January 10, 2012. Two thirty in the afternoon. Hot and dry. I write this week’s Secret Garden on a day that’s almost a total contrast to January 10, 2011. This time a year ago, the heavens had opened. Water was pouring across my garden, over the front gate and down my dirt road like a muddy, raging torrent. We were isolated for a couple of days. But, other’s weren’t so lucky, and I offer my thoughts to those still coming to terms with the loss of loved ones last January.

With such a momentous start to the year, 2011 was always bound to be full of highs and lows. From a gardening point of view, the roller coaster ride was no more evident than in the vegie patch. The humidity and full soil moisture profile brought about some miserable results in some plants, but others cropped magnificently. Joy and pain are flip sides of the same coin, so it follows that success and failure are inseparable in the garden as well. But I don’t want to focus on the negatives. I want to share a list of plants that performed brilliantly in my garden last year, just in case you want to have a go at growing them at your place.

Tomato ‘Wapsipinicon Peach’

It may have a confusing tongue twister of a name, but this small, yellowish tomato offered a moment of quiet clarity when I took my first bite. The flavour was magnificent, right up there with my other favourite tomatoes ‘Green Zebra’ and ‘Jaune Flamee’. Unfortunately the plant suffered badly in the wet weather (find me a tomato that didn’t!), so I’m trialling it again this summer in the hope that this fuzzy delight from Iowa proves to be the complete package.

Potato ‘Dutch Cream’

I’ve always had a thing for a good spud, so it came as no real surprise that just yesterday I learned that my grandpa farmed potatoes in the Wangaratta area upon his arrival in Australia in 1924. I wonder whether he was familiar with the old variety ‘Dutch Cream’? If so, I’d suppose that he too was a fan of this oval shaped tuber and its exceptionally rich, creamy flesh. Unlike some of my other spuds, which suffered from potato scab for the first time last year, my Dutch Creams came through with flying colours. A terrific potato!

Kale ‘Red Russian’

For a few years now the darling of kale growers and posh restaurants has been Tuscan kale or cavolo nero. While I’m in no doubt that this is a superb plant, it’s virtues are easily matched by it’s Eastern cousin, ‘Red Russian’ (aka Siberian). Like all kales, Red Russian is incredibly nutritious, but it doesn’t taste “cabbagey” and is actually tender enough to be used in a leafy salad. It is unfazed by frosty mornings, has handsome foliage, and grows very easily from seed. Red Russian must be a contender for one of the best two or three plants I grew in 2011.

Beetroot ‘Cylindra’

If you’d rather pickle your own beetroot than purchase the canned stuff, this is the variety for you. As the name suggests, it forms a long cylindrical root that lays beautifully on a chopping board and is so easy to slice that even the most inept cook could produce a decent result. While not quite my favourite beetroot for roasting (Bull’s Blood takes that honour) it is a very good cropper that produces super-high yields per square metre of space. Love my beets, and this is a really good doer.

Carrot ‘Lubyana’

A Slovenian heirloom with yellow skin and flesh that performed brilliantly for me in 2011. I’m yet to taste an heirloom carrot that isn’t superior in flavour to the boring old orange carrots your get in the shops, but in the case of Lubyana, the difference is palpable. Eaten soon after being pulled, the flesh is has a crisp bite and is beautifully sweet. Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital and largest city, is described by Lonely Planet as one of the most wonderful and relaxed cities in Europe. The carrot that bears her name is a fitting tribute.

You might find some of these vegies as seedlings at your local nursery, but I grew them all from seed and encourage you to do the same. My seed suppliers of choice are The Diggers Club, The Lost Seed Company, Eden Seeds and Green Harvest. All the best for your vegie patch this year. May the weather be gentler than it was on that fateful day in January 2011.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 31st December 2011.

Don’t forget to visit our new site The Radish, edible gardening from roots to fruits!!

