Visit Sandy Bay Wendy 2021

 Visit Sandy Bay, Wendy 26 September 2021

How lucky we felt to live in Tasmania where there is no lockdown, when the Food Garden Group visit season for spring 2021 kicked off with a wonderful visit to Wendy's garden in Sandy Bay. 

Wendy's garden is a well established and lush oasis in sunny Sandy Bay. The original garden behind the house was planted by her parents and has many established fruit trees. She later acquired a 300 m2 block from a neighbour, adding a shed, a large avocado tree and room for a delightful vegetable area.

Here is Max amongst the fruit trees introducing Wendy to the group.

The previous days saw atrocious weather in southern Tasmania, with snow falling as low as 200 m above sea level. But in good Food Garden Group tradition, on the morning of the visit the sky turned blue and the view on Mount Wellington's/kunanyi's snowy top only added to the day.

Wendy explained that her garden has heavy clay soils and after using an organic fertiliser with too much lime in it for quite a few years, she noticed her plants not being happy. She had her soil tested and discovered the pH had become too high. She has adjusted this by using lots of compost and no more lime. Her soil has now got a pH closer to 7 and her plants are much happier. 

Gordon Strutt has done the soil analysis for Wendy. He is happy to help others who would like their soil tested. His number to text or call is 0417 946 559.

Another thing that the group discussed was what to do against codling moth. The measures against codling moth we discussed were:

1. a home-made recipe using bleach, apple cider vinegar and molasses in a soda bottle or similar to trap the moths.
2. Yates Ultra Success once a fortnight from 1 December until end of Feb (Max K says). It is a biological spray with low toxicity for humans, but high toxicity for bees, so perhaps to be used only with extreme caution and if you are certain there are no bees in your area. And who can be sure of that?
3. Neem oil. Spray your trees for as long as is necessary, repeat every two weeks.
4. Hormone traps. Hang these before your trees start to flower and replace every three weeks.
5. Port in a trap. Makes for happy and shortly thereafter deceased moths.
6. Grease on trunk to prevent the immature moths climbing up the trunk.
7. Bugs for Bugs  sell naturally occurring parasitic micro wasps which attack caterpillars of all kinds including those of the coddling moth. Pauline and Dirk have used this method to introduce the tiny wasp Trichogramma pretiosum into their orchard years ago, and have not had any codling moth ever since. The cost is approximately $30 for 12.000 wasps including 5 separate cardboard release boxes, which is the amount you would need for a garden. You do want to make sure you introduce the wasps into your garden when there is a window of a week of nice warm weather though, so they have time to hatch and establish. 
8. Wendy's virus spray. In 2017 Wendy bought a 200ml container of Grandex virus spray against Codling Moth from Organic Crop Protectants for $220. The price is now $251.68 plus shipping! Wendy keeps it in the freezer and believes it will last her many years.

You can read more about this topic on the FGGblog here: Outsmarting the Codling Moth

Here we are discussing people's ideas on codling moth destruction.

Wendy's garden has too many delightful things growing in it to mention them all, but here are a few highlights:

The citrus family is well represented.

Grapefruit

Lemons

one of several cumquats

Pomegranate just getting its leaves

large kiwifruit along the back fence, with leaves starting to appear.

some of last season's chillis still going!

Over the years, some of the fruit trees had become too big, providing too much shade and making access difficult. So recently, Wendy pruned some of the figs quite drastically with great results.

The vegetable area of the garden is currently in the 'winter veg' stage. Wendy makes a mix of seeds of all kinds of lettuce, carrots, rocket, kale, silverbeet etc. and scatters this widely. Then she provides driplines and makes narrow stepping paths in between the driplines. The result is a smorgasboard of edible green mulch.

Only one area of the garden is permanently netted: the soft fruits. This cage holds many different kinds of berries, providing a feast in summer.

The back of the shed near the vegetable area provides support for a large grapevine, as well as room to cleverly store individual protective cages for seedlings to grab when needed.

Wendy's large Bacon avocado is looking very happy and full of fruit. 

Avocado pips can be grown to a tree, but they take about 7 years to fruit and very seldom result in a nice eating avocado, since they do not come back true to type. Wendy uses the pips to make rootstock for grafting, and then grafts a Bacon shoot onto the established rootstock. This is very successful and the little trees fruit in about 3 years. Here is Wendy showing us how the grafting is done.

connecting the graft with the rootstock

don't forget to write a label

new growth on previously grafted plants

The produce table was well supplied and also quickly emptied again! Thanks to everyone who brought something to share.

 Morning tea was a highlight again, and a much appreciated treat, especially in these times.

A final look around this very inspirational garden and then it was time to head home again and get gardening! Many thanks to Wendy for opening her lovely garden and showing us how to make that much coveted grafted avocado tree as well.

Artichokes growing happily in quite a few locations in this garden.

another great idea: wild strawberries as a living mulch.

And at the end of the season, this is where Wendy preserves and bottles all her beautiful produce, an entire hobby by itself!