November 2022 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

Saturation! This last month or so will be testing your garden layout, water management and soil health. Don’t blame the weather; how your garden reacts is all about plant health, soil health, drainage and the state of the ecosystem you have had a big part in creating….. or not creating! Aphid and white fly infestations, rust, rot and root diseases as well as pollination issues can be sidestepped significantly by having a garden of biodiverse plants, including lots of Tasmanian natives, predator attracting plants, bird attracting plants and nesting sites as well as a soil packed with microbes, who have spent millions of years evolving strategies to keep the soil where they live healthy.

What to do now

1.If you have garlic rust, like I do in one patch because I foolishly planted in a low spot, push your fork well down in between the plants and open the soil up a bit, to help it dry off. I have also removed all leaves touching the ground. I am going to spray over the leaves a solution of 1 part full cream milk: 10 parts water. This is a very good fungal suppressant, as used by thousands of vineyards worldwide, in preference to chemicals because of its efficacy. Observe and learn from what you see.

2. Trees do not like to be waterlogged. Fork around the dripline, not digging, but rather pushing the fork in deep then rocking it forward and back, to let some air in. This will help relieve the compaction created by so much rain. The same applies to lawns, garden beds and even paths.

3. If your chook yard is boggy, don’t try to fix it by using something fine like hay because it may become mouldy and make your chooks sick. Instead, use something inert and coarse, like coarse straw, not too thick. Dig a few holes so the water can drain into them and fill them with gravel. If the roost floor is wet from the chooks coming and going with wet feet etc, dust with a little lime or carb soda, little and often, so as not to irritate their feet.

Grass

After 12 years of gardening here on my acre I can finally say that grass is no longer the problem that it was. Sure, nothing is perfect but I am pretty happy. What did I do? Firstly, I did not expect miracles and I have used no chemicals. Mostly I have mulched and mulched and fed and mulched and pulled and mulched and then some!

For example, I try not to let grass grow within the drip line of trees. As the trees grow, so the dripline expands and more grass is mulched over. Amongst the mulch I plant all manner of flowers, bulbs and herbs and native groundcovers too. This is fabulous for fire zones as it keeps dry mulch to a minimum, using plants as living mulch. At the same time it benefits soil microbes, little native birds and beneficial insects as well as looking pretty. Yes, it takes years but eventually you have flowers and herbs and trees and lovely garden beds with very little grass incursion. Start small, where you are, use what you have, do what you can….. and keep doing it!

Codling moth

The adult female codling moth lays approximately 60 whitish grey eggs that are about the size of a pinhead, on the surface of the leaves of apples, pears and quinces when the average temperature is over 15 degrees in spring and early summer. To reduce their numbers you must act now.

Codling moth eggs hatch after 10 days and the small caterpillars emerge to feed on the leaf surface and make their way to the fruit. They burrow into the fruit and head for the core. They will spend about three to five weeks inside the fruit feeding and putting on body mass until they are ready to emerge. This is the stage that we see, when fruit displays the tell-tale hole which leads to brown insides or early rotting when stored.

My mother’s remedy works well but annually led to her becoming embarrassed at her frequent visits to the local bottle shop every spring! She had a stash of tins, such as from tinned tomatoes, through which she drilled holes and tied string so that the tins can hang in a tree. Into each tin she put a dash of port and a double dash of water. She hung 2 or 3 tins in every apple, pear and quince tree. The male coddling moths are attracted to the port and drown in it, reducing the number of fertile eggs laid by the females. My mother topped up the liquids regularly.

There is more, information and several non-alcoholic controls outlined on the fantastic Global Net Academy website. Search for Tasmania.

November is beans time.

Add a handful of potash and a good spadeful of compost per square metre and fork them in. Sow beans into damp soil and water only once until the first leaves appear. This year I will wait until things have dried out somewhat or they may rot.

Climbing beans: Pole beans WILL blow over unless the structure is secure. I tie one end of my frame to a sturdy fence post. I especially love flat beans and have found some seeds, at last.

Bush beans: Bush beans are great for Tasmania as they produce faster than pole beans and aren’t as bothered by spring winds. There are hundreds of varieties to choose from and saving seed for next year is simply a matter of letting some of the pods mature fully and dry off before picking.