The major pests in my garden aren’t insects or diseases, which are mostly kept in check by building biodiversity and other organic methods – they’re animals. Some are native, like possums, parrots and bandicoots, others are introduced, such as hares and rabbits. All have their own appetite for destruction.

Possums wreak havoc in the vegie garden. Silverbeet seems to be a special favourite, but few leafy plants are spared. In some years they even develop a taste for rhubarb, eating it down to the ground despite the fact that’s it’s supposed to be poisonous to mammals. Bandicoots aren’t quite as bad, but if they do get into the vegie patch they dig up seedlings in search of worms.

Parrots are lovely additions to the garden, but some have an insatiable desire to bite chunks out of every piece of ripening fruit they can get their beaks into. King parrots are the worst offenders at my place. They’ve become semi tame and are mostly unafraid of people, even rabid gardeners clapping their hands loudly and yelling threats of taxidermy.

Rabbits and hares are notorious pests for a reason. If they find a way into the vegie patch they’re even more destructive than possums, but it’s the damage they do to young fruit trees that really bothers me. They have a special preference for apples and love to chew the bark, especially during winter when the tree draws sugars back into the trunk.

Do I sound frustrated? Too flipping right I am! For years the garden was mostly pest free. Now, the animals have learnt that if they want a decent feed, it pays to hop or fly over to Thistlebrook – it’s a land overflowing with milk and honey!

If the animals were able to share, then good and well, but as cute as a possum or a rabbit appears, they’re not human-like characters from a children’s picture book and if my family is to eat, they need to be controlled. In this regard I have three options: eradication – killing the animals through various means; removal – trapping and relocating; or exclusion – preventing the animals from accessing the plants in the first place.

Before all the animal rights people get their knickers in a knot, I’m not about to reach for a shotgun. Besides the fact that I’d rather not kill any living entity, native animals are protected by law (for good reason), and I’m not quite hungry enough to kill rabbits and hares just yet. Trapping and relocating is a bit useless. Remove a native animal, create a vacuum, and nature will fill it up again. This leaves exclusion. To me this is the only feasible way of creating some kind of harmony between animals and a food producing gardener.

To some extent, fencing works very well. Our boundary is nearly all fenced in chicken wire, which keeps most of the hares and rabbits out, and the picket fence around the vegie patch does a sound job of keeping the blighters away from my precious crops. I know where some gaps are, however, and I need to make it a priority to block them up. Possums simply use timber fences as a thoroughfare, but netting fences, particularly those that are floppy at the top, tend to discourage them.

Electric fencing is brilliant if you can get it to work properly. I’ve been caught a couple of times where energisers have failed and the pests have simply pushed under what I believed was a hot wire. With better quality gear though, it’s very effective. For small areas, a couple of low wires is sufficient to keep the bunnies at bay.

Birds are a trickier proposition. Netting is one possibility, but it’s simply too difficult to work with nets directly thrown over a tree without some kind of supporting frame. I know of a few gardeners who’ve netted their entire orchard with good success, but this is beyond the budget of many. Exclusion bags are a cheap, effective option. These can be made at home or purchased from a company such as Green Harvest, and come in a range of materials including waxed paper, cloth, gauze, and flyscreen. The lighter materials protect the ripening fruit from fruit fly, but they won’t stop a hungry bird or possum. The heavier materials will.

As for bird scarers, chilli sprays and other home remedies, forget about it. They might work for a while, but animals are creatures of habit – once they get used to something, they’ll simply ignore it. But as my favourite poet Robert Frost wisely wrote, “good fences make good neighbours”. This just as true for our animal friends as it is for people.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 10th December 2011. Photo by Doug Beckers via flickr.com

Don’t forget to visit our new site The Radish, edible gardening from roots to fruits!!

