Sunday afternoon working bee sessions in the garden. Paul, Fionnuala & Karen work on removing one of the Native Mulberry trees. A tough rainforest tree with wide roots that grow rapidly to seek out water. We had 3 of them in one bed in the Bush Food Gardeb. Cathy & Jo - the two gardeners who lead the Kitchen Garden team & put loads of love, care, curiosity, inquisitive & exploration into their work. Testing things out & learning in real time. A beautiful view of the sky across Rushcutters Bay as the sun was descending, two weekends ago. Karen captured it from the garden Sunday afternoons usually sees a garden full of activity, conversation, compost processing, planting, watering, tilling, pruning and a good, solid dose of contentment. Reach out if you’d like to sign up to join #kingscrosscommunitygarden #pottspointers #kitchengarden #eoranation #gadigalland #bushfoodgarden

The native Sandpaper fig fruits (ficus coronata) appearing in the Bush food garden. And the Wild currants (antidesma erostre) there are also are maturing #sandpaperfigs #wildcurrant #kingscrosscommunitygarden #pottspointers #pottspoint #bushfoodgarden #eoranation #gadigalland #ficuscoronatatree

Banana hands in the Kitchen Garden. Look at that beautiful flower spike. It emerges at the top of the trunk & produces yellow flowers inside it, and as it grows & bends down the trunk, the flowers grow into fingers or banana. The flower itself is also edible.

Sunday’s open event- thank you to everyone who came to enjoy our garden social event . And thank you to all members who cooked, created & shared delicious treats with the group. It was great to meet new people & to hear each specialty garden representative talk about the specific approaches, methods, processes & history of each garden area. Here, Cathy, Jo & Alison give us insight into the approaches employed in the Kitchen Garden whilst standing under a canopy of snake beans & cucamelons. Fionnuala spreads wood ash donated by the pizzaiolo of @pizza_boccone into the native soil of one Bush food garden bed. Paul leads us on a tour of the Potagers garden & provides insight into their gardening approach, practices & processes. It was fantastic to hear about the varying approaches of each area that have come about by learning through doing. And it was perfect weather for it too 👌

Origins & flavours from afar - but grown right here in Kings Cross. The leaves of Mexican tarragon (Tagetes lucida), the fruits of the Tamarillos (Solanum betaceum) from the Northern Andes and our robust Tromboncino or Zuchetti from Liguria in Northern Italy. Just think about the geographies, climates & cultures of these places of origins… And the flavours? From anise tastes, to sweet sour fruits to sweet creaminess. When next in the garden, sample a leaf from the Mexican tarragon growing in the People’s bed #mexicantarragon #zucchetto #ligurien #tromboncino #northernandes #tamarillos #kingscrosscommunitygarden #pottspointers #sydneykitchengardens #eoranation

The colours of the Madagascar bean, climbing in the Potagers Garden. During Saturday’s working bee, Bryce took a moment from his compost chopping task to sample the beans that Paul had harvested. Also called Tropical Lima beans (Phaseolus lunatus) #madagascarbean #tropicallimabean #compostchopper #pottspoint #kingscrosscommunitygarden

Midyim berries appearing in the Bush food garden. They come out in late- Summer . #midyim #midyimberry #bushfoodsofaustralia #kingscrosscommunitygarden #austromyrtusdulcis #pottspoint

Just 2 years ago, we initiated establishing a garden devoted to Australian native edible plants. It started with setting up group consultation workshops with Terry Lennis, a First Nations horticulturalist & Bush Food tour guide, who resides near the George’s River. He & his son gave insight into reading the environmental elements to inform us where to position plants based on exposure & microclimate. @fionnuala_heidenreich inputted this info into a design - a layout of species that we sourced from @indigigrow @melbournebushfood & then also @bush_to_bowl for us to use as a basis to grow our garden. We contracted representatives from these First Nations led enterprises to share their knowledge with us to create this repository. Our aim was to create a garden of edible Australian native plants where we could learn about First Nation’s culinary & cultural uses, experiment with cooking with our garden grown ingredients ourselves, and more importantly, share this fundamental information with the public community here in Kings Cross. It’s just in its first life & although each species has a QR code for the public visitors to access info about each plant, we want to initiate more actions to share even more. If people are keen to learn about the recipes we have discovered along the way, feel free to DM us! And to all team members including Hannah, Cathy, Fionnuala, Fiona, Karen, Madeleine, Lyn, Terry, Alena, Sarah, Alison, Cathy (who photographed many moments) & all contributors in general including Christina, Kitty, the two Pauls, Grant, Liz, everyone who has lent a hand & interest- thank you. And thank you Adam from Bush to bowl, the team at Indigrow, Terry & Damon . #eoranation #gadigal #gadigalculture #communityspaces #communityengagement

The Kitchen Garden’s harvest on Sunday #kitchengarden

How it started to now, how it is. The Bush Tomato plant (Solanum Centrale) or the Australian Desert raisin is native to the arid parts of Australia. It has a history of being used as a food source by First Nations people who dry the fruit of the bush until they look like raisin. To germinate the seed, however, we needed to be experimental. These seeds need to be smoked in order to germinate. They need to be exposed to smoke & smokey water, as they would in their natural environment. So, a replication of such an environmental situation was attempted at home using appliances to hand and after attempt 5 or 6, it worked. The flowers are blooming now, in the Bush Food garden & we are excited to see what will come if them #bushtomato #solanumcentrale #bushtomatoes🍅

Rambling Potagers garden - capturing moments of the life in this part of our Community Garden this Summer. Echinacea flowers, fragolini, trombolini, Cape gooseberries, tamarillo hanging from the fruit trees. The Rambling Potager garden is an array of fruits, edible leafs & vegetables from all parts of the world, interspersed with flowering plants & herbs that deter or repel harmful bugs. It’s a kitchen garden whose rambling style draws your eye in to follow its lines of growth to discover spots of visual delight & detail in amongst it

Kitchen Garden feature - The Kitchen Gardeners have been nurturing an amazing array of basil species in amongst their various tomato plants that are growing vertically in one of their beds. hmmm indeed! Blue Spice, Cinnamon, Lime, Mrs Burns Lemon and Lime, Sweet Lemon, Thai Purple, Licorice. It is a wonderland of taste & smells. All sourced from Boondie Seeds. Also growing are corn cobs & zucchini. The Kitchen Gardeners carefully plan the layout of their beds/ which crops to cycle & the combination of plants. They start their seedlings off in the veggie pods. Although each cycle is planned, they also enjoy learning through experimentation - such as focusing on all that a certain species could offer too. Such as this basil garden.

Helen finds herself a Tromboncino #tromboncinosquash #zucchini

The fruit of the Tamarillo tree, developing in a sunny, sheltered spot in the Potagers Garden. Tropical flavours from South America, here in Potts Point #tamarillo #pottspoint #kingscrosscommunitygarden #tropicalplants #tropicalfruit

Channeling Salvador Dali’s bread hat & leading the ceremonies of the Trumpet Zucchini harvest with her sceptre- thank you Janine, for being inspired and proudly taking on the honour of doing so this morning. And earlier, when it was living its happiest life amongst the Tamarind fruits #trumpetzucchini #tamarind #pottspoint #breadhat #dalibread #potagergarden #sydneyvegetablegarden #kingscrosscommunitygarden #communitygarden