March 2019 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

My garden has been blasted by winds from the north west and south west, drying everything out, no matter how much I water. I am rarely despondent about my garden but, after the fires and smoke and stresses  of January then the winds of February, all I can do is learn and implement some strategies for the future.

Lesson 1: Shelter

My cucumbers have thrived for several reasons and the first is that they are sheltered from all wind. They needed no extra water than normal and have produced a continuous supply of beautiful, healthy, crisp, Dragon’s Egg cucumbers for months. They are sheltered by a deep bank of shrubbery to the north and by being at the bottom of a slope, so that the westerlies just blew over the top and hit the trees on the other side.

Not only does the shrubbery provide wind shelter but, if you choose right, you will encourage beneficial insects and birds as well as healthy soil life. In this part of my garden the shrubbery is only about a metre high but very dense, allowing sun even as we move into autumn, but little wind.

In another area I planted out broccoli seedlings and, to save them from cabbage moths, I made a frame and covered it with white shadecloth. Co-incidentally, this heavy duty shadecloth also protected the seedlings from the daily blast of the westerlies that howled through my wire, boundary fence, along which my shrubbery is still very young. Those broccoli seedlings are now big and strong and dark green, compared with some of my unsheltered tomatoes only a few metres away that look miserable and copped the wind severely.

Lesson 2: The Soil

Long before I planted out the cucumbers, I densely sowed broad beans as a green manure crop, quite late, some time in early winter, after last year’s tomatoes had finished and been removed. In October when the broad beans were just starting to flower, I trampled them down with my feet so they were lying all in the same direction, then chopped them up with my spade. I threw over some biochar and sheep manure. I didn’t dig it all in but I did push my fork in and loosen the soil below, allowing some bits to fall through. Then I watered it all well, before covering with some rotting, wet, old hay and leaving it until early December when I dusted over some potash and planted the tiny cucumber seedlings. By this time every bit of the broad bean leaves and stalks  and roots (which I left in the soil) had been composted in situ by the soil life and the hay too was almost gone. The cucumbers grew like mad the minute they landed and never looked back. They grew so fast that I didn’t get a chance to mulch them but they soon provided their own soil cover as they spread. Nevertheless, they needed very little water all summer.

Another example of the importance of looking after the microbes and other soil life is the wind blasted tomatoes which, in December, before wind or smoke, produced fantastic, early, ripe tomatoes. This previously deep hay method bed was also the one where I planted tomatoes amongst some self-sown companion plants, such as calendulas, nasturtiums, garlic chives and sweet cicely. The tomatoes flowered and produced very early. Interestingly though, the plants did not grow very big but managed to support dense clusters of ripe tomatoes very low to the ground. Once the heat and smoke then winds arrived, these poor tomatoes suffered so my idea of having 3 separate tomato beds turned out to be a good one.

Garlic

The recent Koonya Garlic Festival has put garlic at the forefront of my mind and I will be preparing beds this week. What it comes down to is that, whatever garlic cultivars you choose to grow, the health of your soil microbes will determine how well the flavour develops. The growth of the bulb itself will be determined by soil and weather.

Garlic does not need a lot of fertility but it needs humus (well rotted organic matter) for the soil microbes to be well fed. Here is what I am going to do:

1.   Dig to a spade’s depth and loosen any clumps. This does not mean turning the soil. It means loosening and working it.

2.   Dig in plenty of aged sheep manure (I am saving my compost for brassicas and other greens as I don’t have enough for everything)

3.   Dig in a well known, pelletised seaweed, fish, humic acid and manure product available in large buckets.

4.   Really concentrate on improving the structure of the soil, with elbow and back grease!

5.   Mention was made of lactobacillus bacteria so I might dilute some kefir or pickle juice and pour it over!

6.   Water, mulch and leave, removing the mulch at planting time.

7.   Plant out at times according to what garlic you have.

 

The planting, harvest and storage times depend on the cultivars you grow. I will be planting my 3 cultivars from late March onwards. First is what is locally called Tassie Purple, which is a softneck and will be ready in about December. Next, in about May, I will plant 2 hard necks: Dungansky and a Creole. They will be dug late January or even February. These are the ones that grow the long, curly stalks called scapes, which make excellent pesto.