We seem to have slipped gradually into summer this year, but with the official start of the wet season now begun, the question in the back of everyone’s mind concerns the weather. Will we get a repeat dose of January’s floods? The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting above average rainfall and below average maximum temperatures for summer, courtesy of a weak La Nina pattern, and the Queensland Government has reacted to the BOM outlook by releasing water from Wivenhoe Dam. USQ’s Professor Roger Stone suggests taking a “cautious approach” and being “very risk adverse”.

Considering the events of last summer, it’s excellent advice. But for vegie gardeners, Professor Stone’s suggestion is a tough pill to swallow. In our corner of the planet, the frost-free months from December to May are the most productive of the year for growing and harvesting food. We’re lucky enough to be able to grow lots during winter as well, but summer and autumn are seasons of abundance, and I’ll bet my house that nearly every vegie grower in Toowoomba and on the Downs will be sowing and tending and harvesting with abandon.

If the season does prove to be wetter than average, fungal disease will again become public enemy number one, just as it was last summer. Vulnerable plants, particularly those in the Solanaceae (tomato) and Cucurbitaceae (pumpkin) families, will benefit to some extent from fungicide sprays, but be wary of going overboard and always follow a couple of golden rules.

First, remember that fungicides work best as a preventative, so keep an eye on the weather outlook and apply them in advance of a wet spell. Second, use the least toxic chemical available to do the job. A simple spray made from one part full cream milk to five parts water will help control powdery mildew if applied every week. For other fungal diseases, spraying organically approved copper hydroxide or wettable sulphur is the best way to prevent infection. Be aware that any metal based product will persist in the soil, so use them wisely.

Besides keeping an eye out for fungus, the other issue that needs attention in a wet season is soil fertility. Heavy rain leaches nutrients from the soil, making them unavailable to plants. It’s up to gardeners, therefore, to replace what is lost from the soil so that vegetable plants can grow freely. The starting point for fertility in any season is compost. During wet weather, the black gold is even more important than usual because it adds nutrients, and by regulating fluctuations in moisture levels, keeps those nutrients in the soil. Compost also encourages beneficial fungi, which will help fight any soil borne diseases that may develop. So get composting! From a garden’s perspective, decomposed organic matter is the best Christmas present you can offer.

In addition to compost, you’ll probably need to throw around some fertiliser, and perhaps some minerals. As usual, my advice is to go for a fertiliser that not only feeds plants, but helps improve your soil. Pelletised chook manure, sold in brands such as Organic Xtra and Dynamic Lifter, is ideal. Rotted horse, sheep or cow manure is also good, but never use it fresh – a couple of months worth of decomposition is vital.

Lime any beds that need sweetening. Use dolomite on black soils, regular garden lime on red soils. Dolomite contains magnesium, but because red soils are often naturally high in magnesium, adding more will only make them stickier. And for a quick boost, give leafy greens a fortnightly application of liquid fish emulsion. Seaweed extract used every couple of weeks won’t go astray either, providing trace elements and helping plants better cope with stress.

The soil is now warm enough for all summer plants, even the real heat lovers like eggplants and watermelon. Tomatoes, capsicum, chillies, corn, bush beans, climbing beans, pumpkin, squash, zucchini, cucumber and basil, can all go in, along with most herbs and edible flowers. Leafy greens such as lettuce, pak choy, mizuna and rocket are also do-able, but might need some shade on the hottest days.

No doubt the big garden centres will be selling lots of seedlings out of season. My tip is to ignore their seasonless approach to gardening by growing vegies from seed. At this time of year germination is quick and reliable, plus you’ll save yourself a packet, by growing a packet…if you get my drift. Enjoy summer, fill the vegie garden, but don’t work too hard. Take some time with friends and family, and when the heat’s on (or the family gets under your skin), find a shady spot to have a kip, knock back a cold bevvy or two, and do nothing but watch the world drift by.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 3rd December 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, scarlet runner beans, Summerfield, Cabarlah.

Don’t forget to visit our new site The Radish, edible gardening from roots to fruits!!

