June 2014 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

Fruit trees, vines, bushes and canes proliferate here in the Huon Valley and fill much of our year with glorious flavours. Winter is the perfect time to plant (and prune) most of them. There is just one problem; wildlife. In the town area of Cygnet I don’t have any problem. If you have bush near your garden, you no doubt have possums and wallabies decimating new growth, tearing at the bark, breaking branches and eating all the fruit. My suggestion is solar powered, electric netting around the whole zone. It works at my friends’ house in the middle of the bush. Available online in NSW. Search for “electric netting fence”.

An overabundance of fruit and the work required in the orchard stresses many people. I choose to grow only what I cannot otherwise source locally; by swapping with friends, sharing at the community garden, buying at the roadside stalls, direct from orchards or from local shops. This is also part of being a sustainable community and supporting each other, whilst enjoying a relaxed and abundant life. Why grow the same things as your neighbour?

Fruit from outside the square

Irish strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo): drought tolerant, evergreen, pretty, small tree native to Europe and Ireland, with late fruits turning from yellow to orange then red. I walked to a lake in France when these were ripe and gorged on them the whole way. There they were growing in sandy soil but mine here is growing happily in solid clay.

Persimon (Diospyros kaki): Deciduous, small tree with large, red fruits on bare stems in winter. A glorious sight. I love the old fashioned sort, where the fruits have to ripen to very soft, on your window sill. Decadently sweet and flavoursome.

Carob (Ceratonia siliqua): Evergreen, drought tolerant tree / hedge producing very large pods which, when picked and eaten fresh, are heavenly. Don’t be put off by your impression of commercial carob powder! I had a tree in Adelaide and highly recommend its luscious crop.

Quince: the smile on the faces of was enough to reinforce to me the value of growing quinces. The pineapple quince is a variety which is less gritty but still full flavoured and can even be eaten raw when thinly sliced.

Tamarillo (Solanum betaceum): native to sub-tropical parts of Chile it is a frost sensitive, small tree bearing egg-shaped, dark red fruits with a lovely taste and lush texture. I don’t have one yet but if I did, I would wrap it in horticultural fleece for the winter and mulch it heavily.

Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) from China and Japan:flowers appear in late autumn and in frosty areas may not set fruit, which would normally be ripe in late winter. The small tree is very drought tolerant and worth growing because of its open habit and fragrant flowers. The fruits are yellow and succulent with several quite big, shiny stones.

White shahtoot mulberry (Morus macroura) from the Middle East: One of my favourite deciduous trees and fruits, the white tassle-like fruit are exquisitely sweet and heavenly. Left to grow to its full height it makes a perfect shade tree but I espaliered one in another life and each stem grew to several metres long, bearing hundreds of sweet tassles, which looked like long ear rings hanging on the wire.

Kiwi fruit and kiwi berries: native to northern China they are very happy in the cold. They are a vine and make wonderful summer shade over a pergola but the pergola must be very strong. They grow well from cutting but you must remember to get cuttings from male and female plants and label them well in case one dies and you need to replace it!

Chilean guava (Ugni molinae): small, tidy, evergreen shrub ideal for edging a path, covered in late autumn with intensely flavoured, bright red berries which the birds don’t seem to know about! The berries hang on for weeks. Eat raw or add to salads or muffins or stew with apples.

Tasmanian Pepperberry (Tasmannia lanceolata):  beautiful, evergreen shrub with red stems and shiny black berries. Suitable for hedges or edges. Not something we would eat as a fruit, but the black berries are fiery hot with tones of the Australian bush. I have been picking them fresh from a friend’s garden and either using fresh or leaving to dry then storing for grinding later. Why buy black pepper when we have our own?

Figs (Ficus carica): My memories are of climbing a fig tree at high school, just before Easter every year, and gorging with my friends on soft, deep red, unbelievably delicious figs. Also, picking green-skinned, strawberry red fleshed figs from my mother’s garden and taking boxes of them to the market to sell as we just had too many from one small tree! I have not eaten a single fig here in Tasmania that would encourage me to grow them here.

If I had a warmer, frost free site or a large glasshouse, I would grow avocadoes, white sapote, oranges, mandarins and figs.

 

Kitchen ideas for June

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 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. 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.

