FGG Newsletter February 2024

 🍒Food Garden Group newsletter - February 2024🍒 

 We like to grow what we eat 

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In this February 2024 Food Garden Group newsletter: info about food garden visits planned for February, March and April, last month's visit in words and pictures, Golden Tomato Award update, what's new on the FGG blogs, and more!

This month's food garden visit

On Saturday 10 February at 10:30am you will be welcome in Steven & Kathryn's garden at Clarendon Vale.

About their garden Steven and Kathryn wrote:

Since the last visit by the FGG to our garden a few years ago our garden has grown quite a lot. The espaliered apricot trees on the driveway have produced an abundant harvest of apricots, to the point where we bought an extra freezer to store the crop. We added two more apricot trees of the Tilton and Storey variety. Every possible fence has been used to espalier trees, including 4 cherries, 7 pears, 3 Gage type plums and 4 Japanese type plums.

The raised garden beds have been increased to cover 110 sq. metres of growing space in which we grow winter and summer crops for our consumption. We have erected a plastic covered grow tunnel to give the tomato crop a head start in spring. 

The avocado trees have begun setting fruit, with another 3 types added to widen the cover for production over the whole year. I had success on grafting 2 more avocado trees, but failure rates were high.

The kiwi fruit that we planted to cover the wooden frame is yet to bear enough fruit to justify its existence, but we are hopeful. The strawberries planted in a number of sunny spots always give a reliable and abundant crop. The asparagus that we grew from seed is not so reliable, giving only a handful of spears each week from the large area planted with them. We are thinking that the pH may be too low for them and they may need lime. 

I built a wire netting enclosure along the back fence to stop the wildlife from foraging on the apples, pears and plums. It seems to be very effective. We bought a garden mulcher to deal with the large amount of material that went to the compost heap. We now place the mulch directly around the avocado trees to help maintain moisture levels and it appears to work well, as well as providing a quicker way of dealing with the large amount of cuttings etc.

A major improvement to the garden was the removal of a large gum tree from our shared fence line with the school. The tree used to dry out the garden and block morning sunlight. The hazelnut trees planted in front of the garage are coming into full production now. I have removed some of the grape vines planted in the driveway fence as they did not ripen in our climate. I planted dwarf pears in their place. There is a row of step over apples grafted with heritage apples growing behind the row of retaining wall rocks. They are slow growers so I will not get a crop until next year.

We hope for a warmer summer next year as our bean and cucumber crop has been very slow to mature.

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

Please note that this FGG visit is on a Saturday, not a Sunday!

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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Last month's food garden visit

The Food Garden Group visit for January 2024 took place at the amazing oasis that Troy and Jing have created in Old Beach. Since Troy met Jing 4 years ago, more and more food plants have been added to the garden, and by the time of our visit, the cycads and palms had grown into an even more lush oasis and there were edibles everywhere.

Many thanks to Troy and Jing for opening their lovely garden, to all those who came and made this such an enjoyable event, and to Laura for summarising it all in a great blog post! 

If you couldn't come you will enjoy having a look at the write-up of this visit here.

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Also new on our FGG Extra blog .....

• At the last food garden visit, a lemon sour cherry tart was such a success that the maker was persuaded to publish its previously secret recipe! You will find it here.

• Ever tasted or heard of pickled coriander seeds? They have been called Gardeners Caviar. Green coriander seeds can be made into a winter pickle for salads, sandos, soups, wraps and whatever food is ready for some crazy good aromatics. Thank you, Tom Mac, for contributing this interesting recipe. You will find it here.

Thank you, Pauline, for making these delights available on FGG Extra!

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New on the Food Garden Group blog .....

• Most tomato plants are like demanding prima donnas. Everything needs to perfect all the time, otherwise they will play up. Add to that Tasmania’s fickle climate and you find that even the most experienced food gardener struggles at times. New blog post - Tomato Care and Repair - might help you make things ‘just right’ for your tomato plants or improve things if your tomatoes tell you that they are not happy.

• There are many environmentally-friendly pest control sprays that you can make at home, at little or no cost. This month the list has been extended, and the blog post also has been further updated. Check out blog post Homemade Pest Control Sprays.

