FGG Newsletter November 2021

 🍃  Food Garden Group newsletter - November 2021 🍃 

 We like to grow what we eat 

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Welcome to the Food Garden Group's November 2021 newsletter with information about this month's food garden visit, an Introduction to Beekeeping workshop, COVID and our FGG events, the Golden Tomato award, what is new on the FGG blog, what you can do in your food garden in October, and more.

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This month's food garden visit

On Sunday 14 November at 10.30am you will be welcome in Aimee and BJ's garden at Lenah Valley.

About their garden Aimee and BJ wrote:

We look forward to welcoming you to our home in Lenah Valley. BJ has lived here for two decades, with the garden undergoing some major transformation in that time. When she purchased the property, the boundary was densely planted with invasive Mirror Bushes and Cotoneasters. Along with multiple Photinias this blocked light from the majority of the back yard. A lot of energy has gone into clearing these and opening up the space.

The majority of new plantings have been Australian natives (Tasmanian natives when available and suitable). Our garden style is informal and rustic. We have a little street library at the front of the house and “Home Soil Barn”, a place for locals to drop off and pick up home grown fruit and vegies.

Aimee moved in 7 years ago, the garden continued to evolve, and about 5 years ago we started growing edibles. Starting with a single raised garden bed on the Northern side of the house, we’ve had plenty of learning curves and opportunities for refining things. And that journey definitely continues.

We realised very quickly that the wallabies and pademelons were going to outcompete us in unfenced areas of the properties, and so started concentrating efforts in the back yard around 3 years ago (shortly after attending our first Food Garden Group visit). 

Our mission over the past few years has been to reduce our lawn and increase growing space. A section of the lawn close to the back deck was converted to growing space using the ‘lasagne gardening’ method – a lot of cardboard, newspaper, deep hay mulching and compost has turned heavy clay soil into garden beds. 

A further bed was created when we needed somewhere to put the many cubic metres of clay dug out to create footings for the (still-a-work-in-progress) garden studio. Aimee’s father threw some star pickets and hardwood fence palings in as a retainer, and the excavated clay was ceremoniously dumped on top of the existing lawn. Two years of adding compost, manure, and deep hay mulch to the area has turned it into a productive little space. Interplanted amongst food plants are annual and perennial flowering plants, to attract beneficial insects and add some colour and variety.

18 months ago we extended the native and ornamental garden beds to the North and West of the block – moving the borders 1.5m in to the lawn, reducing the space to mow and providing room to plant a mixed edible perennial border including currants, artichokes and pepper berries. During the main growing season we make use of the added space for annuals, particularly tubers such as yakon and oca (NZ Yam).

Last year we finally splashed out and invested in some raised garden beds made locally by Dovetail Timbers. Making the beds just a metre across has allowed us to easily reach all plants, and we made sure to leave enough space between beds wide enough to move a wheelbarrow. Given the depth of the beds and the need to deal with some tree branches, we 'hugelkultured' the bottom of these beds, before adding approx. 60cm of vegie mix and compost. Unfortunately we made a rookie mistake when ordering compost (we selected an organic-certified product) – after filling the beds we did a PH test to find a horrifyingly alkaline measure of 10! Some sulfur and lots of moo poo was added to try and balance things out. Amazingly, we managed to get a bumper crop of tomatoes out of this still very sweet soil, helped along by adding some iron chelate to tomato plantings to increase their ability to access nutrients. 

We have several closed-compost bins and a bathtub worm farm in the NW corner. The castings from the worms have been a particularly helpful addition when planting, and for adding to seed-raising mix. Ultimately we’d love to have some big compost bays built to scale up production.

Our garden continues to evolve and something we’re hoping to get happening over the next year is planting a small orchard of citrus and stone fruit, possibly in the Northern corner of the backyard interspersed amongst existing native plantings.

During this visit we will discuss pH and how to correct it if it needs correcting, and we will measure the pH in various parts of Aimee and Bj's garden.

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

If you would like to come please RSVP to foodgardengroup@gmail.com mentioning food garden visit.

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Last month's food garden visit

The weather did initially not play the game on Sunday 24 October, when we met at Vivien and Mark's place in Bellerive, but that did not deter any of us. 

Vivien explained that when they designed the garden, they decided that they wanted it to be formal, so she spent quite a bit of time designing the configuration of the raised beds and the paths and how the garden connects to the wider environment. 

We all enjoyed roaming through this colourful garden and discovering the edibles. Vivien counted them the other day: there are around 100 different edibles growing all over the garden!

For great photos and commentary (thank you, Pauline) see Visit to Vivien and Mark's garden.

The produce table and the seed box contained all kinds of goodies and attracted a lot of interest! As was the morning tea table. Thanks to everyone who brought something to share.

A big thank you to Vivien and Mark for inviting us to their beautiful garden and delighting us with a feast for the eyes on a somewhat chilly spring day.

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What is beekeeping all about?

