FGG Newsletter July 2020

🍑  Food Garden Group Newsletter  July 2020 🌽

🌿 We like to grow what we eat 🍆

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Welcome to our July 2020 newsletter!  Another month has passed in the new uncertain COVID-19 era and we are beginning to see how lucky we are in Tasmania to experience a gradual return to the freedoms we had before the virus arrived. However, looking at Victoria, it is clear how a stable situation can turn into a bad one within a few weeks. This makes it very hard to make long-term plans for real-life events with the confidence that they will actually take place.  I will soon begin to plan this season's face-to-face food garden visits, but realise that it will be a miracle if we will be able to have food garden visits from September right through to April next year without any interruptions.  Let's hope that that miracle will happen!

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Last month's online food garden chat

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

Thanks to everyone who participated in this online food garden chat.  These Zoom meetings have been part of small positives that came out of the COVID-19 crisis.  It might be something we have as a permanent feature every winter when our group has no face-to-face food garden visits.

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The next online food garden chat

The next online food garden chat will take place on Sunday 19 July at 10.30am

This is a great opportunity to meet fellow food gardeners, find out what is happening in their garden, share what is happening in yours if you want to, ask advice, get a discussion going about a question you have, and generally catch up with others, with a cup of tea or coffee in hand.

We use an app called Zoom on desktop and laptop computers that have a camera. Installing and using Zoom is easy. If you RSVP you will receive easy-to-follow instructions. Further assistance will be available if you need it. Members anywhere in Tasmania will be welcome to join!

To take part please RSVP to foodgardengroup@gmail.com mentioning Online Food Garden Chat.

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In My Garden .... in June 

The In My Garden series of blog posts is a great way to see what is happening in people’s food gardens while we can't visit them in person. In June ........

• Frank and Laura at Otago showed us how much wonderful food-garden work they did during the COVID lock-down period. Click here to have a look. 

• Jan at Dynnyrne took us on a walk through her lush garden, provided some great tips, and showed how much food you can grow in a small space. Have a look at this great blog post here.

Would you be happy to take ten or so photos in your garden and say a few words about each photo? Doesn’t have to be anything fancy! It can focus on one aspect of your garden, or winter, a new project, or just little things in your garden that might be of interest to other food gardeners.

All you provide is photos + texts via email. Pauline then creates the FGG Extra blog for you (thank you, Pauline).  Please email Max at foodgardengroup@gmail.com if you would be happy to take part.

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'New improved' food garden calendar

Most food-garden calendars are just lists of what to sow and plant. Seven years ago I put on the Food Garden Group blog my first attempt at a food garden calendar that covered all aspects of food gardening in Tasmanian conditions. Since then I just added new dot points to the calendar, until I began to realise that it was becoming a bit of a mess.

I have now completely rewritten the calendar to make it clearer, much more consistent over the months, cover more crops, and more food garden tasks.  Please have a look at the new food garden calender here.

The calendar lists, for every month of the year, food garden tasks that are best done at that time.  It covers sowing, planting, pest control, fruit, berries, pruning, soil improvement, perennial food plants and general food garden maintenance. 

The calendar may serve as a memory jogger for experienced food gardeners. It may also be a good tool for  beginning food gardeners and those who are new to Tasmania’s climate. 

If you feel that something is missing, or that a dot point in the calendar could be improved, then please email me at foodgardengroup@gmail.com with your suggestion. I will be very happy to further improve this calendar in response to feedback from readers.

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So easily forgotten

It is so easily forgotten, and six or seven weeks from now it will be too late to do anything about it.  What is it? Spraying peach and nectarine trees against curly leaf! Once leaves open some time in August you have lost your opportunity for a whole season.  Spraying twice with a fortnight in between is the absolute best way to have a curly leaf free season!  Find out more in Controlling Curly Leaf.

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How do RSVPs for Food Garden Group events work?

Monica joined the Food Garden Group just when COVID restrictions started, so she did not get the opportunity to attend a food garden visit.  In the last online food garden chat she asked how RSVPs for food garden events will work when face-to-face food garden visits resume.  Here is the answer:

All food garden activities are free of charge, unless a presenter is paid, or a venue or equipment is hired. If I have costs, then I recoup that money by asking people to RSVP and pay before attending.

Thanks to volunteering by myself, my partner Gaye Townley, Laura Rittenhouse, Pauline Stegink and Elizabeth Thomas, all other events are free of charge.

