Building on Bushfoods | Australian native plants | Gardening Australia

Aunty Julie’s Garden and Community Food Project

Aunty Julie, a Djaara elder and lifelong Harcourt resident, turned her interest in cooking with Australian native ingredients into a garden and community food project. After retiring from teaching, she began growing easy-to-use plants such as lemon myrtle, other native myrtles and pepperberries, then expanded to more unusual species.

Her garden shows that some plants often thought of as tropical can grow in Harcourt’s challenging Central Victorian climate.

Gardening and Cultural Highlights

Julie grows lemon aspen, desert lime, minya berries, muntries and cherry ballart, among other native plants. Bush tomatoes have been harder to grow, but she plans to keep trying.

She values learning both the botanical and Aboriginal names for plants. Some names have layered meanings: Julie explains that girri girri, a name for lemon myrtle, can mean both “sour” and “urine.”

Cherry ballart is hemi-parasitic, attaching itself to another tree. Julie sees this as a reminder of how children and adults—and communities—depend on and support one another.

Food, Work and Community

Julie teamed up with the local Aboriginal organisation Nalderun to establish the Murnong Mammas, creating employment for Aboriginal women and sharing native ingredients through food.

When COVID disrupted catering, the group began selling products at farmers markets, including curries and flavoured salts. The project also introduces local people to Aboriginal culture through food and practical education.

Murnong Mammas shares recipes and ideas for using native ingredients, including wattleseed biscuits. Their Davidson plum powder is used in a date-and-protein ball, giving it a rounded sweet-and-tart flavour.

Charlie Dannolly-Lee’s business, Jarjum Walk, sells Indigenous herbal loose-leaf teas. One blend combines strawberry gum, lemon myrtle and native red-back ginger. What began as a hobby has grown into a business, with sales reaching the USA.

Notable Locations, Products and Speakers

• Locations: Harcourt, Castlemaine and the Central Highlands of Victoria
• People and organisations: Aunty Julie, Melinda Harper, Charlie Dannolly-Lee, the Murnong Mammas and Nalderun
• Plants and products: Lemon myrtle, pepperberries, lemon aspen, desert lime, minya berries, muntries, cherry ballart, Davidson plum powder, wattleseed biscuits, native curries, flavoured salts and Jarjum Walk teas