I have just come inside from planting out some lettuce
seedlings. It is a bit late in the season but I have been away for a couple of
weeks and today is my first opportunity since returning. The thing is that
right now, after bits and pieces of gentle rain, is the perfect time to scoop up
some of the beautiful soil that my 3 lovely chooks have been making for me all
summer. I throw lots of weeds and finished plants etc in the chook yard and the
chooks spend everyday turning it all into soil / compost for me. When I clean
out the laying boxes and roosting hay, that all goes on top of the heap and
eventually it goes out into the garden. Systems make life so lovely! Why would
I buy soil or compost when I have chooks to make it for me!
So, I made 6 dents down into the rotted hay mulch, which I
had piled on top of some weeds in a garden bed before I went away, then put a
cupped handful or two of chook yard soil into the dents and planted my lettuce
seedlings in. Next, I covered each with a plastic milk container, right way up,
lid removed and with the bottoms cut off, to give them a warmer, sheltered
start. I rarely buy milk in plastic and these are all several years old,
re-used over and over.
Cygnet Autumn Garden Market
Sunday, May 22nd, 11am – 3pm, at The Cannery. All things
gardening. All inside. Stalls, presentations, food, coffee plus pumpkin
competitions for everyone young and old: bring something creative you have made
with or about pumpkins, bring your best pumpkin scones, bring your longest
tromboncino! Guess the weight of my pumpkin, enjoy face painting and colouring
in as well as other pumpkin games and fun. Bring some seeds of your favourite
pumpkin, to share. Bring whatever pumpkins you have grown, to join our display
of Cygnet Pumpkin Patch Mania (write your name on them so you can collect them
again, from my place, on Monday). Prizes will be cute little pumpkin candles
made by a local family.
More about the chook yard
The winter/spring product I appreciate most is their
production of the most beautiful leaf soil from the fallen leaves of two large
oak trees that overhang the chook yard. Thousands of oak leaves fall from now
into winter and form a very thick layer of gorgeous dry leaves which is the
playground for the chooks all winter. They constantly turn it, manure it and
crush it, while the rain dampens it, resulting in a very fine, deliciously
soft, quite acidic, leaf mould or leaf soil by mid spring. I rake it up and
spread it around liberally wherever acid loving plants grow (such as
blueberries, strawberries, azaleas, camellias, some Tasmanian native forest
plants etc) and where I am going to plant acid loving vegetables such as
tomatoes.
Garlic
Plant
out hard neck varieties in May and even June. In spring they will produce tall,
curly, green stems called scapes, which are fabulously delicious. I leave some
to grow scapes but some I cut off so more energy goes into growing the bulbs.
These will be ready to harvest in January or even February and have a hard
stem, right down into the garlic head. In a wet summer, these survive better than
the softnecks as they are less prone to rot because of the way they grow tight
around the hard neck.
Check
out Tasmanian Gourmet Garlic website and Facebook page for excellent, local
information about growing garlic.
If
you have garlic that is sprouting and cannot use it all, you can simply plant
the cloves close together into some wide pots and use it later, like spring
onions or prop the garlic cloves up in decorative bowls, inside the house,
without soil. Keep the roots damp but not too wet and trim with scissors to
sprinkle into salads and soups. They will take a few clips before they become
exhausted.
Onions and day length
Long-keeping onions like those you usually see in shops, are
very sensitive to day length. They prefer to grow during lengthening days, that
is after that shortest day. Grow them at the wrong time and, in spring, they
will not bulb up. Seeds can be sown late May but best in June (according to
Peter Cundall), so that plant growth occurs in the cold of winter and with
lengthening days. However, salad onions, spring onions, garlic, potato onions,
shallots and chives are best sown and planted out in April and May.
Cuttings and division
Now is the perfect time for softwood cuttings of deciduous
plants like grape vines, glory vines and black currants as well as for
rosemary, Chilean guavas and other evergreen edibles. Cut lengths of new grape
vine growth to include 4 buds. Put into a damp, light, potting mix deep enough
for 2 buds to go below the soil and two above. A cheap potting mix with no
added nutrients is best. With rosemary and other evergreens, strip the leaves
off the bottom 2/3 of a cutting and place into potting mix. You can put several
in a pot. Cover with a plastic bag secure with a rubber band. Leave in a
sheltered place and keep just damp, not wet, until spring. Check for root growth
and pot up to grow on further or leave longer. Don’t let them get too hot or
dry out.
|
Sow in the garden now |
Plant in the garden now |
|
Broad
beans Bok
Choy Mustard
greens esp. frilly Miners’
lettuce Corn
salad (mache) Shungiku
(edible, Japanese Chrysanthemum) Radishes Salad
and spring onions Coriander Chervil Stinging
nettles (for teas and pestos all winter) English spinach Green manure Calendula |
Perennial
Leek bulbils including elephant garlic Garlic
cloves Potato onions Seedlings
of Asian veg. Flower
bulbs Sow in trays to
plant out: Lettuces Kales Broccoli
raab Red
onions Sow to stay in
the hothouse or outside in frost-free areas: Sugar
snap peas, podding peas |
Reading
|
Skills for Growing by
Charles Dowding
A fabulous
book for new or experienced gardeners written from a lifetime as a market
gardener in Devon, using a myriad of skills gained while connecting with the
earth. |
The Useful Garden
While away in
SA I bought a magazine called The Useful Garden, which incorporates all kinds
of other uses for plants. Apart from being a delightful, very informative
read, I just love the quotes dotted through the pages… I took my
love to the garden that the roses might see her - unknown I will
pick the smooth yarrow that my figure may be sweeter, that my lips may be
warmer, that my voice might be gladder. – Ancient Gaelic incantation for
picking yarrow Gardens
are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade. – Rudyard
Kipling Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap
but by the seeds that you sow. - Robert Louis Stevenson. |
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