 

Seeds to sow in June Sow in the garden: Broad beans Salad and spring onions Shallots Chives English spinach Radishes Plant out Garlic Asparagus crowns Divide rhubarb Winter herbs Winter flower annuals Globe artichokes Sunchokes Bulbs

Sow in trays: Brassicas Artichokes Coriander Chervil Lettuce Rocket Asian greens Jobs for June Prune deciduous trees except cherries and apricots Feed and mulch the dripline of fruit trees with anything you have, including seaweed. Collect seaweed (especially kelp) after winter storms and cover your asparagus patch with it. Brassicas also love it. Wonderful added to your compost too.

June 2013 Kitchen garden Guide

 

Winter has not quite set in, allowing extra time for gardening in mild temperatures and mostly sunny days. I have been busy sheet mulching. I have several shrubbed areas I’d like to keep more or less grass free to reduce maintenance so here is what I do.

1.   More or less cut the grass and weeds as low as possible. Leave them on the surface.

2.   Throw over any vegetable scraps (even fresh), lawn clippings, plant clippings and soft prunings, mushroom compost, blood and bone.

3.   Completely and thoroughly cover it all with cardboard. Dampen down. Don’t worry too much about some sticky tape or coloured labels but I don’t use the shiny cardboard as it can take ages for water to get into it.

4.   Next put old manures to hold down the cardboard. Dampen again.

5.   Lastly cover with as much straw or other weed-free mulch as you can afford; 20 cms is good. Make it really dense and not too fluffy or you will soon see the cardboard.

6.   Grab a cup of coffee, pull up a seat, smile and survey your work!

If you want to use a similar method in your herb garden or perennial vegetable area, use newspaper instead of cardboard, as it is easier to get it around smaller plants. Lay it 10 sheets thick and generously overlapped.

If you want to make a new vegetable garden bed, then, after mowing the grass and weeds down, sprinkle the ground generously with lime before following the cardboard or newspaper method.

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 / tarragon and pistachios / parsley 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. A less well known and often misunderstood winter herb is angelica, with a pine-like aroma in its large, fern-like leaves. No need to bother with the stems which are traditionally candied, simply chop up the leaves and use them finely sliced with fruit or to line the bottom of a cake tin before baking. 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.

Interestingly, all these are members of the Umbelliferae or carrot family. The family also includes asafoetida, caraway, cumin, dill and lovage, to name a few.

Rocket is another herb that germinates and thrives during winter.

Herbs that hold their colour and flavour even in winter include rosemary, thyme, oregano, marjoram, winter savory, bay and sage, although sage should be picked sparingly as it is much less vigorous in winter.

Community Help Needed

Some of us have secured the rather lovely job of revamping the Cygnet Library garden and over the next few months will be bringing life, colour and some edibles to the small, front beds.

In order to get something cheerful into the soil for winter we are asking for any donations of small flowering plants and herbs of a good size. If you can help with donations, please email me katevag@gmail.com or speak to the library staff.

As time goes on we hope to introduce signs and gardening tips as part of the library’s education arm, encouraging everyone to learn and enjoy plants in their lives. Hopefully we will be allowed to extend our plans right the way around the library and incorporate many Tasmanian plants, edible and ornamental as well as local art projects.

Bushfire Gardens

Thank you so much to those who kindly donated an amazing array of garden-related goods. They have now been delivered and I have been asked to express gratitude by the gardeners in need. Please keep donating, but only garden goodies please, to 4 Winns Road, Cygnet, behind my letterbox.

 

Books for winter reading Vegetable Literacy by Deborah Madison (A mammoth book of every vegetable and herb imaginable – includes history, geography, culture and cooking) The Great Herb Tour by Christina Hindhaugh (A delightful true story of travelling the world in search of herbs and gardeners).

 

Blogs and websites for indoor enjoyment www.goldenvalleyfarm.net – Alex Taylor’s adventures as a market gardener including his new DIY movable cloche/poly tunnel system ABC Landline 26/05/2013 : Sailing to Market – a superb video of the Olive May’s recent trip down the Huon, collecting produce to take to Salamanca market. The Preserving Patch – a Tasmanian blog all about preserving, by Sue who lives in the north west (thepreservingpatch.blogspot.com.au)

 

Seeds to sow in June Sow in the garden: Broad beans Salad and spring onions Shallots Chives English spinach Radishes Plant out Garlic Asparagus crowns Divide rhubarb Winter herbs Winter flower annuals Globe artichokes Sunchokes Bulbs

Sow in trays: Brassicas Artichokes Coriander Chervil Lettuce Rocket Asian greens Jobs for June Prune deciduous trees except cherries and apricots Feed and mulch the dripline of fruit trees with anything you have, including seaweed. Collect seaweed (especially kelp) after winter storms and cover your asparagus patch with it. Brassicas also love it. Wonderful added to your compost too.

