Seasonal Gardens, Cooling Gardens

The Good Earth

Are you finding that it’s too hot to garden most days?
Or are a wise old owl, up at the crack of dawn,  getting things done in the garden. Maybe you’re waiting until early evening to do those gardening things.
Whichever it is, here’s some tips for what really needs doing in the summer garden.
Let’s find out what these important tasks are…I'm talking with www.permaculturenorth.org.au representatives, Margaret Mossakowska and Lucinda Coates.
You don’t have to convert to permaculture, just take in a few suggestions to make your garden more efficient. After all, followers of permaculture got their ideas from somewhere else, like IPM or Integrated Pest Management, that is practised by many crop farmers and orchardists so they can reduce their reliance on pesticides.
If you have any questions about mulching, or IPM, why not drop us a line to. realworldgardener@gmail.com or write in to 2RRR P.O. Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675, why not drop us a line by sending in your question to realworldgardener@gmail.com or by post to 2RRR P.O. Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675

Vegetable Heroes

THIS WEEK’S vegetable hero and its Cucumbers. or Cucumis sativus..
Cucumbers just love the hot weather, so they’ll germinate and grow quickly at this time of the year.
Cucumbers are a member of the gourd or cucurbita family and have been grown for 4000 years!
Cucumbers were widely eaten throughout Asia and Europe by the 6th and 7th centuries A.D
Did cucumber start off in India? No-one’s really sure.
Some pretty famous people have been known to be fans of cucumbers, even cucumber pickles.
Take, Julius Ceasar, he ate them everyday, Cleopatra, thought cucumber pickles help her skin complexion, and other pickle lovers included George Washington and Queen Elizabeth 1.
Would you have thought that Cucumbers are one of the world’s favourite vegetables?
I would’ve said the tomato, but there you go.
When is the best time to grow some cucumbers?
Cucumber plants do best in all types of temperate and tropical areas and generally need temperatures between 15-33°C. Cucumbers are happiest when the average temperatures are around 21⁰C
For this reason, they are native to many regions of the world.
Sow the seeds of Cucumber in late Spring and early Summer for cool temperate districts, spring and summer for arid and temperate zones districts, from August until March in sub-tropical areas.
Only the cooler months for tropical areas-so April until August unless you’re inland.
And where can you grow these delicious cucumbers?
You need to pick a sunny, well-drained spot, because Cucumbers are a subtropical plant, that needs full sun.
Cucumbers also want a decent amount of growing space in your garden.
If you’re short on space, try growing them up vertically on a trellis or even on some netting, perhaps a tomato trellis?
In fact, growing up a trellis would be a great way to avoid all the mildews and moulds that cucumbers are prone to in still humid weather.
There’s also a number of dwarf varieties if you’d like to grow your cucumbers in pots.
Try Mini White- one of the most popular. www.diggers.com.au
Grow it for yourself and see why.
The 10cm long fruit and is best picked when young. Gives you lots of fruit per plant and it’s burpless  Or you could try Cucumber Mini Muncher as well.
If you’re in Adelaide, go to the shop in the Botanic Gardens.
How to Grow Cucumbers
The best thing is that Cucumbers aren’t picky about soils.
As long as your soil is well-draining and has a pH of around 6.5.
Add in plenty of organic compost and fertilisers like chook poo or cow manure.
I’ve seen an idea where you make mini mounds, wet the soil first and then drop in 4 -5 seeds into the top of each mound.
Mulch the mounds so they don’t dry out but not too much or you’ll be wondering why nothing is germinating, that’s because the seed has rotted away.
When your seeds have germinated, pick out the strongest couple and throw away the others so you don’t get overcrowding.
Water regularly at the base of each plant – keeping leaves dry or you risk powdery mildew disease – and feed every couple of weeks with a soluble plant food.
Powdery mildew is a fungal disease that is spread by spores carried by the wind.
Look for white to grey fungal deposits on the leaves and stems of your cucumbers. As the mildew spreads, the leaves become brittle then start to die off.
There are some types of cucumbers that resist this disease for a time anyway.

