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The Myrtacae family of plants is useful in that they have very useful Essential Oils in them. This is very good for rubbing on skin to prevent insect bites such as Midges, Mosquitoes etc.

The Millaa Millaa vine (Elaeagnus triflora) has the nicest berry and the Sunshine Coast is its southern most limit (in nature it occurs coastal NE Qld). The berries of this plant are really nice to eat, but the vine doesn’t have any berries on currently because the flowers are eaten by a tiny caterpillar (that you need a microscope to see) called an Indigo Flash (Rapala varuna simsoni) I actually thought there were male and female plants but the flowers are eaten by caterpillars, making it impossible for them to reproduce.

The Native Ginger (Alpinia caerula) berries are really nice – especially if you’re exhausted and you need a little bit of a pick-me-up – they taste of lemon but be warned – you take the dry outer coating off and chew/suck the seed and find it has a little hotness to it. Every part of the Native Ginger plant is edible  – you can use the leaves in cooking to wrap food but very often you’ll find that cut-bees have taken a little circle out of a leaf. These cut-bees use the leaf portion to plug up the hole of their nest – which is a mud nest usually in the bank of a stream – there you’ll probably see some pretty serrated leaves.

The other favorite of mine is the Midyim (Austromytrus dulcis) It has lovely edible berries which can be made into jams but it takes an awful lot of picking, my mother has made Midyim jam, and it is delicious, The berries fall off quickly, but if you crush and smell the leaf, you will know that it’s in the Myrtacae family, which is related to the Eucalypt tree. The Midyim berries taste different depending on the area in which it grows. Moreton Island grows the most succulent big berries as big as your thumbnail but this only happens after rain. 

The Black Bean (Castanospermum australe) was originally thought to be edible but obviously it isn’t. The Aboriginees used to soak the seedpods in running water for six weeks, then dry them then put them back into running water for another six weeks. They were then taken out and roasted, and then they were edible – they would be pounded and turned into a flour.  You’ll see them listed in textbooks as poisonous, and if you eat 6 of these you’ll get stomach cramps – the leaves and bark smell of cucumber. If the leaves are up too high, get your car keys and scrape the bark to identify the cucumber smell.

One of them is the Bandicoot Berry (Leea indica) and in some of the books they say it is edible but they can really sting the mouth.

The lovely powder-puff Lilly-pilly (Syzygium wilsonii) has a white berry – it is edible but quite tasteless. Most of the Syzygium have lovely edible berries.

The Cabbage Tree Palm (Livistona australis) is edible – you can take the heart out and eat it as a vegetable but you actually kill the tree – you do it with lots of things like the Tree Ferns and the Piccabeen Palms (Archontophoenix cunninghamiana) and they have a cabbage flavour, but of course you kill the tree so I’d better not tell you about that!

The Walking Stick Palm (Linospadix monostachya) has beautiful berries – I was very gingerly not eating this one because I saw the movie about the Stinson Plane Wreck and a survivor came up with a berry in his mouth which he fed to another survivor.  I thought this was a peculiar thing to do and blamed the eating of the berry for the act, but the fruit isn’t really poisonous, and really tastes quite nice to eat. Plant the seed after you’ve eaten it and grow a walking stick palm. The Weevil Plant (Mollinaria) is not a Palm.

There are several vines which have edible fruit – the climbing Pandanus (Freycinetia excelsa) is all through the forest here – it has a Pandanus like fruit – red and succulent and if you get them before the birds find them, you’re lucky as they’re always at the top of the canopy.

The Lomandras have little teeth on the ends of their leaves – if you pull them up you can eat the little white bit at the base – it tastes a little like coconut but sometimes people mis-identify them and they try and chew some sedges or grasses so it’s important to know what you’re eating.  The Aboriginal people would collect the fruit called nuts and pound them up to make a flour – there’s male and female plants – these plants are used extensively in landscaping.  You can eat the light green tips but as soon as it turns dark green, the chlorophyll makes it bitter.  Anything light green is yummy and chewy when raw.

The Cocky Apple (Planchonia careya) grows from Bundaberg to North Qld. and quite often they have big round fruits which the cockatoos eat but quite often they have a big witchity grub in them that the Aboriginees ate.

The natives also ate the gall from the Bloodwoods (Corymbia) they were called Bloodwood Apples, and they would have a very nice witchery grub inside them. 

There are several plants in the bush which are very good for getting rid of sandflies and mosquitoes. They have a remarkable smell – each one has a different lanolin type smell and this particular variety is the one which has the most oil in it – it’s called the Sandfly Bush – the best one is Zieria smithii –you rub a couple of leaves on your skin – don’t strip the tree – you only need a leaf or two.  The oils will coat your skin and stop the insects from biting you. As you sweat the smell wears off so keep a sprig in your pocket to reapply when needed.  Some of the chemical companies are using it in their repellants. It doesn’t keep mossies/sandflies away if you plant it in your garden – the leaves have to be crushed to release the oils.  It also works on leeches. I tested it on my brother – I got him to rub it on one leg before he went down to Kondalilla Falls and when he came back up, he was riddled with leeches but only on one leg so I said to him “Doesn’t that prove something?” and he replied “It’s not very scientific!”

Another bush tucker plant are the Backhousias.  B. myrtifolia is good for making tea – if you crush the leaves, it smells like juicy fruit – you can have a one leaf cup or a two leaf cup – just add boiling water to the crushed leaf. Young leaf is best! B.citriodoria is also good for tea and can also can be used to keep the moths and silverfish out of the linen cupboard and there is also B. anasata which smells like aniseed. 

The Orange Thorn (Pittosporum multiflorum) (previously known as Citriobatus) has lovely berries which the birds eat but it’s prickly so it allows the birds to hide in it and it’s good to plant where you don’t want people. There’s a thornless one out around Cooroy.

The Brown Pine (Podocarpus elatus) has a plum-like fruit which fall from the tree and are quite delicious – used in jams and liqueurs – you can’t tell when they are a small plant if they are male or female – you can try the wedding ring over the top but I wouldn’t recommend it – I tried this when I was pregnant and I was suppose to have 2 boys and I had 2 girls!!

The Leichhardt tree (Nauclea orientalis) has pretty flowers and when the fruit fall they become soft and juicy and you’re suppose to be able to eat them but I’ve tried other people on them but they said it was just OK!

The really nice one is the Candle Nut  (Aleurites moluccana v moluccana) – grows really fast and is very large – on the ground you will find little rocks which they produce as fruit – you can roast these they are quite a nice nut – like coconut – roasted is best because it has a lot of oils in it – roasting will take the oils away – the toxicity is in the oils. The fruit were threaded by our early pioneers and used as a candle and it use to burn for a long time because of the oils in the fruit. Candle Nut is a laxative! They crossed the Qld Nut (Macadamia integrifolia) with Maroochy Nut M. tetraphylla and found that the fruit were even better and called it “Home Beauty” and it has nice pink flowers. 

We have to start thinking of keeping plants which are indigenous to our area – the more trees you bring in the more pests you may have in the future. The Davidsons Plum (Davidsonia pruriens) – some have fruit on the stem and others have fruit on an axil – you need to stew them or make a jam – they’re very tart if eaten on their own.  It’s a very large tree so keep it pruned to the height you want and it will reshoot. You’d do this to get the fruit. There’s a Nth Qld variety and a Southern variety which is called Davidsonia pruriens v.jerseyiana which is the nicest one – very useful as an indoor plant – will even fruit inside!  When it is flowering, take it outside as it smells like a mouse has been through the house.

The Monkey Nut (Hicksbeachia) have lovely looking fruit – I’ve never eaten it as I’ve needed the seed to grow.

The Burdekin Plum (Pleiogynium timorense) has male & female trees and the fruit is lovely when stewed.  

Flax Lily (Dianella spp) – the possums love to eat my berries and although a lot of the different species are very tasty, you should only try one or two as they were not a part of the Aboriginal diet in the areas where records were kept so never use them as the major ingredient if you are cooking with them – different species have different colours.

The Swamp Hisbiscus (Hibiscus diversifolia) has an edible flower but suffers from beetle attack so spray them with lemon or garlic you won’t have any problem.

If ever you get bitten by anything from a spider to a jumping ant, rub the sap of the Spider Lily (Crinum pedunculatum) on it and it will cure it within 5 minutes – the aboriginees used it as a treatment for marine stingers – I used it for a jumping ant bite and it lasted for 4 hours – after that I couldn’t hold onto the steering wheel of my car but I also gave it to a fellow who had been bitten by a redback spider and I saw him sitting there in agony so I fixed him with the Crinum which fixed him – the doctor rang me up afterwards to find out what plant I had used on it. What I think happens is that the bite is acid and the plant was alkaline and it was neutralizing it. The Crinum which are growing around Floras Restaurant here can be used with any bite eg ants, spiders and Aboriginees use them if they get stung by marine stingers and bluebottles. 

Cunjevoi (Alocasia brisbanensis) All parts are poisonous but if you are stung by the Gympie Stinger tree you can use the sap on your skin and after you peel off the dried sap it will then take the glass particles out of your skin – sticky tape also works. 

Mistletoes don’t always kill the host tree. If the tree didn’t want it on, it would cut off the circulation from that branch and the branch would then drop off. This particular one specializes on Wattles Amyema congener ssp congener – beautiful flowers and lots more nectar than other flowers to ensure pollination. Each mistletoe species is host to a different tree and what I want to know is how the bird knows what tree to sit on.  If a tree is unhealthy you’ll notice that the Mistletoe will attack the weakest tree. The bird carries the Mistletoe seed and expels it out which spreads the Mistletoe around. Pipturus argenteus – there are male and female in these trees has little white translucent fruit which you can eat and they’re lovely and sweet and the Mistletoe bird loves them so if you have one of these in your garden  you’ll have the continual delight of the Mistletoe bird song which is cheery, happy and sweet. There’s about 8 other birds which share it with the Mistletoe bird.