Sow in March	Plant out now
Beetroot Salsify Burdock Tas. swede Carrot Parsnip Spinach Broad beans Asian vegetables Spring and salad onions Coriander, pennyroyal, cress Take cuttings of Evergreen herbs such as rosemary and sage	Good sized European brassicas (it is too late for punnets)      Spring onions Chives Leeks Lettuce Spinach Celery Silver beet   Spring bulbs (ixias, daffodils etc) Water well.   Evergreen shrubs and trees (only after we get a good rain. Otherwise hold off until April)

March 2018 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

I wandered around my garden this morning, taking notes about what is happening, in order to write this garden guide direct from plot to page. It only took a few minutes for me to realise that there is more happening this time of the year in my garden than I can fit into this column. You may find this surprising when autumn is on the doorstep but, actually, life never stops in the food garden.

Seed saving

Every part of the kitchen garden is getting ready for winter by flowering, fruiting and setting seeds. Tomatoes, zucchinis, cucumbers and beans are all produced by plants in order to make seeds and reproduce themselves. It just so happens that we humans jump in and harvest their fruits before the seeds mature. If you leave a few unpicked you will be able to save the seeds later, when the fruits are fully mature and beginning to go mushy (ie well past the time we would pick them to eat) or brown and dry (in the case of bean pods).

I have left some broad bean plants in a back corner of the garden, after harvesting most of them back in November. The pods are now crisp and almost black; perfect for collecting and saving, ready to sow in a few weeks. Similarly, there are literally hundreds of seeds, dry now and ready to collect, on a couple of the best of my rainbow chard, which I tied up to a stake and allowed to flower and set seeds after months of fabulous, brilliantly green leaves and incredibly red stalks. They stand tall and brown and heavy with seed now, amongst the fresh, green cucumber plants I sowed back in December. In this way barely any space is taken up by the seeding rainbow chard as the leaves are long gone and all that is standing is the trunk, topped with a heavy head of seeds, tied to a stake.

There is nothing better for you and your family, for eliminating food miles, for food security of our region and for the health of the whole earth than saving seeds. Of all the options we are presented with to help reduce our carbon footprint, none surpasses growing food from seed that has been saved and shared in your own area.

If you don’t want to save your own seed, look for locally saved seed at any of our great Huon Valley markets or check out Crop Swap Cygnet online.

Edible Flowers and seeds

Almost everything that has been growing over summer is striving to reproduce before winter. Many of the flowers and seeds are not only edible but actually delicious. My favourite is probably the yellow flowers and developing seeds of Florence Fennel (not the wild fennel, as I find that too strong and the seeds too coarse). Don’t rip your summer vegetables out before exploring their second and third edible crops, such as the flowers and seeds!

Society garlic makes a pretty, edible border and survives very dry soil. Right now the little pink flowers are blooming and make a wonderful, garlicky addition to salads.

The Cosmos in my garden have been flowering for months, producing masses of bright, edible flowers. I also have amaranth and shiso, both providing an abundance of delicious red and green leaves all summer. Now the long, magnificent tassels of the red amaranth are breath taking and soon will be laden with the tiny amaranth seeds, which are a so-called superfood that is expensive to buy but so easy to grow!

Drying Herbs

March is the time to cut and dry herbs such as oregano, while they are in full flower. Around the Mediterranean Sea people have foraged for flowering oregano since ancient times, hanging the tall stems in a warm, dry place then storing them for use in winter soups and stews.

I also cut boughs of lemon verbena and let the vivid green leaves dry fully before packing them into jars and using as my evening tea during winter and spring, when the plants are dormant.

Garlic

What it comes down to is that, whatever garlic cultivars you choose to grow, the state of your soil will determine how well the flavour develops. The growth of the bulb itself will be determined by soil and weather.

