Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue #12.6 - 2022 i Good Organic Gardening

“Turn grass into lawn,” went those classic ads for Victa mowers. Lately, however, many of us have begun to wonder whether that’s automatically a good thing. We’ve noticed that many food gardeners and those designing their gardens with habitat creation in mind are not sure what to do about lawn areas. Are they a waste of valuable space where you could be growing edibles for humans and wildlife — not to mention beneficial insects? Or are they legitimate leisure areas for people and pets? Does an immaculately manicured lawn have its own special aesthetic value or is it rather a “blank space” in your gardenscape? Grass is a carbon sink, of course, but is its carbon cost (the amount of CO2 it produces) higher than its sequestration value? These are…

Together with chickpeas and lentils, broad beans — also widely known by their Italian name, fava — were part of the diet of our earliest ancestors, a direct link to prehistoric times. Though grown and enjoyed around the world, they have been part of the fabric of Mediterranean life for eight millennia. Called ful in Arabic, broad beans are a prime ingredient in felafel; mashed with oil, salt and cumin they make ful medames, one of Egypt’s national dishes. In Italy they’re combined with pork or Pecorino for May Day picnics while in Sicily, where they star in the traditional soup maccu, broad beans have deep roots in folklore and religion. They’re considered a fertility symbol because they thrive in the poorest of soils — even clay or soils of…

A community garden is a boon to civilisation. Quite apart from the social and health benefits of working together outdoors, nothing beats being able simply to cross the road and pick some fresh organic greens for tonight’s salad or stir-fry. Warners Bay Community Garden enjoys a prime location in verdant, tree-lined parkland next to a children’s playground, a hop, skip and a slippery dip away from Lake Macquarie, southwest of Newcastle. Although membership incurs a small annual fee, there are no gates or fences. The two-acre plot is open to all, locals and visitors alike, and there is just one rule, says convenor Trudy Patterson: “Pick a little, leave a lot.” She laughs, “And most people do just that! It’s lovely seeing kids coming from the park play area to…

Kiwifruit isn’t the handsomest of fruits. Indeed, the egg-shaped berry is a bit on the ugly side, tan in colour and definitely hairy. But that unappetising exterior hides an eye-popping interior of sweet, brightgreen flesh with black seeds and kiwifruit tastes cool and delicious. As well as looks, the plant also lacks manners. It’s a large, rambling deciduous vine putting out lots of long canes that need the support of a trellis or framework of wires. An ideal way to grow kiwifruit is across an arch so the fruit hangs down where it’s easy to harvest. Kiwifruit, also known as Chinese gooseberry, has male and female flowers on separate plants, which means that two vines (male and female) must be planted to get fruit. As one male vine pollinates up…

Every Aussie garden needs a citrus tree or two and I’m sure I can help you find one to suit any sunny spot at your place. Citruses can be planted into any space with a full-sun aspect and welldrained soil. They’ll happily grow in all areas of Australia — except those with really heavy frosts. If growing in pots or planters is your only option, look for a dwarf or espaliered citrus tree. These have been grafted onto dwarfing root stock so they’ll produce full-sized fruit on pintsized plants. There are even citrus plants with several varieties grafted onto a single rootstock, giving you a medley of zesty crops from a single plant. A hard-working and happy citrus tree is just as ornamental as it is productive, so it’s a…

The primary purpose of a productive garden may be to grow food but it can also serve as a place where we can relax, unwind and reconnect with nature. When we disengage from our hectic daily routines and spend some time in stillness, observing the natural world, we quickly realise just how much escapes our attention due to our busyness. There’s endless natural activity going on in our gardens and it would be a great mistake to think it’s inconsequential. Nature’s valuable teachings are there for anyone who’s willing to take the time to observe, understand and learn. OBSERVATION IN PERMACULTURE Observation is one of the primary and most basic tools of science. It can be defined as the process of obtaining information using the physical senses in an objective…

FAT DIET, THIN HAIR Obesity and being overweight can lead to thinning hair, it seems. Normally, hair follicle stem cells (HFSCs) self-renew and this is what allows your hair to grow back continuously. As humans age, however, HSFCs can fail to renew themselves, leading to hair thinning. Research has found that obesity and high-fat diets can lead to depletion of HFSCs by causing inflammation and speeding up that hair-thinning process. Source: Nature SMALL DIET CHANGES MAKE BIG DIFFERENCE Making lifestyle changes to reduce climate change can be daunting just because it can be hard to see the difference your changes will make. Now new research from the University of Michigan has shown that small changes to your diet can dramatically impact on the planet. The study evaluated more than 5800…

