Garlic - Getting the basics right

Garlic is sometimes described as easy to grow, but that does not mean that you can plant your garlic cloves just anywhere and then they look after themselves until harvest time. This post discusses what to do to make your garlic really happy, so you maximise your chances of a great harvest.

When Rust blows in

Rust is a fungus that manifests itself as yellow, red or rust-brown speckles on leaves and stems of plants. Rust loves wet warm conditions and is hard to get rid of once you have it. This blog post shows examples of Rust and offers organic strategies for containing it. 

Rust on broad beans

Veggie Patch Basics - 6 (Dec - Jan)

The December to January part of the food garden season is a busy time in the food garden. Veggie Patch Basics - 6 covers this period and aims to help you make your food garden even more productive and successful.

Pink Eye potato flowers

Online Food Garden Chat June 2020

On Sunday 21 June 2020 the Food Garden Group's second online food garden chat took place. We talked about frost, passion fruit, globe artichokes, avocados, broccoli, garlic, neighbours, timing of sowing and planting, and the influence of temperature.  See below for a summary of the discussions.

Vegetables this Winter

It is December - early summer! Why would you think about your winter garden at this point in time? It’s because some winter vegetables are best sown now. It’s also because starting on time will be a key to success!

Lessons learned

I have been growing my own food for about 20 years now and grew up with a father who was passionate about his enormous vegetable garden in Bellerive. We were self sufficient in most fruit and veg during my childhood with the diet supplemented by home grown eggs and chicken meat.

However I made some stupid mistakes last year and thought it might be educational to share some for those blog readers new to food gardening.

Garlic
First mistake. I usually grow good garlic and I know the important issue is flavour not necessarily clove size. The year before I over watered.The garlic cloves were huge but the crop did not last well and some went mouldy after harvest. Last year I did not water at all but relied on rainfall and as there was not a lot of that I got very small cloves. I think there is a middle ground here and this year I will find it.

Broad beans
I wanted to have a prolonged harvest of broad beans last year and hence staggered the planting of my crop over three months. Stupidly though I planted the last lot on the southern non sunny side of the bed so the seeds germinated but never produced pods as they were oversahdowed by the main crop. A fundamental lack of planning. I will do better this year.

Brown rot in fruit
Last year when Greg Belbin demonstarted pruning for us he said he sprayed his fruit trees against brown rot every month over the winter. I was lazy and ignored his advice and due to some overwatering and lush growth in the trees I had a major brown rot problem.  I will be following the rules for hygeine around the trees and spraying regularly this year.

Some things I did well:

Leeks
I always have trouble with leeks that develop slowly over the winter and then in Septembe bolt to seed and become inedible. Last year I sowed my leeks in early December planted out in early January so now have lovely well developed leeks which will hold up well in the soil for regular harvesting over the winter when this delicious vegetable is so desirable.

Controlling white cabbage moth
I know many people don't grow brassicas as they get fed up trying to control these pests. I am happy to spray with Dipel but hate doing so when the plants are tiny. This year I copied a method from one of our garden group members. I can't remember whose idea it was but it has been hugely successful. I purchased cheap wire rubbish bins form a local discount store and placed them over my young brassica seedlings. The cabbage moths could not get through the small holes and the plants grew well and were well developed before I had to start spraying. In fact I have only had to spray three times for effective control for seedlings planted out in January. It looks a little funny but worked brilliantly. My small outlay for the wire bins will be rewarded over many years of use. Thank you to the person who suggested this.

So a couple of great benefits of gardening, firstly we can always learn, especially from each others experience. Secondly gardeners are optimistic people . Even when mistake are made we look forward to doing better next year.

Happy gardening.

Get ready for Spring

Early August: Spring is in the air....

A beautiful winters day and a definite hint of spring in the air so time to get moving and shake off the winter lethargy and start sowing and planting for spring eating.

May in the Garden

Garden Jobs for the merry month of May

Most of the tasks for April still apply in May. Broad beans and garlic can go in as well as broccoli  and winter lettuce seedlings. The cooler months are also the time for spring and salad onions either seedlings or you can sow the seed.

Green Manure
If you have some spare ground over winter consider sowing a green manure crop. When it is about knee high and still green and sappy dig it in for a wonderful start to spring veggie growth.

Pumpkins
If you haven't yet harvested your pumpkins get them in now before the first frosts. I have just brought in the last of mine, a few very late developing butternuts. Keep a good length of vine attached let them harden off in the sun for a few hours and then store  them on their side in a cool airy place.Check regularly for any that show signs of rot. Use these first.

Fruit Trees
If you want to put in new fruit trees this year you should start planning now. Fruit trees are best planted bare rooted in June or July. The link below is for a local nursery speciliasing in heritage varieties mostly on dwarf stock, which means the tree will be smaller and should fruit sooner.They post the young trees out to you. I have managed to fit about 18 such trees into my standard suburban back yard. Their catalogue usually comes out around now.
www.woodbridgefruittrees.com.au

Some Garden Jobs for April

Garlic and broad beans
April is quite a busy month with a few jobs that need to be done before the cold weather really sets in. I will be sowing my broad beans and garlic this month. Both need to go into well limed soil but don't need lots of fertiliser. This year I am going make successive sowings of broad beans over a 6 week period in the hope of extending the crop into December. Last year I had a huge flush and they were all over before the end of November.

Brassicas
There is still time to put in some brassicas for winter eating. I have a few bare spots and will be filling in with broccoli, cabbages and caulis. Too late for brussel sprouts, and too late for many seeds but I have just sown the seeds of winter spinach, bok choy, winter lettuce, coriander and  rocket. The bok choy and rocket were up in about  four days so fingers crossed.

Caterpillars
I will do my final spraying of Dipel this week to control moth and butterfly larvae. I usually spray every 10 to 14 days and this year have achieved very good control. Irrigate the plants well before spraying and include a few drops of dishwashing liquid in with the spray to make it stick to the leaves. I am quite comfortable using this spray within my organic garden, it specifically targets the caterpillars causing them to stop eating immediately and drop of over the next couple of days. Dipel does not harm other insects. Butterfly activity slows right down from April on but I still found the odd caterpillar till June last year.

Snails and slugs
Slugs and snails are very active at the moment. Not sure how their breeding cycle goes but I have been wandering around the garden at night with the head torch on, goodness knows what the neighbours must think, carrying my bucket filled with very salty water and have found hundreds of them arrayed on my brassica tips like little jewels. I think I must have found the snail creche because there were dozens of tiny ones. The salty water works a treat in despatching them to slug and snail heaven and they dont smell. They just seem to pickle. My beer traps work well too for slugs but there is much satisfaction in the hands on approach. Generally I love and nurture my garden creatures but not these tribes.

Remove mulch
I mulch heavily in the summer to conserve moisture,  keep roots cool and minimise weed growth. Now though is the time to move it all away to let the weaker autumn  sun get to the soil and to remove the hiding place for slugs and snails. Weeds are slower to take hold from now on so weeding is not so difficult. I will compost this material over the winter.

Fruit trees
Spray stonefruits with bordeaux or copper spray solution now and again at bud swell in August to control leaf curl and other fungal diseases. Also to prevent brown rot clear away all the old debris from under the trees especially rotten and mummified fruit which may still be hanging. I give all my fruit trees except citrus a good few handfuls of dolomite limestone at this time of year and water in well. This helps prevent bitter pit in apples and is also good for the stone fruits. I have tended to be a hacker rather than a pruner of my fruit trees and am looking forward to our next garden visit in April to finally learn how to go about it.

Happy April gardening