Garlic does not need a lot of fertility but it needs humus (well rotted organic matter) and for the soil microbes to be well fed. Here is what I am going to do to prepare my soil for this year’s crop:

1.   Dig to a spade’s depth and loosen any clumps

2.   Dig in plenty of aged sheep manure (cow would be even better, I am saving my compost for brassicas and other greens)

3.   Dig in a well-known, pelletised seaweed, fish, humic acid and manure product available in large buckets.

4.   Really concentrate on improving the structure of the soil, with elbow and back grease!

5.   Mention is sometimes made of the benefits of lactobacillus bacteria in garlic growth so I might dilute some kefir or pickle juice and pour it over!

6.   Water, mulch and leave, or sow a quick green manure.

7.   Plant out at times according to what garlic you have.

The planting, harvest and storage times depend on the cultivars you grow. I will be planting 3 cultivars that I saved from last year, from late March onwards. I suggest you search online for “Tasmanian Gourmet Garlic” and a book called “Garlic”.

Sow in March	Plant out now
Beetroot Salsify Burdock Tas. swede Carrot Parsnip Spinach Broad beans Asian veg. Spring and salad onions Coriander, pennyroyal, cress	European brassica seedlings Spring onions Chives Leeks Lettuce Spinach Celery Silver beet   Evergreen shrubs and trees Spring bulbs (ixias, daffodils etc)

May 2022 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

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.

April 2022 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

The weather continues to be mostly dry, with warmer than average day and night time temperatures for this time of year. But don’t be fooled into thinking the summer growing season will continue much longer! Now that the days are noticeably shorter, soon there will not be enough sunlight hours to maintain the warmth in the soil. Did you know that a mulched soil full of active, healthy microbes will be warmer than a soil fed with fertilisers? Let’s hope that good autumn rains arrive soon.

With all the chaos in the world it is easy to fall into despair. But for me, just being in my garden, working in sunshine or mizzle in my garden, having coffee under a tree in my garden, chatting to the chooks and even talking on the phone in the garden, bring some relief from all that is happening.

Multisowing

For many vegetables there are considerable benefits from sowing two or more seeds together in trays plus you use less potting mix. Basil benefits greatly and grows much stronger, when multisown. I have noticed this myself.

Charles Dowding has experimented with multisowing for decades and in his new book ‘Skills for Growing’ there is a whole chapter on multisowing details for various vegetable groups and uses. Here are some examples….

VEGETABLE	SEEDS TO SOW PER CLUMP	DESIRED PLANTS PER CLUMP	SPACING cms
Kale for salad	4	3	22
Kale, larger leaves for cooking	2-3	1	30-35
Radish	5	4-5	15
Turnip	5	3-4	30
Asian greens for salad	4	3	22
Asian greens for cooking	2	1	25-30
Onions for bulbs	6-7	4-5	30

 

Multisowing is not useful for roots, such as carrots and swedes or hearting vegetables such as cabbage and lettuce.

Spacing

When transplanting tiny seedlings it is easy to plant them out too close together. Multisown seedlings need wider spacing than single sown plants but you end up with more plants per square metre. If you are after larger vegetables, they need more space than smaller. Root vegetables grown too close together make wonderful leaves but smaller roots. Lettuce grown thickly makes a rapid harvest of small leaves but subsequent pickings will diminish in size and quality. Spacing can mean the difference between a beautiful cabbage and one that just bolts to seed without forming a head.

Don’t dismiss paths as wasted space because they allow light to reach plants as they mature, especially in winter, as well as being another source of food for the roots of larger plants. I use my paths as mini compost making strips by laying anything I remove from the beds directly onto the paths, followed by a sprinkling of blood and bone, if the layer is thick. After a few days of trampling it down as I walk by, I cover the whole path with mulchings from my chipper, coarse straw or semi rotted woodchips. Path soil is living soil.

