The Urban Nanna

At last week’s fermenting workshop I talked about utilising the ‘use it or lose it’ table at my local greengrocer for fermenting practise. Today I’m doing just that with chillies, limes and garlic that were marked down for quick sale.

Here’s what I did:

(Before you begin, wash and weigh your jar)
1. Wash chillies & limes.
2. Remove any obviously manky bits. I avoid foods that have mouldy bits on, but if there’s squished or bruised flesh I just remove that and use the rest. Wrinkly or wibbly texture is fair game in my book.
3. Chop chilli & limes straight into jar.
4. Peel & smash some garlic. Add to jar. I used 5 big garlic cloves.
5. Weigh jar with ingredients in it. Subtract the jar weight you took earlier from this to see how heavy your ingredients are. I had 906g jar+food, and subtracted 454g for the jar, which means I have 452g food.
6. Multiply food weight by 2-3% to work out how much salt to add. Notes on this 👇🏼
7. Add salt, smoosh it all around with a wooden spoon until juice comes out & creates a salty liquid all around the food.
8. Leave to ferment in a cool spot for a week or two. Burp the jar every 3-4 days.
9. Once brine is cloudy & bubbles have stopped forming, I’ll blitz & dehydrate the whole lot to make a zingy chilli-lime seasoning powder.

Notes on adding salt:
I generally add 2.5% salt to most of my lacto-ferments, as this gives me some wiggle room with the final numbers.

In this case, I had 452 (g food) x 2.5% = 11.3
Which is the same as 452 x 0.025 = 11.3
This number (11.3) is how many grams of salt to add.

I know my scales won’t go to .3, so I’ll need to either round up or down. Rounding up will get me closer to 3% salinity, down will get me closer to 2%. Either is suitable for this kind of ferment.

I’m away for a few days of work later in the week, so I want this ferment to go a bit slower so the jar doesn’t need burping while I’m away. Thus I added 12g salt to encourage slow fermenting

It seems complicated on paper, but this took under 10 minutes, and now I get to leave it (mostly) alone for a couple of weeks, when I’ll blend and dehydrate it to make the best zesty flavour bomb. Not bad for $5 worth of ingredients!

Didn’t have a project on the go, so I’m whipping up a quick new top with fabric I bought a couple of years ago.

Now that I’ve had a go at making a few dresses, I know what I like in terms of fit for the bodice, and I reckon that could translate well into a top to wear with pants or over dresses. We’ll see!

I’ve really enjoyed having a go at making some of my own clothes the past 4 years. Once I realised I can just use existing clothes to create a ‘pattern’ to work with, it took away loads of the mental barriers I had around sewing.

This is part of the way I’m choosing to break up with Fast Fashion. The more clothes I can make with natural fibre fabrics that fit me well, the less need I have to buy fast fashion clothing. I’m also more likely to mend them (cos I know how much effort and time went into them), so that extends the time I don’t need to buy new clothing.

Huzzah for stacking functions and reducing my carbon footprint!
Permaculture Principle 3: Obtain a yield 4: Apply self-regulation & accept feedback 6: Produce no waste 9: Use small & slow solutions

Let’s play another round of ‘What came home from the op-shop with NannaAnna?’! You all did such a good job last time - I was surprised by how well you know me!! 🥰

All of this was at the in Mornington today. I’ll give you a hint that I was very restrained and only brought home 4 of the items pictured, including the cat tunnel, which - as evidenced by Little Bit The Ponka Puddingpants - clearly made it back with me. 😆

Oh, and Xennials - the dresses!!! Do you remember going to birthday parties in these froufy frilly handmade confections?!? It was a total blast from the past spotting these! 😍

Permaculture Principle 3: Obtain a yield 4: Apply self-regulation and accept feedback 6: Produce no waste

I visited the Mornington CDS recycling dept today, and had a great chat with Lisa who runs the show down here.

