November 2022 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

Saturation! This last month or so will be testing your garden layout, water management and soil health. Don’t blame the weather; how your garden reacts is all about plant health, soil health, drainage and the state of the ecosystem you have had a big part in creating….. or not creating! Aphid and white fly infestations, rust, rot and root diseases as well as pollination issues can be sidestepped significantly by having a garden of biodiverse plants, including lots of Tasmanian natives, predator attracting plants, bird attracting plants and nesting sites as well as a soil packed with microbes, who have spent millions of years evolving strategies to keep the soil where they live healthy.

What to do now

1.If you have garlic rust, like I do in one patch because I foolishly planted in a low spot, push your fork well down in between the plants and open the soil up a bit, to help it dry off. I have also removed all leaves touching the ground. I am going to spray over the leaves a solution of 1 part full cream milk: 10 parts water. This is a very good fungal suppressant, as used by thousands of vineyards worldwide, in preference to chemicals because of its efficacy. Observe and learn from what you see.

2. Trees do not like to be waterlogged. Fork around the dripline, not digging, but rather pushing the fork in deep then rocking it forward and back, to let some air in. This will help relieve the compaction created by so much rain. The same applies to lawns, garden beds and even paths.

3. If your chook yard is boggy, don’t try to fix it by using something fine like hay because it may become mouldy and make your chooks sick. Instead, use something inert and coarse, like coarse straw, not too thick. Dig a few holes so the water can drain into them and fill them with gravel. If the roost floor is wet from the chooks coming and going with wet feet etc, dust with a little lime or carb soda, little and often, so as not to irritate their feet.

Grass

After 12 years of gardening here on my acre I can finally say that grass is no longer the problem that it was. Sure, nothing is perfect but I am pretty happy. What did I do? Firstly, I did not expect miracles and I have used no chemicals. Mostly I have mulched and mulched and fed and mulched and pulled and mulched and then some!

For example, I try not to let grass grow within the drip line of trees. As the trees grow, so the dripline expands and more grass is mulched over. Amongst the mulch I plant all manner of flowers, bulbs and herbs and native groundcovers too. This is fabulous for fire zones as it keeps dry mulch to a minimum, using plants as living mulch. At the same time it benefits soil microbes, little native birds and beneficial insects as well as looking pretty. Yes, it takes years but eventually you have flowers and herbs and trees and lovely garden beds with very little grass incursion. Start small, where you are, use what you have, do what you can….. and keep doing it!

Codling moth

The adult female codling moth lays approximately 60 whitish grey eggs that are about the size of a pinhead, on the surface of the leaves of apples, pears and quinces when the average temperature is over 15 degrees in spring and early summer. To reduce their numbers you must act now.

Codling moth eggs hatch after 10 days and the small caterpillars emerge to feed on the leaf surface and make their way to the fruit. They burrow into the fruit and head for the core. They will spend about three to five weeks inside the fruit feeding and putting on body mass until they are ready to emerge. This is the stage that we see, when fruit displays the tell-tale hole which leads to brown insides or early rotting when stored.

My mother’s remedy works well but annually led to her becoming embarrassed at her frequent visits to the local bottle shop every spring! She had a stash of tins, such as from tinned tomatoes, through which she drilled holes and tied string so that the tins can hang in a tree. Into each tin she put a dash of port and a double dash of water. She hung 2 or 3 tins in every apple, pear and quince tree. The male coddling moths are attracted to the port and drown in it, reducing the number of fertile eggs laid by the females. My mother topped up the liquids regularly.

There is more, information and several non-alcoholic controls outlined on the fantastic Global Net Academy website. Search for Tasmania.

November is beans time.

Add a handful of potash and a good spadeful of compost per square metre and fork them in. Sow beans into damp soil and water only once until the first leaves appear. This year I will wait until things have dried out somewhat or they may rot.

Climbing beans: Pole beans WILL blow over unless the structure is secure. I tie one end of my frame to a sturdy fence post. I especially love flat beans and have found some seeds, at last.

Bush beans: Bush beans are great for Tasmania as they produce faster than pole beans and aren’t as bothered by spring winds. There are hundreds of varieties to choose from and saving seed for next year is simply a matter of letting some of the pods mature fully and dry off before picking.