Food Garden Group members Frank and Laura have very kindly offered to share with us some of their extensive knowledge of bees. About the workshop they will provide they wrote:

On the 28th of November from 1:30-3:30 (ish) we are hosting a bee intro in our small apiary. We have 2 good hives and, if we are lucky, might also have a swarm hive by then as well. This is not a beekeeping course. The afternoon is designed to give attendees an idea about what beekeeping is all about, how much work it entails, what you might need to buy to get started, how to pick the best location for your bees and a bit of insight into the wonder of the European honeybees. 

Frank grew up helping his father who was a small-scale professional beekeeper in Germany and we have had our own bees for years now, including keeping 30ish hives on a bee property in Western Sydney where we learned tips & tricks from some of the most experienced beekeepers in NSW.

The plan for the 28th is to start off in our bee room where we will explain the basic equipment and then we will move to the apiary where a few will don bee gear (we have some to share – masks may be required due to Covid) and will probably do shifts with everyone in the apiary but taking turns getting suited up and close enough to the hives to handle the frames and inspect the bees.

Bees don’t like their hives opened to the elements so the inspections will be paced to keep the bees happy & healthy. If the weather is really bad, we won’t be able to open the hives at all. Which is the first lesson in beekeeping: the weather dictates what happens with the colony.

So, fingers crossed late November has a few days of stable, warm weather and the bees are busy and calm. We will see you then.

If you would like to come please RSVP to foodgardengroup@gmail.com mentioning beekeeping. 

Those who previously RSVPd for this event should already have received all relevant info.

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FGG face-to-face events in coming months

On 15 December the State Government is going to open the borders to fully vaccinated people from elsewhere. In spite of best efforts to keep it out, it is expected that the Delta strain of Covid will enter Tasmania soon after. 

I realise that most fully vaccinated people will not be severely affected by Delta, but I know enough people with underlying health problems in our group to know that many of us will need to do their best not to get the virus.

We will end 2021 with a food garden visit on Saturday 4 December.  That could be the last FGG face-to-face activity for a little while, depending on how the Covid situation develops.

The number of active cases in the community is estimated to peak at the start of March. With this in mind, there will be no food garden visit in January. Face-to-face activities might restart for fully-vaccinated members in February, if it is safe to do so.  Watch this space!

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The weather, let's talk about the weather!

Someone just told me that this Spring is the wettest Spring since 1975, and I believe it, because at the end of October I always have begun to irrigate our garden, except this year! 

The regular rain fall will be good for many crops.  Brassicas, lettuces, in fact all leaf vegetables, onions and so on, will all grow well if they are in soil that drains well. 

I expect people to have good berry crops as well!

But all this rain can also do a lot of damage in the garden. In badly draining soil roots may rot and plants may die. Slugs and snails have been living in optimum conditions to thrive, so beer traps and snail hunting may be required.

When temperatures go up in these wet conditions rust may arrive in berries (thin berry bushes to allow better ventilation) and mildew may soon invade your pea patch (See FGG blog post Preventing and Overcoming Mildew).

Stone fruit trees do best in warm dry conditions, so they aren't happy. I already have aphids on the leaves of may peach tree (spray with soapy water).  Unusual. We can also expect a lot of Brown Rot in stone fruits this summer.

Heat-loving crops like tomatoes, capsicums and pumpkins don't like the temperature fluctuations that we  have seen in recent weeks (a day of 26 degrees followed by two days of 13 degrees). Replant into larger pots inside or in a hot house, rather than planting heat-loving seedlings in garden soil that is too cold.

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Who will win the 2021 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 the 2021 Golden Tomato award this year? The contest is on!

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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.

Seed Box coordinator Elizabeth emailed me (thank you!) the following extensive list of seeds that will be available in the Seed Box on the produce table at this month's food garden visit:

Basil/basil cinnamon Broad Beans Broccoli Brussels Sprouts 23 y o beans Calendula Capsicum Romany, Californian  Carrot Chive/garlic chives Chilli Collard greens Corn Coriander Cucumber Eggplant Gherkin Hollyhock

Kale – Russian Red Lettuce Lovage Manglewurzel Okra Parsnip Peas Pumpkin – Qld Blue, Cundalls beauty Radish Salsify Silverbeet – Giant Fordhook Spinach - Perpetual Spring onion Swiss chard/silver beet Sunflower – giant Turnip Watermelon - Baby

Please take from this box whatever seeds you can use in your food garden. They come free of charge!

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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New on the Food Garden Group blog

Every year the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens (RTBG) in Hobart produces quality heirloom tomato seedlings on a semi-industrial scale for its annual sale in October. This year I joined nursery-horticulturist Margot White and an amazing team of volunteers, and found out how this is done, and what home gardeners can learn from this process. 

Read all about it in An Inside Look at the Botanical Gardens Tomato Sale

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Things 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

Vegetables

• 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 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

Fruit trees and berries                                                                     (* = don't repeat if already done recently)

• 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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Happy food gardening,

Max Bee