Most grasses have fibrous roots and the sedges have rhizomes and somebody said that Blady grass (Imperata cylindrica) must be a sedge because it has nice white rhizomes but it also has fibrous roots – the white rhizome of the native Blady grass is very nice to eat – it tastes like coconut. Although it is an undesirable here, they sell it in Melbourne to put in their gardens. Cows can’t graze it as they have difficulty in digesting it and it has poor food value . It can also be used for thatching. The lovely plant  Psychotria loniceroides has clear coloured berries and as they’re so small it takes a lot to have a feed but when you’re on a long bush walk they’re pretty good.

The Brown Pine (Podocarpus elatus) have male and female trees and of course only the female have fruit which is nice in jams. 

The nicest part of the  Scrambling Lily (Geitonoplesium cymosum) to eat is the new young growth but all parts of the plant are eaten – it’s like snow peas.

The native Quince (Guioa semiglauca) has male and female trees.

The Sandpaper Fig (Ficus coronata) is edible and it has a lovely way of getting pollinated – the fig has flowers in the centre of the fruit – the male and the female wasp pollinate the fig by going inside the fruit – the male is born blind and wingless and he mates with a female and doesn’t leave home so watch out when you’re eating a fig that you don’t bite into him!

The lovely Fern (Culcita dubia) was used in the old days to pack strawberries – it’s not bracken and quite often you read in books that the bracken’s fiddlehead (ie the new shoots) were eaten by the Aborigines but I think they mistook it for this particular plant because I know that tree ferns were used in such a way that they’d cut down the top to eat but that would kill the treefern as it did with palms also. It tasted a bit like cabbage but the cabbage tree is really good for tiny marsupial mice – Antichinus. This fern likes to grow in the shade whereas the Bracken (Pteridium esculentum) grows out in the sunlight. The Bracken fern is cancer producing (poisonous).

The Water Vine (Cissus) has lots of different qualities – it contains oxalic acid and the fruit has little crystals on its grapes and some people are sensitive to it. You can drink the water from the vine – I was given some juice from the vine and it tasted a little like sugar cane but it was a little hot. Cissus hypoglauca is another vine which can be very drying in the mouth – test it out on your partner first!! Another vine that is edible is Burny vine – it has male and female. 

The Blue Quandong (Elaeocarpus grandis) children seem to like it more than adults as it has a lemony flavour.

The Cabbage Tree Palm (Livistona australis) – the heart of this tree is edible. The buttress roots of rainforest trees have a way of channelling the water so that the tree will get enough moisture – you’ll notice that when the tree is on a cliff they will be stopping the water from flowing down so they’re planning to have as much moisture as possible by having large buttressed roots.  These buttressed roots on the rainforest trees aren’t very deep – they’re all on the top – that’s where most of the rainforest litter is held so that’s why they stay up on top.

The Candle Vine (Pothos longipes) is edible has a flat stem but resembles a candle and the leaf on the end looks like a flame – it has red berries but usually the birds get them before you do as it grows high in the canopy. The many vines are useful for food for the different birds because they’re at different layers in the canopy – the top layer has fruit, the middle layer has vines and the ground layer has the grasses and ferns.

The Corduroy Tamarind (Mischarytera lautereriana & Diploglottis cunninghamii) has a jelly-like fruit on it around Christmas just like the big tamarind and the pioneers use to use it to make cordial. You’d have to pick the fruit off the ground and you didn’t get dirty as it has a plastic membrane around it. The cordial has a lovely tingle as well and the reason it was called Corduroy tamarind was that it had stripes in the wood.

The Native Guava (Eupomatia laurina) has scented flowers – the Aboriginees called it Bolwarra. The fruit are taken when they’re soft and jelly like – it has a few seeds in it but save them to eat.  Eupomatia bennetii has a tuberous bulb, which contains water so if you’re in the desert you can try this one.

The Native Raspberry (Rubus) is very prickly – best one is Rubus moluicanas and this one doesn’t get out of control. The old adage that if a bird eats a fruit, then its safe for you is not true – a pure fallacy e.g. a bird can eat a White Cedar berry but it’s toxic to humans so testing your partner is still the best way!!!

The Native Mulberry (Pipturis argentica) has male and female plants and the fruit are juicy and tender – it’s a marginal rainforest plant. You can’t tell if they are male or female when you buy the plant.

The little Kurrajong (Brachychiton bidwillii) seeds taste like almonds but there’s a lot of irritating hairs around the fruit so its best to roast them – just take the little yellow casing off them after cooking.

Any of the Stinging Tree (Dendrocnide) fruit are edible and quite often I’ve eaten them and I’ve been told that if one of the stinging hairs got stuck in my throat, my throat would have swelled. What the Aborigines did was put them in their dilly bag and put them in running water.

The Celery Wood (Polyscias elegans) berries are purple and are hard to set seed so I decided that the only way I was going to get some was for a bird to eat them and collect the droppings – only trouble was I chose the wrong bird – a cockatoo chews and grinds their seeds and I should have chosen a fruit pigeon!! These plants can be transplanted very easily.

Wattle (Acacia) seeds are nice to eat with the nicest being Acacia fimbriata – quite often I’ve collected a bagful but once they come out of the pod the air  turns the seed hard so they are like very hard tiny rocks and I’ve discovered that if I leave them in the pod and let people take out the seed themselves from the pod  that they are just right to eat. The Acacia tastes a little bit like almonds – they’re ground up and put into cakes. Just a bit of a botanical lesson – all wattles have nectar glands and the nectar gland exists because they don’t have any nectar in their flowers so that’s why you don’t get any Honeyeaters in your wattles but if you hold your stem upright and look along the edge, you can see a little pimple-like structure and that’s a gland and as they have any nectar in their flowers they exude it from their leaves so you’ll often see them being eaten by insects. If you can’t see it, just run your finger along the top.  You might need a magnifying glass sometimes.

Ann has published some wonderful books. ‘Tree ID Made Easy’.

We had an article by her brother Tony Bean some years ago in our newsletter on Native Raspberries.

Article compiled by Sheryl Backhouse

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The pepper plant is a perennial woody vine Pepper vines (Piper nigrum) propagated from cuttings and growing up to 4 metres in height on supporting trees, poles, or trellises. It is a spreading vine, rooting readily where trailing stems touch the ground. The leaves are alternate, entire, 5 to 10 cm long and 3 to 6 cm across. The flowers are small, mostly bisexual and produced on pendulous spikes 4 to 8 cm long at the leaf nodes, the spikes lengthening up to 7 to 15 cm as the fruit matures. The berries ripen in about 7 months. They are at first green, then turn yellow then dark red and the catkin can have berries in different stages of ripening. The fruit of the black pepper is called a drupe and when dried it is a peppercorn. Black, white and green peppercorns all come from the fruit of Piper nigrum. However, they are picked at different stages and processed differently which affects their flavour. Black peppercorns are the most pungent variety, followed by white, then green.

Black pepper is produced from the green unripe drupes of the pepper plant. The drupes are cooked briefly in hot water, both to clean them and to prepare them for drying. The heat ruptures the cell walls in the pepper, speeding the work of browning enzymes during drying. The drupes can also be dried in the sun or by machine for several days, during which the pepper around the seed shrinks and darkens into a thin, wrinkled black layer. To test whether the berries are dry, bite on a dried berry. If it snaps in two, it is not dry enough. It has to shatter into little bits to get the go ahead for grinding. Once dried, the spice is called black peppercorn. On some estates, the berries are separated from the stem by hand and then sun-dried without the boiling process. Once the peppercorns are dried, pepper spirit & oil can be extracted from the berries by crushing them. Pepper spirit is used in many medicinal and beauty products. Pepper oil is also used as an ayurvedic massage oil and used in certain beauty and herbal treatments. In New Zealand the seeds of Kawakawa Macropiper excelsum, a relative of black pepper are sometimes used as pepper.

Green pepper, like black, is made from the unripe drupes. Commercially dried green peppercorns are treated in a way that retains the green colour such as treatment with sulphur dioxide, canning or freeze-drying. Pickled peppercorns, also green, are unripe drupes preserved in brine or vinegar. Fresh, unpreserved green pepper drupes, largely unknown in the West, are used in some Asian cuisines, particularly Thai cuisine. Their flavour has been described as piquant and fresh, with a bright aroma. They decay quickly if not dried or preserved. If you can’t use them immediately, blanch them in boiling water for 1½ minutes then dip into ice cold water. Seal in a bag and place in the coldest part of your freezer to snap freeze and keep frozen til ready to use. The vine bears green berries, which may be canned in their unripe state. These green peppercorns give a pepper flavour but without much heat. They can be used in subtle ways and will not overpower poultry or fish. If these green berries are dried rather than canned, they darken to form the familiar black peppercorns. If, instead, they are left for longer on the vine to ripen, they turn bright red. One method of cleaning the red skins off the berry is by fermenting in hot water but it will need several changes of water. Fruit club members John & Lyndall Picone grow pepper at their property at Tyagarah NSW and sell the fresh peppercorns at the Byron, New Brighton and Mullumbimby Farmers Markets.

