FGG Newsletter September 2021

🍋     Food Garden Group newsletter - September 2021    🍋  

 We like to grow what we eat 

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Welcome to the Food Garden Group's September 2021 newsletter with information about this season's first food garden visit, our FGG Extra blog, what's in our Seed Box, the upcoming RTBG tomato sale, bees, hot houses and what you can do in your food garden in September.

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This month's food garden visit

On Sunday 26 September at 10.30am you will be welcome in Wendy's food garden at Sandy Bay.

About her garden Wendy wrote:

I was fortunate enough to be able to take over the family home in 1999. The attraction was a large block conveniently located between the city and the University, with a variety of established fruit trees including a large pear tree that I had grafted 4 varieties onto over 35 years ago, 3 large old Moorpark apricots, a very productive fig tree and a huge walnut tree. 

The clothesline was replaced with a garden bed and a multitude of new fruit trees planted, and some removed to create a French kitchen garden feel with vegetables growing in beds under and around the fruit trees. I’ve squeezed in a few too many roses as well!

I was delighted to be able to do a boundary adjustment with my neighbour ending up with a 300 square metre addition to my yard about 15 years ago. It had yet another established fig tree and a large shed. I added a berry cage using polyhouse frames, more trees on the boundary including avocados, feijoas, oranges and mandarins, and a huge spiral vegetable garden that I have since converted to more easily manageable rows. 

I grow a range of mostly heritage vegetable varieties, many acquired through a seed savers group that I belong to. My soil is heavy clay, but after years of using complete organic fertiliser, the effects of mineral imbalances became apparent, so I now use a tailor made mix following soil tests, and, using ideas from various talks and workshops.

I have been trying to increase the microbial life in the soil especially through the use of mixed plantings, living edible mulches and minimal digging. 

I make my own compost from garden and kitchen waste, try hard to control weeds to prevent them from seeding, and foliar feed when I find the time. 

I have to discourage rats, net to protect fruit from the blackbirds, and regularly hose the cockatoos off the ripening walnuts. I use a virus spray to control codling moth and oriental fruit moth to reduce damage to fruit. The automatic drip irrigation system is a great time saver.

Needless to say I spend a lot of time harvesting and dealing with produce in the summer and autumn months but have spent the last year removing some trees, pruning heavily, clearing fencelines, trying not to plant as many vegetables, letting the violets and alpine strawberries take over some of the beds, and adding and rejuvenating paving to reduce the maintenance load and rationalise production. 

If we have time on the day we can graft some of my avocado seedlings for you to take home! Bring along a grafting knife and tape if you have them.

Contributions for morning tea, the produce table and Seed Box will be much appreciated!

If you would like to come pease RSVP to foodgardengroup@gmail.com

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Seed Box update

Spring will be a great time for sowing seeds and you will be able to get them free-of-charge from the FGG Seed Box, so please come and get some, or donate surplus seeds to the box.

The following seeds will be available in the Seed Box on the produce table at this month's food garden visit: 

Artichoke - Globe Broad Beans Brussels Sprouts Bush beans Calendula Capsicum – 2 varieties Carrot – 2 varieties Chive Collard greens Coriander Kale - Russian Red Lettuce

Lovage Marigold Mustard Parsnip Pumpkin – 2 varieties Radish Silverbeet - Giant F'hook Spinach – perpetual Spring onion Sunflower Swiss chard/silver beet Watermelon - Baby

 

Please take from this box whatever seeds you can use in your food garden. 

If you would like to contribute seeds, please just add them to the Seed Box at that point in time.

If you can't be at the next food garden visit, please contact Seedbox-coordinator Elizabeth and arrange to drop off or collect seeds at her place. Her email address is elizamt54@gmail.com 

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Botanical Gardens tomato sale

Every year the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens have a tomato sale in October that could well be the best sale of tomato seedlings in the country! This sale stands out from other tomato sales because .....

• Mature seedlings are sold one plant per pot and their quality is excellent
• There will be over a hundred varieties for sale originating from all over the world
• Many varieties will not be for sale in any regular nursery or hardware store
• All varieties are heirloom, which means that if you harvest seeds from them, you will be able to grow the same tomatoes next season from your own seed.

This year's Botanical Gardens tomato sale will start on Thursday 14 October, 11am - 6pm (entry fee $10), then  continue on Friday 15 October and Saturday 16 October 11am-3pm (no entry fee). 

Please allow for queues and social distancing!

This is the Botanical Garden's major fundraising event.  Your purchases will help maintain these wonderful gardens!

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Bee 🐝 update

Thank you to those who expressed an interest in bee-activities discussed in last month's newsletter. You will be contacted when it is time for the planned activities.  If you are interested in bees, but missed last month's newsletter, you can still read what is planned in regard to bees this season in the August newsletter here.

A few people came forward saying 'I would be happy to have someone else's bee hive on my property'. 