You can also try a natural fungicide. 1 part whole milk to 10 parts water, and spray in the cool of the day.
Sudden wilt is a disease is caused by pythium fungus and causes the entire plant to die and wilt. Look for root rot. This disease usually happens in poor draining soil, so add organic compost to the soil before planting to improve drainage.
Growing your cucumbers in pots and raised beds, can help this problem.
Verticillium wilt, is a fungal disease called by the Verticillium fungus. Symptoms include wilting leaves and brown discoloration of the stems and roots. You’ll typically have to open the stem to see the problem. Eventually, this disease will cause the entire plant to wilt and die. This problem often lingers in the soil where tomatoes, potatoes, chillies, and other members of the nightshade family have been planted.
Crop rotation is important to avoid this disease. There’s no spray of any kind for this problem. Leave the garden bed empty for quite a few months before planting again.
Who out there hasn’t tried a cucumber that’s tasted bitter?
I’m sure some time in your life, that’s happened hasn’t it?
There’s seems to be a few theories for bitterness in cucumbers
One theory is that the bitterness is caused early in the plant’s development by terpenoid compounds that give a bitter flavour to the entire plant.
Usually the bitterness accumulates at the stem and below the surface of the skin of the cucumber.
According to this theory it’s a genetic problem.
Newer cucumber hybrids seem to have fewer problems with bitterness.
I’ve always thought it to be the result of Cucurbitacin.
Found in most cucumber plants, Cucurbitacin causes fruit to taste bitter.
Cucurbitacin levels increase when a plant is under stress, and can make the fruit taste really bitter.
The concentration of these compounds varies from plant to plant, fruit to fruit, and even within the individual fruit itself.
Did you know that the ability to taste detect bitterness or cucurbitacins also varies from person to person.
Even insects have varying preferences for cucurbitacins- the compounds attract cucumber beetles but repel other insects, such as aphids and spider mites.
Anyway, it proves that you shouldn’t stress out your cucumbers!

By the way, if you do get a bitter cucumber, peel it and cut of the ends by about 2.5cm, that’s where the bitterness concentrated.

Just like zucchinis, cucumbers have separate male and female flowers. Male flowers come out at first, but don’t worry too much because the female flowers will arrive soon after. Cucumbers should be ready at about 50-60 days and picking fruit often stimulates more to start growing. Some of you probably have realised that if you pick your cucumbers when they’re quite small, this is when they’re at their sweetest.
Twist the cucumbers off the plant or cut the stalk just above the cucumber tip.
They keep for 7-10 days in the fridge then the start to look like something that came from outer space…green and slimy
Why are they good for you?
Cucumbers have lots of Vitamins C but why you should eat them is because the silica in cucumber is an essential component of healthy connective tissue, you know, like muscles, tendons, ligaments, cartilage, and bone.
Cucumbers have some dietary fibre and Cucumber juice is often recommended as a source of silica to improve the complexion and health of the skin, plus cucumber's high water content makes it naturally hydrating—a must for glowing skin.
So eat them quick in sandwiches  salads or juice them for healthy glowing skin!

Happy CUCUMBER growing everyone!

AND THAT WAS OUR VEGETABLE HERO SEGMENT FOR TODAY!

 Design Elements

with Landscape Designer Louise McDaid

2013 was the hottest year on record and 2014 is tipped to be just as hot if not hotter. How can we cool off without it costing us too much?
The garden is the key and you need to plan a cool garden, not cool as in groovy or fab, but cool as in temperature.
Over the next four weeks, we’ll be discussing different ways and designs that you can incorporate into your garden to make it more cool.
Let’s start off with part 1….click on the link to


Lots of great suggestion that you can start with in your garden, whether it be planning a new pergola, adding a simple water bowl with a miniature water lily, or planting up some more trees.
Green has got to be the coolest garden colour but you need different greens so that when you look out into the garden it’s not uninteresting.

Next week, part 2 is this series will be about what flower colour or foliage colour constitutes a cool or cooling garden.

Plant of the Week-Poinsettias

Plants are clever things, and over the years adapt different ways to attract pollinators to compensate for lack of flower size, such as have a modified leaf that looks like part of the flower.
Quite a few plants do this and no-one knows why they evolved that way instead of growing bigger flowers.

Euphorbia pulcherrima or Poinsettia is a evergreen shrub or small tree, typically reaching a height of 0.6–4 metres.

It’s partly or completely deciduous in cold areas.

 

The coloured bracts—which are most often flaming red but can be orange, pale green, cream, pink, white or marbled—are often mistaken for flower petals because of their groupings and colours, but are actually modified  leaves.

The colours of the bracts are created through photoperiodism, meaning that they require darkness (12 hours at a time for at least 5 days in a row) to change colour.

At the same time, the plants need bright light during the day for the brightest colour.

For Christmas production in Australia, plants are kept in the dark with heavy curtains in glasshouses to get the right amount of darkness to colour up.

They’re also sprayed with a dwarfing compound to keep the small so they suit table decorations at Christmas time.

Of course as soon as people plant them in the ground, they shoot up to their natural height.

The flowers of the poinsettia are unassuming and do not attract pollinators. They are grouped within small yellow structures found in the centre of each leaf bunch, and are called cyathia.

