Dealing with the Mother of Tough Garden Beds

 DESIGN ELEMENTS

When the going gets tough

Many gardeners have a section of their garden that might often see plant failures year after year.
They’ve tried all sorts of plants that claim to be tough as old boots, but still they fail.

Glenice Buck has dealt with one such problem garden bed where she lives and this week starts a series of 3, on how she went about solving the problem.

Glenice explains that the bed is on a slope (see photo below) so the water would just hit the soil and run down the hill.

This garden bed also gets all day sun on heavy clay soil.

Access to water is limited to hand watering. Not ideal considering the busy schedule that Glenice's parents have.

On top of the lack of shade and being baked by hot afternoon summer sun, the soil had been previously used as bit of a driveway and had been compacted by heavy machinery when the house was being build.

Glenice said in her post that 

"This section of garden bed in the rear garden at #thegardenattheberkshires has been the toughest bed I have ever dealt with. Five years on with a lot of work and improvements it is finally starting to fill in and look good. It has been hard to get anything to grow in this area. The reasons for it being a difficult spot to deal with is
 

Tough garden bed at the Berkshires photo Glenice Buck

I'm talking with Glenice Buck Landscape design and Arboriculture consultant. Have a listen

Part2

In the last 5 years Glenice and husband Phil, have made so many improvements to the soil .

• We used a rotary hoe to break up the soil before planting.
• Spread/dug through gypsum and watered in liquid gypsum
• Dug through premium garden soil and compost.
• Mulched the area with fine grade pine bark, sugar cane mulch, straw and tea tree mulch.
• Continued fertilising any new plants with composted animal manure pellets and liquid fertilisers every 2 to 3 months.

She said of the garden that they did this process listed above ,every year for 5 years but it wasn't until the 3 year mark that there was a turn around in plants being able to survive.

Without those years of soil preparation, the plants would not have been able to thrive.

Miscanthus transmorrisonensis

Planting Palette Glenice used for this area - lots of silvers!

• Miscanthus transmorrisonensis-Evergreen Feather grass, evergreen leaves to 80cm tall by 100cm wide fountain-like mounds
• Panicum virgatum ‘Heavy Metal’ or Blue Switch grass is special for its dramatic, metallic blue foliage and for its strong upright habit to around 140cm.
• Senecio viravira- a beautiful rounded evergreen shrub with silver-white dissected leaves topped by soft lemon flowers. One of the best silvers. Sun loving and drought tolerant. 80cm x 100cm.
• Artemisia Powis Castle- a hardy, bushy, low growing shrub that has very attractive, soft, silvery grey, deeply divided foliage
• Olea europaea 'Piccolo' suits really tough conditions - drought, frost, poor soil, no irrigation. Grows to 2m

I'm talking with Glenice Buck Landscape design and Arboriculture consultant.

Part 3: The final Countdown

In the last 5 years Glenice and husband Phil, have made so many improvements to the soil .

A very difficult spot that experiences 40 degrees C  temperatures in summer and winter temparatures below 0  and even minus 5 degrees C at times.

A hard clay soil that had been compacted by heavy vehicles driving over part of it for many years.

The planting also included these very tough and hardy plants.

• Teucrium fruiticans- also known as Germander, is a very hardy small evergreen bush in the mint family with grey stems and undersides of the leaves. 1.2m
• Phillyrea angustifolia . Drought, heat, frost and salt tolerant. Phillyrea are olive related which explains their toughness-dark green glossy leaf with serrated edge, making a contrast to the other silvers in the bed. Height to 2.5m, slow growing. Alternative to English box. can be kept to under 1m in height
• Aloes
• Other succulents
• Beschoneria yuccoides-Mexican lily, is a perennial succulent with a rosette of slender strap-like leaves that can grow to 1m in length. 
• Rhagodia spinescens Salt bush-Small, native shrub with silvery, grey triangular foliage growing to approximately 1.5m. Tolerates all soil types and coastal conditions
• Atriplex nummularia, commonly called Old Man Saltbush, a large grey shrub to 2 m tall and to 4-5 m wide, with brittle woody branches

Glenice said in her post that

We used a rotary hoe to break up the soil before planting.
Spread/dug through gypsum and watered in liquid gypsum
Dug through premium garden soil and compost.
Mulched the area with fine grade pine bark, sugar cane mulch, straw and tea tree mulch.
Continued fertilising any new plants with composted animal manure pellets and liquid fertilisers every 2 to 3 months.

