FGG Newsletter October 2023

        🍓 Food Garden Group newsletter - October 2023  🍓

 We like to grow what we eat 

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In this newsletter - the October food garden visit, the September visit in words and pictures, the Golden Tomato Award, the Botanical Gardens tomato sale, food garden jargon words and more.

This month's Food garden visit 

Please join us on Sunday 8 October at 10.30am in Valerie's garden at Howden. This will be the 98th food garden visit since our first ever food garden visit on 29 May 2011.

About her property Val wrote:

My place has a history of being a dairy and apple farm.  I have two and a half acres and have lived here since 2000. At that time the property was overgrazed by horses, rabbits and wildlife with not many plants or trees. At the start, I planted natives along the front and side boundaries to create a wildlife corridor. The back section including the house was fenced off with a rabbit proof fence.

An orchard was planted containing apricot, nectarine, peach, pear, hazelnut, fig, mulberries, cherries, lemons, pomegranate, feijoas and olives. Lemons, apples and hazelnuts are the most reliable producers.

There was a large raspberry bed, but in a wet winter it became diseased and most plants died. The raspberries and blueberries are in a cage now but not doing so well. A passionfruit planted on a warm north facing wall has grown and fruited very well.

The vegetable area is a series of six slightly raised beds in a sunny position. The original design was one large bed but weeds were a constant problem, so it was redesigned with beds separated by paths currently lined with black plastic which suppress the weeds.

In 2021, a greenhouse was installed on the site of the old dairy. This allows me to grow vegetables that don’t grow well outside such as cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, capsicum, chilli, basil in the summer and in winter snow peas, spinach and lettuce and to raise seedlings and cutting.

All fruit, vegetable and some paper waste is processed in worm farms and the “worm wee” is spread on all the garden. For fertilizer I am currently using Neutrog products which are biologically active and contain micro-organisms which are good for your soil. Most prunings are mulched, producing great organic product. 

Herbs and flowers such as lavender, oregano, mint and parsley attract bees and insects for pollination and pest control. Bee hives in the front paddock have noticeably increased the bee population in the garden.

Contributions to morning tea and the produce table will be very welcome.

Please RSVP to foodgardengroup@gmail.com if you would like to attend. When you RSVP please clearly state who you are RSVPing for and provide names if you want to bring others, so we can have a name sticker ready for every person on arrival. Name stickers are our way of making it easy for people to get to know other people.

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If you have never been to an FGG food garden visit ....

• Our visits are about seeing food gardens and meeting other food gardeners.
• Everyone arrives at the same time just before or at the start time.
• If you have any surplus food-plant seedlings, seeds or produce, please bring them. They all go on the Produce Table, where people give and take without any money changing hands.
• After seeing the garden and lots of spontaneous discussions about food gardening we share morning tea.
• It would be great if you brought something for morning tea, but this too is optional.
• You may go home with new food-plants and ideas for your garden and interesting produce.
• It’s all about sharing, learning from each other, and community.
• To attend you need to RSVP.

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Last month's food garden visit

The Food Garden Group visited Ross and Elizabeth's garden in February 2018, so it was high-time for a second visit and see what these devoted food-gardeners had achieved in the last five years. But then it became clear that this visit needed to happen soon because the property is now for sale and soon we might no longer be able to see the large sloping garden hidden behind the house.  

This garden showed us how great a food garden can look in early September, so a big 'thank you' to Ross and Elizabeth for hosting this visit!

For a virtual tour around this garden including great photos click here .

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Food garden visits planned for coming months

Sunday 5 November: Max and Gaye's garden at Rose Bay
Sunday 3 December: Dirk and Pauline's garden at Howden

Sunday 7 January: Marg and Sweis's garden at Lenah Valley

Saturday 10 February: Steven and Kathryn's garden at Clarendonvale

Each visit will be advertised in this newsletter at the start of the month the visit is in. At that time you can RSVP for the visit, not before. 

There is a maximum number of people that can attend each visit. To avoid disappointment please RSVP early in all cases.

This newsletter normally comes out on the first of each month. The November FGG newsletter, however, will go out around 27 October because the November food garden visit is unusually early in the month.

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Golden Tomato Award with a difference

The prestigious Golden Tomato Award has been handed out every year since 2016 to the FGG member who was first to grow a ripe tomato. 

