The theme is garlic and worm farming

REAL WORLD GARDENER Wed. 5pm 2RRR 88.5fm Sydney and Across Australia on the Community Radio Network. www.realworldgardener.com
The complete CRN edition of RWG is available on   http://www.cpod.org.au/ , just click on 2RRR to find this week’s edition.
Compost Capers with Cameron Little: You’ve got a compost bin so why do I need a worm farm as well I hear you ask? The compost bin actually doesn’t turn your scraps into fertilizer, it becomes compost which has very little nutrients for growing plants. Yes, lots of humus that enriches your soil’s structure, but worms add another component.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Vegetable Heroes:Garlic-Allium sativum comes from the Onion family. Alliaceae.
Sow direct in garden where they are to grow.
Garlic grows best on fertile, well-drained, loamy soils. Any soil suitable for onions is good enough for Garlic. Given a warm sunny position garlic is easy to grow.  Soil pH should be in the range 5.5 to 7.0.
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 blubs 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.
Plant the cloves after separating them from the bulb, point upwards, deep enough to just cover with soil.
When you plant the cloves, don't plant too deeply otherwise they will rot off.
Plant them so the tops of the bulbs are just below the surface. Plant them about 8 cm apart with the point end facing up.
Garlic usually takes about 17-25 weeks. 4-6 months to mature. You can tell because the leaves or stalks have flopped over and turned brown.
Give them plenty of water, (especially in spring).
Also fertilise them, 2 or 3 times throughout the growing season. Some young shoots can be cut off for a garnish. Some people even harvest young garlic and eat the 'green' garlic leaves and all.
Reduce water at end of Spring (4 weeks prior to harvesting).
When they are ready to be dug up, ease bulbs out with a fork, careful not to damage bulbs. As these won't store well. May go a bit mouldy.. If good weather. let them dry in the sun for a few days.
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 the softnecks and prefer cooler winters. Rocamboles are renowned for their excellent flavour, glamorous red-purple skins and easily peeled, single circle of 6-12 plump cloves.
Design Elements: What’s in a style when it comes to gardening? We can have Federation or Cottage garden styles, but is it the same as a theme? Can you have both? Let’s find out.

Podcast Powered By Podbean
Plant of the Week:     Lenten Roses or Hellebores have a role in many types of gardens and are often relegated to the shadier areas of our gardens. But they actually tolerate a lot more sun than we give them credit for. Hellebore “Ivory Prince”Height: 30cm  Spread: 60cm  Growing Conditions:
Full Sun/Part ShadeFull ShadeDry. Frost Hardy (Below 1c) 
Common Name: Hellebore, Winter Rose, Lenten Rose -A vigorous grower with tidy plant habit. A heavy flowering variety with around six spikes carrying up to twelve flowers each is not uncommon. The ivory-white flowers fade to musky pink and then finally aging with an overlay of chartreuse green. Easy to grow with minimal maintenance and frost hardy below 1ºc it can also withstand low water conditions making it ideal for planting under trees where few other plants can compete. Although a great shade solution - hellebores can also tolerate a good deal of sunlight also and so do not need to be restricted to shade gardens alone.

H. Ivory Prince comes to us from the renowned UK breeder David Tristram. Selected not only for the copious flower stems produced but also flowers face forward unlike most varieties where they hang making it difficult to see their full beauty. The foliage is also handsome in a complementary blue-green colour.