Continued to give any plants in the area a deep slow water by hand to ensure they receive a good amount of water closest their roots.

Garden at the Berkshires-photo Glenice Buck

• Selected plants that will cope with the tough conditions that area hot and dry conditions.
• Over planted the slope- I planted out all the plants with closer spacing than recommended as they will help protect and buffer each other in this tough location. They will grow, settle in and get established more quickly together.
• When you're dealing with tough locations like this you also need to have patience and give the garden soil time to take in all these improvements. Soil preparation is very important and you should try to hold off planting before the soil is ready - haha! try telling a gardener to do that when there is open soil / spare space in the garden. I didn't wait!

I'm talking with Glenice Buck Landscape designer and Arboriculture consultant.

www.glenicebuckdesigns.com.au 

Design Principles: Doing the Design and Landscape Materials

 DESIGN ELEMENTS

Design Principles part 3: Doing the design.

Do you have a particular favourite colour when it comes to plants or perhaps there are some colours that you just don’t want in your garden?

These are the sorts of things you need to think about when redesigning either all or some of your garden.

What to do next

• Consider your colour pallette, what colours don't you like or do like?
• Think about what plants your really want to include.
• If you have an attachment to certain plants, think about using those as a guideline to what else you can plant.
• Draw a scaled plan so you can work out the proportions of your gardens beds a bit better. A mudmap may be a good idea to start with but once you’ve decided on the plants you like, it’s time to think about drawing up a plan to scale so that you can be sure that all the plants you like will actually fit in. In some situations you may be able to get by with just the mud map.  
• Think about design styles: Start collecting images of gardens that you like.

Cottage Garden Style

A cottage garden is known for its flowering perennials with their soft, relaxed form and character. These gardens have a fairly informal style and are normally planted with flowering plants in muted and pastel colours. The plants tend to grow into each other, forming mounds and domes. 

Formal Garden Style

This style of garden has the most structure and can be quite rigid in their style. The basis of a formal garden is symmetry, balance, tailored plantings, simplistic plant choice and a sense of majesty. The gardens and pathways tend to run in straight lines and form grid like patterns

I'm talking with Glenice Buck of www.glenicebuckdesigns.com.au

Design Principles part 4

Landscape Materials

Over the last few weeks, Garden Designer Glenice Buck has been outlining all those factors you need to consider when you’re doing a re-design no matter how big or small.
Hopefully you’ve at least drawn a mudmap of your garden or yard if there’s nothing in it.
Do this before you buy the plants.

• But what are the options for say landscape materials?
• There are clever ways to achieve looks of the real thing without spending the big bucks.

Think locally to reduce transport costsThen there’s re-purposing material especially if it’s already in your garden or nearby.

What about fencing?

So many types of fencing

Timber 

Colourbond,

Wire fencing

Timber with horizontal rails.

Brick

Retaining walls

Reconstituted sandstone blocks

Drystone walls-especially if you have plenty of stone lying about on your property

Besser blocks that can be rendered or cap with sandstone fascias.

Timber- but this has a limited life and can be eaten out by termites.

Gabion walls-wire mesh that is filled with rocks.

Corten steel lengths edging as well as for retaining walls.

Steps: need to be structurally sound.

Natural stone: granite or Sandstone floaters.

Brick steps

Pieces of limestone or limestone tiles.

Concrete steps

Pathways

loose pebbles

paving: sandstone, granite, terracotta, brick, decomposed granite

I'm talking with  Glenice Buck of www.glenicebuckdesigns.com.au

That concludes the series on design principles

Garden Design Principles Where to Start and Site Analysis

 DESIGN ELEMENTS

Design Principles part 1 an introduction 

Most people’s backyards are a square or rectangular affair, and if it’s flat, doesn’t offer much to the imagination.
Picture this, you walk out the back door and you see the whole yard or garden in one brief sweep.
What about being a bit more creative?