White peppercorns are made by taking the ripe, red berries and removing the skin and pulp. The inner white seeds are then dried in the sun. White pepper is more expensive and less aromatic than black, but it is preferred for use in some sauces where black pepper would look unattractive. This is usually accomplished by a process known as retting where fully ripe red pepper berries are soaked in water for about a week, during which the flesh of the pepper softens and decomposes. Rubbing then removes what remains of the fruit, and the naked seed is dried. Sometimes alternative processes are used for removing the outer pepper from the seed, including removing the outer layer through mechanical, chemical or biological methods. Ground white pepper is sometimes used in Chinese cooking or in dishes like salad, light-coloured sauces or mashed potatoes where black pepper would visibly stand out. White pepper has a slightly different flavour from black pepper due to the lack of certain compounds which are present in the outer fruit layer of the drupe but are not found in the seed. A few years ago, I visited the Kampot area in Cambodia that specialises in White peppercorns.

Pink peppercorns are the berries of a different tropical bush – Schinus molle or Schinus terebinthifolius. Schinus terebinthifolius is classified as a weed in certain areas of Australia. You’ll see Schinus molle growing along creek banks on the Darling Downs. Here in Brisbane they are very susceptible to a borer. They are picked ripe and then dried. Pink peppercorns have a fruity heat and spicy flavour that is reminiscent of both cinnamon and allspice, but must be used sparingly as they are toxic when eaten in large quantities. All dried peppercorns should be freshly ground in a mill to maintain their flavour, which is quickly lost after processing. An opened can of green peppercorns can be transferred to an airtight jar and stored for six weeks in the refrigerator.
There’s a commercial farm at Silkwood in Nth Qld which was affected by Cyclone Yasi a couple of years ago.

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Sheryl  This talk was taped by member Ted Newton who attended Nimbin’s Open House and Garden back in 2013. Led by wild food expert Peter Hardwick, this tour took you around the back streets of Nimbin. Many thanks to Annette McFarlane for typing it up. Edited by Peter and myself.

Peter   Many modern illnesses are often a problem because of modern diet and if we get wild food phytochemicals back into our diet we may be able to treat chronic illness like high blood pressure, inflammation and cholesterol.

The enemy of the urban food forager is the whipper snipper! An unmown path is a bountiful thing with the biggest range of wild foods! One of my favourite tricks when I was young was picking hibiscus and nasturtium flowers when wandering the streets and eating them to shock my friends.

Vary your diet
It’s interesting to look at the diet of some of the preserved bodies of people who have been dug up (eg the Bog man of Denmark – 5000 years old). His last meal was a mixture of 46 different food ingredients. One of the strategies that people can take from this is to eat a range of different things rather than big helpings of one thing. Feasts did occur seasonally (if they came across a bountiful mulberry tree for example), but the range of wild greens that they ate, were often very mixed and not just a single ingredient.

Some were eaten raw and also cooked as stews and wild seeds were mixed into breads. The boiling process with cooking greens often helps to lower toxin levels to a tolerable/safe level.  As a back-up, we also we have the liver to detoxify plant toxins.

Some vegetables can be eaten raw like milk thistle. With boiling, toxins go into the water and you discard the water. Steaming does not reduce the toxin in the same way as boiling, so if instructions say boil, make sure you boil.

Boiling reduces alkaloid levels (especially in black nightshades). Black nightshade in Europe is used to make a cooked salad, but you need to know what you are doing. No one has really investigated them here. I do not recommend eating any black nightshade plants unless you have specific cultural knowledge (like people from Cypress or Greece) on preparation and consumption of this wild green. This is critical with toxic greens such as these.

Black Nightshade
The shoots of black nightshade can be eaten if boiled to remove alkaloids, but please note that steaming would not achieve the same effect. If references suggest to boil a particular wild food, be sure to boil it and do not substitute steaming.

Carrot weed or Wild Celery
Carrot weed has a really good flavour, but like all weeds it can be bitter following long periods of dry weather.  Harsh growing conditions can make the flavour a little bit stronger.  It is really rich in flavour and nutrients. This introduced weed is rich in good phyto-chemicals and has anti-cancer properties. You can eat the roots, flowers and seed heads of carrot weed. Chop it up in scrambled eggs or add it to salads as an alternative to parsley.

Chickweed
Chickweed is tenacious and I love it. I use it in salad and also cook with it. Environment will affect how it grows. There are three types of chickweed, Tropical chickweed (glaucous green) is poisonous, but medicinal. Mouse-eared and common chickweed are edible.  Scarlet pimpernel looks like chickweed but is poisonous.

Clover
Nice to add to a salad, (flowers and leaves), with sour thistle and celery and nasturtiums and chickweed. But look out and avoid any black mould on leaves when you are harvest.

Dandelion
Dandelion has anticancer properties. There is sound scientific research to support this. It is a fantastic medicinal herb. It is a bit bitter, but you can eat them raw. You can also cook it. Dandelion has a single flower stem and the cat’s ear has multiple flower heads. Cat’s ear leaf is also more coarse and hairy. That is how you can tell the difference between them.

Dock
Yellow curled dock is a great plant. The seed heads are like little hearts. Swamp dock is lower growing. All docks are edible, but all contain soluble oxalates, so boil them up and the oxalates will go into the water. They have found the seed of docks in prehistoric man. Was it just contaminated in their spelt or other grains?  Some people seem to think that it was deliberately included. The seeds are very high in tannins – including quercitin that you buy from the chemist as a supplement. It is probably in the leaves as well.

Docks have three uses – roots used as medicine, leaves as a spinach (boiled for about 5 minutes) and the seed/seed heads you can mix with your bread or in a pancake. It gives astringency to the bread. It reduces your blood sugar spikes. If you are oxalate sensitive do not eat docks. The other way of counter this is to eat oxalate containing foods in combination with dairy (for example weed spinach rolls with cheese).

Throw dock seeds into a coffee grinder and it grinds it into a fine brown flour. It is more husk than seed, but it is more of what we need and a really good food source.
Yellow dock root can be roasted and used as a coffee substitute.

Swamp dock is the native dock. It is easy to see the difference between the leaves. The seed heads on this attach to your clothing when they are mature. Yellow dock seeds do not stick to your clothing. This plant contains an anticancer compound in both the leaves and the roots called musizin. The roots of swamp dock are yellow. It seems to have a lower oxalic acid compound, but do not eat a lot of it raw (it can give you nausea). Boil or blanch the leaves.  Use the roots as a medicinal.

Farmer’s Friend
Some people say this is edible but research from early last year indicates it may contain a nasty alkaloid toxin – we are waiting for follow-up research to clarify this. Farmer’s friend does not have a huge history as a food plant. It is used in South America as a medicinal. Comfrey has a similar toxin and should not be eaten. Some things are toxic no matter how little you eat ( comfrey and bracken shoots). As we learn more about phyto-chemistry in wild foods, we discover more about these plants and our ideas of on what can be eaten will change.

Madiera Vine
It is a local weed and you can eat it. It is related to Ceylon spinach. It is a garden escapee. Be careful when harvesting, never spread it around or it may escape into your garden or the surrounding environment. That is a risk with some of these weeds.

It is said to have been used as a laxative. Cook it up/boil to prepare. As a general practice I don’t like to eat huge quantities of a single wild green species. My strategy is to eat a mixture, so that you do not get too much of any one thing. Eat a range of things not big helpings of one ingredient.

I don’t eat Madiera vine raw. I boil it lightly, drain away the liquid and eat it as spinach. There is recent research from Indonesia indicating that Madiera vine is safe.

Nasturtium
Nasturtium has a multitude of uses and is a great garden escapee. Throw it in salads. Seeds can be pickled as capers. They are yummy. I like pickling them in bush lemon juice and salt and some spices (like Dorrigo pepper)

Paddy’s Lucerne or Sida
This plant has medicinal properties and mallow-like qualities (it comes from the mallow family). It stops dysentery. It is strong and bitter in the dry weather and has a yellow flower. You can eat the leaves raw in salads. Most of the sida species are safe to eat.

Plaintain
There is a broad leaf plantain and a narrow leaf one. They are both edible anti-inflammatories.  They were a staple of Celtic people. They have a mushroom flavour and a slight bitterness. I chop it up mix it with the leaves of clover and dock, boil them put them into a pie or a stew. The younger leaves are more tender. Just use a small amount. They are said to lower cholesterol. Psyllium husks comes from a type of plantain. Comment from participant – ‘The narrow leaf plantain is traditionally used as a poultice’.

Shamrock (Oxalis)
It is sour. You may have eaten them as kids. They contain oxalis acid. Just do not eat too much because of the soluble oxalate levels.

Shepards Purse – This is in the brassica family. It is a small, subtle herb and comes up a lot in cooking in Celtic/European history along with yarrow. It is used for food and medicine. You can eat the leaves and the seeds. I have not tried the seeds.

Lots of the weed seeds were distributed via ballast bags filled and pack into boats. The soil was tipped out at the docks and that is how the weeds were spread.

Sow thistle
One of my favourites.  You see this around a lot and it is common in gardens. It is a great plant and really nice in salads. The taste is similar to chicory or lettuce. When it is younger the leaves are quite big and lush. It has a yellow flower. It is a really good candidate for domestication (perhaps better than lettuce). It can be a bit bitter, but it is nice mixed in with other salad greens. Be careful with the daisy family, it’s notorious for having sneaky toxins. Do not eat thick head weed. Bracken fern was once thought to be edible. Then they found out that consumption of bracken fern fiddle was carcinogenic, even though this was a traditional part of the Japanese diet. That is why you need to be cautious. Some of the references on what is safe to eat from 20 years ago and now out of date.