I  referred them to FGG bee-coordinators Frank and Laura, and their reply is 'we don't know anyone right now who has hives that they want to place somewhere, but it does happen sometimes. We will set up a match-making list and connect beekeepers with people who want bees on their property.' 

Please contact Laura at llrittenhouse@gmail.com if you would like to be added to this list, or if you would like to discuss any other bee-related issues.

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It's amazing what you can find on FGG Extra

Are you aware that our group has not just one, but two blogs?  There is the Food Garden Group blog that right now holds 130 articles about all aspects of food gardening, and then there is the FGG Extra blog that contains ...

• Recipes of delicious sweet or savoury home-made treats that people brought to FGG events
• The In My Garden series in which last year fifteen members shared what was happening in their gardens during the COVID lockdown
• All the monthly FGG newsletters since April 2020
• All the articles covering visits to food gardens and workshops since 2013
• Info on lots of food garden subjects discussed in food garden visits and workshops.

All these things are easy to find if you look in the blog's index under the heading Covered on FGG Extra. So if you would like to look back to an FGG visit to your garden, or what a good recipe is for Rhubarb cake, or what was said about rainwater collection, have a look in the index on the FGG Extra home page, and all will be revealed!

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About hothouses ...

Last year I had my first ripe hot house tomato in mid November, and tomato plants in my small hothouse produced from there on until June. Outside my first tomato was ripe five weeks later and last season's crop was disappointing because of a less than ideal summer weather.  I grow my capsicums only in my hot house because there they grow very well, and outside is always a struggle. A hot house is an ideal environment for seed raising, and it is a nice place to be on a cold wintery day. So here you have some of the reasons why you could explore the idea of getting a hot house.

If you would like to get inspiration for building a hot house yourself, or learn some tricks from those in the Food Garden Group who have one, please read on the Food Garden Group blog ....

• Fun with a hothouse
• Hothouse practices
• Sharing our Hothouse Skills no.1
• Sharing our Hothouse Skills no.2
• Visit to Max and Gaye's garden in November 2019
• Visit to Jennie's garden in October 2019

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COVID-19 and QR-codes

A few people asked whether the FGG should have a QR-code, so people can check in when they arrive at a Food Garden Group event.

I have worked through the extensive information available on the Tasmanian Government's  coronavirus.tas.gov.au and found that ..

1. FGG food garden visits and workshops are COVID-19 Safety Events Framework Event Level One activities, because our events are (mostly) outdoors, people are 'free moving and mixing', and there are fewer than 1000 participants. Level One events are not subject to approval.
2. Organisations need to register for Check in Tas (the QR-code system) if their events are Level Two or Level Three.

In Tasmania every organisation is required to have a COVID-19 Safety Plan. Our group's plan will continue to be:

1. All face-to-face activities will be suspended if there is community transmission in Southern Tasmania.
2. People need to RSVP for all events, so it is known at all times who will be present or has been present.
3. The maximum number of people per event will be based on the size of the garden where the event is held, and be (at the most) 1 person per 2 square metres (Tasmanian physical distancing rule for outdoor events).
4. Hand sanitiser is made available on arrival.  It is also available during events.
5. People are encouraged to observe socially-distancing during events.

If our group went over and above Government requirements and adopted the QR-code system, we would have to have a separate QR-code for each event (11 QR-codes this season) because the QR-code system adopted by the Tasmanian government is site-specific.

For any comments on the above please contact foodgardengroup@gmail.com .

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Things you can do in your food garden in September ...

• Mulch after good rains so moisture is retained when temperatures go up
• Cut up and dig in green manures you sowed in autumn

Vegetables

• Sow in pots loose-leaf lettuce, brassicas, leek, parsley, spring onions, salad onions, celery, Chinese cabbage, Asian greens

• Sow in pots inside tomato, capsicum, zucchini, pumpkin, corn, celery

• Sow in your garden spinach, chard and silverbeet, broadbeans, peas, spinach, chard, silverbeet and radish

• Sow in your garden from mid-September 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), asparagus crowns (after adding compost to the soil)

• Control slugs and snails, especially around peas
• Minimise caterpillar damage to brassicas by manual removal, netting or spraying
• Foliar-feed crops once a month with seaweed extract to maximise 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)

• Apply whip and tongue grafts to apple, pear and cherry trees
• Plant a new citrus tree. Now is the best time.
• Stop having chooks around your fruit trees once the trees are out of dormancy
• Feed citrus trees a good dose of nitrogen-rich fertilisers (*)
• Feed citrus trees a full watering can with a tbsp of Epsom Salts + a tbsp of iron chelate (*)
• Put in place protection measures against codling moth for apple, pear and quince trees
• Get rid of pear and cherry slug by covering pear and cherry leaves with ash or lime
• Add sulphate of potash to the soil under peach and nectarine trees (*)
• Foliar feed all fruit trees with fish fertiliser and/or seaweed extract
• Prune citrus trees if they need pruning

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Happy food gardening!

Max Bee