Cygnet Spring Garden Market: Sunday Nov. 13th, 11 – 3 @ The Cannery. 39+ garden stalls, 5 presentations, Cannery farm plates & bar, food vans and stalls, coffee, tool sharpening class (BYO tools to sharpen), Seed Library pack & chat, Children’s activities. Consider parking at Burtons Reserve, a 2 minute walk away. Details on FB and Instagram.
Jobs for November
Sow indoors to plant out later: Cucumbers, zucchinis (Romanesco), tromboncino, corn, pumpkins. Almost anything but it is too late for tomatoes! Sow in the garden: Beans (after frosts), salad leaves (not just lettuce!), brassicas (cover with moth netting), most herbs, salad and spring onions, beetroot, fennel, carrots, celery, parsnip, sunflowers and lots of other flowers.	Plant out frost tender seedlings, including tomatoes, late Nov. Check your hose fittings, watering cans and irrigation equipment. Share excess seedlings with friends. Check out Crop Swap Cygnet and Surrounds FB page for dates and doings. Most of all, enjoy the garden, the warm sunshine and life😊

November 2021 Kitchen Garden Guide

 It has been WET, very wet. November is likely to also be wet, and warm, because La Nina is almost certain. Weather patterns shift and move around the world so southern Tasmania is influenced by sea temperatures, ocean currents, volcanoes, earthquakes and climate change, every day and through every season. Our bodies and minds are too. We are living in and influenced by all that happens on our planet, near and far.

Little and Often

I listened to a podcast from the Gardeners World magazine, with Monty Don. Asked “what is the secret of successful vegetable gardening?” he said “Little and often.” I agree. A few minutes every day is going to help more than one full day per week. He said many things, another of which was in answer to the question “How can I get rid of weeds?”. He said “The weeds are not the problem. The problem is you…. The solution is for you to weed a little bit every day, then the weeds do not become a problem.” Well, I am not sure about that here in Tasmania, in spring, when the weeds grow faster than a speeding bullet, but certainly the more often you see to your garden, the better it will be.

Little and Often also applies to seed sowing. Don’t sow a whole packet of lettuce at once. Sow a few seeds, maybe 6 – 10. When they are ready to transplant to the garden, on the same day, sow another 6 – 10….. and so on. Of course, through the year the varieties will change as some prefer winter, some summer. Many, many vegetables can be easily grown this way, almost all year round, so you always have some but never have too many.

Little and Often can also be the motto for compost creation. Yes, you can gather materials and make cubic meter piles, but you can also or instead spread the daily weeds onto the path and let them rot away. Here one day, there the next, every day, for months. Or you can have worm stations dotted about your garden and feed your daily weeds and veg scraps into one or another of them. Small is manageable.

Search online for Gardeners World Magazine podcasts and you will find treasure!

Late November is beans time (earlier if frost free)

Add a handful of potash and a good spadeful of compost per square metre and fork them in lightly. Water well. Add wet mulch. Sow beans into the damp soil and water only when the first leaves appear. It is a good idea to soak the beans overnight before sowing, to hasten germination.

Climbing beans: If you are lucky enough to grow your own hazelnuts / dogwood / bamboo / suitable willow then you can easily (and for free) make use of them to erect a frame. (Search Google images for ‘bean poles’ and see how creative you can be). But beware!! We live in the roaring 40’s!! Pole beans WILL blow over unless the structure is secure. I tie one end of my frame to a sturdy fence post. I especially love flat beans and long, thin, round, green beans like Lazy Housewife.

Bush beans: These produce bucket loads of fabulous beans all summer without the need for a frame but therefore take up much more room. I love the thin, stringless, French beans as well as borlotti beans. It helps to mulch.

Bush beans are great for Tasmania as they produce faster than pole beans. There are hundreds of varieties to choose from and saving seed for next year is simply a matter of letting some of the pods mature fully and dry off before picking.

Tomatoes

My tip is to keep your tomatoes in pots until well after the Huon Show (13-11-21) if you live in a frosty area. I remember the year that many people woke to find a hard frost had burnt their entire tomato patch overnight in mid-November! I don’t plant them out until the first week in December. It is foolproof. I find that potting tomatoes up into slightly bigger pots at least twice, works really well as advanced plants suffer very little when planted out into warm soil, unlike the little ones planted out early into cold, wet soil.

Planting with tomato frames

·         One 30m roll of wire mesh will make 12 circles. Each roll is 1200mm high and the mesh is 100mm square. (I bought a 50m roll at Hollanders in Hobart, to make 20 circles).

·         Cut the roll into 2.5m lengths and join the ends to make 10 circles. Each circle will be 750mm across, suitable for 1 tomato plant. Do not skimp!!

·         Place all 10 circles, side by side, wherever your tomatoes will go. This way you can lay it all out and select one bed or several.

·         Move one of the circles aside. Plant your tomato. I push one tall, curly rod (from Shiploads) in the hole with the tomato but a long bamboo stick would do. In France they are called tomato stakes.

·         Replace the wire circle. Bang a wooden stake inside the windward side of the circle (or preferably 2, for those unexpected gales from another direction!) Staple the name tag to the top of one stake. Move to the next circle and repeat until all 10 tomatoes are planted.