The poinsettia is native to humid areas in southern Mexico

Just remember that Poinsettias are not frost-tolerant when choosing a site to plant out into the garden.
They will grow outdoors in temperate coastal climates.
Poinsettias are not poisonous. A study at Ohio State University showed that a small child would have to eat more than 500 leaves to have any harmful effect.
Plus poinsettia leaves have an awful taste. You might want to keep your pets from snacking on poinsettia leaves. Eating the leaves can cause vomiting and diarrhoea.
 

Sage Advice in the Garden

REAL WORLD GARDENER Wed. 5pm 2RRR 88.5fm Sydney, streaming live at www.2rrr.org.au and Across Australia on the Community Radio Network. www.realworldgardener.com
Real World Gardener is funded by the Community Broadcasting Foundation
REALWORLDGARDENER NOW ON FACEBOOK
The complete CRN edition of RWG is available on http://www.cpod.org.au/ , just click on 2RRR to find this week’s edition. The new theme is sung by Harry Hughes from his album Songs of the Garden. You can hear samples of the album from the website www.songsofthegarden.com

Spice it Up

with Ian Hemphill

Sage.
Salvia officinalis.
Did you know that during the days of the Roman Empire, women made a strong tea of this herb to darken their hair.
If you’ve got a herb garden, you need to plant some because it’s useful in attracting important pollinators mainly bees, to your garden. 
Let’s find out what this important herb is…

Growing sage in the perennial border will add that grey colour to contrast with the purples and pinks In some regions Sage doesn’t last that long, because like Lavender, it detests humidity and hates really cold weather.
So, either treat it like an annual and either sow seeds every year or buy seedlings, or keep it in a pot.In the kitchen, the sage herb is great with flavour of meats and cheeses.
If you have any questions about growing sage or using sage in your cooking, why not drop us a line to. realworldgardener@gmail.com or write in to 2RRR P.O. Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675

Vegetable Heroes:

Watermelon: Citrullus LanatusDid you know that there’s an Australian Melon Association?
Watermelons are thought  to have evolved from a Citron, which grew in the Kalahari desert in Africa.
Who would’ve thought that watermelon fruit can be seen in drawings in Egyptian hieroglyphics dating back 5,000 years.
Why? Because the Egyptians believed that by placing the Watermelons in the burial tombs of Kings, it would nourish the occupants in the afterlife.
From Egypt, watermelon spread via trading ships to other countries along the Mediterranean Sea and then to Europe by the Moors people during the13th century.
No surprises that watermelons belongs to the melon family and can be round, soccer ball-size or an elongated, egg shape with smooth, hard, thick, green or yellow skin or rind.
Some watermelons are strongly striped with dark green markings, and others are only faintly mottled dark green.
The colour of the inner cool, sweet and refreshing flesh varies from red to yellow.
Dark brown seeds are arranged around the centre.
What may be surprising to you is that the pale rind just beneath the hard skin, can be cooked and eaten like a vegetable.
In fact you can make rind pickles!



Sowing Watermelon
In temperate and subtropical districts plant out seeds or seedlings from September through to early January.
The same goes for Cool temperate districts, although December and January is better for seedlings rather than starting from seed.
In Arid areas, lucky you, you have from September through to March.
For tropical areas, another one you have to wait for the cooler months, April to July.
Growing Watermelon
Watermelon prefers to grow on new, fertile sandy-loam soils with a high humus content-that is, lots of compost and manures.
Plus they need lots of water and room.
The soil must be well drained.
Don’t try to grow watermelons in heavy soils.
Add Dolomite lime if your soil’s acidic because watermelons alkaline soils.
As with Zucchinis, that I talked about a couple of weeks ago, make a mound full of that good stuff, and plant three watermelon seeds about 5 cm deep.
They may be thinned out later.
Don’t bother with pots, because they germinate so easily.
Another thing, don’t bother with saving seeds from the melon you bought from the supermarket, it’ll be a hybrid and your seed grown plant will be quite different.
If you like saving seed, get an open pollinated variety of seed.
Like Pumpkins, Watermelon needs plenty of room to grow sending out long vines and the fruits are quite heavy.
Watermelons also have very shallow root system and they need lots of moisture.
The soil should never dry out, and mulch helps with that.
Luckily, Watermelons are self pollinating, so you only need one plant unless you are growing seedless melons which require a pollinator.
If you’re planning to grow your melons up a tepee unless you can work out a sling system using soft cloth or pantyhose, it’s probably better to grow them along the ground.
There are a few varieties of watermelon and I’m sure you’ve got your favourites.
The most popular is the Red Tiger –that’s a cylindrical melon with dark green skin and dark red, very sweet flesh. One of the few melons that have very few seeds.
Then there’s Viking- a medium to large, elongated melon.
Allsweet is large and oval-shaped.
My favourite is Sugar Baby, a small, round melon.
So how do you know when it’s ready?
Melons are ready to pick when the part in contact with the ground is turning yellow and the fruit sounds hollow when tapped.
Why Are They Good For You?
Watermelons are a good source of Vitamin A and C, the minerals potassium and iron.
Watermelons also contains high levels of lycopene a powerful antioxidant - lycopene is found only in small select group of fruits and vegetables. Watermelons are 90% water, that’s why they’re so refreshing.
AND THAT WAS OUR VEGETABLE HERO SEGMENT FOR TODAY! 