Photo: M Cannon

Let’s find out how.


I'm talking with Glenice Buck of www.glenicebuckdesigns.com.au

Glenice's top  tips

1. Consider what you have already in the garden and work with it.
2. Look at the geometry of the site and decide if you want to work with it.
3. Create a sense of enclosure, even if it's only a small area in a corner so that you don't see the whole garden from the back door. 
1. You could plant out something tall to hide part of the garden so it’s a sort of secret garden.
4. Consider the scale and size of the structures in the garden, can they be changed?
5. Mass planting creates uniformity and is good design-choose odd numbers, 3, 5 and so on.
6. Use symmetry versus asymmetrical, which one should you choose?
7. Use lines and curves-consider the two different shapes in your garden. You can have curves in a narrow garden. 
8. Look at what foliage can bring to the garden; flowers are a bonus as they aren't always there.

Design Principles part 2

Site Analysis

Are you all set to re-design your garden to give it a new lease of life?

• Perhaps just one area needs re-doing.
• Autumn is the best time to think about that but first there are a few basics to consider.

Things to Consider

You first need to consider the factors that cannot be changed, these are:

climatic zone 

aspect

soil texture/type 

soil pH 

site hydrology or drainage 

the views into and out of the site 

water availability 

• Having time to observe some of these factors can also work to your advantage as you can then see the difference in these elements through all the seasons.
• The majority of gardening problems are caused by gardeners not understanding the climatic needs of their plants. It's important to note that Australia has a warmer climate than the countries of origin of most of our introduced plants. 

I'm talking with Glenice Buck of www.glenicebuckdesigns.com.au


Top tips:

• Firstly, get to know your soil, the soil’s pH and how well does it drain, ie hydrology.
• You can also look up soil texture test on the internet.
• Consider water availability, particularly if you don’t have access to town water.
• Then what views have you got and which need hiding.

Elements you can change.

• Plants-move them if possible if they don't suit their location.
• Look at lifespan of the existing trees or shrubs. Have they past their use by date? Have some sort of succession plan in place for these plants.
• Decking or paving can be changed but think about re-using the material in the garden, or selling on a local buy, swap and sell, rather than throwing them into landfill.

Draw up a Mudmap

Now is the time to draw a rough map of you garden and house, including the boundary lines.

Mark structures that are going to stay, such as taps, clothesline, pathways, driveways.

Good to have this in your pocket to show to nursery staff to get ideas about plant quantities.

IMPORTANT: Mark out North on your map

Edible Gardens From Crop Rotation and Companion Planting to Maintenance

DESIGN ELEMENTS

Edible Gardens Series Part 3 and part 4 and 5

Part 3 is selecting and buying the seeds and plants.
Probably the most enjoyable part of the edible garden process.

So which seeds or plants and where to buy and what about crop rotation?
Let’s find out…
I'm talking with Glenice Buck, landscape designer and consulting arborist.

You don't have to go to a store, because every type of vegetable is available online, either as a seed, or seedlings.
You can buy advanced seedlings as an example, from a mail order company in Gippsland, Victoria if it‘s getting a bit late to sow or plant your winter crop. www.diggers.com.au 
They call them speedings, because they’re at least a month ahead of where you would be if you started them from seeds.

Diggers seeds speeding collection

Seeds are of course much cheaper but they could be 6-8 weeks behind seedlings, especially cabbages and other brassicas which are quite slow growing.The other issue if you plant out winter crops too late, so that when they're maturing, the season is too warm. Warm weather can bring with it more fungal problems and a horde of insects to infest your crop.

• Crop Rotation Is Important

Crop rotation is important of course so that you don't have a build of pests of diseases with a particular crop.

If you understand which group the vegetable your growing belongs to, then you can understand what to plant next once a certain crop is finished. Never grow the same crop more than once in the same bed.

curtesy Margaret Mossakowska

Fabacea or Legume family: peas, beans

Asteraceae or Daisy Family: Leafy crops: spinach, lettuces, chicory.