Wild Mustard / Wild Brassica
You can eat the yellow flowers on wild brassicas. Wild radish is strongly flavoured. They grow wild in some areas and become naturalised on roadsides. They are full of glucosinolates. Wild brassicas have these compounds in much higher amounts than cultivated greens. It is best to boil brassicas really well.

Weeds to avoid
Morning glory is toxic (even though wallabies do eat it). Be cautious about bindii – I do not know precisely the toxicologically, but it is related to things like hemlock, so be cautious.  Watch out for fungus on grasses. Wheat grass is edible, but not all grasses are edible. Be careful with jute and do not eat kale every day, especially in drinks. The availability of phytochemicals is much higher in a green smoothie. Try sow thistle in a green smoothie but do not use yellow dock. It is too high in phytochemicals. The potency is so high.

Other Forage Foods

Davidson Plum (fruit)
Davidson plum blooms come out of the trunk. This tree is 12 years old. It is going to be a great crop this year. Parrots do love the seed. Put bags over the fruit down the trunk when they start to develop. They are rich in polyphenols just like blueberries and are great antioxidants and lower blood sugar levels. They are very sour, but they make great jam and wine. They can be preserved just like Japanese plums in brine. Also use it in drinks to take the edge off sweet juice or use it in salad dressing.

Dianella
I have some reservations about Dianella, because of the toxicologically the seed. From a traditional point of view there is a lot of history, but I think there may be a lot of variation between species. Aboriginal people do relish it as a traditional food but you cannot say all Dianella are safe.

Illawarra flame tree (seeds)
Illawarra flame tree the pods contain a mass of bristle covered coating around the seeds. Do not plant these where children play as the bristles can get into their eyes. Handle them with care. The seed is edible when roasted. Some people make a substitute coffee or pop it like popcorn then grind and use it as flour. Roasting destroys the toxins in the seed.

Lomandra
You can eat the seed of the Lomandra as a grain. Mix it with flour to make pancakes. you can also eat the leaves (you chew it and they are quite crunchy), You can eat the base of the flower stalks and the base of the leaves.  This applies to Lomandra longifolia, it may apply to some other species.

Macadamia
This macadamia or bush nut (M. tetraphylla) is one 100 years old. They have a sweeter flavour than commercial ones, but the nut does not keep as long. The shell is also thicker. Never pick them from the tree, wait for them to drop.  The bauple nut has the red husk around the outside and has a fibrous seed coat. The seed is not as oily and very high in calcium. You can eat it. Let them fall to the ground and fully ripen. They can be high in a cyanide compound if they are not fully ripe. Give them a light roasting.

Monstera deliciosa
You can eat the fruit of the garden ornamental. Wait for the outer layer of green to peel of the fruit. It has a lovely fruit salad flavour. It has calcium oxalate crystals in unripe fruit and is very unforgiving if you eat it too early.

Mulberry (leaves)
Mulberry are great cattle fodder and humans can them. Dolmates (grape vine leaves) can be made using mulberry leaves. Roll them in bundles of 10 leaves, tie them with fibre from a cordyline or banana, put them in boiling water for a five minutes and then put them in jars of bush lemon juice. Put the hole jar in boiling water to sterilize and preserve it after sealing. They are easier to roll than grapevines (minimal tearing). Use the young leaves. In China they use these as a tea to regulate blood sugar levels (a great counter balance to our western diet). I cut up the leaves, blanch them and eat them. They are strong in flavour, but they are full of nutrients. I love them with sweet potato.

Riberry and Brush Cherry
Riberry tree crop in about December. A lot of the native local fruit trees time their flowering for our dry springs and subsequent fruit set to coincide with summer rain. Brush cherry is also edible and grows into a tree.

Sandpaper Fig
I love Sandpaper figs. They can fruit several times of the year. Summer fruit is often the sweetest. The fruit from a good tree in January is delicious. You can also cook it up or put it in brandy to make a liqueur.

Native Grape
There are about half a dozen native grapes, but only one of them is sweet, so to make them tasty you have to mix them with sugar or brine. They are high in goodies that lower blood sugar levels.  They grow on the edge of the rainforest. Go on-line and do a search on kangaroo vine. They were fruiting a few months ago. Mix fruit with brandy or ferment it.

Other bush foods
Wombat berries have an edible tuber, but it also has an pulp around the seed. Members of the proteaceae family (macadamia and grevillea) can have very high cyanide levels. The characteristics of some members of a family tend to tell you to be careful about related plants. Just because one member of a family may be non-toxic, does not mean that others are non-toxic. This is the case with grevillea nectar/juice. Some Grevillea’s have a compound like poison ivy and can cause a severe allergy reaction.

Spray Zones
One of the things to look out for in urban foraging is spray zones. You cannot anticipate all areas that have been sprayed, but look for dead zones along fence lines and around trees. Do not harvest from these areas as the residues are too high. Also do not harvest wild greens from old building sites due to asbestos and lead paint. Look for plants in areas that have not been sprayed.

Do your research. Take your toxicology seriously. Look for people who are obsessed with the quality of their wild harvest when searching information. Get a mixture of information from different sources.

Weeds can be bio-accumulators. So if there is pollution, they have the ability to pull up more pollution that other plants.

In undisturbed areas, foraged plants can be very clean because they are not fertilized at all. Even with organic food you have bio–fertilisers which may contain pollutants.

Remember that some chronic toxins in plants that they may take years to show up as necrotic lesions in your body (this is why I would not eat comfrey). Don’t make the assumption that you can eat the seeds of a plant on the basis that the roots or leaves are edible.

Final comment from participant: Years ago I once gathered broom flowers and followed a recipe in a book for a dinner. Twenty minutes after eating it everyone became sick. They started throwing up. Some people continued for 2 days.  I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that it was poisonous to horses. Yet it was still written in a book.

Final comment from Tim. Forget the idea of trying edibility testing that appears in lots of books (including Tim Low). Lots of the stuff about edible weeds comes from army survival training and is just bad folklore.

Notes on the author:  Peter Hardwick is widely known as a bush regenerator, bush food expert and environmentalist, but now he has another string to his bow – award-winning filmmaker. Peter’s first short film The Bouquet won the jury award at the Byron All Shorts Film Festival. It’s the story of a smitten young man who offers an expression of his love – a bunch of edible weeds that are then artfully transformed by the woman of his dreams. The idea sprang from a ‘weed walk’ Peter did last year at the Aquarius Festival anniversary celebrations. “I was thinking of trying to make a film about all the weeds you can eat that are under our feet and we don’t even know. But rather than some dry technical documentary with all those droll experts and talking heads, we came up with the idea of putting it into fiction and blending the technical information with something that was creative as well,” he said. It turns out that Peter’s co-director and main collaborator on the film, Pancho Colladetti, was on the weed walk, as were the two lead actors, Carla Muhling and Johnny Everson, though they hadn’t all linked up at that point. Peter, who works as an advisor to bush food restaurants, says he regularly harvests and cooks weeds to eat “but most of the leafy edible weeds are out in winter and early spring, whereas now I’m feasting on native fruits,” he said. There is no dialogue in the film and all the music was provided by Nimbin street musos Leif Larkin and Donato Rosella, who actually performed live as the actors were doing their scenes. “It was hard work for the musicians who were improvising   but it gave us such wonderful layers. I feel like we were foraging the streets of Nimbin for weeds and foraging street performers – who I think are one of the most wonderful things about the Northern Rivers.” They hope to have the film screened at other film festivals throughout the country.
Ref:  The Northern Star newspaper

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The Jerusalem Artichoke has found a new home in the dairy paddocks of Victoria’s southwest. It is most closely related to the sunflower and was first grown in North America. There is no clue to its origins in the name, and it may be reasonable to suggest it was given its title by a clutch of friends who, having met in a village inn to anoint the name, spent far longer on the task than planned.  It is pretty safe to say the agenda of the meeting obviously allocated more time to ale and mirth than geography and botany. Russell Johnstone and Jayne Olds grow Jerusalem artichokes on five hectares at Scotts Creek in Victoria’s southwest. They share land with local dairy farmers Peter and Kerry Rowe. Russell and Jayne also work on the 210-head dairy. Along with Jerusalem artichokes, the pair grow purple cauliflower, broccoli and other vegetables as the opportunity arises. When the artichokes leave the farm, they are trucked to a depot in Werribee and then transported to a supermarket’s processor in Sydney where they are packed and sent to the supermarket’s stores. “The Jerusalem Artichoke isn’t from Jerusalem and it isn’t an artichoke either” says Russell. The couple don’t know anyone else growing Jerusalem artichokes commercially in Australia.