Design Elements:

landscape designer Christopher Owen
This is the final week of designing with ornamental grasses.
We’ve covered the difference between ornamental grasses and strappy leaved plants, where to start with designing with these types of grasses and how they fit into various styles of gardens.
So today, we’re covering which grasses go best in pots to showcase them and which are best suited in drifts.
Also, Christopher talks about which landscape designers have embraced using grasses that you could follow up.
There are lots of reasons to use grasses, other than lawn grasses in your garden design.
Let’s find out some more of the….

Pennisetum advena Rubrum is one of the choices for featuring grasses in pots.
Either in a tall pot or a low wide pot.
Miscanthus variegata with the white stripe on the outside is another good choice.
Basically grasses that have bold colours in their leaves are best used for features in pots. More anonymous grasses do better in drifts in the garden.
A start at least into what can be done using grasses and there’s so many to choose from-native and non-native.
One of the best landscape architects and designers to look up Piet Oudulf, Wolfgang Oehme , and James van Sweden and Dan Pearson.

Plant of the Week

  Black flowers sound macabre and if you ever visit High Grove house in England, the home of Prince Charles, you might see the black and white garden. This garden has a back drop of weirdly sculptured Yew topiary and you might think, yep, macabre.
But. Black is a rare flower colour and if you’ve got an idea for combining colours, you might have a dramatic result.

 

Black Velvet Petunias have the same requirements as every other petunia and they don’t fade in the sun either.
Some other suggestions to get the most from these unusually coloured flowers is to put them together with dark foliage plants to create a mystery garden.
Or just mass them together in a single bed to make a bold statement.
Then again you could mix them with white-flowered or white-variegated foliage plants as a black and white theme.
 

Rainbows and Bees

REAL WORLD GARDENER Wed. 5pm 2RRR 88.5fm Sydney, streaming live at www.2rrr.org.au and Across Australia on the Community Radio Network. www.realworldgardener.com
Real World Gardener is funded by the Community Broadcasting Foundation
REALWORLD GARDENER NOW ON FACEBOOK
The complete CRN edition of RWG is available on http://www.cpod.org.au/ , just click on 2RRR to find this week’s edition. The new theme is sung by Harry Hughes from his album Songs of the Garden. You can hear samples of the album from the website www.songsofthegarden.com

Wildlife in Focus

with ecologist Sue Stevens


The speedy Gonzales of the bird world this bird can twist and turn like those fighter jet plants on Top Gun, but it miniature form of course.
But that’s only one of the marvellous adaptations that this bird has that’s made it possible to survive all this time.
Let’s hear about more surprising facts about this bird…
PLAY: Rainbow Bee_eater_25th December_2013
Sadly, people are still the main danger as you heard. Yep, some apiarists shoot these birds even though they’re a protected native species.
Being shot is hard to avoid but these birds are also predated on by animals including dingoes and monitor lizards.
But they’re not silly because a bit like minor birds when threatened, they'll engage in mobbing behaviour -- emitting an alarm call and flying directly at the potential predator. This may start with one or two birds but can escalate so a whole flock is mobbing the predator.
If you have any sightings of Rainbow Bee eaters or photos why not send it in to
realworldgardener@gmail.com or by post to 2RRR P.O. Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675,
 

Vegetable Heroes

What is Malabar Spinach?
Ever heard of Ceylon spinach, Indian spinach, vine spinach, and Malabar nightshade?
Doesn’t matter if you haven’t because you’re about to find out.
The one we’re focussing on is the red stemmed version or Scientifically it’s Basella alba 'Rubra'.
Malabar or Climbing Spinach originates in India. but is also found naturally in Africa and other parts of Southeast Asia.

