FGG Newsletter February 2025

 

         🌶 Food Garden Group newsletter - February 2025 🌶

 We like to grow what we eat 

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In this newsletter - What to do in your food garden in February, seed saving, how to improve your irrigation, ideas for processing what you harvest, this month's Northern and Southern food garden visits, last month's visits in words and pictures, visits planned for coming months, and more. 

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This month's Southern food garden visit

On Sunday 16 February at 10.30am you will be very welcome in Marian's garden at Taroona.

About her garden Marian wrote

Pat and I moved to this property about 6 years ago. The block is 850m2, reasonably flat and north facing. I wanted to design a garden from scratch that could be both attractive and supply us with food into old age. 

I planned the garden but am impulsive and like to experiment, so can get ahead of myself and leave unfinished projects. I also run out of gardening space, so this year we expanded the back-garden beds before renovating the lawn.

Our natural soil is reactive black clay, which cracks, hence our new lawn is largely clover, which is more drought tolerant than grass and the clippings are useful in compost.

When we bought the property large trees on the Eastern fence line had to be removed and the storm water and sewerage pipes replaced, with a digger turning the black clay soil upside down, with the subsoil on top.

We fenced off the back garden to be a food/ornamental “food forest”, leaving 4 existing trees (a Cabbage palm, Yew, Photinia and Silver Birch) and two rose bushes.

Both to even out the slope and improve the drainage and organic content of the soil, we created raised beds, initially, using any recycled edging we could find, removing perennial weeds such as Periwinkle (Vinca) as best we could, then laying wet newspaper over manure or other nutrient rich materials and building new soil, ”lasagne style”, over the top on the Eastern side, using materials such as old straw or rotted grass hay, lawn clippings, coffee grounds, manure, compost, stable manure, worm wee, rock dust, lime, Seamungus, and planting into pockets of compost. In time we added coarse river sand and composted cow manure.

Potatoes were an early crop to help break up the clay soil in the back garden and they still pop up everywhere.

The front garden below the road was mainly road base. We gradually created a native garden there using drought tolerant plants, which our wallaby visitors are leaving alone, to date.

I’ve mixed food and ornamental plants from the start, both for pest management and to attract “good bugs” and birds, enjoying the ornamental effects of food plants. 

At various times there have mostly been veggies mixed amongst fruit trees and ornamental plants. Recently I’ve been growing flowers for sale, and the veg are less obvious hiding in amongst them.

I hope you will enjoy our rather eclectic garden. It’s a work in progress with successes, mistakes, things I haven’t got around to, and should have and experimentation.

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

Discussion topics: very large pots for fruit and veg, biochar, no mow lawn, the use of rio screens for green walls, small money earning with veggies, edible flowers and propagated plants.

This Southern visit will be at Taroona, 10.30am on Sunday 16 February 2025

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

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.

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This month's Northern food garden visit

On Sunday 23 February at 10.30am you will be very welcome in Kate and Roy's garden at Grindelwald.

About their garden Kate and Roy wrote:

We moved to Tasmania 11 years ago from South Australia and built our house on a 2.5 acre block. From what we have been able to establish from locals, our block was originally used as a boiler maker factory and as an original staging post for the completion of the Grindelwald development, back in the mid 1980’s.

We had an enormous concrete block to deal with as well as a large amount of steel and building debris. We still have remnants of the past all over the garden, which can be a trip hazard!

The soil was (and still is) heavy, compressed, rocky clay. This meant the vegetable garden was always going to contain raised beds. We initially started with our 15 x 8 metre fenced garden due to numerous possums and wallabies on our patch. Many deliveries of soils, compost and organic matter have topped up the raised beds and we finally had the veggie garden I had always wanted. Rain water tanks are mostly used to water the vegetable garden, but it’s a laborious process!

I mostly plant a summer garden, all the usuals that grow so well here in Tassie. The raspberries this season have been superb, as have my cos and iceberg lettuce. I have carrots, broccolini, rocket, leeks, spring onions, tomatoes, peas, eggplants, capsicums, pumpkins, potatoes and rockmelons in the beds. We have olive trees in the front garden bed, but the birds seem to help themselves to the fruit before we do!

Winter is my rest period from the garden and green manure is all that is planted to keep the beds as weed free as possible.

We have expanded the growing area over the years, built a wire cage to protect both our small number of fruit trees and our chooks and managed to grow some ornamental plants surrounding the house. We purchased a polycarb green house in 2022 which has been a great investment. We are now struggling with birds, rats, possums and lizards in the fenced garden so we are considering enclosing the exisiting garden with either netting or wire. In hindsight, we should have done that in the beginning.