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The Golden Tomato Award at the end of January

This year's Golden Tomato Award will be won by the FGG member who produces the heaviest ripe tomato this season. Below is a list, in order of weight, of those who presented a photo of their tomato on scales so far:

This is a truly remarkable list. Looking at it from bottom to top: when most of us still only had small green tomatoes in December, two people already had good-size ripe produce! It is a great list of large varieties, and the absolute whoppers produced in recent weeks are amazing!

2nd place per the end of January: Ruth Sinclair with a Heritage Chocolate

Leading the competition at the end of January with a 678 gram amazing looking tomato (variety Tomato Giant Tree grown from seed bought from Seed Freaks) is Olesja Lakin:

1st place per the end of January: Olesja Lakin with a Tomato Giant Tree

Of course this is not the end of the season and we might see even heavier tomatoes in coming months. But even if your tomato does not quite top Olesha's whopper, it would still be great to add it to the list because it will show people what varieties are worth trying, if you want really large tomatoes. Just yesterday I visited a garden and saw a really large Black Russian, a possible future contender, but still very green at the moment.

To enter the competition put your ripe tomato on the scales, take a photo, and then email the photo to foodgardengroup@gmail.com or put it on our group's Food Gardeners Tasmania Facebook page.

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Our Facebook page is growing rapidly

A warm welcome to those who this month joined the Food Garden Group's Food Gardeners Tasmania Facebook page!

Facebook page coordinators Laura and I saw a steep rise in the number of people applying for membership of the page in recent weeks. Last week, for instance, 276 people joined the page. That is an increase of membership of 10% just in that week! The page now has over 3000 members.

I asked some of the new members who had told them about the page, and found out that Facebook itself had suggested the page to those who had shown an interest in growing vegetables in the past. 

In recent days I put a post on our Facebook page especially for these newcomers explaining what our group offers in addition to the Facebook page.

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Food gardening activities suggested for February

• Water regularly to make sure your soils don’t dry out
• Make sure your food garden is well mulched to conserve water
• Keep weeds at bay and don't allow them to go to seed

Vegetables

• Sow in pots loose-leaf lettuce, parsley, celery, Chinese cabbage, Asian greens, endive, leeks

• Sow in your garden radish, spinach, silverbeet, carrot, parsnip, turnip, swede, beetroot

• Plant loose-leaf lettuce, iceberg-type lettuce, parsley, celery, brassicas (provide protection against caterpillars), leek and onion (after adding some lime to the soil)

• Put shade cloth over newly-planted seedlings to protect them from the hot sun
• Dig up potatoes and hill the ones that you are leaving for later
• Hand pollinate pumpkins, cucumbers and other cucurbits early in the morning
• Foliar-feed crops once a month with seaweed extract to maximise their health and growth
• Cut off tips of cucurbit vines that have two fruits so the fruits become larger
• Put something under pumpkins that rest on the ground so that they don’t rot
• Minimise caterpillar damage to brassicas by manual removal, netting or spraying
• Tie up or provide support for climbing crops such as beans and tomatoes
• Remove laterals on tomatoes and limit plants to 3 or 4 branches
• Remove flower-heads on rhubarb so plants focus on forming leaves
• Collect seeds from heirloom varieties of crops you would like to grow again next season
• Sprinkle sulphate of potash once a month around vegetables that form fruits

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

• Put nets over apple and pear trees, if not already done
• Remove runners on strawberries and put in pots so you have young plants next season
• Thin fruit on all fruit trees, so fruits become larger and branches don't break (*)
• Cover fruit trees with netting to avoid fruit-damage by birds
• Remove and destroy coddling moth infested fruit on apple, pear and quince trees
• Trap and kill coddling moths on apple, pear and quince trees
• Check existing coddling moth traps and replace and refresh where needed
• Apply bud grafts to all types of fruit trees in the first half of this month

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/

To join our Facebook page search for Food Gardeners Tasmania and apply for membership

The Food Garden Group is affiliated with Sustainable Living Tasmania