Fun Facts
Did you know that an extract of the fruits of the red stemmed version of -Basella alba ‘Rubra’, has been used for many centuries as deep red dye for official seals and a natural form of rouge in cosmetics?
The Malabar region-on the south-west coast of India is in fact dense tropical jungle, coconut and pepper plantations.
Malabar spinach first made its way from India to Europe in 1688 when it was introduced into Holland by the Dutch governor of Malabar, Adrian Moens.
The juice from the berries is so intensely purple that it puts beet juice to shame. A bit like Dianella berries I think.
In some countries, this juice is used as a natural food colorant for agar (vegetable "gelatine") dishes, sweets, and pastries.

So what does this spinach look like?
For lovers of all things romantic in the garden, you can’t go past a plant with heart shaped leaves even if you want to eat it.
Malabar spinach is a climbing plant not even related to true spinach (Spinacia oleracea) but grows large succulent heart shaped leaves that are a bit like spinach in taste.
The leaves are quite a bit more waxy to my way of thinking.
I would describe it as crunchy and juicy when raw.
The taste is slightly peppery with a bit of a citrusy flavour with hints of earthy spinach to it.
It’s not bad to eat, some say even delicious to eat, but I can’t say I use it a lot in cooking. More of an attraction in the garden with the leaves and the purple flowers followed by black berries.
The upside is that if you like your Spinach, this one’s is easy to grow and  is much better suited for summer growing than Spinach itself.
When your lettuce and other salad greens are wilting, because Malabar spinach is a twining succulent (stores water in the leaves and stems), you’ll have plenty of greens for your salad.
Malabar spinach does best in warm, tropical areas, where it can easily grow a 10cm per day.
 In the tropics, Malabar spinach can grow 2-3 metres or eight to ten feet tall and wide and has small white-tinged pink to purple flowers in the leaf axils.

Where To Grow

This plant is not frost tolerant and in temperate areas doesn’t grow anywhere near as tall as in tropical areas.
In cool temperate districts, I would treat this plant as an annual, but yes you can grow it too!
If you’ve grown this plant before, you would know that the plant seems to die down in winter then re-shoots again in late spring.
So don’t go thinking you’ve killed it at the end of autumn.
There are forums on the internet that say Malabar spinach can twine up on a trellis and make a backdrop for a display of other dark-leafed cultivars like—purple-stemmed sugarcane, black-leafed cotton, aubergine-coloured beets, kale, and Swiss chard.
Straight species Malabar spinach has yellowish stems and green leaves and looks nice enough, but it's the red-stemmed cultivar 'Rubra' that really stands out.
Red and green are opposites on the colour wheel and the combined effect is always a bit dramatic. The red veins in the leaves make it more so.
When the flowers are fertilised, small, attractive, single-seeded purple berries will grow.
Basella alba grows best a humus-rich, sandy loam in full sun but will produce larger juicier leaves if grown in partial shade..
It grows easily from seed that has been sown in situ or you can start it off in a punnet.
Saving seed is easy too:
Simply dry the entire fruit and use it for planting the following year. Just make sure you store it dry in maybe a paper envelope.
 I had saved some seed, but there must’ve been some moisture in the jar because they had become all mouldy.
The red-stemmed cultivar of Malabar spinach comes true from seed.
Luckily, when I was renovating my veggie bed, I noticed quite a few small seedlings in one corner of it that looked like-in fact were seedlings of Malabar Spinach.
I remember from last year that once it starts to take off in the ground, it can grow about 30cm in a week!  In a pot , it’s much more tame.
When you have a plant in season, tip cuttings will root readily in water so you can give other members of your garden club or other friends some plants.
Use any style of plant support you like: poles, teepees, chain-link fencing—I’m growing it up a metal spiral, but I think it’s going to outgrow that real soon. Whoops!
Malabar spinach is insect and disease resistant, and that’s saying a lot; because at the moment, the grasshoppers are eating whopping big holes in my Kale and a bit of my spinach, but not touching the Malabar spinach.!
I am catching and squashing those hoppers!
Where do you get it? Plenty of those big box stores that have garden centres have it as well as your local garden centre or plant nursery.
Why is it good for you?
The succulent leaves and stem tips are rich in vitamins A and C and are a good source of iron and calcium. They may be eaten raw in salads, boiled, steamed, stir-fried, or added to soups, stews, tofu dishes, and curries. Or you can use them as a filling for quiche, omelets, or even a frittata!
Since red-stemmed Malabar spinach can lose a lot of its red colour when cooked, perhaps it is best in raw dishes.
A great way to use it is to plant it thickly in pots in spring, and when it’s growth takes off, pick the young shoots off daily for stir fries & omelettes. Eventually it will get away from you by climbing or sprawling, but usually can be contained for a couple of months this way. The shoots are delicious & tender!
THAT WAS YOUR VEGETABLE HERO FOR TODAY!

