Monday, August 31, 2009

Monthly Natter - August Part II




Our August meeting was very productive, planting up seeds and lots of seedlings of lettuce & Asian greens for selling at upcoming markets. The proceeds of all our markets, at this stage around $40 we will use for our October meeting which will be a visit to CERES park in Brunswick. Our next meeting will be at Derek & Kaye's in Mooroopna. We have also been invited to have an entry in the Moorooppna & District Gardening Club Annual Flower Show, let me know if you have the best looking veges around. Until then happy gardening

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

August in the Patch

I’m a week or so behind in doing so but today I planted up my spring & summer veg to get started in the warmth of my little green house.

Tomato Lycoersicon esculentum
Black Cherry - Eden Seeds
Tatura Dwarf - Eden Seeds

Capsicum Capsicum annuum
Toppero Rosso - The Italian Gardener
Eggplant Solanum melangena
Thai Green - Digger's seeds

Planted into Veg Garden this month :
seedlings of Derek’s Asian Greens sensopai & tatsoi

Spinach
Leeks

chicory

Cos Lettuce - Derek Poulton

Carrot Daucas carota -

Chantenay Red-Cored - Eden Seeds
Parsnip Pastinaca sativa

Hollow Crown - Saved by D. Poulton
Beetroot Beta vulgaris

white Heirloom Mix - Eden Seeds

Elephant garlic sets - passed on by L.Watts

Self Sown - Celeriac

Also ready to set seed are the rocket & bok choy (white stemmed) these I will let self seed in garden and towards the end of spring I will choose the best producers/survivors and save those seeds.

I have cleaned up a lot over the winter added espalier wires behind my apple trees and a growing frame for the cucumbers and Luffa, strengthened the archway (it had pretty much fallen down by the end of last summer). Along with a little compost making, cleaning/sharpening of my tools & soil improving along the way, I have had a reasonably busy winter.

Why not try some flowering stuff in your patch as well, like: nasturtium, petunias, marigolds (French) and celosia. These guys are great at attracting pollinators and beneficial insects to your patch. interplant them with you veges and the bugs will get confused, and they look great as well.
If planning on putting in some tomatoes next month, prepare a bed now (your toms will thank you for it). At the bottom of my planting hole, two or three crushed chicken eggshells (cheap organic source of calcium) blood and bone heaping tablespoon of pure worm castings, two plain aspirin tablets. Aspirin has been shown to increase disease resistant of tomatoes, in addition to increasing blossom production. Fill hole with a little soil then plant on top. I then water fortnightly with worm tea , seaweed concentrate and two aspirin watered down to a weak tea colour and sprayed on plants as a foliar feed.

There's a bit happening in the vegie patch, so you could try spinach, broad beans, Jerusalem artichokes (put them in a pot or they can take over!!), potatoes, peas, onions, parsley, cabbage, broccoli, rocket, silverbeet, cauliflower, lettuce, leek, Asian greens, radish, beetroot and parsnip.Get spraying! To prevent peach leaf curl (which also infects Nectarines, Almonds and other Prunus species), spray your trees once a week with a low environmental impact copper spray from mid to late winter, or from when you can see the buds swelling!


Monday, August 24, 2009

Kitchen Garden

This video is well worth a look, there are so many books, movies and headlines telling us what we are doing wrong to this world, yet so few that tells us what to do right. This is one of them, so simple and so right!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npB8qltaB6g&feature=player_embedded

Monday, August 17, 2009

Monthly Natter - August

Hope you have had a productive winter, now is a great time to be requesting seeds so take a look over the list and make sure you let me know what you require.
Our next meeting will be Sunday 30th August at my place 658 Wyndham st Shepparton; I will have a cold frame to look (if you have any cold frames or great ideas bring them along) and also will attempt a demo of espaliering. Greg wanted to know if anyone was interesting in seeds from EDEN so we can make a bulk order, perhaps we will look at this too. Usual time ect…

Hopefully I will get to the Queens gardens markets this weekend and will have some seedlings on offer, I you have any seeds you wish to pass on and can’t get to our next meeting you can see me there. I will be planting some tomatoes in the greenhouse this week so again if you want anything please let me know.