·         Next, tie all adjacent circles together, to give strength from the wind.

·         Water in your tomatoes.

·         Get a coffee and your camera and share your amazing tomato planting photos!

·         When your tomatoes finish, use the circles for all sorts of other things in the garden. I used all mine up last year so had to go and buy another roll this year!

November Event

Cygnet Spring Garden Market: Saturday Nov. 13^th, 12noon – 4pm @ The Cannery. Fundraiser for the Huon Refugee Support Group Inc. There will be 23 stalls, live music, gorgeous food and coffee, open bar and an area for perpetual, 30 minute gardening presentations. Find all the details on Facebook and Instagram! Covid compliant.

Jobs for November
Sow indoors to plant out later: Cucumbers (Lebanese or Dragon’s Egg), zucchinis (Romanesco), tromboncino, corn, pumpkins. Almost anything! Sow in the garden: Beans (after frosts), salad leaves (not just lettuce!), brassicas (cover with moth netting), most herbs, salad and spring onions, beetroot, fennel, carrots, celery, parsnip, sunflowers and lots of other flowers.	Plant out frost tender seedlings, including tomatoes, late Nov. Check your hose fittings, watering cans and irrigation equipment. Share excess seedlings with friends. Most of all, enjoy the garden😊 Keep grass under control (good luck!) Remember Little and Often 😊

December 2017 Kitchen Garden Guide

Hot, very hot and dry. Suddenly cold. Then windy and VERY wet for days and days. Now warm again! What a couple of weeks we have had and if your body is out of kilter, think for a moment about your garden. At least you could go inside and avoid the worst of it!

Priorities

Garlic: Garlic does not like to be wet once its bulbs are maturing! Now it is saturated at the worst possible time. I pulled my early garlic last week when I heard the forecast. Now I am going to check my mid season and late season garlics by digging up a couple. If you see any signs of the stem going floppy or if your soil is clay (and therefore waterlogged and devoid of oxygen) dig them immediately and lay out in a tin shed to thoroughly dry off. For good storage, garlic needs to be firm and dry. 

Once you have harvested your garlic, plant out with other lime-lovers such as broccoli and be sure to plant amongst some camouflage like marigolds and leeks and add an aphid repellant too, like nasturtiums. There is more on this, below.

Tomatoes: There may be outbreaks of diseases so check regularly, over the next couple of weeks, for yellowing leaves, general wilt, spotty or curled leaves or purple leaf veins. Pick off any affected leaves and dispose of. Some of these symptoms may mean the plants should be relaced. A dose of liquid seaweed solution could help them fight off diseases. Listen to Peter Cundall’s radio show as I bet he will be inundated with questions about too much rain in the vegie garden.

Beans: If, like me, you sowed beans only a day or 2 before the big rain, the bean seeds may rot before they germinate. If the seedlings have not emerged soon, dig in with your finger and have a look so you can re-sow quickly, while the soil is deliciously damp, if needs be. Now is the perfect time to sow beans, after rain. Do not water until they emerge.

Mildew and other fungal attacks

Usually these come towards the end of the summer, when plants like zucchinis are coming to the end but this wet then warm weather may breed up spores very quickly. I use a spray of 1 part milk to 9 parts water, thoroughly over the leaves but I have also recently heard of using carb soda to ward off mildew on gooseberries. Check out the Gardening Australia website for more on this.

Plant out in the damp soil

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.

Camouflage, deception and more

Sow brassicas now, in pots, for next winter’s broccoli, cauliflower, red cabbage and Brussels sprouts harvest. As they emerge, keep them covered with netting to keep those pesky cabbage moths away or cut out little moth shapes from white plastic (eg icecream or yoghurt containers) and string them about to fool the moths into thinking there are already moths in that area. I have some larger broccoli plants in pots, ready to plant out (heaven only knows why I grew them this time of year!). I will dot them about amongst lettuce, herbs and tall flowers like cosmos so that the moths cannot fly overhead and immediately pick out a row of broccoli to lay their eggs on. Camouflage also works for distracting birds away from my raspberries, some of which are overhung by tree mallows and others are along one side of a large apple tree. I am a seriously lazy gardener and try to use nature as my ally.

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 hot 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 my place they may be fine outside. Don’t overwater and do pick regularly.

December Jobs	January Jobs
Sow seeds: beans, squash, cucumbers, basil, carrots, celery, lettuce, leeks, parsley, sunflowers, radish, parsnip, pumpkin, chicory.	Sow seeds: Lots of winter veg benefit from 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, 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 -      Mulch fruit trees well, preferably with bark chips -      Feed food garden with seaweed solution for pest resistance and fish emulsion or home made brews -      Harvest and enjoy!