Although the Globe Artichoke is the best known artichoke, the Jerusalem variety is nothing like this. While its bloom resembles a sunflower, it is the edible tuber that is harvested. Russell and Jayne started growing this root vegetable commercially last year in traditional dairy country, where the fetching valleys are greener than envy. For Russell, it’s a long way from home. He was born in the UK and completed an apprenticeship on the family’s Cheshire farm before setting out to see the world in 1988. When he first arrived in Australia, he was lured to a large cropping property in the wheat belt of Western Australia. The work there was profitable and Russell bought a campervan and set a course for Darwin. He put the brakes on at Ord River in Western Australia’s Kimberly region and “spent a lot of years up there working on fruit”. Russell moved to Tasmania in 2000 and worked as operations manager for a corporate garlic farm. He got to know Tassie and struck a friendship with a buyer from a large vegetable wholesaler. “He always spoke about the one product – Jerusalem artichokes – he’d love someone to come along and grow on a commercial basis,” Russell says. “I did a lot of research into them while I was in Tassie. It was hard and very expensive to come across enough seed to justify being a commercial grower. So I put it on the backburner.” The flame was serendipitously ignited when Russell moved to Victoria’s southwest in 2005. Just after arriving in the state, Russell and Jayne leased 4.8 hectares at Simpson and planted their first vegetables – a hectare of garlic and some purple cauliflower. And then he stumbled across his next venture. “I saw a lady with Jerusalem artichokes for sale at a local farmers’ market,” he says. “I went past her stall several times and nobody seemed to have bought any. At the end of the day I approached her and said I’d buy a dozen bags. “We got chatting. She said ‘we’ve got heaps growing wild in a block at home. If you want any I’d dig them for you’.” Two seasons ago, Russell and Jayne bought about 120kg of tubers from her (tubers bought via the internet cost from $12 to $30 a kilogram).

Aim to grow the perfect plant for your conditions so it won’t be as susceptible to pests and diseases. Russell has plant tissue analysed with BioAg Australia to identify strengths. He purposefully picked heavy ground to grow the Jerusalem artichokes – the tuber stays a little whiter and cleaner in heavy ground and will clean well for sale. For home vegie gardens, spray a mix of milk and bicarbonate soda on your vegies to help keep bugs and moths away. One word of warning from Russell: once planted the Jerusalem artichoke can be difficult to control. Jayne, Russell, their artichokes and other vegetables quickly outgrew the Simpson property. “We started hunting around for more acreage to fulfil what we wanted to do with our vegetables,” Russell says. They shifted down the road to Scotts Creek and now work on nearby land shared with farmers Peter and Kerry Rowe. “We approached Peter and Kerry in November last year,” Russell says. “We started growing artichokes in the December.” Russell and Jayne also work on the Rowes’ 210 head dairy farm and have plans to buy the dairy herd and expand their horticultural enterprise. “The two businesses complement each other,” Russell says. Last year, Russell and Jayne also grew purple cauliflowers and purple broccoli. The cattle graze over the vegetables not sold as well as the stubble. Naturally, many neighbours first thought them mad. After all, some years farmers have trouble growing turnips for cattle feed and the vagaries of this year’s weather might have proved the doomsayers right but raised beds were just one of Russell’s “secret” weapons. They proved a sturdy match for the summer, autumn and winter rain. “We used a rotary hoe with a bed-forming machine on the back to cultivate raised beds 300mm taller than ground height. The weather conditions – we’ve had a very wet winter – were challenging.” The couple’s funds don’t extend to running their own machinery so a contractor was used. Growing the crops on raised beds successfully beat off the wet and a financial disaster. “If we hadn’t used raised beds we’d probably be living in a caravan park bankrupt at the moment,” Russell says.

It takes a minimum of 150 days to grow a Jerusalem artichoke. The extremes of the weather can induce a little insomnia. “We’ve had a few sleepless nights because the plant can grow to about 3.3m tall before you get the yellow flower on top which they need for the tuber to mature,” Russell says. “It’s not so much the rain that bothers the plant but the high winds that come with it. It is crucial the flower atop a long and thin stalk tolerates the wind. Part of the ripening stage (of the tuber) happens after the tops start to die back.”  The Jerusalem artichoke is sometimes described as tasting like a water chestnut yet also has a nutty flavour. Most of their crop is shipped to Sydney where it is sold in three supermarkets. Not all of the 100 tonnes Russell and Jayne grew – the yield averaged 20 tonnes a hectare – is for market. “We needed to grow and harvest a minimum of 60 tonnes for us to continue next year,” Russell says. “We knew we could sell 50 tonnes to the supermarkets but we needed a good amount to plant for next season.”

Jerusalem artichokes can go wild (and is often considered a weed, according to Russell). The plant is a perennial, and leaving the tubers in the ground can be a fine practice for the home gardener looking to grow more of it. But this doesn’t suit commercial cropping. “A fresh plant needs to be grown,” Russell says. “If you don’t do this, eventually your yields are going to start dropping off.” Russell and Jayne are also breeding their own variety of artichoke. “For us to advance, we have to generate fresh seed and the only way to do that is to cross pollinate with another variety of Jerusalem artichoke,” Russell says. “We’ve hunted down 15 kilograms of a different variety (there is only a handful of varieties of the Jerusalem artichoke) and we’ve grown a line of ours and a line of artichoke imported from North America.” A nursery section has been established among the crop. “The tubers get planted with a potato planter (a two-row machine),” Russell says. “We fill one side of the machine with our own tubers and the other side with the imported tubers and grow them next to each other. When the plant gets up to the flowering stage, a friend who is a bee keeper comes along. We put the bees out to do the pollination work. We cross pollinate one plant with the other and then collect the seed.” Their day can start at 5am and, in summer when there is watering to be done, the finish line isn’t realised until 10pm. A capacity for hard yards may partly explain why Russell has returned to Cheshire just once in the past 20 years (though his parents have visited often). Despite undertaking daily marathons, this couple is undaunted. Their buyer has asked them to grow double the amount of Jerusalem artichokes next year.

FOUR WAYS WITH JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES
Not mush trouble Raw or cooked, your options with Jerusalem artichokes are wide open. Just as with potatoes, they can be baked, boiled, steamed, fried and microwaved. However, they will cook faster than potatoes and can easily be turned to mush in a matter of minutes if you do not monitor them closely. Keep your eye on them and remove them from the heat as soon as you can easily pierce them with a skewer.

Cheese and artichoke chowder

Melt some butter in a saucepan and soften a sliced onion. Add sliced Jerusalem artichokes and sliced carrot and cook for a minute before sprinkling in a little flour and then gradually adding some chicken stock to cover. Put on a lid and simmer for 20 minutes. Blend the soup until smooth. Add some milk and grated gruyere cheese and a dash of dry mustard. Season with salt and blend again. Pour into a clean pan and reheat gently; do not boil. Taste for seasoning. Garnish with julienned artichoke, carrot and the green part of a leek which have been blanched in boiling water and refreshed in cold water.

Lemon chicken with Jerusalem artichokes

Set aside the zest of one lemon and the juice from two lemons. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large, deep saucepan and swirl to coat the bottom of the pan. Season four chicken thighs and place skin-side down in the hot pan and quickly brown them, turning only once. Remove to a plate and keep warm. Add the lemon juice, lemon zest, a further tablespoon of olive oil, a cup of chicken stock and a generous pinch of saffron to the pan. Bring to a boil, stirring to loosen any browned bits. Add 500g peeled Jerusalem artichokes and 10 peeled garlic cloves. Return the chicken to the pan, along with any accumulated juices. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 45 minutes, until the chicken and artichokes are tender. Stir in 1/4 cup of cream and a tablespoon of chopped thyme leaves. Taste and check seasoning. Return to a simmer and cook an additional 10 minutes. Serve over steamed rice and sprinkle with pine nuts to garnish. Serves four. Spinach and walnut salad with roasted beetroot and artichokes

Preheat an oven to 200C. Cut 250g each of beetroots and artichokes (sized evenly) and toss in a roasting pan with olive oil, seasoning and mixed dried herbs. Cook for 20 minutes. Turn the vegetables and leave them to cook for a about 30 minutes so they are tender and crisp. Remove the pan from the oven and keep warm. Make a salad with baby spinach leaves and chopped walnuts, add the warm roasted vegetables and lightly toss together. Just before serving, toss the salad with a vinaigrette made with two tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar and a little freshly ground black pepper. Serves four.       Jeremy Vincent

Sheryl:  What was interesting about this article was the fact they left out a certain little delicacy – the known fact that it causes flatulence! I don’t have room here but read Stephen F. Nottingham’s blogspot on the web. He co-authored “The Biology and Chemistry of Jerusalem Artichoke”, a wonderful read!!!  The above article appeared in the Weekly Times – a great country Victorian newspaper – can highly recommend a subscription. https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/  

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This section will discuss various ways that fruits can be preserved in the home. One of the advantages of preserving fruits is to have them available for consumption over a longer period of time. By preserving fruit, one is able to utilize all of the fruit in a single season. The following methods to do not require sophisticated equipment and can be accomplished using basic equipment found in the home.

Drying is an excellent way to preserve fruit. Dried slices or “fruit leather” are two options to make delicious, sweet, all-natural snacks. There are several advantages to drying including; ease in preparation, and the fact that pre-treatment of the fruit is not necessary.

Drying is the oldest method of preserving fruit. Originally, fruits were left out in the sun to dry. Later, people began drying fruit over fire. Now, most drying is done in stoves or ovens. Commercial dehydrators are also available for home use.

Many fruits can be preserved by dehydration. Several types that are easily dried include: apples, peaches, apricots, and mangos (which are perhaps the most popular). However, with a little experimentation, many of our South Florida tropical fruits work equally well.

Peeling a Mango Dehydrators:

Several good commercial dehydrators are available for home use. The best machines have an electric heating element with temperature controls, and fans that assure uniform temperature distribution in the drying chamber. Teflon mesh trays are preferable because the dried fruit slices do not sick to them.

A household oven (electric or gas) can be used if the temperature can be set low enough to prevent darkening of the fruit. A convection oven works almost like an electric dehydrator.

Dehydrating Mangos: Slicing a Mango

Procedure:

Select quality fruit: Select firm, ripe fruit. Carefully wash and peel the fruit.

Cut the fruit: Cut the pulp into lengthwise slices up to an inch in thickness.