Also coming up I have a talk at the Mooroopna garden club this Friday 21st at 2:00 anyone welcome to come along, I will be doing a talk at the Dookie PS soon, and hopefully we will be running a trip to CERES in October (midweek sometime) if we get enough numbers we will look at taking a bus.

Some moon planting info – I will be posting these to website when I receive info (weekly I think) so if this interests you make sure to take a look
We are in the last quarter of the moon with new moon on 20th August. Its best, until the 21st August, to use these days for cultivating and not planting, as moon forces are their weakest during this last quarter of the lunar cycle

See you all soon – Carley

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Cold Frames

Get your crops off to a flying start with a simple cold frame
Sometimes nothing more than some bricks or timber with a pane or old window frame or a styrofoam box with a plastic lid, they protects new plants from frosts and will extend the growing season for others. They can be built from new materials but with an abundance of second hand materials available there is no shortage of materials to choose from


what a good use of all the end of season fruitboxes
Having the roof sloping up, away from the sun ensures maximum light can get into the cold frame they should be lower on one side and orientated to catch more sun Location, Location, Location. Make sure you locate your cold frame somewhere where it will get maximum areas of sunlight and where it won’t be too exposed to wind. Backing onto a brick/rock wall is a good idea as the wall will act as extra insulation

The cold frame can lose warmth through the glass at night, if it is not covered. Place hessian bags or crumpled shade cloth or weed mat on the glass panels in the late afternoon, and remove them mid morning when air is warmer

Think about the insulating value of the material you build it out of i.e. one made out of bricks will store much more heat than one made out of thin timber or you could line it with styrafoam boxes



It should have an opening or hinged lid to allow adequate ventilation.I will be using something like this adaptble to my existing beds.
options are open to interpretation .

Must Grow Vegetables

Vegetable gardening is an ongoing process, and sometimes the timing can be a little overwhelming, with the next season sneaking up on us too quickly or the crazy weather patterns blurring our judgment.

Don’t use planting times as a hard and fast rule. Judge it by the warmth of the soil and what other plants are doing, i.e. I wait until I see tomatoes self seeding from last years strays before I plant out my carefully nurtured seedlings. In truth, each season is different and garden planting dates have been even harder to peg down than the traditional wisdom would lead one to believe.


I do find that planning your coming growing season is a great start and at the end of winter is and an ideal time to do this. Start by sorting through your seeds and decide what varieties worked and thrived, and which ones you would like to give another go. Those not needed and too old throw into a jar or container and use these for green manure.


Then I decide what varieties I need new supplies of and which new ones I would like to try out. This is the hard part: when faced with all the beautiful catalogues and choices everything sounds so tempting. What to order or if you’re starting from scratch how do you decide what to grow? There are a lot of things to take into consideration

You might have access to farm fresh produce locally, you might want to save the space in your garden for the vegetables you truly love and that aren’t always available and you might

be limited by space.Your first consideration should always be to plant what you like to eat. Don't waste garden space producing wonderful crops of eggplants, if no one in the family will touch them.Think about those that you constantly purchases from the grocery store. These are your must grow vegetables.


Your next priority might be the vegetables that you can’t get in your area; I like to grow kale, its hard to buy here and l love eating it. Asian vegetables, these are always better picked fresh, and at the supermarkets are often limp and harder to buy.


Then I will give more exotic things a try, ginger has proved to be a success for me, and this year I’m going to try turmeric. I also tend to give less priority to things that are available locally and reasonably priced, i.e. Potatoes I don’t have lots of space and can get nice organic potatoes all year round. On the other hand, garlic can get a bit pricy so is always worth the effort.