Cygnet Spring Garden Market: Sunday Nov. 13th, 11 – 3 @ The Cannery. 39+ garden stalls, 5 presentations, Cannery farm plates & bar, food vans and stalls, coffee, tool sharpening class (BYO tools to sharpen), Seed Library pack & chat, Children’s activities. Consider parking at Burtons Reserve, a 2 minute walk away. Details on FB and Instagram.
Jobs for November
Sow indoors to plant out later: Cucumbers, zucchinis (Romanesco), tromboncino, corn, pumpkins. Almost anything but it is too late for tomatoes! Sow in the garden: Beans (after frosts), salad leaves (not just lettuce!), brassicas (cover with moth netting), most herbs, salad and spring onions, beetroot, fennel, carrots, celery, parsnip, sunflowers and lots of other flowers.	Plant out frost tender seedlings, including tomatoes, late Nov. Check your hose fittings, watering cans and irrigation equipment. Share excess seedlings with friends. Check out Crop Swap Cygnet and Surrounds FB page for dates and doings. Most of all, enjoy the garden, the warm sunshine and life😊

August 2016 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

Making water work

The wettest 3 months on record means everything is saturated and most soil will be unworkable for a while yet. Working the soil when it is in this state can damage the structure and upset the soil life, never mind about damaging your back! I recommend we all take a while to observe what is happening in our gardens by plunging a spade or fork to its full depth, wobbling it back and forth and, on your hands and knees, looking at and feeling the soil. Once it is no longer solid, like slicing a cheesecake, but rather more like breaking open a muffin, then you can go ahead and work the soil.

If you have land but no garden yet, this winter will have shown you how your land has handled constant rain. Were there boggy areas that were constantly wet? Were there patches that remarkably stayed bone dry (like under large trees)? Perhaps you have a slope that turned into a sheet of running water or a creek that became eroded or overflowed? Take notes, draw a rough map and mark out distinct zones with sticks because you will forget!

One way to modify the land is to make your garden interesting with cleverly designed mounds and shaped low areas that lead excess water to a pond or already existing creek. My garden has such a design, directing water around the garden in shallow, grassy depressions which end up either in my pond or in the creek. There are paths crossing the dips, with small “bridges” which keep a walker’s feet dry, which are anything from a few, short planks embedded into both sides to a metal grate or some nice rocks. These features make land into garden and plants can be selected for their habitat requirements.

This is Tasmania so make use of our climate and our diverse native Tasmanian plants, many of which are edible and which will result in frogs, insects and our gorgeous, tiny, native birds and small mammals inhabiting parts of your garden.

Choosing and sowing tomatoes etc

If, like me, picking tomatoes from the garden is a favourite sport of yours then now is the time to get your seeds started. Last summer a lot of people grew the best tomatoes ever but we have no idea what this season will be like. So we need to hedge our bets and choose a range of tomatoes; some that will produce in a cool season, some for a hot season, some that will thrive even in the rain and some that can tolerate wind etc.

I always grow some Rouge de Marmande because, no matter what, they will provide you with a prolific crop of medium sized, red tomatoes on sturdy, bush plants. I always grow some Black Cherry as they are the most flavoursome of the cherries, in my opinion, and are reliable. After that, I go for a dense, luscious, tasty tomato like Black from Tula which may not perform as well in a cool summer but last summer was the highlight of my garden. Next I would choose San Marzano, as a cooking tomato as they go on and on for months. I don’t much like yellow or pear shaped tomatoes as I have never tasted a good one in Tasmania. Kotlas is by far the earliest and is worth growing for that reason.

Basically, fruiting plants like tomatoes, capsicums and eggplants need the longest growing season as they have to first get to a good size, then flower, then the fruits must grow and finally they need time to develop flavour and to ripen. Sow these now, preferably with even, bottom heat. I use a 6m long, 50 watt, thin, flexible, silicon cable taped to the underside of a 3 shelf, metal rack from the tip-shop. The metal shelves ensure good heat transfer to my seed trays and 50W just keeps the soil at a nice temperature, without costing a lot to run.

Each seed tray fits inside a foam box from which I have cut out the bottom, so the tray sits directly on the metal shelf. Over the foam frame sits a sheet of glass. This is for 2 reasons. Firstly, successful seed germination depends on high humidity but constant watering can be too much, causing low germination. Once the seeds are gently watered at sowing, covering with a glass sheet keeps in the moisture without any further watering needed before germination. Secondly, mice love seeds and this is a fool proof way of keeping them out. I once lost a whole tray of assorted pumpkin seeds to mice and quickly learned my lesson.

Seeds you would be best not to sow yet include basil. I grow wonderful basil, sowing as late as November. This way they do not run to seed, but grow fast and strong in the longer days. No matter how warm your shelf or hot house, day length cannot be easily altered and some plants just insist on longer days to grow well.