 Design Elements

with Landscape Designer Christopher Owen

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been talking to guest landscape designer Christopher Owen about ornamental grasses in garden design. We went through the difference between strappy leaved plants and ornamental grasses, then how to get started with using these type of grasses in garden design.
But where do you put them if you have a particular style of garden?
Let’s find out ….


True grasses are in the family Poaceae, while rushes and sedges fall into Juncaceae and Cyperaceae families.
No matter where you live in Australia you’ll find grasses that cope with wet or dry, sun or shade, hot or cold or a combination of some of these situations.
So no reason to delay, plant a grass today.
If you have any questions about this week’s Design Elements, send it our email address, or just post it.

Plant of the Week

Ceratopetalum gummiferum, NSW Christmas Bush or Festival Bush.

Ceratopetalum....from Greek ceras, a horn and petalon, a petal, referring to the petal shape of one species.
gummiferum....producing a gum. There are many types of plants which flower around Christmas time, and these have earned the name “Christmas Bush” in their particular states in Australia. What you would call Christmas Bush varies from state to state within Australia.
The cut flower industry uses it a lot as filler for sold flower bunches and not just during the Christmas Season.
Gardeners like to plant it in their native gardens. But can it grow in your soil and in sun, shade, or part shade?

I’ve seen this plant growing in many different states of Australia, and it does will in South Australia and Victoria, so why not give it a try.

I would regard this plant as a large shrub in people’s gardens rather than a small tree because it rarely grows to more the 4-5 metres. That’s equivalent to Coastal Tee-tree.
The leaves are up to 3-7cm long and are divided into three leaflets or trifoliate, which are finely serrated and the new growth is often pink or bronze coloured. Leaves are opposite each other.
Ceratopetalum gummiferum is widespread over the east coast of NSW, commonly growing in open forests on sandstone hillsides. Bushes enjoy free-draining, slightly acidic soil along the slopes of a natural watershed.

I grew these as part of a trial when I was studying for my Hort Diploma at Tafe some years ago. Testing a variety of fertilisers for growth factors. Definitely one plant that doesn’t tolerate Phosphorus in the fertilizer. Native only.
Position: Mature NSW Christmas Bushes like full sun for most of the day with a few hours of slightly dappled light during summer afternoons or mornings.
In the home garden, NSW Christmas Bush must have a well drained but moist position, in sun or semi shade.
Annual feeding with a slow release native fertilizer is a good idea.
Problems with Christmas Bush
If you have a plant that just sits and doesn’t appear to be doing much, especially at this time of year. Give it a boost with seaweed tonic to kick it along.
Doesn’t tolerate hot weather after flowering if watering is inadequate.
Prone to iron deficiency-have mentioned that they like slightly acidic soil.

Where to Grow :
Ceratopetalum gummiferum should be grown in well drained, sandy or sandy loam soils.
For plenty of flowers and growth, test soil pH and if you need to, add Iron chelates or Sulphate of Iron according to the packet's directions to bring the pH down to 6.6.
Grow your own:
Propagation:Ceratopetalum gummiferum can be grown from seeds or cuttings. To ensure the bract colour stays true to the parent, grow from cuttings.
When sowing seeds, the whole fruit with calyx lobes attached should be sown for best results.
Young plants grow best in dappled light for most of the day and must be protected against frost in winter.

Watering well thoughout Spring to Autumn will extend the flowering season quite a bit.

Flowering:
Towards the end of December this hardy and reliable plant puts on a great display of red ‘flowers’ that as usual are not really flowers but sepals.
The true flowers are white in colour and fairly insignificant and are seen in late spring to early November.
After pollination by flies and native bees, the sepals, which are the outer series or whorl of flora leaves that protect the flower bud, enlarge and turn deep pink to red in colour enclosing the fruit, a single seed, a nut and the whole fall when ripe.

Plants known in other Australian states as Christmas Bush are entirely different and have no connection with Ceratopetalum.

