February 2019 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

It has been quite difficult to think about anything other than the fires these last few days. Air quality has ranged from moderate to hazardous and back again, as the smoke settles then shifts. (Check out aqicn.org for real time air quality world wide). What does this mean for our gardens? Many plants shut down during such conditions so if you are noticing reduced vigour and fruit set, this is probably why. Time will set them right again, hopefully! Some of our native plants respond by opening cones and seed pods, having evolved to respond to fire reducing competition and in anticipation of better chances of survival.

My tomato experiment

I planted 5 tomatoes in each of 3 different situations in my garden. Here are the results so far:

1.   Planted in a well prepared and deep hay mulched bed surrounded by self sown nasturtiums, calendular, sweet cicely and rocket, and edged by garlic chives, sage, horse radish and Chilean guavas. These tomatoes produced good sized, ripe tomatoes very quickly. I have had to water only a couple of times so far. The plants are healthy but shorter than I expect at this time. They are mostly laden to breaking point with tomatoes but the one near the horseradish is not so great. Difficult to water the whole bed because I cannot use the sprinkler on the tomatoes.

2.   Planted in a regular, unmulched garden bed where I had dug in weeds and other finished greenery well before panting time and added the same things as in the first bed. The tomato plants are tall and strong but have needed a lot of watering. Now I have mulched them this may improve. Only 2 ripe cherry tomatoes and one other but nothing more yet. Fruit are slow and quite sparse.

3.   Planted into a bed where I had tomatoes last year and with not as much preparation as I usually do but I ran out of time to do more just then. Lightly mulched. Next to 2 purple sprouting broccoli that I have left so I can gather seed. These are not very happy but have produced a few smaller than average ripe tomatoes. They have not drooped at all so I have not watered as much as bed 2.

What this tells me, in a rough and ready kind of way, is that, unlike my previous understanding, tomatoes love companions. Under the right conditions they will need very little water to produce excellent fruits, right from the start. What it also highlights is that it is good not to have all your eggs in one basket because, if there had been a lot of rain instead of being dry, then bed one may have suffered from so much wet foliage all around the tomatoes and bed 2 may have been the best 😊

Making use of old terracotta pots for watering

When it is hot and dry, it is time for the terracotta pot treatment. I seal up the hole in the bottom of some old, chipped terracotta pots by sticking something over it with silicon, put them into the ground up to their necks and filled them with water, then put on a lid and let the water soak out into soil that I have watered well, to get it started. Keep refilling the pots. In Adelaide, I planted lettuce seedlings around some pots then celery and beans around another. This kept 5 lettuce plants growing happily through a heatwave (2 weeks over 40C and humidity at 3%) and I even went out and could pick leaves in the hottest part of the day, and they were crisp......amazing. The beans grew fast and strong and the celery was the best I had ever grown and only went to seed after 6 months of eating the stems piece by piece, all through summer and beyond ...that's pretty good!

Cucumbers

I was very organised in one area of my garden! In a spot that is too shady in winter for brassicas, I sowed broad beans only for the purpose of digging them in just as they began to flower, as a green manure. (I had broad beans for eating, elsewhere). This I did in October, adding a whole bag of sheep manure and some locally made biochar as I dug. In December I sprinkled around some potash and planted out some Dragon’s Egg cucumber seedlings from the Seed Freaks open day. They burst into growth and have produced heaps of little, apple cucumbers which are crisp and delicious. Originating in Croatia, this variety is a winner for Tasmania even in slightly shady spots. I will be saving these seeds for sure. They would be lovely on a frame, with the prolific eggs hanging below….a perfect use for my winter bamboo harvest.

Pear and cherry slug

If you see tiny little black ‘worms’ on the leaves of your pears, cherries, quinces and even plums and the leaves are turning brown and crisp, you have this slug. A simple control is to spray the entire tree with a mist of water then throw ash or lime all over it. Do this a couple of times and they will be desiccated. Try to stand up-wind!

To water young trees

To water fruit or other important trees: Buy a roll of the porous, black hose made from recycled tyres. Run it around THE DRIP LINE of the tree (where the roots are!), not near the trunk (where the roots are not!). Join into a circle with a T-piece that has a click on fitting so you can connect your hose to it. Cover with thick, preferably woody mulch. These ooze very slowly so leave it running for 3 or more hours, until the soil is wet down at least 30cms because that is where the roots should be. Do this once a month to encourage deep roots.

 

 

Seeds to sow now Broccoli raab Kale Beetroot Shungiku Lettuce Asian greens (late Feb.) Carrots Spinach & silver beet Spring onions Hakurei turnips Tas. swedes Parsnips Radishes

Plant out now, yes now, not later Brussel sprouts Cauliflower Broccoli – regular, sprouting and raab Lettuce   Jobs for February Plant or move citrus Summer prune stone fruits Prepare beds for autumn plantings Save seeds for next spring Enjoy your garden!

