FGG Newsletter December 2022

       🍒 Food Garden Group newsletter - December 2022 🍒

 We like to grow what we eat 

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In this newsletter - info about the December FGG food garden visit, last month's visit in words and pictures, South American fruit and vegs, thinning fruit, free-of-charge seeds in our Seed Box, and more.

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This month's food garden visit

Please note: this month's food garden visit will be on a Saturday, and it will be a week later than publicised in last month's newsletter.

On Saturday 10 December at 10.30am you will be welcome in Belinda's garden at Dynnyrne.

About her garden Belinda wrote:

Our garden is 12 years old, and a continual work in progress, a beautiful mish-mash of organic and permaculture principles, with a strong emphasis on regenerative small-scale agriculture, and how we co-exist within (as opposed to separate from) our eco-system. In 2010, wildly excited and optimistic, we bought an oddly shaped, north facing, steep, almost ½ acre internal block.

The challenges we have worked with are many – the wildlife being the first. We took note of our neighbours approaches to this, and our very first step (even before the house was built) was to commission the food garden enclosure to be built. The food garden is roughly 600m2, with chicken wire fencing and netting over the top. This allows small birds in but not large. This was intentional – wrens and honeyeaters (etc) are a joy in the garden and an essential part of garden ecology, but to our dismay we discovered it also allows blackbirds in (winged rats, devourers of cherries and berries), so there is still internal netting needed annually to enable us to gain a ‘share’ of these crops.

The other challenges we have faced are those inherent with working on a slope – how we manage water flow, drainage and leaching of nutrients, and how we make user-friendly/ergo-dynamic gardens; wind (the westerlies and south-westerlies here are fearsome!), and working with heavy clay.

The soil has taken priority, because without it our range of growable food is small – we started with virtually no topsoil – scrubby grass, heavy dank clay on top of sandstone. We initially brought compost with us from our previous rental, some bought compost-soil mix from McRobies, some opportunistic topsoil one of our neighbours excavated and wanted to get rid of, and a lot of scavenging of organic matter from elsewhere around the block.

As the garden has grown, it’s been a learning process of realising just how hungry the soil is, that for every nutrient intake out (food that we eat), we need to give back, essentially that, if I want my garden to feed me, first I need to feed the soil.

I am now working on improving wind-breaks, and I’m yet to install a dedicated watering system, and it does require a certain mountain-goat steadiness, but it’s getting there.

We have bees, chooks (until last winter ducks as well), 40+ fruit trees, hazelnuts and almonds, olives, a very hopeful cluster of young avocado trees, many different berries and currants, grapes, lots of medicinal herbs, indulgent splashes of flowers for the sheer pleasure of beauty and fragrance. It is somewhat jungle-like over summer and autumn when harvest becomes the dominant outdoor task and preserving, drying and cooking becomes the dominant indoor task.

There are some areas yet to develop – the ‘ugly corner’ that will be an extension of the green house (my next big project), some fence lines that could sorely do with greenery, I’m currently working on making better use of vertical space, and the many impulsive mini-projects that happen along the way.

Looking forward to sharing my garden with you 😁.

Please be aware: this garden is on a steep slope and may have some slippery sections. Belinda has done her best to minimise safety hazards, but you do need to be mindful of where you put your feet. 

Contributions for morning tea, the produce table and seed box will be much appreciated!

This visit will be on a Saturday! Please RSVP to foodgardengroup@gmail.com if you would like to attend.

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Last month's food garden visit in words and pictures

Our group visited Laura and Frank in 2018, a couple of years after they bought their property. It was high time for a re-visit, and on a Sunday morning, with rain threatening, a happy group of gardeners gathered in Otago Bay for an enjoyable morning. You can see it and read all about it here. Many thanks to Pauline for putting together this blog post!

Thanks everyone who came for your contributions to the produce and morning tea tables.  Last but not least, many thanks to Laura and Frank for a fun morning, for opening their garden at very short notice, and providing us all with inspiration and ideas for our own gardens. 

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FGG visits planned for early 2023

January                   Denby at Lindisfarne             Sunday 22 January

February                 Anna & Marcus at Margate   Sunday 19 February

You can RSVP for these visits when they are advertised in the newsletter for that month.