June 2012 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

Sitting on my verandah writing this in the glorious winter sunshine is one of the benefits of living in southern Tasmania. By this I mean that we do, actually, have a lot of sunshine, on and off, all year round.

I read a very interesting book by Eliot Coleman, an organic, American market gardener, called…… In it he describes his trip through Europe following the same latitude at his property in Maine, USA. In the USA, in fields of snow, huge commercial poly tunnels are heated artificially in order to produce all year round tomatoes and other, out of season vegetables, totally ignoring the diversity of winter vegetables. In this trip, he is seeking knowledge on growing seasonal food all year round in climates similar to his own; colder than Tasmania but with similar levels of winter light.  

The book is well written and rich with anecdotes of speaking to farmers in their fields and gardeners in their potagers, through France, mostly. What he discovers is that the growth of plants through winter is more about the amount of light available than about heat. The answer to maintaining plant growth throughout winter in low light latitudes is to simply ensure that the plants have developed a large surface area of leaf by late autumn, when the sunlight hours become very short. Then, only pick ½ the amount of leaves you would pick at any one time in summer, so that the plants large solar surface area is maintained throughout 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. Peter Cundall recently said on the radio that we are allowed to collect seaweed from most beaches at the rate of 100kg / day. 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.

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.

Recently I was helping a friend prune some of her enormous red, black and white currant bushes. Hungrily, I gathered up all the sticks and just fitted them all into the back of my car (yes, there really were THAT many!). I took them to the Cygnet Community Garden where we will turn them into smaller bundles of cuttings to sell at the market and raise a bit of money for ongoing projects. If you’d like some, come to the Cygnet Market 1^st and 3^rd Sundays in the Town Hall. Even better, come and help us tie them into bundles in the community garden on Tuesdays from 9.30am, and get some for free!

Sharing is easy; the Cygnet Market has a community stall where anyone can take excess produce to sell. You can stay and help or just leave them and come back later for your money! Being part of a community is a very rewarding experience.

This month I would like to introduce you to another of my blogger friends, Pattie Baker, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Ten or so years ago Pattie was a regular American consumer. Then the Towers fell and many Americans re-evaluated their lives. Pattie decided to grow food, for her daughters, and so began the family’s incredible journey. Now Pattie is an advocate for sustainability, a community leader in urban food production and gives corporations advice on becoming green citizens. She calls it “local action/global traction”.  Visit her at foodshedplanet.com. She has also written a book, from the heart, called Food for my Daughters. I highly recommend it.

Sow now in the garden: Onions (Creamgold, Domenica Sweet), broad beans, green manures Sow now in the hothouse or outside in frost free areas: Coriander, miners’ lettuce, spring onions, Asian greens, lettuce, bok choy, sugar snap peas, Sow now to transplant  later: Broccoli, red cabbage, kales Also: Divide rhubarb and globe artichokes. Lime and mulch fruit trees. Prune berries, currants and gooseberries. Take cuttings of deciduous plants. Plant kiwi fruit and be sure to get a male and a female plant. They like sun, a rich, acidic soil and good drainage. Kiwi fruit vines require a strong trellis or pergola and are frost hardy once established. Fruit ripens in winter which is just when we need them!

  

Tip of the month: Rub all the wooden handles of your tools with linseed oil. Keep an oiled cloth with your garden tools and rub them over several times during winter. Clean secateurs and other blades with dry steel wool. Spray with lubricant or wipe with the oiled cloth. You’ll be amazed at the difference it makes!

June 2015 Kitchen Garden Guide

 A garden in your kitchen

For health, variety, taste, texture and the pure joy of it, I love growing sprouts; especially during winter when nights draw in early and a trip to the vegetable garden for a late picking can be a dark, cold and wet experience.

Seeds are dormant; waiting patiently for the right conditions to burst into life. At that moment of germination, evolution has enabled extraordinary changes to occur inside the seed, similar to the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly. Energy stored by the seed is put to work, creating elements that were seemingly not there before, like the wings of the butterfly that were absent in the caterpillar. In seeds, enzymes are activated and go into production making root cells that, in the soil, reach down to attach the seed to the earth and extract nutrients to start the growth of the top of the plant.