December 2021 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

Spring has been challenging for our gardens, with a week of incredible wind in September, followed by a week of snow and ice then never-ending rain in October and November. Finally, we have sunshine, which may verge on hot this week! Is it any wonder that some of the seedlings you may have planted out in October or November are not going well? It is not too late to replace young plants now. I have been getting beds ready but keeping most fruiting plants, such as tomatoes, cucumbers and pumpkins, in my mini greenhouse until now.

Flowers, seeds and more

All the winter vegetables have stopped producing food for us and are wanting to reproduce themselves now. Brassicas, chard, chicory, winter fennel, lettuce, asparagus, daikon and more are all sending up flower stalks. These flowers and old plants either attract beneficial insects directly or they attract aphids, scale and other so called “pests”, which actually are the food for the emerging beneficial insects. Always leave a few old plants of each sort, to provide the diversity we need in our gardens so they can maintain the balance, without us needing to interfere. For example, I tie one or 2 to a stake, removing some of the bottom leaves, so I can plant new things nearby. I can honestly say that I rarely have a problem with pests or disease because I always make sure I have every stage of plant life represented at all times.

Obviously, you can also save some of the mature seeds to sow next season. Only save seeds if the plants were healthy and produced well for you first time around! Wait until the seeds are brown on the plant before picking them. Put the dry pods or whole heads into a paper bag, labelled with the date, the name of the plant and variety, if you know it, for about a month. From experience, let me tell you that you will NOT remember it later! After a month, shake or rub the seeds off or remove them from the pods etc and store in jars, once again labelled.

If you would like to learn more about seed saving, come to the Cygnet Seed Library’s “Seed Celebration - an afternoon of seed saving demos & community fun”, Sunday Dec. 12^th , in the garden behind ‘Cuckoo’ (17 Mary St., Cygnet). Seed saving demos from 2pm, shared picnic dinner from 5pm. Details on facebook and our website. All welcome.

Growing Basil

Unpredictable and tricky until you find what works, basil is loved by everyone! Here is what I have discovered works for me: I sow in trays in December, only the large leaf varieties such as Genovese and Lettuce Leaf which grow fast in our climate and have fabulous flavour. The seeds take a while to germinate so be patient, keep the soil damp but not wet. Once germinated, water with a weak seaweed solution until they are big enough to transplant. I put several plants into each 20cm pot with a rich potting mix and keep them in my little green house, as they hate the cold. I like to have 6 pots, some sown early Dec. and some later. They don’t mind a bit of shade as long as it is nice and warm and if you live somewhere consistently warmer than Cygnet they may be fine outside. Don’t overwater and do pick regularly.

Plant out in the damp soil

In early December, sow and plant cucumbers, zucchinis, corn, sunflowers, salad greens, herbs, flowers and everything you can get your hands on. After rain is the best time to get plants going. Even though the soil is still damp, always water your seedlings in. Why? Because every tiny root hair needs to be in contact with the soil to work its magic and extract nutrients from the soil. Watering in is the only way to ensure this happens.

Watering

Tomatoes, corn, other fruiting vegetables and flowering plants – water the roots deeply only once a week, even if it is hot. In very general terms, water soaks in to about 10 times the rainfall. Once your tomatoes reach Christmas time, they will be down (and out) about 30cms so you need to give them 3cms of water.

That far down, the soil will stay moist enough for a week, especially if you use a thick, hay mulch. So, I will be giving my tomatoes 3cms water once a week; not next to the trunk, but out about 30cms, preferably on 2 sides. Shallow, frequent watering, on the other hand, ensures your plants have a shallow root system, susceptible to the stresses of constant heating and cooling, and will grow a wonderful canopy of leaves, with little fruit, before succumbing to some disease.

Hand watering is great for pots, seeds, seedlings and in times of infrequent watering. It is a pleasant morning or evening past-time but not the best way to irrigate a whole garden.

Tomatoes do not like wet leaves so they are best served by what I call finger drippers – more like a cross between a dripper and a spray, with coarse droplets radiating out like fingers to about 10 -15cms in diameter. These can easily be seen and have removable caps which can be easy screwed in or out to adjust the flow. I place one finger dripper between every tomato plant. (I plant the tomatoes about 1m apart). They are easily plugged into a run of black poly pipe. I put a click fitting on the end and connect my hose to this once a week for 1 hour.