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Seed Box update

Seed Box coordinator Elizabeth gave me the following list of seeds that will be available free-of-charge in the Seed Box on the produce table at the next food garden visit:

Basil/basil cinnamon Broad Beans Bush beans Beans - 24 year old Beans - French climbing Beans - Purple King Beans - Molly's Zebra Beans - Giant of Stuttgart Capsicum Romany Carrot Chive/garlic chives Chilli Collard greens Corn Eggplant

Fennel - Florence Hollyhock Kale – Russian Red Lettuce - loose leaf, Cos Lovage Manglewurzel Parsnip Peas Pumpkin – Qld Blue Spinach - perpetual Spring onion Sunflower – giant Tomato - Pink Bumblebee, Camp Joy Turnip Watermelon - Baby

If you would like to contribute seeds, that would be great!  Please just add them to the Seed Box during a food garden visit. Please write on the packet the name of the seeds and when they were harvested (if you know).

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. Thank you Elizabeth!

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South American fruit & vegs in the spotlight

There are at least ten South American vegetables and fruits that can be grown in Tasmania. They are all worth considering because they are nutritious and add variety to your diet. 

Quite a few of them are rarely available in Tasmanian shops and markets. This makes it even more worthwhile to grow them yourself. Want to know your tomatillos from your tamarilloes and tomatoes and hear about new and interesting vegetables? Have a look here.

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How long can you expect your seeds to remain viable?

Do you store away your leftover vegetable seeds for next time? I do. Recently I went through my seed-box and discarded all my beyond their use-by date seed packets. Was I wrong? How long do seeds really remain viable?

Some seeds remain viable for many years, whereas others may not even remain viable for six months.  Below is an indication of how long your seeds will remain viable:

< 1 year  - parsnip
1 year     - onion, leek, parsley, parsnip, salsify 

2 years    - sweet corn, okra, pepper 
3 years    - asparagus, bean, broccoli, carrot, celeriac, celery, chinese cabbage, kohlrabi, spinach, pea 
4 years    - beet, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, silverbeet, chard, chicory, eggplant, fennel, kale, mustard, pumpkin, squash, turnip, watermelon 
5 years     - cucumber, endive, radish, artichokes 
6 years     - lettuce

6+ years   - tomatoes

Some seeds remain viable for an incredible amount of time. In 2005 a long extinct date palm was grown anew from seed. The seed had been harvested in 155BC! That is 2175 years ago!

That story, and more info about viability, germination, sow-by dates on seed packets, checking and testing seed viability, storing seed, and Tasmanian seed companies can be found in The Life Expectancy of Seeds on the Food Garden Group blog.

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Thinning fruit

Now is the perfect time to thin the fruit on your fruit trees if you have not already done so. You may think 'but why should I?' and 'won't the wind do the thinning for me?'.  I admit that I don't like the task much either, but I promise that, if your fruit trees are laden with small fruits at the moment, thinning that fruit is absolutely worth the time you give it because:

1. Thinning allows the remaining fruits to become bigger and tastier.
2. If you don't thin, you may have a large crop of small fruits this season, followed by a much smaller crop next season. It is called 'biennial bearing'. Trees produce well one year, not much the next, the year after that they produce well again, and so on. Early and rigorous thinning results in more even crops over the years.
3. Not thinning can ruin a fruit tree, in particular young trees. 

In my garden I ruined a fruit tree by allowing a far too heavy crop to come to maturity without thinning. One day a major branch simply collapsed under the weight. It nearly split the tree in two.

Ideally you thin fruits when the fruit is quite small. You can thin later of course, but the longer you leave it, the more energy the tree spends on fruit that you are going to remove. Growers spend a lot of time thinning early in the season. 

On my dwarf peach tree I get clusters of five or more fruits on each branch. I remove at least three, sometimes four out of five fruits. After removing a bucket full of fruit, there is still ample left on the tree and the fruits become much bigger and juicier.

Imagine the size fruit you would like, and make space between the fruits, so ideally, when fruits develop to their full size, they still don’t touch.

In addition to thinning fruit you may also want to thin leaves on trees that have a dense foliage. That will provide better ventilation on warm humid days (there are likely to be some this summer) and that will keep Brown Rot away.

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December is a good time to do the following in your food garden ....

• 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, 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

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

• 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 each citrus tree 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 (*)

Max and Gaye wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy 2023!