🍇 Food Garden Group newsletter - April 2025 🍇
We like to grow what we eat
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In this last newsletter of the 2025-2026 food garden season: what to do in your food garden in April, this month's Northern and Southern food garden visits, buying a fruit tree, growing garlic, saving seed made easy, and more.
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| Himrod grapes almost ripe! |
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This month's Southern food garden visit
On Sunday 19 April at 10.30am you will be welcome in Kathy and Tom's garden at Tea Tree.
About their property Kathy and Tom wrote
Kathy and Tom care for six acres of land at Tea Tree, in a valley prized by vineyards for its excellent soil. When Kathy purchased the property 33 years ago, it was an exposed site with little vegetation - save for one large eucalypt that was spared the axe for its use as a killing tree - and a small wooden farmhouse. It is a very dry area with challenging winds and savage frosts. A saving grace is that the property is connected to mains water.
Using permaculture principles, and practicing Landcare, many trees have been planted, both native and exotic and the property is designated 'land for wildlife'. Kathy and Tom provide for most of their food needs through the establishment of a no-dig vegetable garden partially enclosed by a long brick wall and the rock wall of a studio, with a custom-built glasshouse and 4-bay compost station built in. Outside this area two orchards contain up to 50 fruit trees, a flock of 40-odd chooks roam over the acreage, and two donkeys maintain a fire break, reduce invasive weeds and provide manure for composting.
The main vegetable growing area has only recently undergone the transformation to enclose it and provide shelter from wind and provide frost mitigation.
The glasshouse has been a huge game-changer, allowing tomatoes to ripen early and providing an endless supply of cucumbers. Kathy designed the glasshouse and Tom engineered and built it. They didn’t want anything plastic and have used passive energy principles in the design. It is made from brick and glass with a steel frame, with the following features:
- two sides of brick wall provide thermal mass, storing heat during the day to release at night
- vents were added low down in the back wall to draw cool air through when the roof vents are open, releasing hot air
- two inbuilt beds have direct contact with the earth to allow soil life to migrate
- doors open one end and a window at the other for additional ventilation if required
- potting bench allows for storage underneath and provides a generous work space
- more pots can be placed on floor if needed
- plumbing inside with drip irrigation on beds and moveable rails above each bed to string up plants
- blinds for shade
Both the wall and the glasshouse now provide an opportunity to grow a broader range of plants and this year semi-tropical and tropical plants are being trialled, like kaffir lime, lemon, ginger, a pineapple and even an avocado. Winter will be the true test, but so far it is working very well.
Contributions for morning tea and the produce table will be much appreciated!
This Southern visit will be at Tea Tree, 10.30am on Sunday 19 April.
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 19 April at 10.30am you will be very welcome in John and Venie's garden at Newnham.
About their garden John wrote:
When I first started out, the garden was just a couple of simple raised beds. Over the last six years it’s grown and changed quite a bit, and so have my ideas. These days the whole setup is built around wicking beds — first made from old IBC containers, and later expanded using repurposed real estate signs. They save a lot of water and, being raised, they make the day‑to‑day work much easier on the back.
For the soil, I use a mix of compost, coconut coir, and potting mix, which holds moisture well and keeps the plants happy. I also run a continuous‑flow worm farm, and every bit of suitable kitchen scrap goes straight to the worms. Their castings get brewed into fertiliser, and it’s some of the best stuff you can put on a garden.
Originally, I only had a small, netted area for raspberries and strawberries, but the local birds quickly made it clear they were interested in more than just berries. After they helped themselves to a few too many seedlings, I expanded the netting to cover the whole garden.
It’s still very much a work in progress — always changing, always improving. But that’s half the fun. Every season teaches me something new, and the garden grows along with me.
Contributions for morning tea and the produce table will be much appreciated!
Contributions for morning tea and the produce table will be much appreciated!
This Northern visit will be at Newnham on Sunday 19 April 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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About last month's Southern food garden visit ....
On Sunday 15 March the Southern Food Garden Group visited Fiona and Craig's garden at Mount Nelson:
This month the Food Garden Group climbed a little higher than usual, visiting Fiona and Craig’s garden on the summit of Mt Nelson. At around 350 m elevation, in a bushland setting, it’s a beautiful location — but not necessarily an easy one for growing food. ........
For the complete article about this garden go here.
Thank you, Laura, for writing up this food garden visit.