 

December Jobs	January Jobs
Sow seeds: beans, zucchini, cucumbers, basil, carrots, celery, lettuce, leeks, parsley, sunflowers, radish, parsnip, pumpkin, chicory. SOW WINTER VEG too.	Sow seeds: Lots of winter veg benefit from early summer sowing so they reach a good size to plant out in autumn: fennel, Brussel sprouts, red cabbage, leeks, kale, beetroot.
Plant out: corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkin, other veg seedlings, potatoes, potted herbs, flowers etc Basil: keep in greenhouse in good sized pots with rich soil and water well but allow to drain well before watering again.   Fill in spaces with flowers, comfrey, daisies, herbs and love.	Dec and Jan: -      Mulch vegetable garden well, preferably with old hay or old silage. -      Mulch fruit trees well, preferably with bark chips -      Feed food garden with seaweed solution for pest resistance and fish emulsion or home made worm brews. -      Harvest and enjoy!

February 2018 Kitchen Garden Guide

Today, 800 million people around the globe are engaged in urban agriculture, which can produce up to 15 times more food than a rural plot of the same size, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. In addition, the FAO notes, urban farming “generates employment, recycles urban wastes, creates greenbelts, and strengthens cities’ resilience to climate change.”

Not only that, but doing something productive like growing some of your own food is satisfying and getting your hands into the soil can bring a glow to your cheeks, microbes to your gut and consequently a smile to your whole body!

Did you know that Australia has the longest history of food growing in the world? I recently read an eye-opening book called Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe, about how the Aboriginal peoples of Australia were not just hunters and gatherers but also successful, innovative farmers; saving and sowing seeds, dividing roots and making extraordinarily complex fish traps way before any other civilization on earth. You may have seen Bruce Pascoe on Gardening Australia’s first show for the year, last week.

Pear and cherry slug

If you see tiny little black ‘worms’ on the leaves of your pears, cherries, quinces and even plums and the leaves are turning brown and crisp, you have this slug. A simple control is to spray the entire tree with a mist of water then throw ash or lime all over it. Do this a couple of times and they will be desiccated. Try to stand up-wind!

Watering tips

Yes it is lovely to stand about and day dream while spraying water with a hose, over the leaves of hot, dry plants. I do it often but it benefits mostly me, not the plants, as water needs to soak all the way down (and out) to the root tips, which may be 20cms below the surface and at least the same out from the stem.

1. Buy a rose (ie a hose fitting) that cascades like a watering can head and simply adjusts the flow by turning the head or operating a lever with your thumb. I bought mine from Bunnings. Never use a gun style or those dreadful ones that only change the shape of the jet. I think people who design watering attachments should have to be gardeners!
2. For hand watering in the garden, water each plant for a few minutes. What I do is walk around the garden beds several times because it is quite hard to stand still and water one plant for very long!
3. Use a sprinkler, if you are on town or dam water or have another plentiful supply. Leave it on for an hour. Reduce the frequency of your watering. The roots will grow deeper and withstand much hotter weather.
4. Use a deep hay mulch, lightly shaken over the soil. The water will penetrate and not just water the roots but also keep the microbes happy where the hay meets the soil.
5. For my tomatoes, which can suffer with diseases if watered overhead, I have installed a line of 13mm irrigation pipe and inserted finger drippers between each tomato plant. These have adjustable little knobs that distribute water out to the size of a spread hand, like fingers. I attach a hose once a week and leave it on for at least an hour. This way every tomato plant receives a deep watering over both sides, a good 30cms or more from the stem. As the plants mature and when the weather is cooler, they need less water. This is also good for cucumbers and zucchinis which prefer not to be watered on the leaves too much.
6. Group plants together that have similar water requirements.

Side dressing time

Side dressing means a supplementary feed once the plants are well established. A good thing to do for hungry plants in our short summer season to keep them powering along before the weather changes.  Now is a good time to side dress fruit producing vegetables, such as tomatoes, zucchinis, pumpkins, capsicums and eggplants (if you are clever enough to grow them here). A dose of potash, well watered-in with a watering can of fish fertiliser (preferably the one that uses carp which is a nasty pest fish in the Murray River) and seaweed extract is my recommendation.

Early February is the last chance to feed your citrus because new growth stimulated to grow later, when autumn is approaching, will result in the tips being burnt off, even if the plants are in a sheltered place, simply because of the cold on tender citrus shoots. I use poultry pellets and the carp fish fertiliser.

Seeds to sow now Broccoli raab Kale Beetroot Shungiku Lettuce Asian greens (late Feb.) Carrots Spinach & silver beet Spring onions Hakurei turnips Tas. swedes Parsnips Radishes

Plant out now, yes now, or before! Brussel sprouts Cauliflower Broccoli – regular, sprouting and raab Lettuce   Jobs for February Plant or move citrus Summer prune stone fruits Prepare beds for autumn plantings Save seeds for next spring Give pots and the veg. garden some seaweed and fish liquid feed in a hosable spray.

