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Food Garden Group Newsletter December 2020 We like to grow what we eat |  |
Max and Gaye wish you a Merry Christmas and a great 2021!
In this newsletter you will find info about the Food Garden Group visit for December, the Golden Tomato Award 2020, last month's soil collection morning, last month's food garden visit, deep hay mulching, the November In My Garden tour, forthcoming food garden visits, and what you can do in your food garden in December.
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Food Garden Group visit for December
On Sunday 6 December you will be very welcome in Ailsa's garden at Mornington.
About her garden Ailsa wrote:
I moved to this garden in 2013 from a large rural block. Most of the block was destined to be a building site for several years, so plants making the move from the old garden came via the front garden, nature strip and pots. It took eleven ute-loads to remove an old neglected Cotoneaster hedge from the front boundary. The block was overgrown with weeds, and I have to deal with a row of Pittosporums along the neighbour's boundary.
The block is steep, with an NNE-aspect and surprisingly good soil over dolerite, but behaves more like a basalt soil. Unfortunately, this good soil is over 50% rocks, so I set about turning these rocks into an asset. I worked out how to make gabion cages from mesh sheets, custom cutting them for each bench, and mostly filling each one with rocks from the immediate location. Some rocks, much too large to fit into cages, have become landscape features in situ. To my surprise I ran out of rocks just before the cages were all full.
I had always intended to enclose the back (highest) terrace for fruit production, but after the death of my old dog 18 months ago, possums saw the garden as an easy target. My older brother offered to build me a larger cage using left over pieces of irrigation pipe as a frame (and he also likes a challenge). The framework was all in place just before lock down in March, and as soon as we were released from isolation he was keen to come back and finish. The cage is the full width of the narrow block, and luckily the house behind has a large car parking area at the level of the top of the back fence. All the bird wire was clipped together into one huge sheet in this carpark before it was slid over the frame and then fixed with battens to the back fence. Then the other three boundaries were attached.
The cage is now filling with plants, many recently moved from other parts of the garden. Most of the small block is over planted, but most things are thriving. Citrus are doing particularly well, as are avocado, pomegranate, fig, persimmon, passionfruit, ornamentals and vegetables.
Session 1: starting at 9.30am and finishing at 11am
Session 2: starting at 11.30am and finishing at 1pm.
Session 2: starting 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. I often am able to fit people in who initially are on the wait list.
The plant really struggled since I potted it up, and I suspect it has a fungal root condition. Nevertheless I am proud of it, as it's still alive and appears to be continuing to ripen its fruit. It is a heritage variety, grown from seed that I've been regrowing from for about 30 years... I think it was called Tiny Tim (but so many tomatoes are!) It is a bush variety and has largish cherry tomatoes. I sowed a few varieties indoors in mid July, just to see how they'd go. This one basically ended up growing on our kitchen table by the window and was very happy for a long time, and flowered quite early. I was doing the Science of Gardening course at the time and we had watched a video on 'buzz pollination' of tomatoes. I thought I'd give it a go, using my phone for the buzz, and hand pollinating with a paint brush. I was very excited to see that I had a lot of success with fruit set. With the colder weather through spring, I got tired of waiting for the tomatoes to ripen, and as the plant was looking unwell, I just stuck it in its pot in the corner of the greenhouse and ignored it.
Food garden visits in coming months
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. I often am able to fit people in who initially are on the wait list.
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The Golden Tomato Award 2020
And the winner is ..... Marg Meijers!!! Congratulations Marg !!!!
On 8 November Marg provided a photo of the winning tomato bush and wrote ...
On 8 November Marg provided a photo of the winning tomato bush and wrote ...
The plant really struggled since I potted it up, and I suspect it has a fungal root condition. Nevertheless I am proud of it, as it's still alive and appears to be continuing to ripen its fruit. It is a heritage variety, grown from seed that I've been regrowing from for about 30 years... I think it was called Tiny Tim (but so many tomatoes are!) It is a bush variety and has largish cherry tomatoes. I sowed a few varieties indoors in mid July, just to see how they'd go. This one basically ended up growing on our kitchen table by the window and was very happy for a long time, and flowered quite early. I was doing the Science of Gardening course at the time and we had watched a video on 'buzz pollination' of tomatoes. I thought I'd give it a go, using my phone for the buzz, and hand pollinating with a paint brush. I was very excited to see that I had a lot of success with fruit set. With the colder weather through spring, I got tired of waiting for the tomatoes to ripen, and as the plant was looking unwell, I just stuck it in its pot in the corner of the greenhouse and ignored it.
