🌿 Food Garden Group Newsletter October 2020 🌿
We like to grow what we eat __________________________________________________________________________________
Welcome to the FGG October 2020 newsletter. It is spring! The sun is shining. Tasmania is still COVID-free. Long-term weather forecasts are for regular rains in above average temperatures. What more could we possibly want? It means that we can look forward to a visit to the food garden of a colonial home in New Town, and other Spring activities! Cross your fingers, and read more below!
Food garden visit this month
You are invited to come and see Karen's garden at New Town on Sunday 18 October.
In 2000 we bought a house advertised as “not for the faint hearted”, and the same was true for the land with the front (New Town Road) having mostly enormous uninteresting shrubs and rootstock roses, whilst the rear (Seymour Street) was covered in concrete, grass, blackberries, dead shrubs and dying trees.
In January 2002 work started restoring the house and the rear fence was removed to allow vehicles on site. Over the year tonnes of soil and rubble was removed leaving soil heavily compacted and with cement, sand and lime, on and in the soil. Building work continued on and off until 2005.
Rear garden design started in 2005 which needed to be interesting viewed from our first floor above and have a suburban orchard and easy-access vegetable garden. A 40cm tall pencil thin white nectarine pushed through broken concrete and produced one excellent fruit. This was left in place and a path redesigned around it. Sadly it has struggled the past few years. A sandstone shelf runs North/South across the land draining water runoff from New Town Road. To overcome this a slightly raised bed of garden soil, compost and pea straw mulch, was made along the main path with worms appearing a few years later.
Minor paths are 70cm wide, enough for one person pushing a wheelbarrow, but the corners are too tight to turn easily. A deep layer of sawdust on paths looked good but was a disaster ending up all over plants and being tracked into the house.
Vegetable Garden of sandstone walls was built using material found onsite, but the tallest without a footing. This reduced soil depth and limits vegetables that can be grown here. Fill was brought in to level the bed followed by vegetable soil. Potatoes were put in the lower bed and did a good job of breaking up compacted clay soil.
Fruits are grown on espaliers but were allowed to grow too tall. Starting this year they are being pruned down to an easy picking height. Flowers grow under fruit trees, which is not ideal, particularly for our Apricot.
The front garden was designed in a traditional 1880s layout with beds around the perimeter and roses in central beds. Soil in this area was outstanding, needing only organic mulch to revive it. Initially it was planted with ornamentals and a Camellia hedge. Four years ago it was redesigned with natives to encourage birds.
You will be welcome in Karen's garden at 10.30am on Sunday 18 October. This will be a one-session visit, so people will be able to stay as long as they like.
Please RSVP to foodgardengroup@gmail.com as soon as you know that you would like to take part. In that email please provide the first name(s) of those you are RSVPing for, so we can have a name sticker ready for you on arrival.
If the session is full, you will receive an email saying that you are on the waitlist. People regularly withdraw later. In that case people on the waitlist will be contacted to take their place.
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Morning teas at food garden visits
On TV I saw a briefing for restaurant owners by a NSW health-official. One sentence in her presentation stood out: 'buffet-style meals in restaurants are an absolute no-no during a pandemic".
Morning teas, like we used to have at food garden visits before COVID, are precisely like buffet-style meals in restaurants. Tasmanians may at the moment feel very confident that there is no COVID in the state, but with the borders opening at the end of the month, and seasonal workers and tourists from there on entering without any testing, it will be a miracle if our COVID-free status continues.
I asked those who came to the last food garden visit what they thought of re-starting morning teas. There was no clear majority in favour of resumption under the current circumstances. Believing that it is better to be safe than sorry, I decided to continue with the 'bring your own' policy we started last month.
So, for now, can we please continue what we started last month:
- On arrival please use the bottle of hand sanitiser on the table at the entrance.
- Please adhere to the 1.5 metre distancing rule.
- Please bring your own thermos + cup + morning tea. Sorry, no sharing of food and drinks. The host will not provide coffee, tea or food.
- It will be great if you have surplus produce, food plants or seeds that you are happy to give away via the produce table. The produce table will operate as usual, but there will be bottles of hand sanitiser on the table, and you will be asked to take it home if you touch it.
- Food garden visits will only take place while there is no community transmission.
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Last month's food garden visit
The night before the first Food Garden visit in the Covid19 era, the wind howled and the rain drummed on roofs all over Hobart. But true to form, the morning of the visit dawned sunny and bright and many of us made our way to West Hobart where Liz has a charming market garden.
For lots of info and photos click here.
Thank you Liz! We know you are a busy person. It was great to see your market garden and we appreciated your enthusiasm in telling us what you do and how you do it.