Ceratopetalum Gummiferum Albery’s Red NSW Christmas Bush. This is the best-known of the NSW Christmas Bush varieties. Albery’s Red has bright red calyces in summer that follow a lot small white flowers through spring. The calyces make great cut flowers and are cultivated in Australia and all around the world for the florist industry. It grows to about  4 metres high and 2 metres wide preferring well-drained soil and full sun for maximum flower development. This Christmas Bush can be pruned to shape and only barely tolerates frost

Maidens and Turnips

REAL WORLD GARDENER Wed. 5pm 2RRR 88.5fm Sydney, streaming live at www.2rrr.org.au and Across Australia on the Community Radio Network. www.realworldgardener.com
Real World Gardener is funded by the Community Broadcasting Foundation
REALWORLDGARDENER NOW ON FACEBOOK
The complete CRN edition of RWG is available on http://www.cpod.org.au/ , just click on 2RRR to find this week’s edition. The new theme is sung by Harry Hughes from his album Songs of the Garden. You can hear samples of the album from the website www.songsofthegarden.com

Living Planet

Frogs are under threat throughout the world and loss of habitat is one of the factors contributing to their demise. A frog pond is easy to construct, adds interest to your home garden and will provide a haven for the frog species in your area. You don’t have to worry about buying any frogs, because they’ll come calling….Let’s find out more

A pond with flowering water plants can be a very attractive focal point in a garden. These plants never seem to have any problems don’t need much attention.
Observing the lifecycle of frogs throughout the seasons provides added interest to your gardening. Frogs also help to control insect pests.
Locate your pond in a part sunny, part shady, but not directly under trees. Some trees or shrubs have poisonous leaves (oleander, Bleeding Heart and pines for example).
If you place your pond so that it's visible from the house then you can enjoy the pond anytime of day or night.
Put the pond in the back garden, and a bit away from your own house and your neighbour's houses, if the croaking of frogs is too noisy for you.
A low garden lamp that is reflected in the water will not only add to your garden's appearance in the evenings but also attract insects for the frogs.
We’d love to see photos of any frogs or frog ponds that you have in your garden, just send it in to. realworldgardener@gmail.com or write in to 2RRR P.O. Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675, and I’ll post a CD in return.
why not drop us a line by sending in your question to realworldgardener@gmail.com or by post to 2RRR P.O. Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675,

Vegetable Heroes

BOTANICAL NAME: Turnips or Brassica rapa
I can’t believe that for all the years I’ve been broadcasting, that I’ve never mentioned turnips in this segment. Swedes, Parsnips, but not the regular or even mini turnip.
I can’t say exactly why because I’ve been enjoying eating mini turnips for the last few weeks.
Maybe it’s just like Kohlrabi, the name and sight of the actual thing isn’t that appealing until you actually taste it.

Then you’ll be thinking, why didn’t I try this before because it tastes so good?
Did you know that the Romans used to throw turnips at unpopular people?
Maybe that’s why turnips got such a bad reputation?

But back the UK in the early 1700”s a bloke called Charles Townsend made turnips popular in England.
When Townshend discovered that animals could be fed and fatten by eating this vegetable that grew in cold and damp climates farmers were able to keep their livestock instead of having to kill them all for winter because there was nothing to feed them on.
Large woody turnips of old have mainly been replaced with smaller mainly white varieties that are delicious grated raw into a salad or as a side dish, leaving the swedes to take over in the stew department!

Why Grow Turnips?

Turnips are a very versatile vegetable - they can be harvested when mature or young, cooked or eaten raw and the young tops can be used like spring greens.
They are quick to mature and easy to grow.
The turnip is round, sits in the ground with just the top exposed to the light as it grows, and is actually the swelling at the base of the stem of the plant.
The Turnips that I’m going to talk about have mainly a white flesh and skin with a rosette of green feathery leaves that can also be eaten.
Turnips can grow in full sun and partial shade, but like a well drained soil.
Whatever you do when you plant turnips, don’t let them dry out.
When to plant your turnips?
Well I’m afraid it’s a bit of a mixed bag around Australia, so here goes.
From September until May in temperate districts and also cool temperate districts.
From August until May in sub-tropical areas.
For arid areas, you’ll have to wait until February then you have til August and Tropical areas, have even less of a chance, only between April and June.
Before you sow your turnip seeds, give the veggie bed some chook poo-about a handful per square metre.
Sow the turnip seeds no more than 1 cm deep.
It’ll be a bit tricky to get the right distance apart so keep thinning them out until they’re about 15cm apart.
If you thin them before 8 weeks, both the root and leaves are good to eat at this stage.
The leafy tops of these early pickings are great in salads.
Because you’re growing turnips during the warmer months, look after them by not letting them dry out, otherwise they’ll be small and woody.
Mulching with sugar cane, pea straw or something like that will help with keeping the soil moist.
Turnips take about 2-3 months to grow, so add a handful of chicken manure every 4 weeks.
You can pull them out when they’re the size of a golf ball when they’re at their sweetest, or wait until they’re the size of a tennis ball.
There are quite a few new varieties out so why not try
Turnip White Mini-Tender round white roots, stores well. Crisp, beautiful well shaped rounds, ideal for the turnip lover. Harvest in only 7 weeks.
Turnip ‘Snowball’ is a very popular first-class, globe variety with solid white flesh and a juicy, sweet, mild flavour. Snowball’s an heirloom turnip that was introduced before 1885.
Snowball is best harvested when no larger than a tennis ball and can also be enjoyed when much smaller. Snowball takes between 5-8 weeks to be ready.