Solanaceae or Potato family:-tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, capsicum

Apiaceae or Carrot family-carrots, parsnip, parsley, dill, celeriac

Brassicaceae or Cabbage family: broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, radish

Amaranthaceae or beetroot family: beetroot, spinach, swiss chard

Cucurbitaceae or Marrow family-cucumber, zucchini, squash, marrow, melon

If you have any questions of course, why not email realworldgardener@gmail.com or write in to 2RRR P.O. Box 644 Gladesville 

Edible Gardens part 4 Companion Planting
This series is about edible gardens from start to finish.
So far we’ve covered, site selection, soil preparation and selection of plants or seeds for your garden Part 4 is about companion planting,
So what is it?
.Let’s find out…
I'm talking Glenice Buck, landscape designer and consulting arborist.

If you’re dubious about companion planting at the very least, plant out some flowering annuals close to your veggie garden to attract pollinating insects.

Marigolds and alyssum attract not only pollinators but beneficial insects as well.

Some proven successful combinations of plant species are: 

• Marigolds (Stinking Rogers) planted out in veggie beds will repel a number of bugs with their somewhat smelly foliage and are proven to kill nematodes in the soil.
• Chives, thyme and catnip planted with roses will deter aphids and other typical rose diseases.
• Basil works well with tomatoes by repelling flies and mosquitoes.
• Dill, chervil and coriander growing in between carrots will help to deter insects.
• Alternating leeks and carrots in rows will protect each other from insect attack. 
• Beetroot, onions, silverbeet, lettuce, cabbage and dwarf beans all work in combination with each other to create a mini ecosystem and will battle through insect attack well together.
• Chervil and coriander are good to plant amongst carrots.

Edible Gardens part 5

Ongoing Maintenance
So what’s on the list? Mulching, fertilising, pruning, weeding but what else?
I'm talking wiht Glenice Buck, landscape designer and consulting arborist.
.Let’s find out…

Top of the list is watering your garden, especially the veggie garden.
Glenice recommends hand watering so you can monitor the needs of the veggies.
Fertilising is not far behind as well as using seaweed liquid every 10 days to 2 weeks.

• Once the plants are in and growing, you need to be aware of the soil moisture conditions. Autumn showers are always beneficial for the vegetable garden, there is nothing like rain to push along the garden. 
• You will need to supplement this rain with hand watering. Whenever possible, I would encourage gardeners to water their vegetable garden by hand as you can assess the water needs of plants individually, however if this is not possible an irrigation system which is monitored regularly is fine but make sure in times of rain it is switched off. 
• The biggest destroyer of vegetables through the winter months is over watering, which can cause fungal diseases.

 After the plantings have been in for about a week or so, I would recommend fortnightly applications of seaweed emulsions such as Eco – Seaweed from organic crop protectants. This is not a fertiliser as such, it is a root revitaliser that will help stimulate good plant health and condition along with many other benefits.

Applying fertiliser to the vegetable garden is best completed with a liquid fertiliser such as Eco amino– Gro, Yates Nature’s Way or Amgrow’s Harvest. This can be done once a fortnight or as per packet directions. You can also use your home-made compost tea on your veggies whilst they are growing.

If you have any questions of course, why not email realworldgardener@gmail.com or write in to 2RRR P.O. Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675.

Perfumed Flowers and Orchids

TALKING FLOWERS

Perfumed and Non-Perfumed Flowers

Why do some flowers have scent and others not?

It's all about pollination because scent is a signal that directs pollinators to a particular flower whose nectar and/or pollen is the reward.

Volatile oils are emitted from flowers can have either slight scent or strong scent depending on how far away the plant needs to attract its visitors.

• Those plants that  are pollinated by bees and flies have sweet scents, whereas those pollinated by beetles have strong musty, spicy, or fruity odours.

Perfumers have never been able to exactly match perfumed their scents to the complex scents that flowers exude.

But floral volatile oils are essential in allowing insects to discriminate among plant species and even among individual flowers of a single species. 

For example, closely related plant species that rely on different types of insects for pollination produce different odours.

I'm talking with Mercedes Sarmini from www.floralgossip.com.au

Mercede's list of favourite perfumed flowers are:

Ms Carnation:Ms Rose

Mr Hyacinth:Ms Lavender

Mr Freesia: Ms Lilac

Mr Tuber Rose: Mr Lily of the Valley

Ms Stock: Ms Jasmine: Mr Belladonna Lily

Ms Bouvardia

Orchid Cut Flowers

Potted plants:

Like other orchid species, humidity is important for the best growth.