Fragar peach tree in spring

Stone fruit season is here, and I’m feeling just a tad peachy! My love of apples aside, there is something very special about picking a softball sized peach off the tree, biting straight into the sun warmed flesh, and getting such an explosion of juice that it drips off your chin. Makes you feel like a summer loving kid all over again.

Ironically, very few kids in our society have eaten a properly ripe peach. The reality of our food system is that soft-fleshed fruit must be picked before the point of ripeness to withstand the rigours of handling and transportation. As a consequence, stone fruit purchased from the supermarket rarely has enough time on the tree to accumulate real depth of character.

To experience stone fruit at its best, you either need to source fruit directly from a local orchardist, or better still, grow it yourself. Only then can you access the most flavoursome varieties, and pick them at their peak of ripeness. The good news is that stone fruit is among the easiest of all deciduous fruiting trees to grow. With the exception of cherries and European plums, which do best in high chill districts like Stanthorpe and Oakey, peaches, nectarines, Japanese plums and apricots all do very well in Toowoomba and along the ranges. Downs black soil presents an issue for peaches and nectarines, which like good drainage, but it’s good for plums and apricots. Pollination can be an issue for plums and cherries, so it’s a good idea to check the requirements for various species with a good quality nursery.

Birds and possums love stone fruit, but can largely be controlled through netting, however Queensland fruit fly absolutely adores stone fruit. If given half a chance it will decimate your entire crop, so some form of control is vital. On free standing trees, I use a combination of exclusion bags that slip over the ripening fruit, and Eco-Naturalure, a certified organic product that lures and kills both the male and female flies.

If the fruit appears to be “mummified” and is covered in a greyish-brown mould, you’ve got brown rot. This is the most serious of few fungal diseases affecting stone fruit, and can be prevented by binning any diseased fruit and spraying during late winter with either copper hydroxide (preferable to copper oxychloride) or lime sulphur, both of which are approved inputs under the Australian Organic Standard.

Bacterial diseases such as gummosis and silver leaf can be an issue. As always, prevention is easier than the cure, so do most pruning during the warmer months so that wounds heal quickly, and always sterilise your tools. I simply carry around a spray bottle containing metho, and give my tools a spray between every tree. This ensures that disease isn’t spread from one tree to another.

I often get asked about pruning, and my answer is that it can be a simple or elaborate as you like. Unpruned trees left to their own devices will flower and fruit just fine, but to maximise the health of the tree and the quality of your crop it’s a good idea to do some shaping. In the first couple of seasons concentrate on creating a framework of branches. The open vase (or goblet) shape is still a good basic structure for a stone fruit tree, but in the longer term, pruning depends on a knowledge of how various trees produce fruiting buds – you don’t want to be cutting off potential fruiting wood!

As a general rule, cherries and European plums form spurs on two-year old wood, Japanese plums and apricots fruit on a combination of spurs and new growth, while peaches and nectarines fruit solely on new wood that grew in the previous summer. Without overcomplicating things too much, peaches and nectarines benefit from an annual prune in late summer to remove about a third of the existing growth, which will allow new fruiting wood to form in time for the following spring. For more detailed info, a book I highly recommend is Pruning and Training,by Christopher Brickell and David Joyce. Louis Glowinski’s Complete Book of Fruit Growing in Australia is also excellent.

In my view, there’s absolutely no need to sacrifice flavour on the altar of convenience. The best tasting peach I’ve ever had wasn’t purchased from a shop. It was from a ‘Fragar’ tree growing in my garden and I’ll remember the fragrance and taste until the day I die. I’m hopelessly biased, but my advice is simply to grow your own food, for the sake of yourself, your family, and the planet.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 26th November 2011. Photo by Justin Russell.

Don’t forget to visit our new site The Radish, edible gardening from roots to fruits!!

In recent years there has been a big rise in the number of people growing food in containers. While it’s hardly a new trend, container growing is a practice that’s gaining in popularity for a number of key reasons. More and more people are choosing to rent rather than buy a property, average land sizes are shrinking, and the population is aging. Growing food in containers is an effective way of reaping a harvest without the need for a traditional vegetable garden or orchard.