Turnip 'Golden Globe'  Also known locally as 'Butter Turnips' locally. Were introduced before 1888, this a heritage turnip with a beautiful golden skin, amber yellow flesh and delicate flavour. Stores well.
Why are the good for you?
Turnip roots are high in dietary fibre, vitamin C and B6, folate, calcium, potassium, and copper. The greens are an excellent source of vitamins A and C, as well as a good source of calcium, iron, and riboflavin
AND THAT WAS YOUR VEGETABLE HERO SEGMENT FOR TODAY! 

 Design Elements

with Landscape Designer Christopher Owen
Last week I started a series on garden design using grasses with guest landscape designer Christopher Owen.
On that segment we talked about the difference between ornamental grasses and strappy leaved plants.
There are lots of reasons to use grasses, other than lawn grasses in your garden design.
Let’s find out what they are….


A start at least into what can be done using grasses and there’s so many to choose from-native and non-native.

Plant of the Week

Gingko biloba
Living fossils are those plants that have been around in the same form for millions of years.
Despite numerous ice ages, they survived in pockets of habitat like deep in valleys or plateaux.
In this case, living fossil lived pre-dinosaurs.

Ginkgos are the evolutionary link between Ferns and Conifers, being neither one of the other.
In fact they’re classified in their own family.
For this reason they’re regarded as a living fossil.
They’re so tough, that they can survive a nuclear explosion, as 6 have done in Japan.
For a highly ornamental tree, albeit without flowers, you can’t go past the leaf shape and autumn colour of a Ginkgo.


Gingkos are deciduous and originate in China.

There aren’t any known plants left in the wilds of China other than a small group thought to be planted out by Chinese monks 1,000 years ago.
The name Gingko is from ancient Chinese meaning silver fruit and biloba is latin for two lobed, meaning two lobed leaves.
Gingko trees from 10 – 40 metres and eventually grow into a conical dome once they pass 50 years.
The leaves are like a large leaved maiden hair fern, being fan shaped so no surprise that the common name is Maiden Hair Tree.
The leaf colour is a yellow green-very attractive against all the mid-greens that seem to be the main colour in most gardens.

Gingkos are dioecious, meaning there’s a male and female plant.

The male plant has cone like structures called pollen cones and the female tree has two ovules at the ends of stalks.

After fertilisation, the female plant grows a seed covered by a fleshy layer (sarcotesta) which is fruit like but isn’t actually a fruit.
For this reason, Gingkos are considered as being a Gymnosperm-in the same group as conifers and other non flowering plants.

 
Why you don’t want a female plant is because these fleshy seeds contain butyric acid that smells like rancid butter, and female trees have a heavy fruit load.
The only good point is the seed can be eaten if roasted.
They grow very slowly, so you might want to buy an advanced plant if you want a tree.

 Where Ginkgos Like to Grow

Gingkos like deep soil with a good water supply. Like gullies.

Gingkos don’t like much shade or strong winds.
Very cold hardy to -10⁰ C.
Survive nuclear blasts-6 trees still growing in Hiroshima.
Gingkos do like cool elevated areas but will grow in all states of Australia.
Cultivars: Aurea is smaller that the species with yellow leaves throughout summer.

G. Fastigiata grows like Poplar trees in shape.

G. Luciniata has leaves that are deeply cut.

G. Macrophylla-exceptionally large fan shaped leaves

G. Pendula has a drooping habit with long pendulous branches.

What it Likes:

If you want to grow a living fossil, keep the tree to a single trunk by pruning off any competing leaders. Multi-trunked trees can split as the trees age.

Fertilise the tree in late winter until established.

Where it Grows:
In Victoria, Maidenhair Tree has been used extensively in park plantings, and also have been used occasionally as street trees in the City of Melbourne.
Where water is freely available the trees are better than dry sites for best growth.

Some trees in Melbourne show signs of drought-induced die-back, but unless conditions are very harsh, Maidenhair Tree will survive and look lush.

The autumn foliage colour, leaf form and interesting habit make Maidenhair Tree a valuable street tree. When young (possibly for 15+ years) these trees are very upright, and with pruning, they can be maintained in a columnar form.

Grafted male trees are ideal for the landscape, and many of these trees also will maintain a fastigiate form for 50+ years. If you have any questions about the where to buy a Ginkgo tree, why not write in to realworldgardener@gmail.com