Most of us know about probiotics, but what about prebiotics? The names are very similar, but each plays a different role for your gut health. Probiotics are live “good” bacteria in the body. In the gut they help break down and digest food, minimise gas and bloating, boost the immune system and support overall gut health. The gut is sometimes called our “second brain” as it can play a key role in mental health. Recent studies have found that probiotics have an effect on mood since they produce neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and dopamine. Like everything, probiotics need to be fed in order to remain active and healthy — and prebiotics are their food. Prebiotics are nondigestible plant fibres linked to the promotion of the growth of helpful bacteria. They…

For succulent leafy greens in winter, grow a crop of the oldfashioned plant known as lamb’s lettuce. It isn’t a true lettuce but can be used to make a salad or fill up a sandwich and is also a great snack while you’re out in the garden. As well as tasting good, the dark green leaves are also rich in vitamins — particularly vitamin C — and iron. Its iron content is probably why lamb’s lettuce has a pivotal role in one of the best-known fairytales, Rapunzel. As you may recall, Rapunzel was named for a leafy vegetable growing in a witch’s garden (still called rapunzel in parts of Germany). As penance for stealing the leaves to feed to his pregnant wife, Rapunzel’s father had to give the baby to…

Thommo’s Community Garden in Bunbury, Western Australia, is no ordinary neighbourhood plot. Around half of its twohectare site, in a beautiful setting by the Preston River, comprises vegetable gardens, fruit trees and beehives, financed by local sponsors and run on permaculture principles by a dedicated team of volunteers. TCG is also something of a memorial to two Thommos. Inspired by his late brother Colin, John Thomson established the garden in 2009 as a space for locals to enjoy the many benefits of organic gardening. He worked tirelessly to maintain it until he too passed away a decade later —but not before he was recognised with an award from the South Bunbury Rotary Club in 2015 for initiating and developing TCG. TCG’S BIGGEST PROJECT IS THE EXTENSIVE ORGANIC GARDENS THAT GROW…

MARCH 2022 Mid-autumn in most of Australia means there are still plenty of daytime high temperatures, which in turn means lots to plant in your vegie patch and herb garden. APRIL 2022 April brings more autumnal conditions as the days become shorter and the nights cooler, heralding the end of the wet season in northern tropical areas New moon First quarter Full moon Last quarter When the moon is waxing from new moon to full moon, it is increasing light and drawing sap flow upwards. During the waning from full moon back to new moon, light decreases and sap is drawn downwards. This movement of sap flow has an influence on how well new plants will grow. There are four phases, each lasting seven to eight days. Sowing, planting and…

Tamarillo is one of those fruits that divides the population, and not simply in two — lovers or haters of the sharp taste. There’s also a third group and in Australia it may be the largest: those who’ve never heard of tamarillo or tree tomato, let alone tasted it. Tamarillo is much grown and widely eaten across The Ditch in New Zealand and it was there that the name originated in the 1960s as a promotional label developed by the New Zealand Tree Tomato Promotions Council to help market the fruit. Most of the world just calls it a tree tomato. My mother, a lifelong hater of tree tomato, put her dislike of the fruit down to a bad experience while she was living in New Zealand. She recounted how…

Some vegies are so easy to grow and so reliably productive that you’d never miss planting them. My go-tos for sheer ease of cultivation in our warm temperate climate are zucchini, cucumber, beans and cherry tomatoes in the warmer months and kale, spinach, sugar snaps and snow peas in the cooler season. Of course, there are lots of others, but those mentioned just grow like weeds. Snow peas and sugar snaps are also known as mangetout, which translates literally as “eat all”, because you can consume them pod and all — very often straight off the plant, too. Obviously, this means you can enjoy them raw or just quickly blanched in a salad. They should also be lastminute additions to a stirfry so they still have the crunch that makes…

COOL & TEMPERATE VEGIES • As we get into autumn, you will see summer crops start to die back. Tomatoes may go down to russet mite while zucchini could show signs of powdery mildew. Time to clear those beds for new crops — perhaps some rejuvenating green manure in the form of oats, wheat and legumes.• Alternatively, before the weather gets too cold, prepare for winter and spring harvests by putting in cabbage, broad beans, Asian greens, lettuce, rocket, silverbeet, spring onions, spinach and carrots.• If it’s still warm enough, consider starting some herbs such as parsley, basil, rosemary, coriander, rosemary, marjoram and thyme. You could give mint and lemon balm a go but watch out they don’t take over.• Set up your patch as a beacon for pollinators and…

