Food Archives - Page 2 of 11

Ross Island Food Forest

The first I knew of Ross Island Food Forest was an invitation from a facebook group, Food for Thought Townsville:

Simon posted in the Permaculture Townsville group last week “The Ross Island Food Forest on the corner of First Avenue and 5th Street was opened in 1995 by Permaculture Townsville and the TCC. It ended up being all trees so not your vege patch type community garden but after nearly 30 years it’s still chugging away doing its foresty business.
If anyone wants a tour, send me a message and we’ll work something out. Even get a group together…..” and I thought I’d take him up on his offer! Meet on the corner of First Avenue and Fifth Street in Railway Estate.

Simon and tour group — Simon with tour group (photo courtesy Food for Thought)

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Taste-testing Australia’s wild bananas

A while ago I wrote about Australia’s native bananas, Musa banksii, and said that, “Sometime I will find a bunch of wild bananas ripe enough to try eating one,” adding that, “my expectations [of their edibility] are not high.”

Some things take longer than we expect. This one took eight and a half years.

I have, at long last, achieved my aim – not by finding a bunch in the wild, in fact, but by having some fruit given to me via our local Landcare Bush Garden Nursery. Even then, the nursery didn’t grow them but acquired a bunch through their professional network.

There is no need to repeat what I said in 2014 about where the plants are found in the wild, or their evolutionary history. Let’s move straight on to the fruit as they reached me.

Wild bananas Musa banksii — Four wild bananas – captive at last!

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Finger Limes – what are they?

This little investigation began on social media. Someone posted a neat chart of the genetic origins of all our familiar citrus fruit, someone else asked, “But what about Finger Limes?” and I thought, “Good question!”

This is the chart which started it. I tracked it down on Researchgate, but the original source is a 2018 paper in Nature by Wu, Terol and others, Genomics of the origin and evolution of Citrus (that link will take you to it in a couple of clicks).

genetics of citrus — The genetic origins of modern citrus varieties

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Eco-fiesta 2022 wrap-up

Eco-fiesta, one of the city council’s best community initiatives in the thirty-plus years I have lived here, celebrated its 30th birthday yesterday with another wonderful festival. Dozens of stalls, hundreds of happy visitors, perfect weather, all in the beautiful surroundings of Anderson Park – what more could anyone ask for?

It has always been an event for all ages, but the young parents now taking their small children to it have known it since they were small children themselves. In its first years it was a fringe-hippie event but now it is mainstream, without having changed at all. Recycling, vegetarian food, solar power, bee-keeping, yoga and the rest have all become ‘normal’ to a large part of the community. Eco-fiesta has played a large part in that, and the world is a better place for it.

But let’s get on to specifics.

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Bridal Veil fungus

The Wet season has arrived, with thunderstorms and brief downpours of 20 – 50 mm or more, and the natural world is responding to the combination of heat and moisture as it always does. Fungi, in particular, are emerging in numbers and varieties we haven’t seen since … well, our visit to the Daintree, actually, but we haven’t seen them here since last Wet season.

Some fungi are weirder than others, and some names are more risible than others. This one wins on both counts.

Bridal Veil Stinkhorn, with another in the background just emerging

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