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Liz's Sunday Sales
Liz, the host of our September food garden visit, sells cottage plants, herbs and seedlings from her stall in her front garden at Petty Street, West Hobart every Sunday from 10am to 4pm. In October she will be selling vegetable and flower seedlings $3.50, tomato plants $3.50, herbs $3.50 and cottage plants $6.00
It is cash only, but if someone is concerned because of COVID something can be worked out.
For more info visit Facebook page Eve's Garden - West Hobart. Liz's phone number is 6234 5113.
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ABC Gardening Australia
Don't be surprised if later this year or early next year you see some familiar faces and food gardens on ABC Gardening Australia. People working for the program contacted me in search of working food gardens that would be worthwhile covering on the show. Three FGG members were contacted as a result, and have said 'yes' to exploring this idea further with ABC Gardening staff.
If you would be interested in exploring the idea of appearing on the program in your food garden, please contact Max at foodgardengroup@gmail.com
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Who will win the 2020 Golden Tomato award?
The Golden Tomato award is given to the Food Garden Group member who produces the first ripe home-grown tomato of the season. It's just a bit of fun, but in the process some of us have already come up with interesting ways of producing tomatoes early. To see how people did it in previous years read blog post Early Tomatoes. The rules are 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
There is now also a Silver Tomato award and a Bronze Tomato award!
Who is going to win these awards this year? The contest is on!
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Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens annual plant sale
There will be a tomato sale this year! This great way to acquire well-nurtured heirloom tomato varieties, that are rarely for sale elsewhere, starts on Thursday 15 October, 11am - 6pm (entry fee $10), then continues on Friday and Saturday 11am-3pm (no entry fee).
Please allow for queues and social distancing!
This is the RTBG's major fundraising event. Your purchases will help maintain these wonderful gardens!
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New on the Food Garden Group blog
Spring opens up great opportunities for growing vegetables, but the tricky Tasmanian climate makes timing really important. This fifth post in the Vegie Patch Basics series covers the October - November period. It aims to help you decide what to grow, and when to sow and plant it. Read all about this here.
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New on FGG Extra
- Spring has definitely arrived in Howden. Click here to come and see it all in Val's garden. Thank you Valerie!
- You can now make your own organic kitchen cleaning fluid! The recipe is here. Thank you, Elizabeth!
- And here is a great recipe for preserved cumquats to accompany coffee or desserts. Thank you Karen!
Many thanks to Pauline for creating all these great blog posts.
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Fruit tree pollination guide
Food Plant Solutions (a Rotary Action Group) wants to introduce people to a range of healthy, edible plants, which they may then choose to source or grow themselves. They hope to influence people’s thinking with regards to food choices through education, by showing them scientific evidence in an accessible way, which empowers them to make change.
Marg M. (thank you Marg!) made me aware that on their Food Plant Solutions web site there is a fruit tree pollination guide that is really worthwhile seeing, and it is a free download!
The same site also offers a guide to nutritious food plants of Tasmania for $23.
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Food garden events in coming months
Subject to there being no community transmission of COVID in southern Tasmania:
For info about each visit see the newsletter at the start of the month the visit is in.
At that time you can RSVP to take part in the visit.
Please email foodgardengroup@gmail.com if you would be happy to host a visit to your garden.
Please email foodgardengroup@gmail.com if you would be happy to host a visit to your garden.
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What you can do in your food garden in October
- Mulch after good rains so soil moisture is retained
- Sow in pots: iceberg-type lettuce, loose-leaf lettuce, brassicas, leek, parsley, spring onions, salad onions, celery, Chinese Cabbage and Asian Greens
- Sow in pots inside: tomato, capsicum, zucchini, pumpkin, cucumber, corn and celery
- Sow in your garden: beans (later this month if milder weather arrives and soils warm up), broad beans, peas, spinach, chard, silverbeet, radish, carrot, parsnip, turnip, swede, beetroot
- Plant: loose-leaf lettuce, iceberg-type lettuce, chard, spinach, silver beet, celery, parsley, potatoes, ocas, leeks and onions (after adding some lime to the soil), brassicas (provide protection against caterpillars)
- Do not yet plant outside: tomatoes and capsicums, unless the weather is consistently warmer
- Protect outside tomatoes and capsicums against cold snaps with sleeves.
- Minimise caterpillar damage to brassicas by manual removal, netting or spraying
- Control slugs and snails especially around peas and beans
- Foliar-feed crops once a month with seaweed extract to maximise their health and growth
- Apply whip and tongue grafts to apple, pear and cherry trees early this month
- Apply top-work grafts to apple, pear, cherry and apricot trees
- Plant a new citrus tree. Now is the best time.
- Protect apple, pear and quince trees against codling moth
- Get rid of pear and cherry slug by covering pear and cherry leaves with ash or lime
- Check peach and nectarine trees for leaf-curl and remove and destroy affected leaves
- Add sulphate of potash to the soil under peach and nectarine trees (*)
- Foliar feed all fruit trees with fish fertiliser and/or seaweed extract
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