•  a small tray of rocks or pebbles should be used for potted plants

Water should be added to keep the pebbles covered at all times.

 Damp soil is important during peak growing and blooming seasons.

A good orchid potting bark that retains some moisture should be used. 

• Daily misting should be used to increase humidity.
• Several hours of indirect light is best for live plants. Direct light can cause leaves and flowers to scorch on the edges. A warm windowsill with lots of indirect light can be the best spot.
•  Fertilizers may be used to produce better blooms for many species.Care should be taken to avoid overusing fertilizers for potted plants.Overuse can lead to stunted plant growth or scorching of the leaves.

Cut Flowers

• Dunk in a bucket of water for 15 minutes.
• Cut the stem straight across
• Mist the flowers daily with filtered or "burped water."

I'm talking with Mercedes Sarmini of www.floralgossip.com.au

Edible Gardens part 2 and Perpetual Spinach

DESIGN ELEMENTS

Edible Gardens part 2
Soil preparation
Vegetable gardens can be any size or shape.
You can plant them out in purpose built raised beds, in pots, old fruit crates or even old corrugated iron tanks.

Most veggie gardens need a good friable soil with good water holding capacity.
This is the time to invest in a compost bin and worm farm.

But what else you need to do?
Let’s find out more…
I'm talking with Glenice Buck, landscape designer and consulting arborist.

In any garden for vegetables you need to be able to work the soil to a 200mm depth.

Many root vegetables, such as parsnips and carrots, need this amount of friable soil so their roots can grow straight.

Local councils usually run composting and worm farm workshops, where not only do you learn how to do it, but you can purchase the worm farm and compost bin and greatly reduced prices.

This is a great idea because you're recycling your vegetable scraps into something that you can use for the garden, instead of them going to landfill and contributing to greenhouse emissions.
The worm wee or worm "woo," as Glenice calls it is also very beneficial to your plants.

Simply dilute until it looks like weak tea before applying to your veggies.

If you don't have enough compost to fill that vegetable bed, you can buy in one of the many different brands available, either by the truckload or by the bag.

Don't be in a rush to start planting.

Spend the time to prepare the soil properly, even taking 6 months.

Glenice recommends a bucket of organic fertiliser per square metre. You can use anything from spent mushroom compost, cow manure, to pelletised chook poo.
Vegetables themselves are quite beautiful in their own right, so they would be a lovely addition to other ornamental plants.

If you have any questions of course, why not email realworldgardener@gmail.com or write in to 2RRR P.O. Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675.

VEGETABLE HEROES

Perpetual spinach or Beta vulgaris.

• Did you know that Spinach and silverbeet seed was sent out from England in 1787 with the First Fleet but in the new colony they found spinach difficult to grow?They found growing silverbeet much easier, which is why Silverbeet is sometimes called spinach in Australia, but true spinach has smaller leaves and a much sweeter, milder flavour.

What's With Spinach Seed?

I was asked recently about why perpetual spinach seeds looked more like beetroot seeds?

You might be wondering the same thing at home.

Are you comparing the seeds that came out of the packet with the seeds that you have saved from a previous crop?

The reason I ask is that both spinach and beetroot seeds in seed packets are not just one seed but a clump of seeds

Saying that the perpetual leaf spinach is the same as beetroot seed, is correct because they are very similar.

• Here’s the thing; Beetroot and chard are multigerm seeds, meaning that they are actually a cluster of three or four seeds in a corky shell.

Not Really Spinach?

Perpetual Spinach is not a spinach at all but actually a type of chard with short stems and large leaf blades; therefore each perpetual spinach seed is actually a dried cluster containing multiple individual seeds.

• So then the question came, “ why is it called spinach then?”

Perpetual Spinach is called that simply because it looks like and tastes similar to real Spinach and so that name has become the norm since white settlement.

The scientific Name is Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris. Common Name: Silverbeet 'Perpetual Spinach',

Whereas, true spinach is Spinacia oleracea.