Place the trays in the dehydrator: Arrange the slices flat on the dehydrating trays. Be careful not to clump the fruit slices together.

Temperature: Set the temperature control from 125° to 135°F, and let it run until the slices reach the desired consistency. Slices that are too soft or moist do not store well. Drying time depends upon the thickness of the slices, the amount of fruit in the dehydrator and the humidity. In South Florida, drying times depends on the ambient temperature and atmospheric humidity. The relative amount of moisture in the fruit, and the thickness of fruit are also important to consider.

Mango leather
Mango leather is an excellent alternative to make a delicious candy. Kids love it!

Select fully ripe fruit that is in season. This is a good way to use culls or slightly bruised fruit. The pulp should be soft enough to puree easily. In a blender or food mill, process the peeled and pitted pulp to a smooth puree. No additives are needed. Place the plastic wrap or wax paper on the dehydrator trays. Spread the puree about an inch thick. Place the trays in the dehydrator with the temperature set to 125°F to 130°F. Turn on the dehydrator and let it run until the leather has reached a firm, elastic, sticky consistency, usually about 8 to 10 hours. The leather is finished when the dried pulp can be easily peeled from the plastic. Dried mango leather is usually a darker color than dried slices. Remove leather from the trays and roll it up in the plastic sheets. Uncovered leather rolls will stick together.

Drying mango slices Advantages of dry fruit: This healthy snack contains fiber, vitamins and minerals. Most people like it Drying does not change the flavor of the natural fruit In many fruit the color retention is excellent Fruit can be stored in a small space Dried fruit makes beautiful crafts and gifts Packaging dry fruit for storage:

Dried fruit slices and fruit leather should be sealed in bags soon after drying or they will take up moisture and soften considerably. For best storage, dried fruit can be kept in the refrigerator for at least three years. Do not store them at room temperature for more than a few days, they will ferment or mold.

Canning mangos
Canning involves the natural enzymatic breakdown of fruit by heating fruits in a liquid medium inside a closed container. This method requires more knowledge of food preservation. The recommended method of canning fruit is the water-bath.

PH: Fruits with a pH of 4.0 to 4.5 (such as mangos, papayas, figs) should have acid added to packing medium to obtain a pH below 4.0.  One-fourth cup lime or lemon juice per pint is enough to make the needed pH adjustment.

Processing fruit: Fruit and all the equipment to be used should be washed thoroughly prior to commencing work. It is preferable to use fresh fruit over frozen. Make sure to remove all seeds first.

Jellies, jams, butters, marmalades and preserves are fruit preserved with sugar and usually jelled to some extent. Their individual characteristics depend on the kind of fruit used, the mixture, and the method of cooking.

Cooking times and methods vary according to the product being made.  When making preserves without commercial pectin, combine the fruit or juice with sugar and cook to the

Fairchild’s International Mango Festival
Jelly: is made from fruit juice and should be clear and tender, yet firm enough to holds its shape.

Jam: is made from crushed or ground fruit. It is smooth and thick, slightly softer than jelly and still holds it’s shape.

Butter: is made of fruit pulp that is cooked to a smooth and very thick consistency. It can be sweet or spiced.

Marmalade: is made of pieces of fruit pulp and rind evenly suspended throughout a clear jelly. Citrus fruits are commonly used, either alone or in combination with other fruits.

The temperature or consistency recommended, or to the jelly point. If you like your product firmer, lengthen the cooking time, for a softer product, shorten it. Overcooking it is also causes darkening of preserves and a taste and odor of caramelized sugar. Be careful not to overcooking the fruit.

Mango Evaluations
Preserves: are whole fruits or large pieces of fruit cooked in thick sugar syrup until the fruit is tender and somewhat transparent in appearance.

Sterilization: The objective here, is to destroy bacteria and other microorganisms that may spoil food, by heating the mixture. Special canning jars with self-sealing lids should be washed in hot soapy water. Lids must be new. Place clean jars in a large pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. Boil jars for at least 10 minutes to sterilize.

Kids Love Mangos
Filling and sealing jars: When the fruit is ready for canning, remove a hot, sterile jar from the water with tongs, and ladle the fruit into the jar. After jars are filed, wipe away anything on the threads of the jar, or anything that has spilled on the outside with a clean damp cloth. Place lid on jar and screw tightly. Invert jar for about 30 seconds so hot jelly can destroy molds or yeast, which may have settle on the lid. Return jar to an upright position and allow it to cool. When the jar has completely cooled, check the seal to be sure it is secure. If the center of the lid is indented slightly, the jar is sealed.

Most often the seal is completed as the jar cools, and you will hear a familiar “ping” sound as the center of the lid inverts when a vacuum is formed. If the seal is not complete, bring the contents of the jar to a boil and re-pack using a clean, hot, sterile jar and a new lid.

Freezing Mangos
Freezing mangos is accomplished by storing fruit at temperatures bellow 32°F. This limits the enzymatic breakdown of the fruit. Mangos can be frozen without any special treatment except washing, while some fruits need to be peeled or seeded. Still others need to be treated with ascorbic acid to prevent darkening. Frozen fruit looks and tastes very similar to fresh fruit.

Ref:  http://www.virtualherbarium.org/TropicalFruit/mangopruning.html 

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Don Ellison has 50 years experience in growing passion fruit. He presently grows them on his property in the Gold Coast hinterland. He regularly travels overseas on horticultural missions and has authored many books and magazine articles. This article is a summary of an information-packed discussion and slide-show presentation by Don at our club meeting on 9 June 2010. Don discussed the major varieties of edible passionfruit including his favourites and some that he has bred on his property. The table below is a summary of the varieties discussed.

Variety Comments

Alata This variety crops well. It will self-pollinate in some areas depending on what bees are around. However in some areas hand pollination is necessary for optimum results. Hand pollination is best done in the morning. Coccinea This is an ornamental climber with red flowers but one of the best root stocks. Most commercial growers for some reason want to stick with the Flavicarpa as a root stock rather than try new ones. However Don’s pick of root stocks are this one (Coccinea) and the North. These are very resistant to viruses, while the Flavicarpa is less so. Decaisneana A hybrid cross between the Alata and Quadrangularis. They are better to eat than the Quadrangularis. Don hybridises it by hand, uses the pollen from the Quadrangularis on to the Alata. However, once the plant is growing and established, it will then self-pollinate. Flavicarpa This is a hardy climber with an edible yellow fruit. It is used as a root stock. Gaby’s Red This was developed in Florida jointly by Don and a friend. It was developed from hybridizing a red from Panama and a red from Costa Rica. Gaby developed a major business selling frozen passion fruit from a road-side stall. She cut the tops off passion fruits (in the manner of a boiled egg), scooped out the pulp and mixed it with soft-serve ice cream. She then put this mixture back into the fruit skins, replaced the tops, and put them in the freezer. She then started using some big yellow fruit that Don sent her over to her, and was selling more than 1,000 of them a week at $3.00 each. The business kept on growing and she received a government grant. She now sells a range of other fruits including the fruit part of the cashew nut, and supplies all the supermarkets in her area. She can’t keep up with the demand! Golden Giant It’s the earliest fruiter. Comes in around November/December when there is very little passionfruit in the market. A round-shaped fruit, good for growing on its own root stock. It has quite a lot of pulp. People have had problems with the Panama having very little pulp or seed. Golden Nugget One of Don’s favourites and probably his biggest seller of seed. Has a very full cavity of pulp and is widely found in garden centres. It is about twice as big as a Panama Gold and crops well, particularly in Perth with its sandy soil. Incarnata This is a mauve flowered climber, with leaves used as a natural medicine for insomnia. Don hybridised it to get the ‘North’ mentioned earlier. It sends out underground suckers. Laurifolia This one is popular in South America and England, and should grow well here. Like North, it also survived inundation by over 2 metres of flood water. It will survive cold weather. It has an attractive pleasant-tasting fruit. Don’s friend Gaby in Florida grows them in large pots sitting on black plastic to stop nematodes. Ligularis This is a good eating yellow fruit, easy to break open. It will take a little frost but needs regular fertiliser to keep it going. This is a very heavy fruiting species. Macrophylla This is native to Ecuador and one of the very few shrub varieties of passiflora. It is not a vine. Its leaves can be up to 2 feet (600mm) long. There are about 6 shrub varieties out of the 800 or so different species of passiflora. Maliformis This variety has a very hard shell, and needs a hammer to break it open. It is widely used in Central America, particularly Costa Rica. Misty Gem This variety has been good in the last few years but it lasts only 12 to 14 years before it starts to deteriorate. It has been overtaken now by one called Sweet Heart which has a good colour, a tear-drop shaped fruit, but less pulp than the Misty Gem. North This is the result of one of Don’s many experiments. It is a cross between the Incarnata from America and the common edulis. The Incarnata in America dies down in winter and they use the leaves of the plant to make a tea that assists in the treatment of insomnia. Normally there is a lot of trial and error getting a crop from the Incarnata. However Don crossed it with an edulis and used Colchicine to alter the plant’s biology, and finally got a crop. ‘North’ got its name from its location; it was the northernmost and sole survivor of 3 of these hybrids that Don grew side by side. North has been going for 10 years with no root rot or viruses or signs of dying, including being totally inundated by a flood. Don is working with Carol Newman to produce it as a root stock. Panama Red A vigorous variety with a large fruit. It is a much deeper colour than Pandora. Pandora This is a newer one on the market, and is preferred by some growers to the Panama Red. It doesn’t always have a good skin colour, and this depends where it is grown. It is promoted as a cold-climate passionfruit. Its colour is not always perfect, but it is a reselection of Panama Red and sells better than Panama Red. Purple Giant One of Don’s early hybridised cultivars. It is larger than the normal Passiflora edulis, with good flavour and colour. It is now used primarily as a breeding plant. Quadrangularis This is mostly a self-pollinating variety with football size fruit! Red Perfection This is one Don uses for hybridising. Another good one for this is Tom’s Special. Red Perfection is very red, and Tom’s Special is very black. As an experiment Don delivered 5 different varieties to Woolworths free of charge and asked them for feedback as to which ones sold the best. Red Perfection and Tom’s Special were the 2 best sellers. Ruby This is one of the new ones. It’s about the size of Panama Red or Pandora, but it has a lot of pulp that goes right to the edge of the skin and it weighs a third more than either of those. The only supplier is Carol Newman at Palmwoods who has the exclusive rights to release it. This is the one that will take over from Pandora. Don’s growing tips:

