permaculture

["Scott Hitchins" <ScottH@wcig.org.au>]

Hi Russ,

I thought that you might be interested to know that I've seen large, healthy and very successfully fruiting specimens of Bunya Pine here in Melbourne (It impressed me, but not the owner of the car parked beneath it.).  Any idea how far south they will grow?

-Scott H

-----Original Message-----
From: Russ Grayson [mailto:pacedge@magna.com.au]
Sent: Monday, 16 June 2003 1:01 PM
To: Intl permaculture list
Subject: [permaculture] Food in the suburbs - wild, feral and cultivated

Ref: the recent US email about the person who took the welfare recipient around the neighbourhood to discover wild greens.

This is a useful technique with students of permaculture too, or for neighbourhood associations. Of course, it can only be done where the wild resources exist. While Fiona and I were teaching PDCs in Sydney, we used a patch of remnant bushland to get across information on ecological structure, soil analysis (structure/ texture pH etc) - you can compare this to the soils in an organic gardens to see how they differ. But back to the point - wild food resources - the bushland patch provided the opportunity to identify what was edible there, what bushfoods were present.

You can take this further if you are running a PDC, or encouraging an interest in the local area, by running a participatory mapping exercise to locate the incidence of bush and naturalised wild foods. It is also something that publishers of local newspapers, newsletters or websites can do. Years ago, when I contributed to a local paper in Bundeena, I did a little writing on this subject of local and wild bushfoods. Another potential interest group would be community gardeners interested in extending their sourcing of food beyond the garden boundaries.

Apart from the patch of remnant bushland mentioned above, a walk around the area where I live (on Botany Bay - sandy, low-nutrient, porous soils naturally the home of Banksia and Sydney sandstone vegetation) reveals on the sand behind the beach New Zealand spinach (Tetragonia tetragonoides -indigenous, eat prepared as spinach; easy to cultivate in the garden) and pigface (Carpobrotus spp: edible part the swollen base of the flower and the triangular leaf - not good eating - good as a sandy soil groundcover). In a park is an Illawarra Plum tree, indigenous to the region but planted here (Podocarpus elatus - edible, juicy, plum-coloured fruit with externally-growing seed attached; not a plum at all, but so-called because of the rich dark red of the fruit colouration; eaten raw or made into jams etc).

In the before-mentioned bushland remnant, there are lillypillies (Syzygium spp, fam: Myrteceae) as well as a couple Bunya Pines (Araucaria bidwillii) whose habitat is SE Queenland (subtropical mountains) that have somehow matured here. They fruit - big clusters of nuts weighing several kilograms which fall (do not camp or park below a fruiting bunya) to ground, scattering the nuts that can be eaten raw or roasted.

In the home gardens of the area are fruiting magenta lillypilly (Syzygium paniculatum - edible magenta-skinned fruit to 1cm diameter with white flesh, eaten raw or made into jams etc), the less-tasty common lillypilly (Acmena smithii - not so good eating) plus numerous underutilised lemon and other citrus.

In Randwick, near the UNSW Community Permaculture Garden and in the grounds of the university, magenta lillypilly, common lillypilly and Illawarra plum have been used for landscaping. In Hyde Park, in the Sydney CBD, Illawarra plum fruits every year.

There's two useful books for the urban forager: 'Wild Food Plants of Australia' (Tim Low, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1988, since reprinted) and 'Wild Herbs of Australia and New Zealand' (Tim Low, Angus & Robersons, 1985). Both, I believe, are currently available. Wild Herbs includes introduced 'weeds' that can be used for food and found along roads, in parks and in the home garden.

Additional to these wild vegetables, of course, are the fish that can be caught along the Sydney beachfront and in the rivers.

There's a wealth of food in the suburbs for those with time and interest to search out.

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Russ Grayson

Media services: journalism-print/ online/ photo

pacedge@magna.com.au Phone/ fax: 02 9588 6931

PO Box 446 Kogarah NSW 2217 Australia

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