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.

May 2020 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

Millions of people all over the world have started growing food for the first time, which has even caused a shortage of seeds. People are cooking a lot more than ever before too. Families are sitting together for meals. School at home is including measuring ingredients, following recipes, planning menus, using up what is in the fridge in creative ways, as well as preparing garden beds, harvesting fruit and saving seeds. Isn’t this how life is meant to be? After all, food production, preparation and eating encompasses every school subject you can think of!

Making the most of chook yard design

Being at home, it is a good time to look at your garden and explore ways to make it more user friendly. This is where permaculture design can help and is worth researching.

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 weeds and grasses 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 mold 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 worm castings and something light, like perlite, as a seed raising mix or added to potting mix.

(Last year I gathered lots and lots of the fallen oak leaves from one of the trees and put them into 3 large sacks. The resulting compost or leaf mold is now good enough to eat on your muesli, as Peter Cundall would say. I look forward to making good use of it.)

If you don’t have such a luxury, just cover the chook yard in any old hay, raked up autumn leaves, finished tomato plants etc. Peter Cundall recommends you throw around some lime under the hay. If you use dolomite, you will be adding magnesium and it is gentler on chook feet than other lime too, as they scratch about all winter. I use woodash.

In order to have a constant supply of greenery for chooks, it is a great idea to surround the perimeter of their yard, outside the fence, with things they like to eat. Plantings right up against the fence will poke leaves through or 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.

Useful leaf plants for this include chards, comfrey, parsley, nasturtiums etc. Useful seed plants include amaranth, small sunflower seeds, millet, wheat etc.  Useful fruits include strawberries and any soft fruit. For more info check online.

Cuttings

May is the perfect time for taking cuttings of deciduous plants like grape vines, glory vines and black and red 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 damp 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 then and pot up to grow on further or leave longer. Some will take much longer than others, so be patient!

If this all sounds like too much hard work, grab yourself a bottle of linseed oil, mix it half with turps, sit in the sunshine and rub an oiled cloth over the handles of all your garden tools. Listen to the birds, breathe our clean air and be grateful for the safe place we find ourselves in.

Books, websites, courses and facebook pages

Books:

Paradise and Plenty by Mary Keen…. The inside workings of the legendary, productive garden at Lord Rothschild's private house, Eythrope in Buckinghamshire, England

Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe…. How first Australians farmed and managed the land as recorded by all the explorers of the day.

Around the World in 80 plants by Stephen Barstow…. A compendium of 80 perennial, edible plants from around the world, with stories and recipes. Amazing!

Online:

For Tasmanian relevant, food gardening articles, videos, courses and more check out the “Milkwood” website.

Join a local facebook page such as Food Gardeners Tasmania, Tasmanian Fungi, Preserving Folk, Cygnet Seed Library, Tasmanian Bushtucker, Crop Swap and others from further afield such as Wild food and Hedgewitchery, Earth Homes, Huws Nursery, Garden Art, Junk and Antiques and so many more!

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)	Perennial Leek bulbils including elephant garlic Garlic cloves Seedlings of Asian veg. Flower bulbs Sow in the hothouse 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

May 2016 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

Land weeds

Hooray, hooray, at my place there have been more than 30mm of rain this week. It is just a little of what we need but it means our winter kitchen gardens can now start to grow, and that means the weeds too! Many of the weeds make excellent winter greens, especially when young. After all, they are here in Tasmania because someone brought them here, to eat, in the first place, then they got away.

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 kitchens are 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! I will be using my bottled tomatoes all year and smiling every time.

Seaweeds

Tasmania is surrounded by sea and yet we tend not to forage the shores and shallows for food. Did you know that our soils are low in magnesium and that this means your vegetables are too (unless care has been taken to add magnesium to the soil, usually by using dolomite lime or Epsom salts)? Magnesium is vitally important for our health. Magnesium can also be added to the soil simply by adding seaweeds to your compost or liquid feed. Magnesium can be added to your diet more directly by eating the seaweed yourself. All of the longest lived peoples of the world eat many different sea plants; think Okinawa (Japan) and Sicily.

Wakame (Undaria pinnatifida) is a common seaweed in Tasmanian waters but it is an introduced weed, probably arriving on the bottom of Asian ships and making a home from St. Helens to Dover. You can harvest it (or buy it) to your heart’s content because you are helping to control its spread. Red Lettuce or Grateloupia turuturu  is another introduced seaweed to the Tasmanian coast. This one is nutritious and a colourful addition to your meal. Search the internet for photos so you can identify them. I don’t know of any plants in our seas that are toxic but, the sad thing is, some of our coastline has been raped by industry plus land and sea farming which has left toxic residues in our once pristine waters.

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!

If you don’t have such a luxury, just cover the chook yard in any old hay, raked up autumn leaves, finished tomato plants etc. Peter Cundall recommends you throw around some lime under the hay. If you use dolomite, you will be adding magnesium and it is gentler on chook feet than other lime too, as they scratch about all winter.

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!

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 or frost-free area: Sugar snap peas	Leek bulbils Garlic cloves Large seedlings of Asian veg. Flower bulbs Plant and grow in the hothouse: Celery (loves it there over winter), 1 or 2 of lots of things, so you can pick a few things when it is raining in the garden…. lettuce, parsley, viet. mint, lemon grass, chervil, frilly kale (small variety) for salads, shungiku, sugar snap peas….

May 2014 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

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.