March 2020 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

It seems that autumn has arrived, with few tomatoes ripening but lots of fabulous beans and no bushfires in our area. The paddocks that have had hay cut are green again, with the cool summer and frequent showers. We have a lot to be grateful for, here in southern Tasmania.

Alliums

Onions, garlic, shallots, potato onions, walking onions, leeks, elephant garlic, chives and garlic chives are all alliums and have been grown for thousands of years, in many parts of the world. Alliums all have day length requirements; some preferring shortening days, some lengthening days, some a little more flexible. In autumn we sow and plant those that prefer or will tolerate shortening days to get them started then lengthening days to finish off (towards next summer). These include garlic, shallots, potato onions, elephant garlic and walking onions. I have talked about growing garlic previously, in many of these garden guides so now it is the turn for the other alliums that suitable to plant now.

I went to the Koonya Garlic Festival last weekend and heard an excellent talk by Tino, all about alliums and am totally enthused. I have never grown regular onions as one seed produces only one onion and it seems a lot of work, when onions are so cheap. So now I am going to grow shallots and potato onions, that, like garlic, can be grown from a clove and produce a head or cluster of themselves and which are quite expensive to buy for eating. And I will again grow elephant garlic (really a type of garlicky leek), to harvest at the leek stage, before forming bulbs, as at that stage they have thick, long, white shanks of the most incredible flavour; the longest white shank of any leek I have ever grown. I don’t like the bulbs but let a few go to seed and form the underground bulbs and bulblets, for replanting and also for the beauty of the allium flowers.

Steve Solomon suggests, in his book “Growing Vegetables South of Australia” putting shallots (and late garlic varieties) in the fridge for a month, starting early to mid March, before planting out in April, as this breaks their dormancy so readying them into faster sprouting once planted out and gives them plenty of shortening days to grow a good set of leaves before they start bulbing up in spring.

Potato onions grow clusters of small onions underground and can be excellent keepers like shallots but have a stronger oniony flavour than shallots. They can be used for eating or pickling and I do so love pickled onions!

Give all alliums a friable, fertile soil with good drainage, adding lime, if necessary, to about neutral or slightly alkaline, but definitely not acidic. Peter Cundall uses fire ash in place of lime and digs in old sheep manure and biochar.

Steve says that shallots can manage a heavier soil because they form at the soil surface, unlike garlic and potato onions and elephant garlic which grow deeper. He recommends planting shallots 30cms apart with 45 cms between rows.

Where do we source shallots, potato onions and elephant garlic? Shallots should be available from a local greengrocer (it is too late for shallots to grow from seed for autumn sowing but you can sow in early spring, for a summer crop). Look for potato onions and elephant garlic at markets and online crop swap facebook pages.

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! Save the dried seeds of lettuce, shungiku, French sorrel, Florence fennel, rainbow chard etc, to sow again, as they are adapting to your garden. This is very important as our climate changes.

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. Garlic chive flowers are white and grow on tall stalks, which are both pretty and deliciously garlicky.

The Cosmos in my garden are flowering, producing masses of bright, edible flowers. I also have had 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!

Pumpkin vine care

The single, little, pumpkin plant (of the Peter Cundall variety) I got from someone has rambled far and wide, at break-neck speed, flowering with both male and female flowers very quickly. Consequently, since it has 6 well-formed pumpkins now, I have cut off all the long leaders beyond those pumpkins. Six is more than enough for the plant to put energy into developing and maturing. I will remove all future flowers and long growth. I may give it some Charlie Carp liquid feed too. Now is the time to plan what to put there next, when it is harvested later in April or even May….. perhaps broad beans.

 

 

Sow in March	Plant out now
Beetroot Salsify Burdock Tas. swede Carrot Parsnip Spinach Broad beans Daikon radish Asian vegetables Coriander, pennyroyal, cress   Put shallots and late garlic into the fridge for a month, to break dormancy. Take cuttings of Evergreen herbs such as rosemary and sage	Good sized European brassicas (it is too late for punnets)      Spring onions Chives Elephant garlic, potato onions 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 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.

June 2019 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

At last winter has arrived! Rain, hail, snow and cold winds have streamed across us but will it last? The BOM forecast is for a drier and warmer than average winter, with plenty of frost (because of clear skies). This frost bodes well for next season’s apples, pears, cherries and berries, all of which revel in plenty of cold temperatures while they are dormant. But the warmer day time temperatures may interfere with that! Frost is also excellent for developing carrot and parsnip flavour and for enhancing the amazing colours in vegetables such as rainbow chard and red chicories.