Interplanting

This is a way of growing quick vegetables between the big vegetables so that they are over and done with by the time the bigger veg need the space. This is a kind of companion planting; a lone broccoli really enjoys the company of a few radishes as it is filling out its roots.

Planting in blocks is so much more aesthetic than long rows and makes working with interplanting easier. For example, within 1.5 square metre blocks you can sow broad beans at 30cms spacing, with some bok choy seedlings in between. Each broad bean seed eventually grows into 3 – 5 stems and by that time, the bok choy has been harvested and eaten.

Fungi; the good, the bad and the incredible

We eat them, we curse them and without them we could not exist and neither could our gardens. Fungi evolved many millions of years before we did and still occupy almost every cubic metre on earth, from the surface up and down. Every creature, including ourselves, is full of them and we depend on their health for our health. Without fungi nothing would decompose, we could not make compost and our soil would just be dirt, not soil, and be devoid of life. Incredibly, fungi can turn toxic waste into soil rich in worms and life so imagine what fungi can do for your vegetable garden!

Autumn is fungi fruiting time so you will see them popping up after rain, if your soil is full of life. Rejoice if you have them and let them finish their lifecycle in your garden as their mycorrhiza are communicating with the roots of all the other plants, shifting nutrients from here to there, turning any amendments you add (such as blood and bone, compost, decomposed hay etc) into a liquid state, for your plants to take up. Healthy soil makes healthy people and neither can exist without fungi.

Garlic

Plant out soft neck varieties such as Tasmanian purple, now, into damp soil but do not water until you see little green shoots appearing, or you risk them rotting. These will be ready to harvest before Christmas, when their soft stems brown off and begin to flop over. If overwatered at this time the water seeps down into the garlic head and can cause rot or cause them not to store well.

Plant out hard neck varieties later and into May. Later they will produce tall, curly, green stems called scapes, which are fabulously delicious. I leave some to grow scapes but most 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 spring, these survive better as they are less prone to rot because of the way they grow tight around the hard neck.

April jobs

Sow in April

Lime brassica beds, fruit trees and deep hay areas. Make compost in 1 cubic meter bays. Cover thickly with hay. Leave for winter. Take herb cuttings Harvest seeds such as tomato, lettuce, parsnip. Use natural lactose fermentation to pickle any hard vegetables such as cucumbers, carrots, radishes,  and beans ·         For absolutely everything you need to know about growing garlic in Tasmania visit the website and facebook page “Tasmanian Gourmet Garlic”. ·         Follow our Cygnet Garden Markets facebook page for details on our May 22nd Autumn Garden Market  Plant out now Spring bulbs Garlic, shallots, potato onions, salad onions Evergreen shrubs and trees Strawberries

In trays Asian greens Radishes English spinach Chervil Coriander Spring onions Lettuce Winter annual flowers Direct Green manure Sweet peas Sugar snap peas (frost free) Broad beans Miners’ Lettuce

March 2022 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

Hopefully there will be rain soon and all our hard work to keep things going will slowly transition to caring for cool season crops to grace our tables through winter. Now in my garden is the time for saving seeds from tomatoes, sunflowers, parsnips, coriander, Florence fennel, celery, parsley, chicory and more. March is a busy time in the kitchen, processing fruit and vegetables for storage before the first frosts arrive. We are so fortunate to live where we do; safe in the knowledge we can, together, produce almost everything we need, especially if we save and share our local seeds. Join the Cygnet Seed Library to be a part of our seed community. Details on the website and facebook.

Fun with Pumpkins

Now is the time to consolidate your pumpkin vines’ energy by choosing pumpkins that are a good size already and removing the growth beyond the pumpkins. Those that are flowering or just setting now will take energy from those that are a good size and need to mature, so removing them is key. And a liquid feed now will help to keep the well-formed ones growing to maturity.