Container growing has some clear advantages over gardening at ground level. First and foremost, containers are mobile. When you move, it’s possible to simply put your containers on the back of a truck or trailer, and take them to their new home. Containers require little space. You’d be surprised how much food a container garden can produce from a paved courtyard or a balcony. And for those who find working a garden at ground level difficult, containers can be a god-send, enhancing ability rather than focussing on disability.

But it’s important to realise that container growing isn’t without some pitfalls. Pot plants require more care than those grown in soil. They typically need more water, to the point that if you forget to irrigate on a hot summer’s day, some of your plants are likely to either become badly dehydrated or die. But on the other hand, if poorly drained containers become waterlogged, plants can die from having “wet feet”.

Another easily overlooked issue is that container grown plants can be less nutritious than those grown in well managed soil. As they grow, plants draw nutrients from the soil and transfer them to their leaves, roots, or fruits, which then get passed on to us as we eat them. Healthy soil equals healthy plants, equals healthy food equals healthy people.

By contrast with well managed soil, a premium commercial potting mix is a soil-less medium that’s usually made primarily from composted pine bark and sand, with the possible addition of components such as peat, coco-fibre, slow release fertiliser, wetting agent, and water crystals. Potting mix is usually pasteurised using steam. This kills all the pathogens that might have been in the mix, but also destroys any good bacteria that help plants take up essential nutrients. As a general rule then, you’ll get more nutritional benefit from food grown in soil than food grown in potting mix.

Savvy container growers have cottoned on to this fact and make their own nutrient rich potting mix. Traditional gardeners sometimes use the loam-based John Innes formulas that are still the standard in Britain, and others modify a commercial mix with additions like home made compost and rotted manure. The idea with all of these approaches is that nutrients are made freely available to food producing plants, and subsequently, to people. To keep plants well fed in the longer term, I use organic slow release fertiliser or pelletised chook manure, and for quick growing vegies, nothing beats liquid fertiliser made from fish emulsion or worm juice.

When it comes time to contain your mix, there are dozens of different options. Choose what suits your style and personality, but if in doubt, keep it simple, and classic. There are all kinds of containers in my garden, but I have a preference for half wine barrels and those that are made from traditional unglazed, unsealed terracotta. I can’t emphasise enough how important it is to avoid wet feet – many plants are just as likely to die from too much water as they are too little. Always make sure a container has adequate drainage holes in the base, and only use a saucer for those plants that thrive in damp conditions. Pot feet are usually helpful.

Beyond that, you’re limited only by your imagination. Pretty much any vegetable can be be raised in containers, including those that are grown for their roots, and lots of fruiting plants are suitable as well. Go for dwarf trees or those grafted onto dwarfing rootstock, fruiting bushes, canes, and perennials. And of course, remember to include herbs in your container garden. Most do just as well in a pot as they do in the ground and some perform even better.

A lack of space or mobility doesn’t need to be impediments to growing your own food. If all you can manage is a pot of mixed herbs grown on a sunny window sill, that’s absolutely brilliant. Grow those herbs with pride, and cook them with love, and guess what – you’ll join the ranks of gardeners around the world who’ve discovered the incredible joys of growing their own food.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 12th November 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, potted Eureka lemon.

Today marks the fifth anniversary of Secret Garden! For those who’ve been reading this column from the very beginning, you might remember that I started with an article on Jacarandas on November 4, 2006. Here we are, 260 columns later, and I feel like my enthusiasm for gardening is stronger than ever. A bit of rain helps. A lot.

Back in 2006, our part of the world was in the grip of arguably the most severe drought in living memory. You’ll recall that Toowoomba’s three dams were rapidly decreasing to what became critically low levels, creeks that had never been dry turned into muddy gullies, and the landscape looked as though someone had flown overhead with a massive blowtorch. The place was drier than a Smith’s chip.