If you’ve not heard of CDS, or you’ve seen the blue & yellow collection hubs but not known what they are, here’s the lowdown:

💙💛CDS stands for Container Deposit Scheme, which is an independently run system where people can take a variety of empty common drink containers and get 10c for each one. If you remember the old ‘Cash for Cans’ system, this is basically that!

📍Victoria has 3 regions of operation for their collection points and depots: South, North and West. Each zone is managed by a different recycling body (Return It, Visy and TOMRA Cleanaway).

🚙🚐🚚 There are 3 types of collection points: 🚙OTC (Over The Counter). Compact RVMs in places like servos, neighbourhood centres and small businesses. Open when those locations are. Good for on-the-go donations (

Our Basic Mending workshop is quickly becoming a crowd favourite, which is fantastic news as that means folks are interested in breaking up with ‘fast fashion’ by valuing & repairing the clothes already own.😄

We had a few spots open up at our next Basic Mending workshop, happening very soon thanks to and , so if you’re keen to come along (it’s free!), check out the linkyd**k to June’s Sustainable Living Events in our profile and nab yourself a possie!

Permaculture Principle 2: Catch & store energy 3: Obtain a yield 5: Use & value renewable resources and services 6: Produce no waste 9: Use small & slow solutions

I will always have a soft spot for the first Saffron Milkcap of the mushroom foraging season 😍

The recent rain in Australia has made suburban and rural areas absolutely explode with fungi the past couple of weeks. It’s made me thankful to have spent many years learning a few reliable species I can confidently eat.

I’m also excited to continue learning about different edible species, and maybe add a new one to my list of varieties that I’ll feel safe eating. (It’s been 4 years since I added the last one!)

We’re lucky to have quite a few edible species of wild mushrooms grow around the country, but please do remember:

🤓You have to forage for knowledge before you can safely forage food to eat. Learn from experts, read reputable ID guides and get out in the field to practise your spotting & identifying skills. It’s a long game: strap in and enjoy the ride!

📚Be nerdy. Learn the Latin names of species. Call things by their common name by all means, but if you don’t know exACTly what species something is, how can you know it’s definitely safe to eat?? Also, nerds are awesome ☺️

👯‍♀️Know what doppelgängers edible mushrooms have, cos if they’re toxic, it’s not a mixup you can get away with
*Hot tip*: if you’re in NSW, Vic, or SA, the ‘white mushrooms on the nature strip that look like storebought mushrooms’ are the toxic Yellow-Staining Mushroom (Agaricus xanthodermus) in 9.5 out of 10 cases. Do not eat those.

☠️Eating a mushroom that is toxic - or has been exposed to harmful contaminants like chemical runoff - *can* absolutely end your foraging days permanently. And if they don’t, it’s very likely they’ll make you wish you’d never even heard the words ‘wild mushroom’, let alone eaten them

🚫If in doubt, leave it out. If you wouldn’t confidently feed what you’ve foraged to your very best friend’s toddler or your favourite grandparent, leave it out of your meal. No free food is worth the price you might pay for eating a ‘bad’ mushroom.

I’ve written up lots of other info about mushroom foraging in Australia which you can find on The Urban Nanna website. The linkedy d**k with where you normally go looking for them!

These kids workshops are going to be so fun!!!

Little Bit has been giving me constant feedback as I develop the activities, and she has given them her paw print of approval ☺️

I’m excited to be prepping for some very special kids classes in July! More info to come, but they’re going to be around the northern suburbs of Naarm; they’ll be a crafty exploration of fun things you can make with old, unwanted clothes; and they’re going to be a brilliant free school holiday activity for local kids.

Weeheeeheeeee!!! 🧵🪡🧶🪢👚🩳

The nearby op-shops have been particularly packed with things I like lately. Can you guess which ones I adopted and which I left behind?

(The clothing was all $2/each, and I stocked up for materials to use in some upcoming kids workshops 😄)