All gardeners know how attractive the first shoots of our sown crops are to every animal and many insects; munching off newly emerged seedlings as they shoot out above the soil!! Sprouted seeds are equally good for us humans and every opportunity should be seized to eat home grown sprouts as soon as the first evidence of a shoot has appeared as this is the stage when the seed has created the most nutrients to see itself succeed in life.

Seeds brought into Australia have been irradiated and are dead. They are not food, have lost most of their nutrients and will never sprout. You must use organic seeds for sprouting or, at the very least, Australian-grown seeds.

I use a layered sprouter so I can add layers day by day, ensuring one tray of sprouts is always at hand for my lunch. My favourite things to sprout are chick peas, red lentils, green lentils, mung beans and fenugreek. I eat a tray of one of them every day, mixed with salad greens and my wonderful ginger carrot fermented pickle. Because of the protein, enzymes and vitamins in this lunch, I am energized for the afternoon and never feel drowsy. If I crave a hot lunch, I simply sprinkle the tray of sprouts over some soup when I serve it (so as not to overheat them and kill the enzymes, which are very heat sensitive).

I also sprout seeds such as rye, spelt, quinoa and barley for adding to my home made sourdough bread and for steaming in place of rice, for example, or adding to stews at the last minute.

Sprouts are a powerhouse of nutrition and a delight to have growing in your kitchen all year round. Don’t use them as a condiment to just add beauty to a dish, make them the main player and feel your body sing!

Outside in June

I adore the feel of really crisp air on my face; the white air we get here on a very frosty, early morning dash to bring in more firewood, that makes your cheeks glow and covers your hair in fine droplets.

Gardening in the cold is a challenge, as gloves get wet, fingers go numb and too much clothing makes jobs awkward. However, if the sun is out, even a very cold day becomes glorious and a few minutes pruning or doing other outdoor work warms your insides as nothing else can. It is a tonic. As you rest on your spade, close your eyes, face the sun and let the rays activate the capillaries beneath your eyelids.

It is a great time to prepare beds for spring by trampling down weeds and grasses, sprinkling a layer of lime, throwing over some vegetable scraps and sheep manure or Tasmanian blood and bone then covering thickly with wet paper or cardboard. On top of that go generous amounts of compost or grass clippings or even tree prunings that include a lot of leaves. Lastly, cover with thick but fluffed-up straw (best) or hay from a mostly weed-free source. Leave for 3 months, or longer if you like.

If you leave it for longer, pay attention to weeds emerging from the hay etc and also remove any now-denuded branches from the prunings. Plant well-grown seedlings directly into this, without digging it at all, in spring or sow big seeds like beans once frost is past. (Small seeds need a fine tilth to get going. Raking to a fine tilth is one of my favourite activities!).

 

Books for winter reading The Enzyme Factor (Hiromi Shinya). Amazingly useful info. Bitter (Jennifer McLagan) The history of bitter vegetables, herbs and drinks plus recipes and health information. How to Grow and Use Sprouts (Isabel Shipard) Growing Vegetables South of Australia  (Steve Solomon) May 2015 edition now out. Totally revised.

 

 

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 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 at the Cygnet Community Garden. 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.

 

 

Seeds to sow in June Sow in the garden: Broad beans Salad and spring onions Shallots Chives English spinach Radishes Plant out Garlic Asparagus crowns Divide rhubarb Winter herbs Winter flower annuals Globe artichokes Sunchokes Bulbs

Sow in trays: Brassicas Artichokes Coriander Chervil Lettuce Rocket Asian greens Jobs for June Prune deciduous trees for growth except cherries and apricots. (Prune for shaping after fruiting in late summer/ early autumn) Lime and mulch the dripline of fruit trees with anything you have, including seaweed. Collect seaweed (especially kelp) after winter storms and cover your asparagus patch with it. Brassicas also love it. Wonderful added to your compost too.

June 2016 Kitchen Garden Guide

 Winter is here. I love it. My garden is flourishing and nourishing; providing bounty without the work of spring and summer. There is endless, lush coriander, rocket, mizuna, kale, rainbow chard, French sorrel (and Tasmanian too), chicory roots and leaves, fennel fronds and flowers (the bulbs are not big enough yet), wasabi greens and wild things to forage. I could have beetroot, hakurei turnips and others but I get them at the markets and it is stressful to try to grow everything. I have not dug any sunchokes yet but I will soon.

It is the weather for soup and none is more satisfying and cleansing than garlic soup which I make from a recipe a woman in France gave me. Oh lalalala it was one of the best soups I’d ever had and she wrote it out for me in French. In the freezer I have some stocks made with bones from animals raised locally, ethically and without chemicals. These form the base of all my winter soups. In summer I usually use vegetable stock or bottles of my tomatoes.