Dealing with frost (and hares): Don places plastic tubes over the stems of young vines as they are planted. The tube is like a plastic bag with no sealed top or bottom, and 3 or 4 small stakes are used to hold the plastic off the plant stem. The plastic protects the stem up to nearly the first row of wire on the fence that supports the vine. Once the plant is above the plastic it just grows up to the top wire. The plants definitely grow a lot faster when planted with the plastic tubes; the tubes give the plant more warmth in winter and prevent hare damage as well. As an additional measure against frost, Don applies foliar-sprays. In the weeks leading up to when frost can be expected, he sprays twice with Seasol, and this is followed by two applications of ‘Envy’ (or ‘Florigard’). Timing is important; the last application of Envy or Florigard should be about a week before the frost comes. In Don’s experience, this gives frost protection to about -4ºC.

Use Weed Mat: Don buys Weed Mat in 100m lengths, and puts it around his plants. It does 3 important things: it stops weeds; it stops evaporation of water, and as yet another frost mitigation measure, it keeps the ground warmer in winter. Don recommends it for all tropical fruit trees that are sensitive to cold. He also recommends buying the lighter weave available at places like Bunnings because it lets through water and liquid fertiliser.

Boron and trace elements: Don had an Incarnata variety that was having problems self-pollinating, but it improved significantly after treatment with trace elements to the extent there was no need to hand-pollinate. According to Don, success at growing all passion fruit depends on the right balance of trace elements. He recommends the Peters brand of fertilisers because they contain most of the required trace elements. However the only thing missing in them is boron which is essential for passion fruit and needs to be added. Boron can be bought in the laundry section of Coles or Woolworths where it is sold as Borax. Don recommends half-a-teaspoon of boron at most in a watering can, along with a teaspoon of iron chelate, and a teaspoon of Epsom salts. One watering-can will do 4 plants.

Fertiliser: Don obtained his best crop ever when he dug plant holes with a post hole digger and mixed into the soil that came out of the holes an 8 inch (120mm) pot of cow manure and the same quantity of chicken manure When he planted the vines he put that mixture back into the holes and added Nitrophoska Blue. Don recommends Nitrophoska Blue as the best fertiliser for fruit trees and passionfruit because it contains most required trace elements but not enough boron. Don said that using proper fertiliser and trace elements, a young plant grown in a pot in a shade house through winter and planted at the end of September will give its first fruit in February – not a huge amount, but quite a few nevertheless.

Don’s answers to members’ questions:

Q. How often do you fertilise? A. I do it every couple of months, but early spring is the best. Q. Do you use the boron once a year? A. No – probably 3 times and the same with fertiliser. I use a lot of potassium nitrate. I put that on with the trace elements. (Note: In Thailand, they spray their longan trees with potassium nitrate and they get 3 crops a year.) Q. When you are growing your passionfruit, do you grow them along wire or a fence, and do you prune them and train them in any way? A.  I get 8 foot (2.4m) star pickets and put them in the ground about 1½ feet (450mm). There are two wires on it – the top wire at the top of the picket. They support it all. Q. You said you used an 8 ft star picket with 2 wires? A.  Yes – one at the top and one half-way up. Q. How do you prune them? A.  I don’t prune them at all. Q. (About the Ruby) Are they all grown from seed or grafted? A. This one (Ruby) is grown from seed. Q. Do these (Ruby) get fruit fly or fruit spotting bug because of their thin skins? A.  No, the red ones get very little fruit fly. The yellows are more susceptible. Q. What about the fruit spotting bug? A. These (the reds) are pretty free of problems. Q. How many crops a year do you expect? A. Some of them crop all year round. I expect at least 2 crops and probably 3. The one gap is in November. Q. How long does it take from time of pollination to when the fruit is ripe? 6 to 8 weeks depending on temperature. Q. Do you know anyone who grows passionfruit in large pots? A. Only the woman I know in America because she has a nematode problem. (See ‘Gaby’s Red’ in the first table) Q. Pots would tend to restrict the plant in the end wouldn’t they? A. They seem to come on well in the pots; I was surprised at what good growth she (Gaby) got. While she doesn’t have problems with hares, she has problems with squirrels! Q. Has tissue culture ever been tried in Thailand? A. No but we are working on it. Thailand is not the best place to get tissue culture done on passionfruit; we’re working with Sri Lanka. We are keen to get tissue culture for our plant called North. If that comes off, there should be much bigger crops because of the resistance to viruses. If you look at Nellie Kelly passionfruit, they used a Caerulea as the root stock as it withstood the cold better than the Flavicarpa. Q. The root stocks that you use, are they inclined to sucker? A. They do. It’s one of the biggest problems. If you go down to some of the old passionfruit growing areas like the Murrumbidgee area you will see thousands of them. Q. What causes it? A. It’s just a normal thing. It’s like the Incarnata – it will go 50 metres, and in the right circumstances, so will Caerulea. That’s how it grows in its natural habitat. There are only a few that do sucker in their natural habitat, and the authorities don’t like them coming into Australia, but the fact is they are already here. Q. Have you had any success with the banana passionfruit (Mollissima)? A. I sell huge quantities of banana passionfruit seed grown by a friend in Tasmania. They have been grafted and grow all over Florida. It’s the phytophthora that knocks them and if they are grafted on to any root stock like Flavicarpa, they will grow here. But if you don’t graft, it’s an uphill battle. Q. Which are the varieties most resistant to woodiness? A. Woodiness is the mosaic virus. It is spread by aphids and thrips. The red ones – Pandora, Ruby, Gaby’s Red – are probably the most resistant to it. I have never had one woody passionfruit in any of those. If the North root stock gets going, it might stop the problem. Q. Do you graft any of your varieties? A. Only the Mollissima – the Banana passionfruit mentioned earlier. This is the only one I graft. Others all are grown from seed. (To develop a hybrid) You use basically closed-pollination, so you go out, hand pollinate, and close the flowers off. Q. All your hybrids are actually done by hand? A. They are done by hand. When you are using Colchicine to alter the plant, (say) if I am going to pollinate on to an Incarnata, I cut one of the little buds out of it, near the top, and I put a drop of Colchicine and pollinate on the one above where you put in the Colchicine. If you use the Incarnata as the female, you get a different result to that if you used the other one, the edulis, as the female. It is the same with the big Quadrangularis: I use the pollen from the Quadrangularis on to the Alata to get Decaisneana, but I get a totally different plant if I do it the other way around. Q. When you are bringing seed back in from overseas, what is the best way of separating the pulp from the seed?

A. I have a commercial way of doing it. I cut open possibly 1000 fruit, the pulp goes into a 15-gallon garbage bin. I use 10% hydrochloric pool acid to water.  Make sure the water covers the pulp and the seed. Then I insert a paint stirrer on an electric drill and whip it around and leave it for about 2 or 3 hours. Then I come back and stir it again. I have two sieves – one that the seeds will go through but bigger stuff won’t, and the smaller one underneath that the seed won’t go through. I hose it off with a high-pressure hose and it comes out clear and is dried off quickly. If you want to do it at home, get a blender mixer and put elastoplast around the blade (so not to smash up the seed).

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Commercial Marcotting of Fruit Trees  by Peter J. Young      

Marcotting is the recognised international horticultural term for aerial layering originating from the French word ‘marcotte’ that means ‘to aerial layer.  This method of vegetative propagation is widely used throughout the world to clonally propagate fruit trees that are very difficult to reproduce by any other means, e.g. Lychee and Longan.  It is also an easy way to successfully propagate most types of plants without the need for specialised equipment, growing houses or skills. Marcotting is commonly used in Asia for the propagation of most fruit trees in particular Citrus, Fig and Mango and also many ornamentals such as Hibiscus, Rose, ‘Casuarina and Syzygium.  Such marcotted branches are often sold as marcots at markets or through retail outlets with fruit and/or flowers attached alleviating the need for Labels.

Marcotting does use up large amounts of propagation material and is labour intensive.  Both these factors limit the commercial use of this propagation technique when compared to conventional methods in highly competitive nursery industries.  It can also produce a weak rooted plant that is prone to lodging if the root system is not properly trained when the marcot is removed from the parent tree and grown on.

MARCOTTING PRINCIPLE
The basic principle is to cincture the branch by completely removing a section of bark right around the branch to a width of 1-4 cm depending on branch diameter.  A suitable rooting media is placed over the cinctured area and enclosed in an impervious material that will retain the desired moisture level in the rooting media and keep excess moisture out. Usually sterile peatmoss is used as the rooting media and clear plastic is used as the impervious material.  The plastic is held firmly in place by binding with strong twine or by using plastic covered wire, such as twist-ties. The marcot rootball needs to be held firmly in place during the rooting period as any twisting of the rooting media around the branch will damage roots.