The award helped us to find out how some people manage to get ripe tomatoes really early. To learn how they did it, read Food Garden Group blog post Early Tomatoes.

This season there is going to be a radical change. The 2023-2024 Golden Tomato Award will be given to the FGG member who grows the heaviest tomato!

The award will be decided at the end of the season!

The photo above is from one of our food garden visits last season. Look for the ant in the photo. It tells you how large this Syrian Giant tomato is - unreal! 

More details about this season's Golden Tomato Award in a newsletter later this season!

In the mean time, if you want to know more about raising tomatoes from seed see blog post Sowing in Pots and Punnets. And don't forget: with tomatoes it is not 'the earlier you sow, the sooner you have ripe tomatoes'. You can sow tomato seeds until the end of December and have ripe tomatoes from the resulting plants before the season is over.

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Seed Box update

Thank you, Gaye T, for temporarily taking over the running of our Seed Box while Elizabeth is otherwise occupied. Gaye 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:

If you would like to contribute seeds, please just add them to the Seed Box. If you can't be at the next food garden visit, please contact Seedbox-coordinator Gaye and arrange to drop off or collect seeds at her place. Her email address is gayetownley@gmail.com. Thank you Gaye!

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The 2023 Royal Botanical Gardens tomato sale

The RTBG tomato sale is one of the biggest tomato seedling sales in Australia. Many varieties are not for sale anywhere else. All varieties are heirloom. Plants are sold one plant per pot and the quality is excellent. This year there are over 100 varieties .....

• With intriguing names like Santorini, Ukrainian Purple, Little Red Riding Hood and Big Beryl.
• From countries like Australia, the USA, Russia, Italia, Ukraine, Germany, France, Great Britain, The Czech Republic, Thailand, China and Argentina.  

The sale will start on Thursday 12 October, 11am - 3pm ('pre-sale', entry fee $10), then it  will continue on Friday 13 October and Saturday 14 October 11am - 3pm (no entry fee). 

This is a Royal Tasmanian Botanical Garden's fundraising event. Your purchases will help maintain these wonderful botanical gardens!

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Food garden jargon explained

Jargon words are very handy for those 'in-the-know' because one word can describe something that otherwise might take several sentences. For newcomers, however, jargon words can be very off-putting.

The Food Garden Group blog now contains a handy list of words and explanations that might help you understand more food garden jargon.

Want to know what a dibber is, or chitting, understand what is meant by the words heirloom, hybrid, bolting and bordeaux or what it means when a tomato plant is determinate or indeterminate (something I never get right)?

Heel in and harden off in Food Garden Group blog post Food Garden Words and Terms.

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Coddling moths will arrive soon!

Experiences in recent years might tell me that there are more coddling moths in summers with ample rain fall. With El Nino upon us we can expect drier weather and fewer moths than in previous years, but who knows.

It is best to take action against coddling moths as soon as young fruitlets begin to form on apple, pear, nashi pear, crab apple and quince trees.  

There is a lot you can do against coddling moths. Look under Coddling Moths in the blog's Pest-Control Quick-Guide and you will find many suggestions.

If you want the full story read Outsmarting the coddling moth on the FGG blog.

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Food garden activities suggested for October

• Mulch after good rains so soil moisture is retained

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 (later this month if milder weather arrives and soils warm up),  broadbeans, peas, spinach, chard, silverbeet, radish, 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)

• Do not yet plant outside tomatoes and capsicums, unless the weather is consistently warmer

• 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)

• Apply whip and tongue grafts to apple, pear and cherry trees early this month
• Apply top-work grafts to apple, pear, cherry and apricot trees
• Plant a new citrus tree. Now is the best time.
• Protect apple, pear and quince trees against codling moth
• 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
• Add sulphate of potash to the soil under peach and nectarine trees (*)
• Foliar feed all fruit trees with fish fertiliser and/or seaweed extract

Many of the topics mentioned above are discussed in posts on the Food Garden Group blog.

For a complete list of suggested food garden activities for every month of the year see Food Garden Calendar on the Food Garden Group blog.

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Happy food gardening,

Max Bee

FGG coordinator

 

 

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Lots of food gardening info can be found at https://foodgardengroup.blogspot.com/

For past food garden visits, recipes and past newsletters see https://fggextra.blogspot.com/

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The Food Garden Group is affiliated with Sustainable Living Tasmania