July 2020 Kitchen garden Guide

Water

Managing, rather than draining away, the water that falls on your land and the water that flows from elsewhere onto and through your land is an often misunderstood concept. For some reason getting rid of this water is seen as the aim, whereas making use of this water in the landscape is much more beneficial to you, to the flora and fauna, to the soil life and aesthetically. Of course, rural living often means capturing and storing the water that lands on structures but even this can be achieved more attractively.

Seattle is a city of inspiration, when it comes to community gardens and interesting ways to manage water. I spent a fabulous few days there in 2008, being shown around by a fellow food gardening blogger, discovering their incredible P-Patch system of community gardens as well as the quirky and fascinating downpipes and drainage reserves all over the city.

My current renovations include new roof areas and downpipes and I will be incorporating some ideas from Seattle. One of these is to suspend 2 downpipes out across the path, above head height, into part of the vegetable garden, then down a series of interesting sculptures, into a purpose built but attractive ditch which will, with a series of small soakage ponds, take excess water to an already existing, large pond. The ditch and small ponds will encourage as much water as possible to soak in and will provide spots to grow riparian plants and bog plants near the downfall and will water various fruit trees along the way, decreasing to less water hungry plants further down the system. The position of the overflow from the big pond will be changed so that it meanders through and soaks into my new Japanese garden. Finally, if water makes it right to the end of all this, it will end up in the creek at the front of my property, which is itself already a series of ponds with overflow points, made by a previous owner.

If I had left the design to the plumber, there would be ditches dug and hundreds of metres of pvc pipe channelling all the water to the creek. Yuk.

Feijoas

A delicious, winter-ripening fruit is a rare treat and that is a good enough reason to invest in a few feijoas. Size wise, they are very manageable, making a nice, dense, tall, hedging shrub or small tree…. eventually! They are totally frost hardy, have attractive red and white flowers in autumn and keep their robust leaves all winter. Evidently there are quite a few varieties but I have not seen them in Tasmania. For all the information you could possibly need head to the facebook page ‘Edible Gardens by Craig Castree’ and search for feijoas. He is in Tasmania. I have fruit this year on mine and am thoroughly enjoying them right now. You must wait for the fruit to fall. Don’t pick them. Bring inside and leave until they feel soft. Cut open and suck or scoop out the beautiful flesh.

Choosing and sowing tomatoes etc

If, like me, picking tomatoes from the garden is a favourite sport of yours then July is the time to get your seeds started. We have no idea what this summer season will be like so we need to hedge our bets and choose a range of tomatoes; some that will produce in a cool season, some for a hot season, some that will thrive even in the rain and some that can tolerate wind etc.

I always grow some Rouge de Marmande because, no matter what, they will provide you with a prolific crop of medium sized, red tomatoes on sturdy, bush plants. I always grow one Black Cherry as they are the most flavoursome of the cherries, in my opinion, and are reliable. After that, I go for a dense, luscious, tasty tomato like Black from Tula which may not ripen as fast in a cool summer but is nearly always the highlight of my garden. Next I would choose San Marzano, as a cooking tomato as they go on and on for months. Last year I grew Speckled Roman; a large, red, cooking tomato, decorated with speckles and stripes. I will grow that instead of San Marzano this year. Very prolific, very long season and so beautiful.

Basically, fruiting plants like tomatoes, capsicums and eggplants need the longest growing season as they have to first get to a good size, then flower, then the fruits must grow and finally they need time to develop flavour and to ripen. Sow these now, preferably with even, bottom heat, rather than sun. Over each tray I put a sheet of glass. This is for 2 reasons. Firstly, successful seed germination depends on high humidity, but constant watering can be too much, causing low germination. Once the seeds are gently watered at sowing, covering with a glass sheet keeps in the moisture without any further watering needed before germination. Secondly, mice love seeds and this is a fool proof way of keeping them out.

If you are interested in having a stall at a not-for-profit Garden Market in Cygnet, one is coming in September. Contact me at katevag@gmail for details.

In the frosty garden: sow broad beans to harvest or for green manure. Plant out more leeks and onions Sow insitu the greenhouse (or outside in frost free areas): Coriander, miners’ lettuce, spring onions, Asian veg, lettuce, bok choy, sugar snap peas Sow now to transplant later: Broccoli varieties such as summer purple- sprouting and raab, red cabbage, kales, parsley.

 

For a comprehensive, Tasmanian, monthly, food garden guide search online for “Food Garden Group calendar”. Thanks to Max Bahrfeldt, in Hobart.