down in the Garden: The Language of Houseplants
While it may be common knowledge that red roses mean love, yellow friendship and that lilies indicate comfort during times of grief, did you know that not just floristry flowers,…
Down in the garden: Its got to be garlic
It is garlic planting time on the Coast and across temperate areas of Australia right now. Good news is, they are one of the easiest plants to grow and home-grown…
Down in the Garden: Australian Native Orchids
One of the most often asked questions about flowers that I have received over the years is whether or not there are any Australian Orchids. With over 800 species and…
Down in the Garden: Growing Onions
Now that tomato season has left us, one crop you can pop in and successfully grow after this heavy feeder is onion (Allium cepa). The best time to plant onions…
Down in the Garden: Grow, Preserve & Create with Dried Flowers
Some of us may remember the last time dried flowers were ‘a thing’. It was the late 1970’s and into the early 80’s and from my memory, the fascination with…
Down in the Garden: How to Create a Fragrant Native Garden
When many of us think of a perfumed garden, it is easy for the imagination to drift to the introduced cottage flower staples of roses, gardenias, frangipanis and lavender. These…
Down in the Garden: Get Rid of Pests, Organically
“Help! I need an organic alternative.” This was once the cry of radical greenies and hippies, but these days most of us have realised we just don’t want to consume,…
Down in the garden – Love from the garden
We have always invited flowers into every facet of our lives. Flowers and the treasures they create such as perfumes, foods and medicines, have been readily embraced for their supportive…
Down in the Garden – Time to Get shady
We all love more than a bit of sun and our gardens, particularly our veggie plots that would not thrive without it. But a balanced garden needs a bit of…
Beetroot: the humble mood booster
We’re midway through a six-part guide to feeling good. Thus far, we’ve explored the importance of breathing, sleep, rest, pleasure, human connection and the nutritionist in me feels compelled to…
Down in the Garden: Plants to Work With
Indoor plants can make us healthy, happy, calm, more focused and breathe a little easier – science has proved it – but can you just plonk any old plant anywhere?…