Tomatoes are on the Menu

Image by Shelley Pauls - Unsplash Black Russians, Green Zebras, Purple Calabash, Tigerella, Yellow Delicious, Verna Orange, Pink Cherry or Grosse Lisse. Tomatoes come in all colours, shapes and sizes, but one thing remains true - you can’t beat the taste of a homegrown tomato. If home gardeners only grow one vegetable, you can bet …

Growing African Violets

In our increasingly digital world, we often find ourselves spending long periods of time indoors trapped in front of a screen. Much as we might prefer to be wandering through the bush or splashing in the ocean, duty calls us to spend long hours gazing at a screen and tapping away on a keyboard. It …

Home Grown Veggies

The Covid 19 Pandemic has thrown us a number of challenges this year: working and learning online, managing our social distance and learning new ways of doing things. Unfortunately it also gave birth to some degree of fear and anxiety which was demonstrated in the panic buying and hoarding of basic pantry items and especially, …

Buried Treasure

Image by Couleur - Pixabay One of the greatest joys in gardening is to take something that looks dry, brown and almost dead, and bury it in the earth. Seeds and bulbs don’t look like much but their shrivelled appearance is deceptive. Each little seed and bulb is a powerhouse of energy, just waiting for …

#BookBingo – Prize Winner

I missed Book Bingo in June. With the stress of assignments and exams I was otherwise occupied, but today I am checking off the Prizewinner square with Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce (1920-2006). First published in 1958, it won the Carnegie Medal and is still credited as "one of the best-loved children's books ever …

#BookSnapSunday – Tom’s Midnight Garden

When Tom is sent to stay at his aunt and uncle's house for the summer, he resigns himself to weeks of boredom. But as he lies awake in his bed he listens to the grandfather clock chiming in the hall downstairs. Eleven...Twelve...Thirteen... Thirteen! Tom races down the stairs and finds, outside the back door, a …

Taking Art Outdoors

Ever since the implementation of Covid 19 restrictions, we have been wondering whether life would ever return to the way it used to be. Social commentators predict that even when this is all over, whenever that may actually be, life will be changed. And to a certain extent that is true. Life after a crisis …

International Year of Plant Health

Over the last 60 years the UN has highlighted a range of issues for international attention, beginning with World Refugee Year in 1969/1960. Since then we have had International Years for issues such as  Human Rights (1968), the welfare of Children (1979), Peace (1986) and the Eradication of Poverty (1996).  For some of these issues, …

Carnival of Flowers – Celebrating 70 Years

It’s the first weekend of the September School Holidays, the flowers are out in full bloom and the local parks and gardens are crowded with visitors and tour buses. It must be Carnival time. The Carnival of Flowers is Toowoomba’s premiere event of the year, a festival that celebrates flowers, local wine and food, and …

Book Review: Where the Trees Were by Inga Simpson

  Last year as part of my studies, I completed a creative writing unit called Writing About Place. We conducted roving workshops in the natural and urban environment, explored personal essays and short stories about the importance of place and were required to select two texts to review, as well as write our own fiction …