How the cycled has turned. During the drought, it was a daily struggle to keep vulnerable plants alive. Now with some moisture in the soil and perpetually full tanks, gardening is fun again. I’ve absolutely relished the opportunity to get in lots of new plants while the goings good, knowing that one day, drought will return. Hopefully by then, roots will have penetrated deep into the earth and we gardeners will be better prepared than we were last time around.

Of course a break in the drought hasn’t been the only change in five years. On a personal note, my wife Kylie gave birth to our second child not long before I started writing Secret Garden, and our youngest son Fergus was born in 2008. So I’m now gardening for five, instead of three. My love of apples led me to start a heritage fruit tree nursery in 2009, and just last month I launched a new website called The Radish. It’s about “edible gardening from roots to fruits”, and you’re invited to check it out at www.theradish.com.au.

Speaking of edibles, by far the biggest and best change in the gardening world over the last five years is the move toward home grown food. Vegie patches are springing up everywhere, and for the first time since World War 2, sales of vegetable seed are outstripping sales of flower seed. Not just by a bit, mind you, but by a factor of three to one. In anyone’s language, that’s what you might call a tectonic shift, and the best thing about the change is that it’s happened with very little prompting from politicians. The Grow It Yourself revolution is a people’s movement. It has developed for reasons that politics seems incapable of addressing, chief among them a desire for good, honest food and a primal need to get back to the basics of providing for yourself, your family and friends.

There’s no doubt we’re facing some serious issues at the moment. Global warming, rampant consumerism, peak oil and financial inequality are massive problems in need of solutions. But when it comes to the other elephant in the room – food – nothing motivates quite as powerfully as satisfaction. To sow a seed, watch it germinate, nurture the seedling until maturity, reap a harvest, and then cook and eat the food with family and friends is one of the most deeply fulfilling activities a human being can undertake. If the food is prepared well and tastes fantastic, all the better.

Thanks to Steve Etwell the rest of The Chronicle team for your help over the last five years. But most importantly, my sincere appreciation must go to you, the reader. It’s been an incredible privilege to write Secret Garden, and the thing that’s made the experience so worthwhile is that barely a week goes by without a reader saying something nice about the column. In fact, one self described non-gardener wrote to me a few months ago saying he reads the weekend Chronicle for two reasons – Secret Garden and the classifieds. That takes the cake. Thankyou all for your letters and emails. Your support is very humbling.

At times when writing Secret Garden I’ve been sitting behind my computer, wracking my brain for an idea with just an hour to go until deadline. Other times, the words flow quicker than the Condamine in flood. Could there be another 260 columns in the offing? Time will tell. The great British gardening writer Christopher Lloyd wrote his Guardian newspaper column for 17 years until his death in 2006 aged 84. I don’t expect to write Secret Garden until the day I die, but I do believe there is something new to learn about gardening every week and I’m looking forward to sharing my thoughts with you in the days to come. For now though, it’s time to get back out into the garden. When all is said and done, that’s where the real magic happens. Catch you next Saturday.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 5th November 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, vegie garden at Thistlebrook.

We’re at the point in spring where some plants can start to flag. You’ll notice it most in the vegie patch, where things planted back in late winter will have put on a big spurt of growth, but are now starting to look a bit tired as temperatures warm and winds increase. To revive sagging fortunes in the vegie patch and beyond, it can be a great idea to splash around a watering can or two of liquid fertiliser.

Gardeners seem to forget that plants take up nutrients in liquid form. In other words, when you apply a solid fertiliser such as pelletised chook manure, nutrients don’t get absorbed through plant roots until the pellets start to dissolve in the presence of moisture. By contrast, liquid fertilisers provide a quick response. The nutrients are taken up almost immediately through a plant’s foliage and root system. This enables the savvy gardener to correct any deficiencies relatively quickly, in addition to providing a rapid boost to plant growth.