Create Atmosphere in the Garden

REAL WORLD GARDENER Wed. 5pm 2RRR 88.5fm Sydney and Across Australia on the Community Radio Network. www.realworldgardener.com
The complete CRN edition of RWG is available on http://www.cpod.org.au/ , just click on 2RRR to find this week’s edition.
NEW SEGMENT:Compost Capers:Real World Gardener is starting another new segment called compost Capers. Cameron Little from Sustainability Systems, will be joining me in the studio to talk about worm farming. Today’s segment is an introduction to worms.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Vegetable Heroes;Cauliflower , Brassica oleracea,
 In Arid zones, plant direct into the garden from April until June, in cool temperate and temperate zones, February was the recommended time to sow seeds but you can sow seedlings until the end of May. If your district is sub-tropical, you might be able to squeeze in seed sowing if you do it straight after the show, otherwise, transplant seedlings until the end of June also. There is one exception, a variety called Caulifower All Year Round-Hybrid. This variety is available from your local nursery shows excellent vigour to reach maturity very early at 15 weeks. It has a large size, tight curd, and excellent taste.
 Soil and Site for Cauliflower--       All cauliflowers need a neutral or slightly alkaline soil to do well. If the soil is too acidic, the plants won’t be able to access the trace elements they need, and may develop whiptail.  On the other hand, soils which are too limey or chalky can lead to stunted and discoloured cauliflower. 
If you’re at all unsure, whip out that pH test kit and give it a workout. If you need to add lime to the soil because it’s too acidic, leave at least four weeks between liming and manuring.  As with all brassicas, avoid using a plot on which a brassica crop was grown within the past two years.  Cauliflowers will definitely suffer if they are grown on the same plot for two or more years in a row.    Winter cauliflowers are much more tolerant of soil conditions, and will grow on most types of soil, as long as there is no water-logging.  Because they grow slowly over a longer period of time, and have to face winter conditions, the one thing you want to avoid is lush, rapid and therefore vulnerable growth. If plenty of organic ferts have been dug in, there is no need for additional fertilizers, prior to planting out winter cauliflowers. They need a sheltered site, with some protection from winds.  They do better in sun rather than in the shade.-       A cauliflower is ready for cutting when the upper surface of the curd is fully exposed and the inner leaves no longer cover it.  As usual in your  veggie garden, cauliflowers are ready at the same time.  If the weather is warm and you leave the cauliflowers in the ground once they have matured, the heads expand and they become discoloured and less appealing. To avoid this lift some early, they will be quite edible. 
 Here’s a tip to not have to eat cauliflower everyday for a month, gather up the leaves and tie them together over the curd so that they cover it, using garden twine, an elastic band or raffia.  It will also protect the winter ones from the frost.
Design Elements:what is atmosphere in the garden? Is it the right collection of plants or just putting the garden bench in the right place? Why don't some gardens have atmosphere? It's a bit of a mystery that garden designer Lesley Simpson and I try to solve.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Plant of the week: Heliotropeum arborescens, Cherry Pie:
Did you know that butterfly gardening is a popular hobby today? Your first step should be to find out which butterflies are in your area. You can do this by spending some time outdoors with your field guide to see which species are around. For example if you live around Adelaide go to  www.butterflygardening.net.au/
If you want to encourage butterflies to your garden you need to plant shrubbery with flowers that these insects enjoy, like in plant of the week.

Leaf colour varies from dark green with deep veins to the golden colour of H. arborescens “Aureum.” The flowers are terminal clusters (or cymes) of salverform or funnelform  in mauve blue deep purple, white and pale purple,

Large slightly domed heads of purplish flowers almost smother the deeply veined, deep green foliage are vanilla scented that’s more noticeable in the evening .

Some say it smells like baby talc.

You have to bend down and smell them during the heat of the day.
The flowers are very attractive to butterflies.
There are many cultivars, Cherry pie has a pale purple, Plum Pie, has a deeper purple with darker leaves, and Lord Roberts, the flowers aren’t as big as Plum Pie, but also has the darker leaves. There’s also a white flowering cherry pie, and one with golden-yellow leaves as well.
Fragrant vanilla scented flowers that send out waves of fragrance.
This is a frost tender shrub which flowers all year round in mild climates and has a spreading habit. Height : 80cm x 85cm.
Heliotropes prefer a position in the sun to partial shade and a well drained fertile soil.
It won’t do much good in sandy impoverished soil, so if that’s what you’ve got, beef it up with homemade compost.
Otherwise, grow it in a tub.
Tip prune the plants often to keep them bush, prune spent flowers as well and cut back foliage to retain bushiness.
I find that an occasional branch dies back for whatever reason, but the rest keeps on going.
 Protect from hot and cold winds and keep well mulched and watered in hot weather. Needs protection from frost.