Getting creative with less. Recipe lessons from the Australian Women’s Weekly during wartime

I started growing flowers for cutting on my allotment over 10 years ago. I was really interested in where the food we ate came from, and I had started to wonder about the provenance of the flowers at my local florist and the ones in buckets at the supermarket. The more I read the more I realised growing my own would be better for the planet – many shop-bought flowers have a significant carbon footprint because they’ve been grown abroad and there are issues around the chemicals used to grow them, the demands made on local water supplies and the working conditions of the growers and pickers. I also preferred a certain style of flower arrangement, something that looked like it had been picked from the garden, with a looser more natural feel.

Header image: Lupinus albus (altramuces o chochitos), by Calapito via Wikimedia Commons.

Dorm shopping can be overwhelming. The lists of must-haves grow ever-longer, meaning you definitely “missed” something while moving into the college room—whether for yourself or a loved one. But whoever may be nesting in the small space, it’s now been a few weeks. You’ve gotten a feel for what you need to pick up versus what you don’t, and may be looking to fill in some gaps that make dorm living more comfortable, convenient, and stylish.

After a couple of years living in the wasteland that was my allotment, my lavender plant has gone a little wayward and woody. The rosemary is the same way, really. They should have had an annual chop after flowering, to keep them nice and fresh. It’s possible that some serious remedial pruning later in the summer will shock them into more appropriate behaviour – but it’s not guaranteed. The garden wouldn’t be the same without rosemary and lavender (their flowers and their scents, their lovely flavours), but they’re easy plants to replace if they get out of control. (There’s nothing inherently wrong with a big, bushy lavender or rosemary, I just don’t have the space to let them grow.)

Mr. Liggett: Miss Mack… Could you tell us your answer to question number four? Why do nitrogen nodules cling to the roots of plants?

Header image: Suited up to simulate the conditions of working outside on Mars. Jonathan Clarke (the author, left) with visiting engineer Michael Curtis-Rouse, from UK Space Agency (right). Jonathan Clarke personal collection, Author provided.

I’m not the kind of person who creates a meal plan and shopping list every week, and then sticks to it religiously. I do like to have some idea of what we’re going to eat, however, as this cuts down on the number of nights when there’s nothing for dinner. Our current methodology is to fill the fridge and the freezer with things we eat regularly, and to eat them in rotation to avoid food waste. It’s a mix-and-match, ‘that will go nicely with this’ kind of thing, rarely looking more than 2 days ahead unless there’s a special event happening. It works for us, and we have very little waste.

The red planet. It may hold no life, but is it dead? [Image credit: NASA/JPL]

The role downunder played in helping track the Apollo 8 mission to the Moon.

Can we grow food on the Moon or Mars? That was the question that started Dr Wieger Wamelink, ecologist and exobiologist at the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands, on a research quest in 2013.

Header image: One of the Vanguard satellites being checked out at Cape Canaveral, Florida in 1958. NASA

ESA’s ESTEC (European Space Research and Technology Centre) held their annual open day over the weekend. One of the projects on display was part of the MELiSSA (Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative) project, which is investigating ways to use microbiological cells, chemicals, catalysts, algae, bacteria and plants to process waste and deliver continuous supplies of oxygen, water and food.