To give you an example of this fast-acting process, I used liquid fertiliser extensively during last summer’s wet weather. Heavy rainfall leaches nutrients from the soil, and as a consequence, some plants may show obvious signs of being “hungry”. Citrus trees, being gross feeders, were particularly vulnerable to nutrient deficiencies last summer, so once the soil had dried out a bit, I applied a solid fertiliser around the root zone of my trees to provide a slow release of nutrients. But that’s not all. I did so in tandem with fortnightly applications of liquid fertiliser. Until the solid fertiliser started to break down, the liquid fertiliser provided a rapid boost. The result was that the plants remained green and healthy all summer long.

Two other situations where liquid fertilisers really come into their own is with container plants, and leafy green vegetables. Plants such as lettuce, rocket, bok choy, and silverbeet will produce lots of tender leaves in response to regular applications of liquid feed, while container plants benefit greatly from monthly doses of liquid fertiliser as a supplement to slow release products. Indoor plants in particular are prime candidates for regular liquid feeding during the warmer months of the year.

At this point, some of you might be wondering what I even mean by the term “liquid fertiliser”. So let’s define it. A liquid fertiliser is any liquid containing nutrients essential for healthy plant growth, including nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Liquid fertilisers shouldn’t be confused with liquid plant tonics. These products are often based on seaweed extract, and generally contain trace elements and other helpful micro-nutrients, but very little nitrogen. Rather than promote foliage growth, tonics enhance soil life, encourage healthy root formation and provide other benefits such as making plants more resistant to frost and drought.

Liquid fertilisers, on the other hand, come in a wide array of different configurations based on the ingredients used in their manufacture. The most basic are very low-tech and can be entirely home made. Human urine (don’t cringe) has been used as a fertiliser for thousands of years, and there’s still merit in having the gentlemen of the house say good night to the lemon tree. At home you can also make liquid fertiliser from the worm juice that accumulates in the lower chamber of your worm farm, or from comfrey or soft weed leaves steeped in a bucket of water for couple of weeks.

Some organic gardeners make a compost tea by placing about one litre of compost in a shadecloth “teabag”, putting the bag in a 10 litre bucket, and letting the liquid brew for a week before use. With any of the above fertilisers it’s important to dilute to about one part concentrate to 10 parts water.

When it comes to commercial products, nurseries and hardware stores carry dozens of different liquid fertiliser brands. Being an organic gardener I choose products that are made from previously living ingredients, rather than synthetic chemicals. My favourite liquid fertilisers are based on fish emulsion, and in my view the best of the lot is Charlie Carp. I generally avoid endorsing a product specifically, and never accept payment or kickbacks for such recommendations, but I love the fact that Charlie Carp takes a problem – feral fish infesting our waterways – and turns it into a fertiliser for plants. Brilliant. There are lots of others available as well, but it would pay to look for those that are Certified Organic.

The only other caveats I have with liquid fertilisers is to always dilute them according manufacturer directions, to avoid burning sensitive plant roots, and to not ignore the long term process of building healthy, fertile soil via the continual addition of decomposed organic matter. Liquid fertiliser can be helpful, but soil building is still the main game.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 22nd October 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, orange blossom.

Check out our new site The Radish, edible gardening from roots to fruits.

If you’ve been reading Secret Garden for a couple of years you’d be aware that I’ve got a thing for apples. For those who are new to the column (welcome, by the way!), let it be heard that apples are my favourite plant. By a country mile. You know those desert island lists that sometimes make the round in gardening magazines? Well, if I had to list my top four desert island plants, they would be dessert apples, followed by cooking apples, then cider apples, and finally, crab apples. Of course I probably couldn’t grow any of them on a desert island, but that’s beside the point.

