A year in The Backyard Pharmacy at Maison Bleue
Another year, another pile of zucchinis on the kitchen bench. It must be summer. Despite poor rainfall and a slow start for the tomatoes, the garden is producing enough for something to either be the basis of or to add to a meal every day. Though it is possible to tire of blue kale. That is until fermented, when it transforms into a tasty addition to the simplest of bread and cheese lunches. The year of ferments spills into 2014 with the anticipation of fermentation workshops with Sandor Katz in February.
Creativity with salads is the order of the day and the use of edible flowers provides taste sensations as their pure essence can transform the most mundane of leaves. Our original potato plantings went feral and thanks to our compost every garden bed has produced potatoes in surprising places and quantities. You can’t beat the deliciousness of a freshly dug and steamed potato.
It has been an excellent year for cherries and, once protected from chooks and other birds, provided the plump type that pops nicely in your mouth. I have equally high hopes for my recently planted sour cherry in future. Cherries are high in anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compounds, making them popular for treatment of the pain of gout and arthritis. They have an affinity for vanilla and cinnamon in cooking, lending themselves readily to many fruit based desserts and cakes and can be frozen or preserved, in alcohol being a popular choice.
Similar optimism exists for the walnut we have planted in place of one of our ancient mulberries that has fallen, connected by a thread of root, like a tooth waiting to be removed, we have propped it up and hope it will re-sprout.
Who would have thought that warragul greens and marigolds could spread the way they have? The marigolds attracting many bees and useful insects into the garden and are an all round medicinal plant with their antiseptic and healing properties and their edible flowers, which when dried make a very good digestive tea and eyewash.
Despite the watering system, the below average rainfall shows the garden beds to be quite dry below the surface when digging deep to prepare the soil for the next planting. Water really is the limiting resource. With predictions of a dry time ahead this year, it is prudent to plan for further improvements in water holding capacity of the soil, watering regimes and efficient mulches.
The past year has been fruitful in The Backyard Pharmacy. Thanks to planting and soil enrichment lessons aplenty we now have a better understanding of the garden’s cycles and capacity. The groundwork continues and we look forward to the seasons ahead.
Mapping our future – how communities are growing change for themselves
In the last few years many groups have been working to achieve changes to their local food system and, by default, their communities. Local community food initiatives are being mapped leading to projects like the City of Yarra Community Food System Google map, the VEIL food map, Local Harvest, gleaning maps such as Falling Fruit Bendigo Google maps for finding local bonanzas of forgotten or neglected fruit trees, regional producer guides and ‘foodprinting’ at a local level such as Know Your Foodbowl, inspired by the Oxford Foodprint report, being just some examples.
As I sat recently talking with a group of locals in a semi-rural area the conversation once more turned to mapping. This time the focus was slightly different. The approach discussed was called asset based community development and is a type of mapping that focuses on strengths, similar to the strengths based programs so effective in mental health work, rather than focusing on a problem to be solved. If you are interested in looking at reality as if it is ‘resplendent with possibilities and potential’ then you may find this approach as exciting as I did. It is claimed that tapping into this potential has ‘the capacity to leverage social and organisational change well beyond the expectations of existing practice’. In other words, when we put our mind to it, a new voice can emerge for change in a community at all levels.
How do people know what is possible? This is where leadership and local knowledge come in. Whatever the realm, there will be someone who has experienced or understands what is being done locally or elsewhere, and the strengths and successes of that approach. By listening to these stories a conversation can begin to define what the new narrative or story is that can emerge when we all join with the assumption that what has been done in the past may be built on to serve our needs into the future. When people started to outline what they would like to see, the how can start to emerge coincidentally. In the case of the food system, community resilience and climate change that certainly is the case.
So many people are aware of the need to change our practices when it comes to sourcing fresh, nutritious food that treads lightly on the planet regarding resource inputs for its growth. Witness the booming local and organic movements, premised on a sustainable environmental impact of what we choose to eat and how we prefer it to be produced.
Why not invite a few people involved in different community groups of interest to you for a cuppa and see what conversations emerge? Just as each of us differs, so, too do our communities. There is no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to understanding our unique strengths but there are some good examples of how to learn about the whole being more than the sum of the parts.