Just in time for the school holidays and during Biodiversity Month, host of the ABC's Gardening Australia, Costa Georgiadis, is teaming up with Junior Landcare to ask Australian children "What's in your backyard?".
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Young people are being encouraged to explore their local environment and document what they find. Capture photos of flora and fauna in your garden, on your balcony, in the local park, or by a local wetland. If you live at the coast or on a farm, there are many places to look.
For inspiration, Canberrans are lucky to have Floriade in Commonwealth Park as a big "backyard" to all of us. The popular festival opens on September 17 and Costa will be there on September 25. After his formal presentations, children involved in this Junior Landcare project might get the chance to ask him questions about it.
Children can submit photos to the Junior Landcare website via their parents, carers or educators if necessary, in one of four categories: food production via your pots of vegetables; biodiversity; First Nations perspectives; and waste management (how photogenic are those worms in your compost bin?).
Prizes include 10 cameras and one school or youth group will win a visit from Costa to check out their environment projects. The online platform also features fun, easy-to-use learning activities developed by education professionals.
Costa says children play a crucial role in caring for our environment and Junior Landcare gives all of them, across the country, the opportunity to understand and connect with nature.
Canberrans know Wiradjuri man Adam Shipp originally through Greening Australia, then at Canberra City Farm events and finally from the Indigenous forecourt garden at the National Museum of Australia. Adam emailed me last week to say he is now living back on Country in Dubbo but has been working with Landcare as a First Nations educator, developing 10 new learning activities to teach children how to have a connection to Country.
The campaign closes on October 31. Find out more at juniorlandcare.org.au
Hello blossoms
A reader from Narrabundah sent me a photograph of her apricot tree spangled with palest pink blossoms. As September dawned she realised the tree had lost a lot of blossoms and, as she looked out the window, down came two parrots who started eating their way through the blossoms "very efficiently", sucking out the nectar and discarding the blooms. The tree is now netted.
That email prompted me to check two apricot trees on public land in my suburb. The 40-year-old plus specimen is only just putting out blooms but the 20-year-old is well decorated with them. When photographing some of the branches, we noticed dozens of bees coming to pollinate the flowers.
ACT for Bees has told us about Springfest to be celebrated at Tuggeranong Uniting Church in conjunction with See-Change on September 17 at Comrie Street, Wanniassa from 9am to 3pm. The Sustainability Fair will introduce ways to reduce your environmental footprint. There will be plant and cake stalls, Global Worming and ACT for Bees stalls, Devonshire teas and barbecue.
Workshops include permaculture design, energy efficiency in the home, and for young and old, a Seed Savers Seed Bomb workshop. Register at tuc.org.au
While waiting for fresh apricots off the tree, it is worth adding dried apricots to dishes.
Apricot jam made using dried apricots has an intense flavour as has apricot sauce to a recipe from Jean Hatfield (formerly a cookery editor in Sydney).
A recipe, which I first made in 1981, is lamb chops with apricots from John Goode's World Guide to Cooking with Fruit and Vegetables. It is sweet and delicious and the chops will be tender after long cooking.
Lamb chops and dried apricots
Ingredients
- 700g forequarter lamb chops
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp salt
- pinch pepper
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 3 tbsp water
- 1.25g dried apricots
- 2 heaped tbsp seed raisins
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp water
- long grained rice (cooked for eight minutes only, approx 1.5 cups for five people)
Method
Trim fat from chops. Heat oil and add salt, pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon. Saute chops in oil until meat is light brown on both sides. Add water and simmer for 30 minutes. Cut each apricot in four, wash with raisins. Melt one tablespoon butter in another pan and saute fruit for five minutes, turning constantly. Place the other tablespoon melted butter and two tablespoons of water in bottom of fireproof dish. Add rice and arrange chops and fruit in layers above rice. Put lid on dish and cook for 10-15 minutes on top of stove at medium heat. Reduce heat to minimum and simmer for a further 40 minutes.