You might be surprised to learn that another name for chard is in fact ‘perpetual spinach.”

So what’s the difference between  Perpeutal Spinach and Chard?

• Perpetual spinach or perpetual silverbeet, has smoother leaves than other silverbeet with narrower, greenish stems.
• It’s tender with a taste more like English Spinach but it’s hardy and drought resistant.
• This beginner-friendly plant is a cut-and-come-again crop that just keeps on giving.

The perfect plant for small but busy gardens

HOW WHEN TO SOW

In all but the coldest districts, you can grow perpetual spinach for most of the year.

The bonus is that Perpetual spinach will continue on through to summer and autumn and possibly even into the following year.

• Germination of spinach seeds can take anything between a week and 2 weeks.

Plant your seedlings/seeds around 7cm apart in rows about 30 apart.

For once a vegetable that grows well in partial to full sun.

Perpetual Spinach likes a moist but not waterlogged soil.

Using a mulch of straw or grass clippings can help to keep moisture and warmth in the soil plus add plenty of compost and the usual organic matter to so that your spinach will grow well.

Having a worm farm or compost bin really does help your veggie bed no end!

Perpetual Spinach doesn't like acidic soils, a good pH is around 6.3 -6.8.

Add lime to the soil if you need to a few weeks before you put the seeds in.

• Spinach like all leafy vegetables is what’s called a heavy feeder –ie, needs lots of Nitrogen to grow well.

• If you haven’t already applied Blood and Bone or cow manures to the soil a month or two ago, your soil will run out of nutrients.

During the cooler months of winter, organic matter doesn’t break down that much and to get the needed Nitrogen, applying liquid fertilisers such as compost tea or fish emulsion often will be the best way to go

• Another thing to remember is that Spinach grows on shallow roots, so don't dig vigorously around it. If you get weeds because you didn’t mulch, carefully hand remove them.
• Water frequently to keep up with the fast growth of the plants.
• In about 8-10 weeks, your Spinach plant has put on enough big leaves so you can pick them one by one like you might lettuce.
• The leaves will keep regrowing for quite a while. Otherwise pick the whole plant for Spinach pie etc.

Make sure you wash spinach leaves well - soil is not tasty!

TIP: When you want to store Spinach in the fridge a tip to remember is that Spinach is highly ethylene sensitive.

To stop leaf yellowing don’t refrigerate with apples, or tomatoes.

TIP: Water liberally in dry periods. Unlike true spinach, spinach beet won't bolt when exposed to a full summer sun, but don't let plants flower as this will shorten your cropping season.

Picking off flowerheads encourages the plant to grow leaves, not flowers.

TIP:Possums or even rats may eat the seedlings, so either cover with nets or grow under other plants.

Slugs and snails love young leaves, so set up a slug pub and organise a midnight watch if necessary.

When your spinach leaves look big enough pick the younger leaves because they have a gentler flavour.

Doing this now also encourages further growth.

Even if you can't use the spinach in your own kitchen, keep picking!

Give it away if you have too much, just don't saddle the plant with overgrown leaves as this will inhibit its growth.

TIP: Pick to eat and freeze, washed and dried leaves for cooking.

Don’t worry if you don’t have a veggie plot or it’s full up with other things like onions, broccoli, cabbages and the like because Perpetual spinach's is a great veg for container growing on a sunny ledge: thin and pick as and when required.

Disease Problems

A problem you might get in the cooler weather is Down Mildew.

Downy mildew (Blue mold). What is downy mildew- fungal disease, shows up as slightly yellow or chlorotic lesions of irregular shape on the top surface of the leaves and purplish sporulation on the underside.

To prevent it, space plants for good air circulation and, when you water, wet the ground around the plants not the foliage itself

Why should you grow your own Perpetual Spinach?

• If you love spinach pie and because Spinach is best eaten fresh and it loses nutritional properties every day.
• Putting it in the fridge slows the deterioration, but half of the major nutrients are lost by the eighth day after harvest.

Why is Spinach good for you?

The amount of iron in spinach comes way down the list after vitamins A and C, thiamin, potassium and folic acid (one of the B complex vitamins).

Dark green leafy vegetables, like spinach, contain carotenoids.