Her win (with photo) has been recorded in an updated version of blog post Early Tomatoes.
It is interesting that no one has as yet claimed the Silver and Bronze Tomato Awards. I have a few tomato bushes that are doing their best, but their fruits are just not reddening up! Do you have a tomato that is almost ripe? Email a photo to foodgardengroup@gmail.com when it is ready for picking!
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Last month's soil collection morning
On Sunday 8 November, a nice sunny spring day that was ideal for doing some invigorating work in the garden, ten people bagged and carried soil in bags in Ross and Elizabeth's chook pen at Lindisfarne. After a half hour of steady work, then a well-deserved break, and then another half hour of work, we had an amazing 133 bags of great garden soil. Everyone went home with a nice load for their garden. Thank you Craig, Ian, Jan, Jo, Margaret, Marian, Marilyn, Michael, Susan, Tony and Gaye for an impressive team effort! Ross and Elizabeth liked the result in their chook pen, and will be happy to do this again 6 or 12 months from now. Thank you Ross and Elizabeth!
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Last month's food garden visit
Jan’s garden is an intense mix of ornamentals and food plants in what could have been a survival-of-the-fittest battle for soil and sun but instead is a lush paradise that is both beautiful and productive.
For more details and great photos see Visit to Jan's Dynnyrne garden.
Thank you, Jan, for opening your garden to so many of us and for getting your garden into tip-top shape for our visit, and thank you, Laura, for writing about this visit.
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"In My Garden" in November ....
Judy's garden in Lindisfarne is a veritable hive of activity this time of year. Come and join her on a walk through her very productive patch by clicking here. Thanks to Pauline for creating this blog post!🍒
Deep Hay Mulching in the spotlight
Three years ago I put together blog post What is deep hay mulching? Deep hay mulching is a great way to save water and improve soil fertility. Recently someone on the Food Garden Group Facebook page wanted to know what those who used the method three years ago had learned. I decided to find out. You can find the the result in Deep Hay Mulching 3 years later on the Food Garden Group blog.
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Subject to there being no COVID-19 community transmission 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 December ......
- 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, tomato, capsicum, zucchini, pumpkin, cucumber, corn, celery, Chinese cabbage and Asian greens, Brussels sprouts (for harvest this coming winter)
- Sow in your garden beans, spinach, chard, silverbeet, radish, 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), tomatoes, capsicums
- Remove sleeves from outside tomatoes when the weather warms up
- Put shade cloth over newly-planted seedlings to protect them from hot sun
- Hill potatoes with soil, mulch, compost to protect growing tubers from light
- Minimise damage to brassicas by caterpillars by removing them, netting or sprays
- Hand-pollinate cucurbits early in the morning
- Dig up garlic and allow it to dry before storing it in a cool well ventilated spot
- Remove flower-heads on rhubarb, so plants focus on forming leaves
- Control slugs and snails especially around beans
- Foliar-feed crops once a month with seaweed extract to maximise their health and growth
- Net all your berry bushes well before the birds begin to eat your berries
- Net your stone fruit trees
- Thin fruits on all fruit trees, so fruits become larger and branches don’t break
- Remove excess foliage on fig trees
- Remove and destroy coddling moth infested fruit on apple, pear and quince trees
- Protect apple, pear and quince trees against codling moth
- Add sulphate of potash to the soil under peach and nectarine 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
- Foliar feed fruit trees with fish fertiliser and/or seaweed extract
- Feed citrus trees a full watering can with a tbsp of Epsom Salts + a tbsp of iron chelate (*)
- Add sulphate of potash to the soil under peach and nectarine trees (*)
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and many happy hours in your garden .....
Max
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