🍑 FOOD GARDEN GROUP NEWSLETTER August 2020 🍑
🌿 We like to grow what we eat 🍆
Welcome to our August 2020 newsletter!
Do you feel incredibly lucky to be living in Tasmania? Isn't it strange to not have to worry so much about COVID-19, while 'on the other side of the moat' there is so much trouble? Let's continue to be safe and cautious, but plan for a return to face-to-face food garden activities, while Tasmania is community-transmission-free. This newsletter discusses how this might be done!
But first ... last month's online food garden chat
July's Food Garden Group online food garden chat took place on Sunday 19 July 2020. We talked about compost heaps, hay and straw, pruning an espaliered fruit tree, pruning raspberries and blueberries, and how to use seaweed and sea grass. Click here for a summary of the discussions.
Thanks to everyone who participated!
🌱
The next online food garden chat
These sessions have proven to be a great opportunity for people to brainstorm with others what to do about a particular problem in their food garden. Hearing what others are up to at this time of year is also really useful. You never know what will be discussed, and that makes these sessions really interesting.
The last online food garden chat of the season will will take place on Sunday 16th August at 10.30am
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.
🍑
Face-to-face food garden visits in the COVID-19 era
The State Government has set out guidelines for indoor and outdoor gatherings (see here). Based on these guidelines, and discussions with various members, here is how I propose we have COVID-safe food garden visits:
- FGG food garden visits will only take place while there is no community transmission.
- Groups will be kept small (20 or less) to make it easy to socially distance.
- People can only attend after RSVPing beforehand.
- If there are a lot of RSVPs, a second time slot may be offered, if this suits the host.
- It is really important that you don’t come if you are unwell.
- There will be a sanitation station at the entrance for people to use on arrival and departure.
- People can choose to wear their own mask. This will be optional.
- Everyone adheres to the 1.5 metre distancing rule at all times.
- Please bring your own thermos + cup and morning tea for yourself. No sharing of food and drinks. Coffee and tea will not be provided. Do not bring contributions for morning tea to share.
- Please bring surplus produce, plants and seeds if you have them. The Produce Table, including Seedbox, will operate as usual, but there will be two bottles of hand sanitiser on the table + signs ‘look and don’t touch, unless you take it home’ and ‘hand sanitise before touching’.
Please let me know what you think of this. I would say that this is very do-able and safe, but am totally open to suggestions that improve this. Please email foodgardengroup@gmail.com with your comments. Face-to-face food garden visits will start next month if we continue to be without community-transmission.
🌽
Food garden events for your diary
If there is no COVID-19 community transmission we might meet in a food garden here ....
A big thank you to all the people who are happy to host a visit to their garden!
I am still looking for someone for April. Please email foodgardengroup@gmail.com if you would be interested.
🍇
In My Garden ..... in July
The In My Garden series of blog posts is a great way to see what is happening in people’s food gardens even if you can't visit them, because of COVID-19 or because they are too far away. Here are two new In My Garden posts:
- In Lian's garden in Lauderdale there is plenty to eat and enjoy, and of course there is always the planning ahead for the warmer seasons to come. Join Lian for a walk in her winter garden here.
- There is pruning to be taken care of, planting of bare-rooted fruit trees, preparing and changing over of beds, re-potting and for those of us lucky enough to have a glass house, there might even still be some fruit to harvest! Cathy and Ward’s garden in North Hobart has all those things going on, and then some! Cathy takes us on a ramble through her winter garden 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. And of course you don't have to live in the Southern part of Tasmania to take part. It would be great to find out what is happening in gardens elsewhere in Tasmania.
All you provide is photos + texts via email. Pauline (thank you!) will create the FGG Extra blog for you. Please email Max at foodgardengroup@gmail.com if you would be happy to take part.
🐓
New on the Food Garden Group blog
New sections were added to the following two existing blog posts:- To Vegie Patch Basics - 1 I added info about building raised beds
- To Making the most of my raspberries I added info about raspberry types and pruning
The next instalment in the Vegie Patch Basics series will be added to the blog in a few weeks time.
