5th June, 8-9 pm Brisbane (AEST); 11 am -12 noon London (BST)
Bethan Burton - Flavours of Nature From Garden to Journal

One way to connect with the flavours of our food is to create an illustrated, step-by-step guide for our favourite recipe. This fun activity can help us commit the recipe to memory and also allows us to share the recipe with others. See if you can simplify the steps of your favourite recipe and illustrate it in your nature journal.

Nature journaler and botanist Yvea Moore, created a workshop series called Plant Families in Our Foods. In these videos Yvea takes a deep dive into the many important families that make up our diets, helping us identify and learn key characteristics of each family. You can watch the whole series of videos on on Yvea’s Youtube channel. Be sure to nature journal along with the videos to learn about these important plant families.

Certain foods hold cultural significance for different communities.“The three sisters” of corn, beans and squash are traditionally significant foods for Native peoples of North America. In Australia, native edible plants and animals traditionally used by Indigenous communities are called bush foods or bush tucker. To learn more you can watch this short video from Gardening Australia: Understanding Bush Foods.

What are the foods that are significant for you and your culture? How are these foods used? Can you write about and sketch these culturally significant foods in your nature journal?

Fruits often change colour, shape and texture as they ripen. Many fruits become sweeter and more colourful with maturity. You can find out why these changes happens by watching this video from Today I Found Out on YouTube. It can be a fun nature journaling challenge to document this ripening process.

There are so many benefits to growing edible plants in the garden. It is good for physical and mental health, connects us with our food, and increases the enjoyment of meals when they are made with fresh ingredients. If space is limited, or you live in an apartment, you can grow edibles very successfully in pots.

Gardening and nature journaling are a wonderful partnership. You can use your nature journal to keep track of what you have planted, record the changes you see in your garden over time, and write about the sensory experience of tasting the edible plants you have grown.

We are advised by nutritional experts that we should ‘eat a rainbow’ because the colours of foods indicate a range of different nutrients inside fruits and vegetables. How about linking your nutrition and your nature journal by painting a rainbow of foods from your fruit bowl and refrigerator. See how many colourful foods you can sketch on one page!