Pumpkins

One vegetable that does not like the cold is pumpkins. If frost lands on them and freezes even a tiny spot then that spot will go soft and eventually rot. So, for best storage, pick them when the stems have completely dried and browned off. This has not happened with mine this year. With all the warm autumn weather the leaves have stayed green. Nevertheless, the time has come to collect them up and bring them inside to dry and harden, upside-down, in a warm place like on the mantlepiece above the firebox. Cut stems at least 15cms long as cutting them closer to the pumpkin before they are dried off may let fungus creep into the pumpkin and it will rot from the inside. Once the stems are fully brown and crisp, you can cut them short. Store them on their side for best results.

Beetroot

Beetroot is related to spinach and red chard, but did you know it's also related to quinoa?I am growing quite a bit of beetroot this winter and, with staggered sowing way back in Jan/Feb/early March, it will keep me going for months. You can also sow it in spring as it is very carefree and loves the cold, cool and warm weather but I prefer to eat it in winter. Beetroot goes well with apples, walnuts, rocket, lentils (all autumn and winter crops), basil, balsamic vinegar, goats cheese, and gin herbals (juniper, cardamon, coriander, cinnamon, citrus and also the Tasmanian pepperberry). It also makes a wonderful probiotic drink called kvass which, like all fermented foods, is packed with enzymes and microbes for gut health and immune boosting.

I peel beetroot for kvass because it has little bumps and hairs that may house microbes that can affect the fermentation. Once peeled, chop 2 large organic beets coarsely and place in a 1.5 litre jar. Add 1 tablespoon of salt and 1 litre of water. Put the lid on and shake. Label with the day, leave on the bench for 5 days then refrigerate. Drink daily. You can refill once with water when it is all gone but then you need to start again. Delicious!

Winter greens and mulch experiment

Why are my winter greens (kale, chards, bok choy, wasabi greens, chicory, spinach, mizuna) especially strong and healthy this year? Because I added inoculated biochar, compost, blood and bone, lime and hay. Before planting I had intended to add more hay but I added a thick mulch of old sheep manure instead because I watched a video by Charles Dowding in which he mentioned using old sheep manure as a mulch in very frosty areas.

Seaweed in winter

As winter storms in the roaring 40’s send high seas crashing onto the shores of Tasmania, kelp and other sea plants are strewn on the beaches. I heard on the radio that we are allowed to collect seaweed from most beaches at the rate of 100kg / day in Tasmania. Seaweed is heavy, so that is not as much as it sounds. I have some great ideas for using it! Seaweed contains trace elements which we often neglect to think about in our food gardens (and our stomachs).

1.   Wash it and eat it; either raw (if tender enough) or cooked or just put a piece in when you make soup then discard if its too tough. I have eaten many local seaweeds, especially from south eastern Bruny Island where the water is pristine.

2. Place tubs or large buckets here and there in your garden. Half fill them with seaweed and fill to the top with water. Cover if you like. Keep a ladle nearby. Whenever you see some plants looking a bit weak or off-colour give them a tonic of 1 part seaweed water to 9 parts water, in a watering can. Pour over the leaves.
3. Completely cover your asparagus patch with a thick layer of seaweed during winter. Leave the rain and the worms to do the work.
4. Seaweed is a wonderful addition to mulch under fruit trees.
5. Add it to your compost heap.

Winter herbs for health and flavour

Do you love pesto and lament the end of fresh basil from your garden? Well I make a wonderful pesto with chervil and almonds / rocket and pistachios / parsley or nettles and walnuts.

There are so many lovely herbs that either grow and thrive only in winter or continue to hold their colour and flavour even in winter. The former includes the slightly aniseed chervil, with its pretty, soft ferny leaves which I grow as a block and clip by the handful, with scissors. Also in this category is coriander with its robust flavour and growth habit. Rocket is a favourite everywhere. Parsley is a fabulous winter herb, readily self-sows and is useful all through winter in meals and as a wonderful source of vitamin C, in our climate where oranges are rare in our gardens. The latter includes rosemary, Tas. Pepperberry leaves, bay leaves as well as fennel fronds and flowers.

Seeds to sow in June Sow in the garden: Broad beans Salad and spring onions Shallots Chives English spinach Radishes Sow in trays to plant out later: Brassicas Globe Artichokes Coriander Chervil Lettuce Rocket Asian greens

Plant out Garlic Asparagus crowns Divide rhubarb Winter herbs Winter flowering annuals Globe artichokes Sunchokes Bulbs Asian greens Lettuce Spinach Fireside Reading “The Veg Doctor’s Illustrated Field and Fork Guide to Potent Plants” by (Tasmanian) Hazel MacTavish-West

 

September 2017 Kitchen Garden Guide

Rain, cold and sun…. and roots

After one of the driest winters for decades, south eastern Tasmanian is now well and truly wet. But dig down beyond a spade’s depth and, here and there, the soil is still dry so let’s hope it keeps raining for a while yet. While the garden is coping with very dry then wet conditions, it is also having to cope with regularly very cold nights plus frost and snow. On top of that, warm spring air is arriving in fits and starts and the notorious, spring winds are picking up. Despite all this, fruit trees are blossoming and we are all hoping for good fruit set. How does nature cope with all this and how can we help?

