Author: Jerry Coleby-Williams

Freelance curator, sustainable horticulturist, conservationist, writer. "Sometimes, the only thing more dangerous than a question is an answer." 208th Ferengi Law of Acquisition

Using Every Drop More Than Once

The last thing we want is for any water to go down the drain. By mid-morning today, heavy showers filled our 21,000 litre rainwater tank. It’s starting to overflow into our network of drainage pipes, which soak the soil deeply from 70 cm down and below. When this network has done its job the subsoil…

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Autumn Harvest And Wild Weather

We’ve just enjoyed a good picking of autumn crops from the garden On Friday I planted out the mangelwurzel seedlings in their final positions. We ate the tender, leafy thinnings which taste like silverbeet in a stir fry. Damo provided sugar syrup for the honeybees, which aren’t foraging in this wild weather. The native honeybee…

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Hive Society! A Bee And Wasp Gallery

Gardens are full of surprises if you keep your eyes open – and have a camera handy. This autumn, flowering Pigeon peas proved irresistible to six different native bee species. What’s going on in your garden?

Is Duncan Street’s Nature Strip Now Safe?

Bayside residents have vowed to stop council plans to eliminate this nature strip. Subsequent media coverage by ABC Radio and Channel Ten TV on Tuesday 27th May 2008, it now appears that Brisbane City Council are willing to discuss ways to retain and improve this community asset! Here’s the original story

“Queensland Gardeners Too Dumb To Grow” – Minister

In a recent guide, ‘Waterwise Queensland: Gardening with greywater’*, published on 26th April 2008, Queensland minister for Natural Resources and Water, the Honourable Craig Wallace hopes to popularise grey water in home gardens. During the ongoing drought in SE Qld, home gardeners have grabbed their buckets and answered government calls to reduce their mains water…

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Native Bee Day

On Saturday I became the proud owner of a hive of native stingless bees, Trigona carbonaria. A little web-searching found that Dr Tim Heard, a CSIRO entomologist and native bee specialist, supplies colonies and his brother, Frank, makes specially designed hives for them. Stingless bees and honeybees happily co-exist. Happily Brisbane provides an ideal climate…

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Honey Flora Report – May

We’re members of the Bayside Beekeepers Association, and every month they release a Honey Flora Report listing significant flowering local native plants useful for honey production. Our hives are busy harvesting pollen and nectar from the urban forest and garden plants as well, so we’ve decided to add them to the BBA report.

Queensland Minister ‘Greys’ Grey Water

Here’s an open letter I wrote to the Hon. Craig Wallace, Qld Minister for Water: Dear Minister, Re: Media Release: ‘Greywater guide gives green tips for Queensland Gardeners’, 26.4.08. A copy of your media release was forwarded to me from the office of Queensland Conservation. I urge you to withdraw this publication before you mislead…

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Ontario Joins Quebec In Pesticide Ban

“Canadian province to ban garden pesticides. Canada’s Ontario province says it will ban the sale and general use of pesticides in what the province says will be among the toughest such environmental laws in North America. Canada’s most populous province said the new legislation, expected to take effect next spring, would outlaw homeowners’ use of…

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Real Carbon Capture And Sequestration

While Australian governments state and federal, past and present, throw vast amounts of money at unproven ‘clean coal’ technology they are ignoring a proven method of pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and storing it. A thirty year scientific trial by the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania (USA) placed conventional, industrial farming systems and organic systems…

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