Every meal has a dash of another season, in the form of fermented vegetables which have been brewing for a few weeks or months. I have just finished the last of my brined, dill cucumbers, made from my garden back in February. The liquid lives on though, in salad dressings, for months more.

There is a sprawling, sweet potato vine in my greenhouse. I will harvest it one day when I feel like exploring the undergrowth there. In the meantime I pick some of the fresh, sweet potato leaves and eat them which is very common in Singapore. Don’t talk to me about cape gooseberries! I cannot keep up now, so will leave them to shrivel in their fine baskets and watch the seeds sprout and grow from inside the skeletons, in spring.

Various fruits and nuts sit in bottles of vodka or brandy on my mantel piece; raspberries, black currants, lemon peel and almonds, to name a few. When the nights are dark by 5pm, a sip or two of one of them, by the fire before dinner, is a gorgeous reminder of the summer bounty.

Fruit from outside the square, to plant during winter

Irish strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo): drought tolerant, evergreen, pretty, small tree native to Europe and Ireland, with late fruits turning from yellow to orange then red. I walked to a lake in France when these were ripe and gorged on them the whole way. There they were growing in sandy soil but mine here is growing happily in solid clay.

Persimon (Diospyros kaki): Deciduous, small tree with large, red fruits on bare stems in winter. A glorious sight. I love the old fashioned sort, where the fruits have to ripen to very soft, on your window sill. Decadently sweet and flavoursome.

Carob (Ceratonia siliqua): Evergreen, drought tolerant tree / hedge producing very large pods which, when picked and eaten fresh, are heavenly. Don’t be put off by your impression of commercial carob powder! I had a tree in Adelaide and highly recommend its luscious crop.

Quince: the smiles on the faces of people who come past my quince tree, to my front door, is enough to reinforce to me the value of growing quinces. Whether it be the beautiful pink blossom or the gorgeous, heavy, yellow fruit, they are magnificent for so much of the year. They are drought hardy but produce best when given a monthly, deep watering in summer.

Tamarillo (Solanum betaceum): native to sub-tropical parts of Chile it is a frost sensitive, small tree bearing egg-shaped, dark red fruits with a lovely taste and lush texture. I have one in my greenhouse which is doing well.

Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) from China and Japan: flowers appear in late autumn and in frosty areas may not set fruit, which would normally be ripe in late winter. The small tree is very drought tolerant and worth growing because of its open habit and fragrant flowers. The fruits are yellow and succulent with several quite big, shiny stones.

White shahtoot mulberry (Morus macroura) from the Middle East: One of my favourite deciduous trees and fruits. The white tassle-like fruit are exquisitely sweet and heavenly. Left to grow to its full height it makes a perfect shade tree for a chook yard but I espaliered one in another life and each stem grew to several metres long, bearing hundreds of sweet tassles, which looked like long ear rings hanging on the wire.

Kiwi fruit and kiwi berries: native to northern China they are very happy in the cold. They are a vine and make wonderful summer shade over a pergola but the pergola must be very strong. They grow well from cutting but you must remember to get cuttings from male and female plants and label them well in case one dies and you need to replace it!

Tasmanian Pepperberry (Tasmannia lanceolata):  beautiful, evergreen shrub with red stems and shiny black berries. Suitable for hedges or edges. Not something we would eat as a fruit, but the black berries are fiery hot with tones of the Australian bush. You can pick them fresh and either use fresh or leave to dry then store for grinding later. Why buy black pepper when we have our own?

Figs (Ficus carica): My memories are of climbing a fig tree at high school, just before Easter every year, and gorging with my friends on soft, deep red, unbelievably delicious figs. Also, picking green-skinned, strawberry red fleshed figs from my mother’s garden and taking boxes of them to the market to sell as we just had too many from one small tree! I have not eaten a single fig here in Tasmania that would encourage me to grow them here.

Books for winter reading; mostly available through the Tasmanian library system… Bitter (Jennifer McLagan) The history of bitter vegetables, herbs and drinks plus recipes and health information. How to Grow and Use Sprouts (Isabel Shipard) Honey from a Weed (Patience Gray) At Home in the Whole Food Kitchen (Amy Chaplin) The Enzyme Factor (Hiromi Shinya). Amazingly useful info.