Latest research is showing that the brain of plants may well be in the roots. Below our feet is more life than above and, as well as roots of plants, this life primarily consists of the first inhabitants of the earth, microbes. The roots of plants, in particular the root tips, are the interface that can sense roots of other plants (and even know if they are related!) as well as work with the rest of the soil life to extract minerals to feed to the plant parts that are above the ground. I went to a fabulous talk about this last weekend at the Botanic Gardens. So extensive and complex is soil life that one theory is that, as with mushrooms, the above ground plant parts are simply the fruiting body for the “real” plant below the surface and all this is controlled by millions of tiny root tips!

What does this mean for our food gardens? It means that keeping the microbes in the soil happy is the primary thing to do in order to develop delicious, nutritious, healthy fruit and vegetables, able to ward off disease. During this burst of every-weather-in-a-day, the soil needs deep mulch to regulate temperature and stop heavy rain pounding the surface (microbes are fussy about getting hot and cold, dry and wet). Have a look at a forest floor; mulch covers everything and no-one fertilises it.

Onto vegetable beds, sprinkle a thin layer of compost, then 10cms of fluffed up, soaked hay, then another thin layer of compost then another 10cms of soaked hay. Check every week and keep this rhythm going right through summer. Keep some large tubs scattered through the garden to make it easy to throw half or more of a bale of hay in and fill with water, to soak for at least an hour before topping up the hay bed.

To plant seedlings, make a hole in the hay, add a good handful of compost and plant into that. The hole does not need to go all the way down to the soil. Water in.

For trees, use the same method but use mixed bark at half the depth (or rain may not penetrate at all). Wetting as you go is important. If you have a grass problem, lay wet newspaper or thin cardboard and extra compost before the bark chips. Sticks and leaves and branches can also be added on top. Woody material encourages fungi and, in a forest, fallen branches and trees are everywhere, rotting back into the soil and encouraging more life.

Pumpkins in every garden

Soon everyone will be thinking about growing pumpkins. Our local gardening groups, collectively known as Gumboot Gardeners, want to encourage as many people as possible to grow pumpkins this year. We will be having a community stall at the Cygnet Market on October 15^th where we will be distributing seeds of as many different pumpkins as we can muster as well as giving pumpkin growing advice. The idea is that then, in autumn, when pumpkins are ready to harvest, we will have another stall, with competitions for size, shape, creative dressing and decorating and cooking! Individuals, families, schools and groups are all invited to join in. Maybe the police station, fire station, medical centres, community garden and council parks will grow pumpkins too, as they do in Incredible, Edible Todmorden, England!

If you have pumpkin seeds to share please would you contact me asap so we can build up a great seed bank for our project. katevag@gmail.com

War and seeds

Have you ever thought about what happens to the heirloom seeds saved for generations by traditional farmers when they become caught in war zones and their crops destroyed or abandoned? The rich diversity of crops can sometimes be lost forever and a community devastated by fighting may never regain the foods that had graced the tables of the community for thousands of years. Spare a thought for the chaos around the world and the seeds being lost, along with the lives.

How lucky we are to live in peaceful, beautiful Tasmania.

Indoors to transplant later	Outside (late Sept if very cold)
Tomatoes,	Celery, celeriac (love it wet, lime)
Capsicums, chillis	Carrots
Corn	Parsnips
Asparagus	Onions, long keeping (lime well)
Leeks	Kales, especially Squire and Blue Curled
Peas	Spinach
Herbs (NOT basil yet!)	Brassicas (if you are prepared with netting to keep the cabbage moths off)
Lettuce + other salad greens	Beetroot
Still a bit early for cucumbers and pumpkins if you have late frosts.
Chit or Plant out	Divide and plant out
Potatoes (leave to chit or sprout if frosty where you live. Plant out later)	Globe artichokes Rhubarb Sunchokes

May 2017 Kitchen Garden Guide

Late autumn is my favourite time of year in the kitchen garden. The harvesting and preserving pressures are finished, seeds have been collected and stored and the sowing and planting pressures of spring are months away. Now is the time to work on the soil, to reshape beds, to make compost, to prune, to make hugels, to protect tender plants and to sit on the verandah in the sun and watch the light as it changes day by day. Brassicas will be flourishing, Chilean guavas and cape gooseberries can be picked by the handful as you pass by, grape leaves are turning and apples arriving. Life is good.