Maybe you will grow a huge pumpkin or a quirky one or a beautiful one and enter it into one of the competitions we are going to run at the Cygnet Autumn Garden Market at The Cannery on Sunday, May 22^nd. We will have more details out soon so follow our facebook page and this column, but already I can tell you we are having a pumpkin focus, including food and decorations, along with all the regular stalls, talks and music that everyone has come to love!

The big world of brassicas

Brassicas grow wonderfully in the cold and they are so healthful for our bodies during winter. There are hundreds of varieties from all over the world. European brassicas include broccolis, cauliflower, cabbages, collards, Brussels sprouts and all the kales etc.  My tips for growing these are:

·         Get good sized seedlings into the ground NOW and cover them with lace curtains or white shade cloth to keep off the cabbage moths which are still active. (The moths will disappear when we get a cold snap.)

·         Plant seedlings into damp soil rich in compost and lime to get them growing fast before the end of May when day length and low sun angle bring a halt to further growth if the leaves are too small to provide enough energy to do more than survive.

·         Protect with iron based slug and snail pellets.

Asian brassicas can be sown throughout autumn because they grow so fast that nothing slows them down all winter. These include bok choy, tatsoi, Chinese cabbage, mustard greens, mizuna, mibuna, kalian, daikon, hakurei turnips etc. Most parts are eaten; stems, leaves, flower shoots and some roots. My tips for growing these are:

·         Wet the soil thoroughly. Put your fork into it and check it is wet down at least 15cms. Keep watering until it is!

·         Spread with well rotted sheep manure or compost or simply use a bed that had broad beans or other legumes in it previously. They are less fussy about pH than European brassicas but prefer near neutral.

·         Rake to a fine tilth. Sow thinly. Asian vegetable seeds germinate quickly and reliably and will provide a long season of fabulous food right through late autumn, winter and early spring. Sow every 2 weeks for continuous supply.

·         To stop birds disturbing them while they germinate, cover wire crates (from a tip shop) with lace curtains and place over the area. I use this system a lot as rain and irrigation go through, white lets the light through and the lace reduces the wind.

·         Protect with iron-based slug and snail pellets.

 

Garlic

March is time to prepare the soil for planting out early varieties of garlic in April. If your soil has set like concrete over summer it will need some well composted manure (sheep is great), mushroom compost or homemade compost and plenty of elbow grease! If you have grown potatoes in it previously, that will have loosened it up somewhat. You don’t want to fertilise the soil now, just condition it.

First, simply place gypsum at 1/2 kg / square meter over the soil. Then add a good 5cms of the compost / old manure on the bed where you want to grow garlic and water well. That means using a sprinkler to apply at least 2 cms of water. Water again after 4 days. After a week or so you may find you are able to dig in with a fork and incorporate that compost into the top few cms of the soil. Add more compost and keep working it in, if you can, down to about 10cms. Otherwise, this will do. There is no need to dig deeper. Keep the soil damp, not wet, and work on improving the incorporation of the compost all month, if necessary.

Now you have loosened the soil and raised your bed above the surrounding ground a little, you will have better drainage and garlic hates being drowned, as we discovered in 2021! Next, add a good dusting of garden lime. Rake in. Leave to rest. Weed regularly. You must be able to stick your finger right into the soil or your garlic will not be able to grow. Wait until April to plant out the first garlic. Mid season and late season garlics can be planted in the following months.

Seeds to sow in March

Plant out now

Beetroot Salsify Burdock Tas. swede Carrot Parsnip Spinach Broad beans Daikon radish Asian vegetables Coriander, pennyroyal, cress Seeds to harvest in March Tomatoes Beans Fennel Lettuce Sunflowers Calendula Coriander Nasturtiums

Good sized European brassicas Spring onions Chives Elephant garlic, potato onions Lettuce Spinach Celery Silver beet Jobs for March -Prune established fruit trees to improve shape and production. -Rake up all fallen fruit to reduce over-wintering of diseases. -Take semi-hardwood and hardwood cuttings of evergreen plants such as rosemary, sage, lavender, geraniums, correas as well as lemon verbena and anything that is hardening off and not soft.