If you have any questions about growing spinach or any other vegetable write in or email me.

Edible Gardens and Garlic

DESIGN ELEMENTS

Edible Garden series part 1

During the last month or more, seeds, and seedlings have been flying off the shelves.
Seed companies and nurseries, normally would expect that at the start of spring, but in these current times, people are turning to good old fashioned growing your own veggies.
That’s a good thing, but what should beginner and advanced gardeners really need to know to be successful.

Over the coming weeks, Glenice will be bringing to you a comprehensive guide to growing your own edible garden. Whether you have a large vegetable garden, a group of planters on a verandah or a few spaces within existing garden beds, you can at least grow some of your own food.

So how do you start?

Lynn Woods garden Ulverstone Tasmania.

Glenice says "Pick the spot that provides the most ideal conditions."

I'm talking with Glenice Buck, landscape designer and consulting arborist.

So if you haven’t started a veggie garden yet think on this.

According to “sustainability Victoria” they reckon that if you grow your own food you
· save money and supplement your household food supply
· save water – home grown food uses less water relative to the amount of food harvested
· reduce your shopping miles
· reduce packaging
· reduce food waste
· enjoy fresher, more nutritious and more delicious food
· know exactly what you're eating (e.g. no pesticides)
· get some exercise and reduce your stress levels.

 Top Tips

Finding the right spot for your edible plants can sometimes be a bit of trial and error, however in general most vegetables will require about six hours of good direct sunlight for them to crop well. There are a few exceptions to this rule but in general six hours is the key. You can modify nearly everything else in gardening but you can’t modify or increase the amount of sunshine an area will receive unless you get into grow lights etc which is a whole other topic.

Ideally if you are going to grow vegetables in the ground, in pots or planters, you will need to also have a fairly flat area with no great slopes. If you are going to construct your own above ground beds, you will have a little bit more flexibility as you can build the beds to adapt to a slope. The other issue to think about is that you will be spending a fair amount of time in this space, so you need to ask yourself:
Things to consider:

•  Is it easy to bend over the beds and weed?
• Is the ground surface cover easy to walk and stand on?
• Can you access the areas easily with a wheel barrow?
• You also need to ask yourself:
• Can you get water in the area?
• Is there a tap close by?
• Do I need to get a longer hose?
• Do I need another water tank?

If you have any questions of course, why not email realworldgardener@gmail.com or glenice@glenicebuckdesigns.com.au

or write in to 2RRR P.O. Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675.

VEGETABLE HEROES

Garlic-Allium sativum 

Garlic comes from the Onion family. Alliaceae

You might have guessed that in medieval times, hanging Garlic outside your door warded off vampires.

• Not exactly in the same league as vampires but did you know that eating garlic helps keeps mosquitos away?

Where does Garlic come from?-a bit of history

Well it’s been around for so long that there’s only records of cultivated Allium longicupis  sometimes known as Wild Garlic, growing naturally in central Asia.

• Did you know that garlic as a crop, was used in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt from at least 2000 BC.

You probably would be surprised to learn that it’s been found in Egyptian tombs as an ingredient used in embalming and as an offering to the gods.

The Greeks and Romans saw garlic as a food that would give strength so that workmen and soldiers would use it.

• What about this for a sure fire hangover cure from Roman times- boil 16 bulbs (not cloves) of garlic in a bucket of wine, mmm lovely.
• Later on people thought that hanging garlic bulbs on doors would check the spread of diseases such as smallpox.

I think this was mistaken for what the London College of Physicians really recommended during the great plague in 1665, which was to eat the garlic not hang it somewhere.

But then, Louis Pasteur demonstrated, in 1858, that garlic could kill infectious germs.

Garlic was used throughout World War I to treat battle wounds and to cure dysentery.

During World War II, garlic was known as "Russian penicillin" because it was so effective in treating wound infections when adequate antibiotics were not available.

Sow direct in garden where they are to grow.

• Garlic grows best when the temperature is between 13º to 24ºC.
• That’s why Garlic is traditionally planted in cold weather and harvested in summer ("plant on the shortest day, harvest on the longest").

You can plant Garlic bulbs now in all districts of Australia, including cool temperate.