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A big 'thank you' to all FGG volunteers
This is the last newsletter of this 25-26 FGG season. There will be a winter break without FGG newsletters in May, June and July, and the aim is to start the 26-27 FGG season with the first newsletter on 1 August. In the meantime, the link to the April visit report will be put on the Facebook page after the visit.
It is time to thank the people that helped make the 25-26 season a success:
Denby for organising and coordinating visits to Northern food gardens! Great job, well done!
Dirk, Pauline and Gaye for sharing this task with me in the South! Great to do this with you!
Laura, Mandy, Ngaire, Pauline and Denby, for writing great FGG Extra blog posts about this season's food garden visits.
And last, but not least, a big 'thank you' to the 16 food garden hosts who welcomed us to their gardens this season. Thank you for showing us your great gardens! We loved your great gardens and hospitality!
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Thinking of buying a new fruit tree this winter?
In August nurseries will receive a fresh lot of fruit trees ready for planting. You could choose your next fruit tree by visiting nurseries at that time, but you will find that many customers pre-order their tree(s), and you may only be able to get one of the left-overs. A better approach might be to determine now what fruit tree(s) you want, and what variety, and order the tree when orders open. Most nurseries begin to take orders for fruit trees in May.
Click on the Food Garden Group Blog links below to help you choose your fruit trees -
Apples and Pears , Apricots , Avocados , Citrus fruits , Loquats , Peaches and Nectarines🍇
Click on the Food Garden Group Blog links below to help you choose your fruit trees -
Apples and Pears , Apricots , Avocados , Citrus fruits , Loquats , Peaches and Nectarines
Now is a great time to plant garlic
April is the perfect time to plant garlic in Tasmania. Food Garden Group Blog post Garlic - Getting the basics right will help set you up for a marvellous garlic crop in December.
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Saving seeds can be so rewarding!
Saving seed of crops you would like to grow again next season can be dead-easy. It will save money and help you repeat this year's successful crop in years to come.
I have now grown bush-beans successfully for more than a decade from one packet of seeds that I bought so long ago that I no longer remember what variety it is. From sowing to picking takes just nine weeks, bountiful crop, no supports needed, easy!
You will find that, if you follow a few rules and if it is a heirloom variety, saving seeds will be easy!
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The Food Garden Group's Seed Box is going to return
In the South, the Seed Box that once upon a time was on the produce table at every food garden visit, will return next season.
If, now or in coming months, you realise you have a surplus of seeds, please put them in little packets or envelopes on which you write the name of the variety + when you collected the seeds, and at the next food garden visit give these little envelopes to Max.
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Food garden activities suggested for April
- Water regularly to make sure your soils don’t dry out
- Make sure beds are well mulched to conserve water
- Keep weeds at bay and don't allow them to go to seed
- Sow green manures where your soil needs to become more open and friable
- Sow in pots spring and salad onions
- Sow in your garden winter varieties of spinach (try sowing one row every fortnight), broad beans and peas (from late April if you don’t get heavy frosts in winter),
- Sow in your hothouse herbs like coriander and dill for use this winter and spring
- Plant leek, garlic, spring onions and salad onions (after adding some lime to the soil), Chinese cabbage, Asian greens
- Foliar-feed crops once a month with seaweed extract to maximise growth before it slows down
- Collect seeds from heirloom varieties that you would like to grow again next season
- Put something under pumpkins that rest on the ground so that they don’t rot
- Take pumpkins inside when the weather turns cold and damp
- Bring all unripe tomatoes inside for further ripening if the weather turns cold
- Remove flower-heads on rhubarb so plants focus on forming leaves
- Remove beans and other summer crops when the weather turns cold
- Take beds to their next stage in your crop rotation plan
- Control slugs and snails after rain if the weather is still warm
- Dig up potatoes and hill the ones that you are leaving for later
- Sow green manures where your soil needs to become more open and friable
- Feed all blueberry bushes a generous amount of blood & bone and mulch them
- Prune apple, pear, quince, cherry and stone fruit trees once their foliage stops growing
- Remove and destroy coddling moth infested fruit on apple, pear and quince trees
- Trap and kill coddling moths on late apple, pear and quince trees
- Check existing coddling moth traps and replace and refresh where needed
- After harvest feed peach and nectarine trees blood & bone or mature poultry manure (*)
- Consider adding new fruit trees and berries to your garden and order them from nurseries
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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
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
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