BOTANY
Cincturing the branch removes the bark and hence the phloem or food conducting tissue down to the active cambium layer. Care must be taken not to excessively damage the water conducting tissue or xylem inside the cortex or the hard woody section of the branch.  The stronger the cortex or woody section, the easier it is to cincture a branch without damaging the xylem or water conducting tissue. This is important as the branch stem and leaves above the cincture rely on this water supply for survival.

Plant food manufactured by the leaves above the cincture can no longer transfer down the branch to the lower stem and roots and accumulates in the cinctured branch.  This accumulation of food reserves is as important as root development as it is this food reserve that supports the marcotted branch once removed from the tree until an independent root system develops.
It is important that no active cambium cells or any bark remnants are allowed to remain within the cinctured area.  Re-callusing of the cincture will result in food reserves going back into the main parent plant and even if adequate roots develop in the marcot rootball, the marcot can die soon after removal from parent tree due to lack of food reserves.

Starches and carbohydrates begin to accumulate at the top of the cincture.  This encourages the development of a ring of callous at that point and provided moisture conditions and rooting media are correct, roots develop from this callous into the rooting media.
The first roots that appear are generally thick, corky, adventitious roots that are few in number and very fragile. In time, fibrous secondary roots develop from the primary roots.  It is important that marcots are allowed to remain on the parent tree until secondary roots are well developed.  This will vary depending on plant genus, species, variety and temperature.  Usually a minimum of 10 weeks to maximum 20 weeks is required for proper root development and sufficient food reserve accumulation.

MARCOTTING PROCEDURE Cincturing

The width of the cincture is generally 3-4 times wider than the branch diameter. A pair of adjustable pliers or multi grips are ideal for bark removal. Some species with very active cambium that tends to re-callous during the rooting period, need to be left for 1-2 weeks prior to wrapping with rooting media.  Alternatively the cambium can be removed by scraping or by using abrasive emery paper. Angular stems can be a problem as bark with associated cambium may remain in grooves.  Remove bark using a pointed instrument. Cincturing is best done when there is good sap flow as bark is easier to remove.

Rooting Media Type/Placement
Many different media may be used such as peatmoss, vermiculite, perlite, bagasse, leaf mould, clay and straw, well drained soil, coconut dust, rice hulls and raw sphagnum moss.  Any media that is well aerated but holds moisture is suitable. Generally, peatmoss or raw sphagnum moss mixed with varying amounts of vermiculite or peatmoss is used to obtain the correct physical properties for each particular plant species.  Sterile disease free materials give best results.  A rooting media that holds together is easier to use as less is lost during the plastic wrapping procedure.

Rootball size should be as small as possible relative to branch size to achieve success, e.g. a completed rootball of 12 cm x 8 cm is ideal when marcotting Lychee and Longan branches 1-2 cm in diameter with a total marcot branch length of 50-60 cm.  Too large a rootball will hold excess moisture that will inhibit root development and increase the weight on the parent tree that can cause limb breakage.
The placement of the rooting media is important.  Aim to have the top of the cinctured area in the top one-third of the rooting media.  This allows for some flexibility when wrapping rooting media onto branch.  Too low and the roots will not develop as the top tie will prevent root development.  Too high and the roots will not have sufficient room to grow.

Wrapping Methods The methods of ‘putting on the rooting media, plastic wrapping and securing vary greatly depending on personal preference and speed of operation required.

1.  Plastic sleeve – suitable for small numbers as this method is slow. The required size plastic sleeve is pulled down over top of branch, tied off below cincture, rooting media placed into sleeve, plastic sleeve is pulled up, media squeezed tight and plastic sleeves tied off above cincture. Approx. 25 per hour/200 per 8 hour day.

2. Split pre-filled plastic pouch and flap – lower pouch is filled with rooting media, pouch is placed around cincture, rooting media is pushed up and around branch.  Remaining plastic flap is wrapped around branch and fixed top and bottom using twist-ties. Approx. 45 per hour/350 per 8 hour day.

3.    Pre-filled plastic bags tied off with 30-60 cm twine – plastic bags 20×10 cm are pre-filled and the open end tied off with 60 cm of strong twine. The plastic bag is cut from twine knot along one side and down to bottom. Push rooting media up around branch, pull plastic either side of branch over and around rooting media.  Tie up using attached twine. Approx. 50 per hour/400 per 8 hour day

4. Jiffy 7 peat pot/alfoil wrap for mini marcots – Jiffy 7 peat pots are expanded in water and allowed to free drain.  Cut attached net lengthways along one side of Jiffy 7. Push peatmoss around branch wrap with pre-cut alfoil sheet – suitable for very small branches around  0.5 cm only.  Limited use – generally when propagation material is scarce.

TIME TO MARCOT
Marcotting can be carried out at any time of year so long as the bark is easily removed during the cincturing operation. Late spring-early summer is the best time provided mother plants are well grown and under irrigation if dry weather conditions are experienced at dust time of year.  Best root development occurs under diurnal temperature range 15-28 C depending on plant species. Ideally if marcots can be removed and grown on during the warmer summer months, root establishment is easier and plants are established before the onset of cool winter temperatures.  If dry springs and early summers are likely or if parent trees are not irrigated, it may be best to delay marcotting until mid summer or when rainfall is likely.  Excessive rain with extended periods of cloudy weather and low temperatures’ generally gives poor results.  The physical properties of the rooting media and thickness of plastic used may need to vary according to associated weather conditions experienced relative to time of year.

AFTER CARE
When removing mature marcots with very dry rooting media, place in water within 5-10 minutes of removal to avoid stress and possible root damage.  Trim leaves on marcot branch according to extent of root system development.  Trim any twisted roots and roots growing around and upwards before potting on.  Keep newly potted plant in high humidity atmosphere of at least 75-¬80% R.H. Avoid excessive watering of newly planted marcot but do not let potting media and/or marcot rootball to dry out.

Care must be taken with fertilisers and any applied nutrients during initial establishment period. Weak nutrient solutions or small amounts of longer term slow release fertilisers are safest for 3-4 months. Well developed soil roots take 3-6 months to develop depending on plant species and temperature.

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I recently froze some elderberries.  I use the flowers for on top of salads, cordials.  You can also make fritters with the flowers.     Ref: Diane

Elderberry and Passionfruit Wine to Make a Dry Red    by Bruce Chadfield

– 5L or 7L bottles – 2kg liquidised elderberries, preferably picked fresh, frozen, and then defrosted – 400g passionfruit pulp – 3.8L water   1kg sugar – 1/2 teaspoon red tannin powder

Add 1 teaspoon yeast nutrient, 1 tspn pectolitic enzyme, 1 tspn tartaric acid, 1 tspn citric acid, and   Gervin (Variety A) yeast

Sterilise a 20L container, preferably an esky with a tight-fitting lid, but make sure it is NOT airtight.  Pour the liquidised fruit into the esky.  A small amount of the water may be used to make the liquidising easier.  Bring the rest of the water and the sugar to the boil in a separate pan.  When boiling, pour over the fruit and close the esky.  Leave to stand for 12 – 24 hours, then add the yeast, the pectolase, the yeast nutrient, the tartaric acid, the citric acid and the tannin.  Leave to ferment for ten days, stirring twice a day with a clean wooden spoon.  The lid should be left on the esky at all other times. At the end of the ten days, strain the contents through a nylon bag into a sterile bucket, then transfer into sterilised demijohns (leave approximately 2 – 3 cm air gap between the top of the wine and the bottom of the bung), fit an air lock, half fill with water, and plug the other end of the air lock with a loose plug of cotton wool.  At this stage there will be more than 5L, so you will need to assess what quantity is left and put it into whatever container you have, such that there is a small air gap at the top, and an air lock can be fitted.  Leave to finish fermenting and partially clear for another three to six weeks, then siphon the clearer wine from the sediment and put the wine into a new sterilised 5L demijohn.  At this stage, there may or may not be a small amount of wine left over.  Again, put this into a small container to which an air lock can be fitted.  Leave wine to stand and clear for a further four weeks – it may take longer.  When the clarity you require is achieved and you are sure that there is no movement of the water level in the air lock (apart from that expected from contraction due to varying temperatures day and night), the wine can be siphoned into bottles and stored appropriately.

Elderberry wine, unlike many other fruit wines, is one wine that does seem to improve with age.

Elderberry champagne  Get a 10 litre bucket, add 10 elderflower heads, juice and rind of 4 lemons, 4.5 ltrs water, 1 heaped tsp of cream of tartar (can substitute white wine vinegar), 450gms of sugar, wash flower heads and grate lemon rind, place in bowl and add water, cream of tartar, sugar (dissolve it in hot water some of the water) Champagne can be drunk almost immediately but can keep for several weeks. Wait until the bottle goes firm before you start to drink which usually is around 3 days but don’t leave it for more than a few weeks otherwise the bottle can blow!! Don’t use glass bottles for this reason – only soft drink bottles.

You can also substitute rose petals for the elder flowers and I’ve also used citrus too.

Homemade Wine using Silver Birch
I drilled holes in all my Silver Birch trees and put a piece of garden hose in the hole and put a 2 litre plastic soft drink bottle on the other end of the hose and in 2 days and I made wine following a recipe in a book.

Rice Wine
I put rice through the coffee grinder and made rice wine and it was potent! Neither Regina nor myself drink so I don’t make wine anymore.