Terms and Conditions

Terms and Conditions

As I have free reign, and as there are over 20 000 edible plant species in the world, it seems negligent to stick to the tomato-zucchini-bean situation when I could be playing around with thousands of others like black turmeric, midym berries and Turkish orange eggplants.

I started thinking about growing more edible diversity as I (actually, my dad) re-built my vegetable garden cage last month. It now looks like a plant prison rather than a den of thriving chlorophyllic life, but so far there’s been no break-ins from our resident wallaby, possum, rat, mouse, bandicoot and antechinus populations.

Another reason I began to think about obscure edibles – aside from it being spring, and aside from my new animal-proofing engineering feats – is because growing food is a particularly empowering pursuit that I need to get better at. Many years ago I interviewed Nick Ritar, co-founder of Milkwood Permaculture. Something he said has stuck in my mind ever since. Every meal we eat, every mouthful of food we swallow, is both an ethical minefield and an exercise of power, he told me. We choose what kind of world we want, what kind of systems – agricultural and otherwise – we’re willing to support, by what we eat. We, very literally, put our money where our mouth is, three times a day. Or five, or six, in my case.

New worlds need imagining right now – on political, community and personal levels. All are intertwined, all require reflection, interrogation and action. On a personal level, I know I can be a better food grower, and it’s really important to me that I try. And so, I’m imagining beyond past failures and current inexperience. I’m imagining a vegetable kingdom/prison that’s wild and radical and mad and diverse and fertile and delicious.

In order to indulge my love of horticultural curiosities and my desire to expand my vegetable growing enterprise, I consulted two queens of the vegetable patch for guidance on their favourite obscure edibles – horticulturalist and serious veggie gardener Olivia Caputo, formerly of CERES organic farm in Melbourne, and Sydney based Laurie Green, founder of Crop Swap Australia. Here’s a collection of the pair’s favourite obscure edibles for consideration in your own radical, edible, garden world.

Shipping & Returns

As I have free reign, and as there are over 20 000 edible plant species in the world, it seems negligent to stick to the tomato-zucchini-bean situation when I could be playing around with thousands of others like black turmeric, midym berries and Turkish orange eggplants.

I started thinking about growing more edible diversity as I (actually, my dad) re-built my vegetable garden cage last month. It now looks like a plant prison rather than a den of thriving chlorophyllic life, but so far there’s been no break-ins from our resident wallaby, possum, rat, mouse, bandicoot and antechinus populations.

Another reason I began to think about obscure edibles – aside from it being spring, and aside from my new animal-proofing engineering feats – is because growing food is a particularly empowering pursuit that I need to get better at. Many years ago I interviewed Nick Ritar, co-founder of Milkwood Permaculture. Something he said has stuck in my mind ever since. Every meal we eat, every mouthful of food we swallow, is both an ethical minefield and an exercise of power, he told me. We choose what kind of world we want, what kind of systems – agricultural and otherwise – we’re willing to support, by what we eat. We, very literally, put our money where our mouth is, three times a day. Or five, or six, in my case.

New worlds need imagining right now – on political, community and personal levels. All are intertwined, all require reflection, interrogation and action. On a personal level, I know I can be a better food grower, and it’s really important to me that I try. And so, I’m imagining beyond past failures and current inexperience. I’m imagining a vegetable kingdom/prison that’s wild and radical and mad and diverse and fertile and delicious.

In order to indulge my love of horticultural curiosities and my desire to expand my vegetable growing enterprise, I consulted two queens of the vegetable patch for guidance on their favourite obscure edibles – horticulturalist and serious veggie gardener Olivia Caputo, formerly of CERES organic farm in Melbourne, and Sydney based Laurie Green, founder of Crop Swap Australia. Here’s a collection of the pair’s favourite obscure edibles for consideration in your own radical, edible, garden world.