Cuttings
Now is the perfect time for softwood cuttings for 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.
Making the most of chook yard design
You can harvest many products and gain many services from a
well thought out chook yard, besides the obvious eggs. My chooks range under
half a dozen fruit trees. Their kind services here include constant vigilance
for coddlin moth and other pests that overwinter at the base of trees, everyday
manuring, turning of the mulch and eradicating of weeds and grass that
germinates there as well as cleaning up some (but not all) fallen fruit.
The 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 and strawberries) and
where I am going to plant acid loving plants such as tomatoes. Left for another
year it can be used with sand as a seed raising mix or added to potting mix,
but all this waiting is far too complex for me to organise!
In order to have a constant supply of greenery for chooks,
it is a great idea to surround the perimeter of their yard with things they
like to eat. This is easy to do if you have designed this idea into your food
production system in the first place and placed the chook yard within the
vegetable garden boundary, like a small box inside a larger box, thus making
the outer perimeter of the chook yard, the inner perimeter of the vegetable
garden. Plantings right up against the fence will poke leaves through and even
over into the chook yard and allow the chooks a constant supply of your
favourite vegetables without you having to do anything! Leaving some things to
go to seed and fall into the chook yard will give them a good addition to their
seed intake.
This design also allows you to let them range, from time to
time, in a temporarily fenced section of the vegetable garden simply by opening
one of a serious of gate options. They will eat the grass, remove weed seeds,
manure it and turn it to a fine tilth. Then you simply close the gate, rake it
over and start sowing or planting!
Managing growth
The other day I weeded and pruned my berries. First, I cut
back to the ground all the summer raspberry canes that had had fruit this year.
I lightly pruned any really tall, new canes that hit me in the face as I walked
down the path. There were lots of runners coming up in the path so I dug up and
replanted some elsewhere and gave the rest away.
Autumn raspberries such as Autumn Bliss may not have
finished yet so check carefully before you prune! Then I made sure my wire and
hoop frame was still secure, ready for next season’s netting. Pine needles and
leaf soil make fabulous raspberry mulch and can be applied any time.
Next I pruned the black currants hard as informed by Tino
Carnevale at a workshop I attended last year. He said to do this when planting
out new bushes also. Tino said that red and white currants should only be
pruned in spring and summer.
I love the shade the wattles provide for my lounge room
windows during summer afternoons but I want the sun in winter. So I pruned them
to about half their height, being mindful of cutting out the thick, older wood
completely and cutting back the soft, willowy stems just enough to let the sun
in the window. I still wanted them to look pretty. I do this every year to 3 of
my wattles and it keeps them fresh and soft and means lots of flowers too, on
the new growth. This is good because they provide constant pollen for the bees
over winter.
I never prune plants in autumn that have frost sensitive new
growth as they burn off terribly and look dreadful all winter. However, a light
tip prune of natives now will help them bush out beautifully as many natives
grow during winter and their flowers feed the birds and bees.
|
Vegetable of the month |
|
The Cygnet
Community Garden never stops growing food. One of our favourites at the
moment is broccoli raab. It is a bright green, fast growing, large leafed
vegetable with edible and delicious leaves, prolific, small broccoli heads
and yellow flowers. Raw, the leaves have a slight mustardy flavour but cooked
they are sweet and brilliant green, without collapsing down to nothing. |
|
Sow in the garden now |
Plant 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 Sow in the hothouse
to plant out: Lettuces Kales Broccoli
raab Sow to stay in the
hothouse: Sugar snap
peas |
Leek bulbils Garlic
cloves Large
Seedlings Flower bulbs Plant and grow in
the hothouse: Celery
(loves it there over winter), 1 or 2 of
lots of things, so you can pop out there and pick things without having to
put your boots on, in winter…. Lettuce,
spinach, Viet. Mint, Lemon Grass, Chervil, Frilly Kale (small variety) for
salads, Shungiku, sugar snap peas. |
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