Energy

Energy is everywhere and now is the time to think about how to make your life attuned to capturing and storing it. In a handful of seeds is the energy to start a whole season’s food. In a bale of hay is the energy from a year’s pasture growth, ready to decompose and feed the microbes in your soil, which in turn feed your food garden. In a jar of fermented pickles are the fruits of a plant’s labour and millions of bacteria all working to provide your gut with life and energy. In a brick fireplace is stored the energy from the heat of firewood; trees that have grown for many years, capturing energy enough to warm us all winter. In water is the energy of life, without which nothing on earth can live.
Which is the opposite of wasting energy - by driving cars out of your zone to get food, by draining your land instead of harnessing the water, by burning piles of prunings instead of making hugels, by throwing away your food scraps instead of making compost, by buying food brought from other lands, by using up oil reserves (eg in cling film, disposable bags, foam trays) we should be saving for important uses like saving lives.
We are all worried about climate change. We are all the reason it exists. Therefore, only we can be the solution. By turning our thinking around we can all do it; by catching and storing energy instead of wasting it. Refuse packaged fruit and vegetables. Shop locally, really locally, starting in your backyard and those of your neighbours and friends. Then into your most local market and small, ethical shops. Eat what is there! Read books like The Food Clock by Fast Ed Halmagyi to help bring the joy of the seasons into your kitchen, your life and the future of humanity! It is not an exaggeration, dear reader. No excuse is good enough not to start today. It also brings such a joy of living and relieves so much stress just by changing one’s mindset.

Pumpkins

I think pumpkins must be the most celebrated vegetables in the world because everywhere you travel, there seems to be an autumn pumpkin festival. The shapes, sizes, colours and textures make us laugh with delight and the flavours can vary enormously from the French chestnut flavoured ‘potimarron’ to the sweetest ‘futsu’ and the crazy, knobbly ‘Galeaux d’Eysines’. Competitions for the heaviest pumpkin have brought fame to growers far and wide. I saw some of the most beautiful craft, using pumpkins, in a French pumpkin festival. Check out Victoria’s annual festival at a tiny place with the incredible name of Collector.
And so I hope to encourage you to plan your pumpkin growing area now, browse seed catalogues, buy seed early and prepare yourselves for entering the fun of next autumn’s Cygnet Pumpkin Festival. Schools, clubs, families, individuals one and all, are invited. Details will emerge and grow, now that the seed of the idea has germinated!

Weeds and more

Many people in Europe still forage, not just for mushrooms, but for winter herbs and greens and roots which are native to their lands. Many of them grow wild in our gardens but we silly Australians pull them out, calling them weeds and give them to the chooks, who happily devour them because they are not so prejudiced! There is an excellent Australian book called The Weed Foragers’ Handbook, which I highly recommend. Soon, you will be eating from the garden without planting anything at all!
Luckily, the cooler weather also heralds the end of the cabbage moth laying eggs on our brassicas. If you have not planted brassicas yet, it is now too late as the plants will not have big enough leaves to grow through winter. When spring comes, they will bolt to seed and you won’t get a crop.
Autumn is a wonderful time for harvesting mushrooms, kale, French sorrel, salad leaves, early broccoli, rainbow chard, the last of our summer vegetables, the first of the winter weeds and a myriad of fabulous apples, pears and quinces. Many kitchen pantries are now bulging at the seams with preserves. Bring on winter and cosy nights by the fire with some home-made cassis and quince paste served with a delicious, local cheese!

Seaweeds

Tasmania is surrounded by sea and yet we tend not to forage the shores and shallows for food. That is a topic I wrote about in May 2016. Seaweed is wonderful for our food gardens too.
As autumn and winter storms in the roaring 40’s send high seas crashing onto the shores of Tasmania, kelp and other sea plants are strewn on the beaches. I heard on the radio that we are allowed to collect seaweed from most beaches at the rate of 100kg / day in Tasmania. Seaweed is heavy, so that is not as much as it sounds. I have some great ideas for using it! Seaweed contains trace elements which we often neglect to think about in our food gardens (and our stomachs).
1. Place tubs or large buckets here and there in your garden. Half fill them with seaweed and fill to the top with water. Cover if you like. Keep a ladle nearby. Whenever you see some plants looking a bit weak or off-colour give them a tonic of 1 part seaweed water to 9 parts water, in a watering can. Pour over the leaves.
2. Completely cover your asparagus patch with a thick layer of seaweed during winter. Leave the rain and the worms to do the work.
3. Seaweed is a wonderful addition to mulch under fruit trees.



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	Leek bulbils Garlic cloves Large seedlings of Asian veg. Flower bulbs Sow in the hothouse to plant out: Lettuces Kales Broccoli raab Sow to stay in the hothouse or frost-free area: Sugar snap peas