Because our group has grown so much, members now need to RSVP for all events. When I ask for RSVPs, I fill spots in the order of arrival of requests in my email without any filtering.  I do not allow regulars to go before newcomers.  I do not allow experienced food-gardeners to go before inexperienced ones.  Most events have had a great mix of people that are eager to share their knowledge, experience, produce and food (people bring wonderful contributions for morning teas).  There is no need for any filtering. 

I will soon begin to contact people who before the COVID crisis put their hand up for hosting a visit to their garden. I hope to arrange (at least) one visit or activity every month from September to April.

When I visit prospective hosts one of the points of discussion is always what a good maximum number of people will be for their visit.  This will depend on the size of their property, the amount of available parking, what a host feels comfortable with, and now, current social-distancing rules.

Our food garden visits are not like an ‘open garden scheme’ where everything needs to look perfect. Food gardens are always a work in progress, and our members know this. In fact, if a host has a crop or a plant or area that is not a success, that can be a great topic of discussion on the day, and be of great help to the host. People with new eyes will see your garden and provide helpful suggestions. These visits are also great community-building events where people catch up with each other, learn from each other, and exchange produce and seeds. 

If you would you be happy to host a visit to your garden in the coming season please email foodgardengroup@gmail.com

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How to prune berries

With most berry varieties gone dormant, now is the time! But it can be hard to remember how each berry variety should be pruned! A few years ago I documented what I knew, added more detail, and asked others with expertise in this area for input and feedback. The result was blog post Pruning Berries.

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What you can do in your food garden in July

• Remove weeds now before they begin to grow and become a problem in spring
• Make big changes to your food garden’s bed, paths or irrigation at this quiet time
• Cut up and work in green manures you sowed in autumn if you need the space
• Repair or replace tools before things get busy again in spring

Vegetables

• Sow in pots spring and salad onions

• Sow in your hothouse early cherry-type tomatoes

• Sow in your garden broadbeans and peas (if you don’t get heavy frosts), winter varieties of spinach (try sowing one row every fortnight)

• Plant leek and onion seedlings (after applying some lime or dolomite)

• Cut off old asparagus stalks, add compost and add new asparagus crowns
• Divide and replant clumps of chives and other perennial onions
• Divide rhubarb and re-plant in well-draining soil with plenty of fertiliser and compost
• Apply lime where needed so spring crops will benefit
• Apply compost where needed so spring crops will benefit
• Foliar-feed crops once a month with seaweed extract to maximise their health and growth
• If you have a hothouse: thoroughly clean it and give it a good airing to get rid of pests
• Plan roughly what you want to grow this coming season and purchase seeds

Fruit trees and berries                                                   (* = don't repeat if already done recently)

• Tidy up strawberry beds, replace 3-year old plants and feed each plant
• Remove all fruit tree litter and loose bark and discard this
• Remove all weeds under and around fruit trees
• Remove old unproductive passionfruit vines
• Tidy up and prune berry bushes
• Prune apple, pear, quince and cherry trees if this was not done in autumn
• Prune grape vines back hard while they are dormant
• Spray peach and nectarine trees and the ground under them with curly leaf fungicide
• Plant new blueberries and give them blood and bone and pine needle mulch
• Plant new (bare-rooted) fruit trees, berry canes and grapes
• Move a fruit tree if it needs to be moved. Now is still a good time to do this.
• Plant new blueberry bushes
• Feed all blueberry bushes a generous amount of blood & bone and mulch them
• Apply dolomite or lime to peach, nectarine, apple and pear trees if pH is below 6.5 (*)
• Apply potash to apple and pear trees - they will love you for doing so (*)
• Give all fruit trees a generous amount of woody mulch
• Spread compost, old manure, complete organic fertiliser around fruit trees and berries (*)
• Put chooks around your fruit trees while they are dormant to get rid of pests
• Protect fruit tree trunks and roots if your chooks are damaging them
• Apply whip and tongue grafts to Japanese and early plum varieties from mid-July
• Collect scions of dormant fruit trees and store in fridge for grafting later in the season (*)

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Wishing you happy and productive food gardening!

Max Bee

The Food Garden Group is a member-organisation of Sustainable Living Tasmania

For more information about the Food Garden Group visit http://foodgardengroup.blogspot.com/p/about-us.html