For cool districts, you’re right on the edge of when you can plant, so don’t delay, plant today.

• Garlic grows best on fertile, well-drained, loamy soils.

Any soil suitable for onions is good enough for Garlic.

As long as you give garlic a sunny position garlic is easy to grow.

 Soil pH should be in the range 5.5 to 7.0.

So you’ve bought your Garlic bulb, what do you do with it?

Do you plant it whole or what?

• What you need to do first is separate them from the bulb, point upwards, deep enough to just cover each clove with soil.
• When you plant the cloves, don't plant too deeply otherwise they will rot off.
• TIP: Plant them so the tops of the bulbs are just below the surface and about 8 cm apart with the point end facing up.
• Garlic usually takes about 17-25 weeks. 4-6 months to mature.

People always ask how do you know when my Garlic is ready?

• You can tell because the leaves or stalks have flopped over and turned brown.
• While your garlic is still growing, give it plenty of water, (especially in the coming spring).
• Also fertilise, 2 or 3 times throughout the growing season.
• Some young shoots can be cut off for a garnish or you can even pick the young garlic and eat the 'green' garlic leaves and all.
• Reduce water at end of Spring (4 weeks prior to harvesting) that’s if you plant them right away.
• If you're garlic has flowered, you've left it to long.

When they are ready to be dug up, ease bulbs out with a fork, careful not to damage bulbs because these won't store well or go a bit mouldy.

If you’ve got some good weather let them dry in the sun for a few days.

Otherwise hang to dry for 4 weeks in a warm place with good ventilation.

• Store in a cool airy place. This will prevent the bulbs from rotting.

Garlic is a fairly tough and easy-growing plant.

I n better soil with regular watering you will get a better crop.

On poorer soil, and forgetting to water them, you will still get some garlic, only not quite so much.

TIP: Leave a garlic PLANT  to go to seed, and you will probably get plenty of self-sown plants the following year.

• Cloves that haven’t been treated can be saved and planted in the garden.

Remember most garlic in supermarkets comes from China and has been sprayed with Methyl Bromide in quarantine.

Where to Buy
You can buy Garlic from online suppliers or from organic suppliers. Remember that garlic plants will grow to be 50 – 75cm  tall.

Like onions, there are early, mid season and late varieties available.

There are softneck and hardneck varieties.

• Softnecks are the most common garlics grown, and are the ones found in supermarkets.

Softneck garlic usually doesn’t have a flowerhead and have a longer shelf life (up to 9 months).There’s one called “Italian White” that’s available online.

Monaro purple, and Rocambole- are Hardnecks variety and these do have flowerheads like onions, and usually bigger cloves.

They don’t have as good a shelf life as they're softnecks and prefer cooler winters.

Rocamboles have excellent flavour, glamorous red-purple skins and easily peeled, with a single circle of 6-12 plump cloves.

• There’s also the extra large garlic called Elephant or Giant Russian garlic and has a milder flavour but is great for roasting.

This is actually a type of leek that you can get these from some markets that are around or from an online bulb company.

Why is it good for you?

There’s so much to be said about the health benefits of garlic. Garlic has been known to, ‘thin the blood’, much in the same way as fish oils.

It can help in lowering blood pressure and evidence is building in its use in lowering blood cholesterol levels.

If you eat only small amounts of garlic – like 1-2 cloves in the family dinner, you won’t get that many nutrients, but if you eat lots of garlic, like they do in Italy, Korea and China, where people there eat as much as eight to 12 cloves per day; then you’ll get  lots of dietary fibre, potassium, iron, zinc and vitamin C.

Garlic mushrooms anyone?

While that sounds like a lot of garlic, increasing the amount; you eat five or more cloves a day isn’t hard if you use it every time you cook.

Include it in soups, casseroles, even mashed potatoes.

You could also make a habit of snacking on garlicky dishes like hummus with vegetables.

TIP:Many home chefs mistakenly cook garlic immediately after crushing or chopping it, but to maximize the health benefits, you should crush the garlic at room temperature and allow it to sit for about 15 minutes. That triggers an enzyme reaction that boosts the healthy compounds in garlic.

AND THAT WAS YOUR VEGETABLE HERO FOR TODAY