The garden is a great source of joy and frustration. Eating and sharing produce is the best part.

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

This Northern visit will be at Grindelwald on Sunday 23 February at 10.30am.

If you would like to come please RSVP to fggnorthtas@gmail.com

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.

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Last month's food garden visits

On Sunday 12 January the Southern Food Garden Group visited Libby and Tim's garden at Glenorchy. You can read all about it here.

On Sunday 19 January the Northern Food Garden Group visited Michael and Suzanne's garden at Kings Meadows. You can read all about this visit and the garden we visited here.

Many thanks to Denby and Nicki (North) and Laura (South) for writing up these food garden visits. 

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Food garden visits planned for coming months

South

Sunday 23 March: Ailsa's garden at Mornington

Sunday 13 April: Maria and Michel's garden at Ferntree

North

Sunday 16 March: David and Deb's garden at Youngtown

Sunday 13 April: Nicki's garden at Ravenswood

A big thank you to these FGG members for being happy to host a visit!

Please be aware: dates and gardens may change! Each visit will be advertised in this newsletter at the start of the month the visit is in. At that time you can RSVP, not before. 

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

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Seed saving made easy!

Sowing seeds that you collected in your own food garden last season can be fun and successful if you stick to a few basic rules. Taking control of the whole cycle from seed to crop and back to seed is very satisfying and it saves money! 

New Food Garden Group blog post Seed Saving Made Easy shows how it can be done for a range of vegetables.

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FGG blog post Tasmanian Veggie Seed Suppliers was updated

Last month's new FGG blog post provided an overview of local Tasmanian seed companies. The blog post was received well with some people commenting that they will use it in the future when shopping for seeds.

Northern FGG member Chrissie N. reported that she found a blue coating on seeds that she bought from a large national seed company. In response I added the following to the blog post:

Thiram is an organic compound that is used by some seed companies on some seeds that are meant for sowing, not consumption. The Thiram coating, dyed bright yellow or blue to alert gardeners to its presence, is meant to control certain fungal diseases. 
Thiram is reported to be moderately toxic to humans and this can create problems when treated seeds are handled by people. Once in the ground Thiram is reported to decompose into non-toxic components within weeks. 

I have never come across Thiram on Tasmanian-produced seeds. To me it is another reason to buy seeds from Tasmanian seed providers.

For a great overview of where to buy seeds that were grown in Tasmania see FGG blog post Tasmanian Veggie Seed Suppliers here.

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Sick of watering your garden?

At this time of year it can become tedious and very time-consuming to have to water your garden (almost) every day. So how can you make this easier? 

There are a number of Food Garden Group blog posts that will help you solve the question:

Improving your Irrigation: gives an overview of great low-tech methods and wicking beds, then discusses the pros and cons of overhead irrigation, drippers on poly-pipe, soaker hose, weeper hose and drip lines.

How to build a Wicking Bed : step-by-step info about building your own wicking bed.

Automating your Irrigation: shows how you can make an irrigation system that looks after your garden without your help and continues watering your garden when you are away from home.

The best time to make changes to your irrigation is winter when there a fewer crops in your garden and there is space to put in place what will save you lots of time next season.

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It is preserving time!

In addition to the Food Garden Group Blog our group has a second blog called FGG Extra. This is where you can see back-issues of our newsletter, where you can literally re-visit all the gardens our group visited in the past, and where you will find a lot of info about preserving. Below is a list of preserving topics covered:

Preserving - You need to know this! is a short must-read for anyone who is new to preserving, because there is one thing you should NOT do. You will find it here.

Microwave Bottling is a blog post by FGG member Marg M. She explains that this method allows you to do a bottle or two at the time and that it is fast and healthy (no added sugar required, just fruit). You will find it here.

Preserving Your Harvest was written after a workshop in which FGG member Margie M. shared some of her extensive knowledge on pickling, acidity, dehydrating, water-bathing, Fowlers Vacola and pressure canning. You can find it here.

Fermenting and Microwave Bottling was the subject of another FGG workshop by FGG member and fermenting expert Jenny K. You will find it here.

Processing produce when you don't have much time focuses on quick methods for processing your glut. You will find it here.

Click on the grey tabs at the top of the FGG Extra blog and you will be taken to other great blog posts on this blog.

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Food garden activities suggested for .....

• 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

 

 

To subscribe to this newsletter go to https://fggtas.wordpress.com and follow the prompts

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