 

Seeds to sow in June Sow in the garden: Broad beans Salad and spring onions Shallots Chives English spinach Radishes   Plant out Garlic Asparagus crowns Divide rhubarb Winter herbs Winter flower annuals Globe artichokes Spring Bulbs

Sow in trays: Brassicas Artichokes Coriander Chervil Lettuce Rocket Asian greens Jobs for June Prune deciduous trees except cherries and apricots Feed and mulch the dripline of fruit trees with anything you have, including seaweed and good sprinklings of ash from the fire. Collect seaweed (especially kelp) after winter storms and cover your asparagus patch with it. Brassicas also love it. Wonderful added to your compost too.

June 2018 Kitchen Garden Guide

 Winter is just beginning to set in, allowing extra time for gardening in mild soil temperatures and mostly calm days. The winter forecast from the Bureau of Meteorology for southern Tasmania is for warmer than average temperatures and average rainfall. This is pleasant for us humans but not so good for fruit set, much of which requires a serious number of cold nights.

Cold winters ensure a good crop of apples, cherries, pears, nuts and berries, which have a chill factor. This means they require a certain number of hours below 7C to ensure an even bloom period. However, during mild winters, as is forecast this year, the chilling requirement may not be met and could result in uneven bloom, and hence uneven pollination and less fruit set. The table below suggests the chill hours required by various fruits. Of course within, for example, apples, there are hundreds of varieties, each differing slightly in its requirements but this table gives a general guide.

Apple 300 - 1200	Chestnut 400 - 750
Apricot 300 - 1000	Almond 400 - 700
Cherry – 500 - 800	Walnut 400 – 1500
Fig 100 - 500	Avocado NONE
Grapes 100 - 500	Citrus NONE
Kiwi 400 - 800	Pear 150 - 1500
Peach 150-1200	Persimmon 100 - 700
Pecan 150 - 1600	Plum 275 - 1000
Nectarine 150 - 1200	Quince 100 - 500
Pomegranate 100 - 300	Olive 400 - 700

 

 

Winter Sheet mulching

Now is the perfect time for sheet mulching. I have several shrubbed areas I like to keep more or less grass free to reduce maintenance so here is what I do.

1.   More or less cut the grass and weeds as low as possible and leave them on the surface. or trample down flat.

2.   Throw over any vegetable scraps (even fresh), lawn clippings, plant clippings and prunings, mushroom compost, blood and bone.

3.   Completely and thoroughly cover it all with cardboard. Dampen down. Don’t worry too much about some sticky tape or coloured labels but I don’t use the shiny cardboard as it can take ages for water to get into it.

4.   Next put old manures to hold down the cardboard. Dampen again.

5.   Lastly cover with as much straw or other weed-free mulch as you can afford; 20 cms is good. Make it really dense and not too fluffy or you will soon see the cardboard.

6.   Grab a cup of coffee, pull up a seat, smile and survey your work!

If you want to use a similar method in your herb garden or perennial vegetable area, use wet newspaper instead of cardboard, as it is easier to get it around smaller plants. Lay it 10 sheets thick and generously overlapped.

If you want to make a new vegetable garden bed, then, after mowing the grass and weeds down, sprinkle the ground generously with lime before following the cardboard or newspaper method.

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, winter pesto with chervil and almonds / nettles and pistachios / parsley 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. 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 good, organic oranges are rare.

Interestingly, all these are members of the Umbelliferae or carrot family. The family also includes angelica, asafoetida, caraway, cumin, dill and lovage, to name a few.

Rocket is another herb that germinates and thrives during winter so add a few to any pesto. Nettles are wonderful with walnuts or pistachios in a pesto, or as a pot of delicious tea; one of my favourites. Wasabi greens are a new addition to our gardens and give a great little punch and flavour to any dish, raw or lightly cooked. Easily self sows.

Other herbs that hold their colour and flavour in winter include rosemary, thyme, oregano and marjoram (but they do die down to a flat ground cover), winter savory, bay and sage, although sage should be picked sparingly as it is much less vigorous in winter.

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

 

Books for winter reading

Vegetable Literacy by Deborah Madison (A mammoth book of every vegetable and herb imaginable – includes history, geography, culture and cooking) The Generous Earth by Philip Oyler (A beautiful book about peasant life in the Dordogne after WW2; the natural cycles of the farming and foraging life before commerce and tourism.) Japanese Farm Food by Nancy Singleton Hachisu (How a modern, young American woman married a Japanese farmer and learned to eat from the farm and cook by the seasons….. and so, so much more)