November Kitchen Garden Guide

Everyone is out in the garden, planting and sowing; dreaming of all the summer meals ahead, picked straight from the garden. My tip is to keep your tomatoes in pots until after the Huon Show (November 18^th) if you live in a frosty area. I remember the year that many people woke to find a hard frost had burnt their entire tomato patch overnight in mid-November! I find that potting tomatoes up into slightly bigger pots works really well as advanced plants suffer little when planted out, unlike the little ones planted out early.

Grass

Just looking out the window is enough to give me high blood pressure this time of the year as I can see the grass growing while I have coffee! There is grass that needs mowing, grass that needs slashing and grass that needs pulling; pretty much grass everywhere and mostly where I do not want it. Grrrrr….

1. When I first came here, from dry old Adelaide, I loved cool, grassy paths wandering serenely through flower and vegetables beds but now I am over it because grass does not keep to the paths at all and can leap tall buildings with a single bound! By covering some of the paths with wet newspaper or cardboard then sawdust or fine bark mulch, headway is being made at last. When it all breaks down I scoop it up and toss it on the beds then remake the paths.

2. I try not to let grass grow within the drip line of fruit trees. As the trees grow, so the dripline expands and more grass is mulched over. Amongst the mulch I plant all manner of flowers and herbs and native groundcovers too. This is fabulous for fire zones as it keeps dry mulch to a minimum, using plants as living mulch. At the same time it benefits soil microbes, little native birds and beneficial insects as well as looking pretty.

3. I like a patch of lawn as a space to sit and chat, have a BBQ or read but I don’t need space for a backyard cricket match so I keep the lawn just big enough to put up my marquee…. after all, this is Tasmania and it does rain, without notice! Beyond that small lawn it is ideal to have dense plantings that shade out any errant grass and keep maintenance to a minimum. My father used a small, sharp spade to cut a narrow trench around the edge of the lawn. Any piece of grass that grew into that trench was removed pronto.

Codling moth

The adult female codling moth lays approximately 60 whitish grey eggs that are about the size of a pinhead, on the surface of the leaves of apples, pears and quinces when the average temperature is over 15 degrees in spring and early summer. To reduce their numbers you must act now.

Codling moth eggs hatch after 10 days and the small caterpillars emerge to feed on the leaf surface and make their way to the fruit. They burrow into the fruit and head for the core. They will spend about three to five weeks inside the fruit feeding and putting on body mass until they are ready to emerge. This is the stage that we see, when fruit displays the tell-tale hole which leads to brown insides or early rotting when stored.

My mother’s remedy works well but annually leads to her becoming embarrassed at her frequent visits to the local bottle shop every spring! She has a stash of tins, such as from tinned tomatoes, through which she has drilled holes and ties string so that the tins can hang in a tree. Into each tin she puts a dash of port and a double dash of water. She hangs 2 or 3 tins in every apple, pear and quince tree. The male coddling moths are attracted to the port and drown in it, reducing the number of fertile eggs laid by the females. My mother tops up the liquids regularly.

There is more information and several non-alcoholic controls outlined on the Global Net Academy website.

November is beans time.

Add a handful of potash and a good spadeful of compost per square metre and fork them in. Sow beans into damp soil and water only once until the first leaves appear. It is a good idea to soak the beans overnight before sowing, to hasten germination.

Climbing beans: If you are lucky enough to grow your own hazelnuts / dogwood / bamboo / suitable willow then you can easily (and for free) make use of them to erect a frame. (Search Google images for ‘bean poles’ and see how creative you can be). But beware!! We live in the roaring 40’s!! Pole beans WILL blow over unless the structure is secure. I tie one end of my frame to a sturdy fence post. I especially love flat beans and have found some seeds, at last.

Bush beans: These produce bucket loads of fabulous beans all summer without the need for a frame but therefore take up much more room. I love the thin, stringless, French beans as well as borlotti beans. It helps to mulch with dry straw once we get into summer and there is less rain.

Bush beans are great for Tasmania as they produce faster than pole beans. There are hundreds of varieties to choose from and saving seed for next year is simply a matter of letting some of the pods mature fully and dry off before picking.

Jobs for November
Sow indoors or transplant and protect: Cucumbers (Lebanese), zucchinis (Romanesco), corn, pumpkins. Sow or plant in the garden: Salad leaves (not just lettuce!), brassicas (cover with moth netting), most herbs, salad and spring onions, beetroot, fennel, carrots, celery, parsnip, sunflowers and more!	Plant out frost tender seedlings after Huon Show Day. Check your hose fittings, watering cans and irrigation equipment. Share excess seedlings with friends. Most of all, enjoy the garden and the splashes of sunshine!