SUNDAE FRAISE HYDRANGEA, HYDRANGEA PANICULATA ‘SUNDAE FRAISE’ PBR The plant: This new, sun-loving hydrangea is must for summer colour! ‘Sundae Fraise’ is a beautifully compact hydrangea that’s covered in large flowers that begin green, turning to pure white and then to varying shades of pink throughout summer and autumn. It’s fast-growing yet its compact form makes it perfect for small gardens, pots and other containers. Growing: Prefers a full-sun to part-shade position in well-drained but moist soil. Water at the base of the plant, avoiding the leaves. Fertilise in early spring for the best blooms and remove spent flowers after flowering finishes. Plants Management Australia, pma.com.au EVENING PRIMROSE, OENOTHERA SPECIES ‘HERONSWOOD PINK’ The plant: This popular, long-flowering form of evening primrose is a stunning addition to any cottage garden. It…

Cabbage figures in the cuisine of nearly every culture in history, so working out its origins has proved difficult. However, food historians seem to agree that non-heading cabbages were most likely domesticated by the Celts or people from Mediterranean regions around 1000 BCE. From there the variety of cabbages grew and today they are one of the world’s staple food crops, found raw, cooked or pickled on dinner plates the world over. How you prefer to prepare and eat cabbage often depends on your earliest cultural influences. My Irish husband loves a hearty serve of colcannon (a traditional Irish dish of cabbage combined with mashed potatoes) or boiled cabbage and ham. While I occasionally enjoy a serve of colcannon, my stomach turns at limp, discoloured boiled cabbage with ham. I…

Tim Lang has been a friend of mine for the best part of 30 years and during that journey we’ve found ourselves somewhere within the horticultural, permaculture and sustainability industry. With his beautiful family — Liz Capelin, who works for Third Nature Projects, their three boys aged 8, 10 and 13 and their dog Koolie — Tim now lives on a third of an acre in Cooran, in the subtropical Sunshine Coast hinterland, and manages the nearby Coolum Community Native Nursery. Though it wasn’t until his teens that he started actively gardening, he reckons he acquired his passion via osmosis as a small child living in Eswatini, the former Swaziland, in southeast Africa. There people lived a traditional subsistence lifestyle with cattle, goats and poultry; maize grew everywhere. No surprise…

icrogreens are small but mighty flavour explosions that are super-easy to grow and harvest. You don’t need a lot of space to grow your own microgreens — even a kitchen windowsill is enough — so they are great for people in apartments or those with an already overflowing vegie garden. By mass-planting herb, salad and vegetable seeds into small trays or punnets, you essentially create a mini forest of young shoots that can be harvested with a simple snip of your scissors. These young herb, salad or vegetable shoots are full of flavour, just like their grown-up versions, but their leaves are tender, brightly coloured, full of nutrition and delightfully small. Don’t get microgreens and sprouts mixed up — they are different crops in several ways. Sprouts are germinated in…

I thought kale might be a flash in the pan — a trendy vegetable that we’d lose interest in after a few years. But that hasn’t been the case. Kale rose from obscurity, became trendy and now seems to have found a permanent place in the vegie plot. Much of the renewed interest in this leafy brassica is down to its reputation as a “superfood” packed with vitamins (including vitamin C, carotene and folacin) and rich in calcium, iron and dietary fibre. Kale’s continued popularity comes thanks to its low care requirements: it’s an easy to grow, long-cropping and handy winter and early-spring leaf veg at a time of year when fresh greens can be scarce. It’s also a handsome plant that looks good in the vegie patch. There are…

COOL & TEMPERATE VEGIES ∙ As autumn deepens, keep sowing or planting brassicas, broad beans, peas, spring onions and spinach. Now is also a good time to consider putting in carrots and spuds as well as artichokes, asparagus and beetroot. Snow peas and spinach planted at the end of summer may be ready for harvesting.∙ Also ripening are pumpkins. Test them out by rapping on the skin: a deep drum-like sound means they’re ready. Harvest with a sharp knife, leaving a bit of the stem attached, and store in a cool, dark spot over winter.∙ It could be time to give up on those ragged-looking tomatoes but don’t throw out the unripe fruit — keep it for making chutney.∙ As previously noted, autumn’s the time to rest a bed or…

Eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis syn. E. rostkoviana) has long been well regarded as a cure for eye maladies and is used extensively in Europe, North America, Western and Northern Asia. It’s an annual semi-parasitic plant that for its nourishment relies on the roots of other plants, grass in particular. Growing to about 30cm high, it has elegant purple or white-and-purpleveined flowers and belongs to the Orobanchaceae or broomrapes family. Its lovely generic name Euphrasia is of Greek origin and is derived from Euphrosyne, the name of one of the three graces who was known for her joy and mirth. The name means “gladness”. Eyebright was used in the treatment of eye problems well before the first written record in Gordon’s Liticium Medicina (1305). In the Elizabethan era it was made into…

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