 

Books of the month Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe The Mix and Match Guide to Companion Planting by Josie Jeffery Australian Herbal by Penny Woodward

January 2014 Kitchen Garden Guide

Despite this week of real summer heat, the previous months of cold, wet and windy weather means that many of us are having trouble with our “summer” vegetables. I have self-sown miners’ lettuce, a cold season, salad green, coming up in my garden now when it normally comes up in autumn. There is not much we can do about the weather so I have decided to move on to attending more to the soil and to sowing winter vegetables.

Observe and Interact

This is the first principle of Permaculture. I have observed the weather and my garden and decided to take some action to work with, rather than against, nature.

Here is what I am doing to areas of my food garden that I have decided are never going to produce a worthwhile crop this summer. It is a ruthless decision but a good one. Excellent vegetables are available from our wonderful, organic, local market gardeners and small green grocers and I will still hope that my tomatoes will produce.

1.   I push over all the plants so they lie in the one direction, flat on the ground. Then, using a sharp spade, I chop it all up and leave it on the ground, weeds and all (as long as they are not seeding).

2.   I then sprinkle lime plus ash from the fire over as most of our Tasmanian soils are acidic and most of the winter veg we grow like alkaline soil. Ash also adds potassium and trace elements but has no calcium. Lime has calcium.

3.   If you have homemade compost you can add it next. If not, then do not worry.

4.   The next layer, when broken down, adds organic matter to a thin or hard soil, and is lucerne hay (Available locally. See her advert. in this paper). It is expensive but full of nutrients and you don’t need a thick layer. Pea stray would be great too. If you really don’t want to buy these, then newspaper could substitute, especially if your soil is already lovely and friable. Wet the layers of paper well as you go.

5.   Then, separated from the lime by the lucerne or paper, I add mushroom compost or cow manure or pelletised chicken manure or sheep manure. (Manure should not be mixed with the lime or nutrient take up is affected. By the time the paper / lucerne breaks down, the lime has dissolved into the soil).

6.   I will then add a thin layer of mulch such as ordinary straw. This keeps the soil life from the extremes of temperature as they break down the layers below.

7.   Water well as you assemble the layers. That way any future rain will penetrate and start feeding your soil.

8.   Plant out your seedlings into this in autumn.

 What to sow now and why

At 43 degrees south the days shorten and the light softens to such as extent in winter that is seriously affects the growth of plants. Think of the leaves of, for example, kale, as solar panels. With short days and the sun low in the sky each leaf needs to be twice as big in winter as in summer to catch the same amount of sun to power the plant. To achieve this growth by the end of autumn we need to sow these big plants now!! Once we get to mid-May food plants need to be full size so we can begin to harvest them through winter.

Moreover, we need to sow twice as many now as we would coming into spring when days are lengthening, so that we can allow the plants extra time to regrow after each harvest.

Getting the soil to its optimum condition for this time by working on it now will ensure your winter vegetables flourish. There is nothing more beautiful than picking vegetables that are dusted with frost, when you are rugged up in boots and scarf, fingers cold and the light sparkling on every leaf as the ice melts.

So, in trays in a sheltered spot I am sowing all my favourite soup, casserole and roasting vegetables, to eat by the fire in winter while I sip my homemade raspberry ratafia, blackcurrant cassis and Tas. pepperberries in vodka!

Fire and the garden

The recent reminders in the news about the Dunalley fires need action. Is there anything we can do to help protect our homes from fire? Most fires are not as devastating as the Dunalley fires and we can do some things to help reduce the flammability of our surroundings. Lush, deciduous trees and shrubs can replace those closest to the house, which contain oils, such as gum trees and even rosemary. There are excellent flammability lists on the Fire Tas website: www.fire.tas.gov.au/publications/1709%20Brochure.pdf

Watering

Almost everyone I speak to overwaters everything!! In the Tasmanian climate only minimal watering is required, unless extremely hot days are forecast.

I stick my finger into the soil, up to the second knuckle (first knuckle for pots). If the very tip of the finger feels dampness, I do not water, unless I am expecting extreme heat.

This encourages the roots to seek water down deep, where the soil moisture and temperature levels are more constant. If a plant develops shallow roots, it struggles to manage on a hot day as the soil around its roots becomes hot and dry very quickly and appears to need more water. Train your plants well and they will be happy, like your dogs and children!

Sow now	Plant seedlings
Brassicas, chards, kale, beetroot, fennel, parsnips and leeks for winter eating. Yes, sow now! Chives Carrots Lettuce JapaneseTurnips	Basil Pumpkins Zucchinis Tomatoes (summer might come late!)

Summer jobs

Prune stone fruits, put through chipper and use as mulch around the trees Mulch young trees thickly, out to the dripline to encourage soil life. Liquid feed citrus with fish and seaweed Water seedlings with seaweed Dead head roses and other flowering shrubs

Websites and books for summer reading

Blog - Food Garden Group- for inspiration from a food gardeners group in Hobart. Join their forum here.

Book -Travels in Blood and Honey: becoming a beekeeper in Kosovo