🍓 Food Garden Group Newsletter November 2020 🍓
We like to grow what we eat __________________________________________________________________________________
This month there will be plenty of opportunity to socialise and learn with a food garden visit of 2 sessions and a soil-collection morning on the agenda!
It will be a miracle if we don't see COVID community transmission in southern Tasmania in coming months. Face-to-face FGG events will cease if that happens, so if you would like to meet fellow FGG members, learn some new things, and go home with something nice from the produce table, now may be the time!
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This month's food garden visit
On Sunday 15 November you will be very welcome in Jan's garden at Dynnyrne.
About her garden Jan wrote:
Summer Hill is the name of my place. Wherever I live, it has the same name. It conjures up very happy memories of a beautiful country garden and that is just what my garden does every day.
I moved to Dynnyrne thirteen years ago after twelve years on a Protea farm in the Hunter Valley. There were a few elements of the garden I liked. It had potential, but being so tiny has been my greatest challenge. The soil is reactive clay and is either glue or concrete, so the first thing was soil improvement. Then came the food garden. I planted thirteen fruit trees around the fence-line, then in went vegie boxes in the only area with adequate light. The rest of the garden is mainly ornamentals.
I get masses of fruit in summer, mainly plums, apples and pears. I dry enough for myself and give away the rest. Three small plum trees yielded about 80 kgs of fruit last year.
I get a mob of forty sparrows and blackbirds in my garden. To stop my green vegetables being pecked, this year I have just tossed nets directly onto the plants and this has worked so far. Gutter guard is my best friend when it comes to garden edges and pots as it slows the blackbirds. Currently the naughty birds really are trying to do as much damage as possible. The battle rages!
Recycling water is a passion, having lived on tank water through so many years of drought. I don’t use poisons and have chosen plants such as Abutilons to attract birds and beneficials to my garden.
I am currently growing mainly leafy vegies: kale, silverbeet, mizuna, celery, chicory and of course tomatoes. We must have tomatoes. The broad beans are all but finished and the runner beans are starting to climb. I look forward to seeing what pops up in my compost bins that I can transplant.
I love my garden and all the joys it offers to share goodies and ideas. They say good things come in small parcels, so come and enjoy Summer Hill with me!
If you have any surplus seeds, seedlings, plants or produce that you are happy to give away, please bring them for the produce table.
To take part please RSVP to foodgardengroup@gmail.com, mentioning food garden visit.
Session 1: starting Sunday 15 November at 9.30am and finishing at 11am
Session 2: starting Sunday 15 November at 11.30am and finishing at 1pm.
It will be easier if you do not specify which session you want to be in, but let me put you in the first or second session, depending on how many people have RSVPd at the time.
If you gain a spot, you will receive a confirmation-email that will say which session you are in + address details and how to get there.
If both sessions are full you will receive an email saying that you are on the waitlist. People regularly let me know that they can no longer come, and then I invite people on the wait list to take their place.
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Need some new good soil in your food garden?
I am looking for ten people who are happy to work together as a team and make light work of removing a lot of good quality composted chicken-manure soil from Ross and Elizabeth’s chook pen. We will shovel it all into bags and take it to the front of the property, where it will then be loaded into our cars.
Last time we did this, we collected a hundred bags of great soil (see photo below) in just over an hour. Every worker went home with ten bags of great soil!
Join us on Sunday 8 November at 10.30am. I am looking for nine people who are fit enough to slowly work for about an hour within a team.
To take part please RSVP to foodgardengroup@gmail.com, mentioning soil collection.
You will then receive address details + details of what to bring.
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Last month's food garden visit
After a week of showers and a Saturday of solid rain, Sunday 18 October greeted us with just a few clouds, plenty of blue sky and the promise of a bit of spring warmth. Karen’s garden in New Town was at its glistening best when we showed up for our visit.
For more details see Visit to Karen S's garden at New Town.
A special thanks to Karen and Roger for opening up their garden to us as well as to those who brought something to share for the produce table or the seed box and to everyone who attended and helped make the day a great one. And thank you, Laura, for putting together the blog post!
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New on the Food Garden Group blog
This month a new Food Garden Group blog post in the Fruit series. The subject is apricots. It discusses choosing a variety, buying, planting, fertilisation, pruning, pest control, harvesting and more. You will find it at Fruit - Apricots.
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New on FGG Extra!
In My Garden - Erika - October 2020: This month we are joining Erika for a tour of her garden in Howrah. She has lots of things growing and flowering, so there is plenty to see and talk about. Thank you, Erika, for great photos and text, and Pauline for putting together the blog post.
Recipe Strawberry and Rhubarb Jam: a recipe that is a combination of strawberries and rhubarb, both of which might be available in your garden very soon. Thank you Jill!
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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.
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What you can do in your food garden in November
- Make sure your food garden is well mulched to conserve water
- Monitor soil-moisture levels and water if needed
- Keep weeds at bay and don't allow them to go to seed
- 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, spinach, chard, silverbeet, carrot, parsnip, turnip, swede, beetroot
- Plant loose-leaf lettuce, iceberg-type lettuce, chard, spinach, silver beet, celery, parsley, late potatoes, ocas, leeks and onions (after adding some lime to the soil), brassicas (provide protection against caterpillars)
- Plant outside when the weather is consistently warmer - tomatoes and capsicums
- Protect outside tomatoes and capsicums against cold snaps with plastic 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
- Put nets over all berry bushes just before berries begin to show colour
- Thin fruits on all fruit trees soon after they form
- Protect apple, pear and quince trees against codling moth
- Remove and destroy coddling moth infested fruit on apple, pear and quince trees
- 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
- Prune peach and nectarine trees when they have woken up out of dormancy
- 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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