Taste is another priority Onions and carrots are much superior freshly grown, and I don’t need to advocate the tastiness of the home-grown tomato.


Its important not to be discouraged, if you fail miserable or try to grow something that is not ideally suited to our area give it a go for a few growing seasons. Give them time to adapt to our local growing conditions, selecting the plant that looks the healthiest to collect seeds for next year’s crop.


My Must Grow Vegetables

Onions

I can't cook without onions so these are top of the list, I also much prefer fresh white salad onions, and the smaller Italian red onions. Spring onions are dead easy to grow and last a lot longer in the soil growing happily than they so in the crisper.

Garlic

Same goes for garlic although I always underestimate the amount of garlic we actually use each week and I would never be able to grow enough for all year round so I dry & store all that I grow and buy the organic garlic in season.

Carrots

These closely follow onions and garlic, as a kitchen staple. When you have tasted a crisp and fresh purple carrot, or serve up a dish of multi coloured roasted carrots you will understand why.

Peas

Nothing beats fresh peas in the pod, at our house they rarely make it out of the garden.
Lettuce

It really should be a crime to buy the supermarket prepackaged bags when lettuce is so easy to grow. I sow more than I need to give me a reliable daily picking and give the excess to the guinea pigs. Keep a regular supply growing by sowing a couple of cell trays each month.

Broad Beans

Freshly shelled broad beans are a delight. As they get older and bigger, the skin becomes tough and bitter and they have to be "double peeled". Peeling the fine skin around each bean is a task a good cook learns to love; the process is as important as the result I grow copious amounts to freeze and keep me going thorough the year.

Asian Greens

Although I have not perfected the art of growing all the greens I love being able to pick them freshly. The crispness is far superior and often I pick just a few leaves of each for an Asian salad or stir fry. They are best left to self seed, and come up by their own.

Zucchini

If there was a vegetable that was perfect for our climate it would be zucchini. They hardly need any encouraging, are very prolific and its easy to get overwhelmed by them so I pick them while they are still small and are sweet and crisp. And pickle the rest.

Capsicum

Another well suited variety. Incredibly versatile, capsicum are delicious raw in salads, stir-fried, stewed, stuffed or in soups and casseroles or dried they can be ground to make chili pepper powders. Start early and you can be picking peppers from the start of summer to the end of autumn outdoors or year round grown as houseplants.

Kale Silverbeet & Spinach

Our household could not be without these, the finish to many dishes involves a quick trip out to the patch. Spanakopita pie is a family favorite and so I grow enough to fill a big baking dish. They grow very easily, kale and silverbeet self seed happily and so need no encouragement.

Beetroot

Beetroot can never be brought fresh without it being too big and fibrous or limp. There are the deep purple reds, but also pink, yellow and white I grow them all. Beetroot is delicious baked, boiled or raw and it makes a really great soup. Beetroot can be eaten raw. You just need to peel it and it's ready to use.

Beans

Freshly shelled broad beans are a delight. They freeze well are a great food source dried to use in soups or for making fried rissoles or dips


Taste is really the only word to describe the benefits of growing these last two vegetables .how can you grow food without these two?


Strawberries

Not watery and bitter like store brought varieties and not shipped over ridiculous distances. The flavour is both sweet and intensely rich and lingers on the palate like a fine wine. An extremely fragrant and beautiful addition to any garden even if the birds get to the majority of the crop.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes are juicier grown at home - some of the juiciest varieties can't be shipped without damage. Tinned tomatoes are reasonable good and so I tend to concentrate on the eating sun drying and sauce/relish varieties. Find your favourite and best varieties and grow them in abundance. You can never have too many tomatoes.



If I had the room I would add, corm pumpkins and watermelons to this list. Then there are the herbs I couldn’t be without and the fruit I have started to add to every corner for all round supply. My list could go on and on, that’s why I find it important to put it all in perspective before time gets ahead of me. Find some time in the warmth and think about your list. Please share some of your favourites with me.