🍉
What you can do in your food garden in August
Make big changes to your food garden’s bed, paths or irrigation at this quiet time
Cut up, and work in, green manures that you sowed in autumn
Repair, or replace, tools before things get busy again
Vegetables
Sow in pots loose-leaf lettuce, brassicas, leek, parsley, spring onions and salad onions
Sow tomatoes in pots inside from late August in a sunny spot or heated propagation tray
Sow in your garden broadbeans and peas (if you don’t get heavy frosts), spinach, chard and silverbeet
Plant leek and onion (after applying some lime or dolomite), potatoes and ocas (once the chance of frost has passed), brassica, celery, parsley, loose-leaf lettuce, globe artichoke roots (in a sunny well-draining position)
Cut off old asparagus stalks, add compost and add new asparagus crowns
Lift leeks, carrots and parsnips before they go to seed and go woody
Control slugs and snails if the weather warms up, especially around peas
Foliar-feed crops once a month with seaweed extract to maximize their health and growth
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 and pear trees if this was not done in autumn
Prune grape vines back hard while they are still dormant
Prune citrus trees, if they need it, when there is no longer any chance of frost
Spray peach and nectarine trees and ground under them with curly leaf fungicide a second time
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, if the tree is still dormant
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
Feed citrus trees a good dose of nitrogen-rich fertilisers from late August (*)
Feed blueberry bushes a generous amount of blood & bone and mulch them
Apply whip and tongue grafts to apricot and late plum varieties until mid-August
Collect scions of dormant fruit trees and store in fridge for grafting later in the season (*)
Who will win the 2020 Golden Tomato award?
Yep, it is that time of the year again! Sensible people will wait sowing their tomatoes till September, but dare devils such as the winners of past Golden Tomato awards, will do anything to outperform the competition and come up with the first home-grown tomato of the season!
This imaginary trophy (yep, it’s just a photo from the internet) is awarded each year to the Food Garden Group member who produces the first ripe tomato of the season. Past winners are:
2016 - Lian Tanner (Lauderdale) on 9 December
2017 - Anna Carew (Sandy Bay) on 22 November
2018 - Jo Cordell-Cooper (Geilston Bay) on 6 December
2019 - Max Kregor (Lindisfarne) on 17 October (crazy, the man is a wizard!)
The rules are very simple:
This is not about beating previous champions. It is about finding innovative ways of growing early tomatoes. Food Garden Group blog post Early Tomatoes explains how past winner did it!
The rules are very simple:
- As soon as your first tomato is ripe show a photo on our Facebook page or email me the photo
- The tomato needs to have been grown by you (no, don't buy one at IGA and show me its photo)
- Rules, rules? There no other rules. Use any trick you can come up with, as long as you tell us afterwards what you did
And there is hope for those who can not quite match the champions mentioned above. There is now a Silver Tomato award and a Bronze Tomato award! Who is going to win these awards this year? The contest is on!
🍅
Who wants free coffee grinds?
Some food gardeners claim that coffee grinds have majorly improved their garden soils. Other people claim that slugs hate the stuff, and stay away from plants surrounded by a circle of coffee grinds. Opinions are divided, but everyone agrees that sprinkling coffee grinds thinly on compost heaps, and using it sparingly in worm farms is quite beneficial, as the worms love it and it adds nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous and other micro nutrients. I found a good article on the subject here.
Food Garden Group member Ross can get from a local Lindisfarne restaurant a steady supply of bags of coffee grinds. Anyone who is interested in using coffee grinds for gardening purposes please contact Ross on 0409 027 528. He will give you as much of the stuff as you want, for free!
Like to know more about growing potatoes?
Food Garden Group blog post Growing Potatoes will be a useful article to read
Food Garden Group blog post A Guide to Potato Varieties helps deciding what potato varieties to plant
Happy food gardening!
Max Bee
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.