If you’re a long time reader, you’ll also know that I have absolutely no idea why I love apple trees so much. It goes without saying that apples are also my favourite fruit, but that’s not enough to inspire a grand passion, is it? The only other reason I can come up with to support my apple enthusiasm is that my ancestors came from Herefordshire in England. To this day, when China is easily the biggest apple producer in the world, Herefordshire remains a major growing region. But a century ago apple trees were legion in the English west country and my Russell ancestors were right in the thick of it. So my theory is that some kind of genetic memory has been passed down, and the result is a longing to grow apples. Sounds bonkers, but it’s all I can put my finger on.

It’s hardly a surprise then, that I’d love to see more gardeners growing the fruit in their backyard. I get asked all the time whether apples will even grow in Toowoomba and on the Downs. The answer is a resounding yes. In my own experience, the 30 odd varieties growing here in my Hampton garden are doing very well, but the broader answer to the question is that there is an apple for almost every climate.

Apples originate not in the Middle East as popular myth might suggest, but in central Asia. There are still wild forests in Kazakhstan containing 20 metre tall, 300-year-old apple trees with the girth of oaks and fruit in a huge diversity of colours, shapes and sizes. This latter point is the key thing to learn about apples. They are one of the most genetically diverse plants on earth, which means the odds are very strong that you’ll find an apple well suited to your garden.

The big garden centres will dish out the standard advice that for Queensland climates, you must plant low chill cultivars such as ‘Anna’ and ‘Dorsett Golden’. What they don’t usually tell you is that the first comes from Israel and the second from the Bahamas. They’ll also neglect to tell you that Dorsett Golden was bred from Golden Delicious, a staple variety in cold climate orchards across the world. So my advice is simple: be careful who you listen to, and don’t get too hung up on matching apple varieties and climate. There are 500 plus cultivars in Australia – plenty will do well in your garden.

One thing you will need to get hung up on is the apple’s rather specific reproductive habits. The flowers are pollinated by bees and there are very few self-pollinating apples, so the general rule is that for a tree to bear fruit, it will need another apple planted in the vicinity that flowers around the same time. If you’ve already planted an apple tree and it isn’t producing fruit, chances are you need a second variety for pollination. For a select group of large fruiting apples called triploids, a third variety will be required. A good apple nursery will give you the skinny on the best combinations.

As for apple growing culture, the trees are generally easy to grow, but in some climates they can be prone to a range of problems. The big three are fruit fly, codling moth, and the fungal disease apple scab. The first two can be controlled with a combination of good hygiene, exclusion bags or nets, and organic baits. Scab is worse on some varieties than others, can be prevented to some extent by facilitating good airflow through the trees, and can be controlled quite successfully with an overwintering spray of lime sulphur. Soil isn’t a major concern, though being a forest dweller, the trees will thrive in rich soil full of organic matter. Apply compost regularly and keep the trees mulched.

If I sound overly enthusiastic, please refer to paragraph two. I make no apologies for being an apple freak. The apple is a wonderful garden plant just waiting to be rediscovered by discerning gardeners. Please, I implore you all to give them a try. I doubt you’ll regret it.

There comes a point in spring where I’m absolutely itching to sink my teeth into the first properly ripe strawberry of the season. I don’t buy strawberries from the shops. I grew up eating plump, deliciously sweet berries grown on my Pa’s market garden in Brisbane, so to my palate, the commercial strawberries sold in plastic punnets are a serious disappointment. As far as I’m concerned, real berries come from the garden (or a really good local farmer), and they’re as far removed from the bland, mushy, transported-halfway-across-the-state excuses for fruit that promise so much but deliver so little.

I get the impression that some people consider my attitude elitist. Someone once suggested that not everyone’s lucky enough to have a large garden like me. Others have claimed that they too could grow their own strawberries of only they’d achieved my level of gardening skill! Such defeatism! I try to explain to the naysayers that they’d probably change their tune if they saw just how laid back my strawberry growing efforts actually are.

Besides preparing the soil properly before planting, mulching the plants until they naturally cover the ground, and putting out some eco-friendly snail bait during wet weather, I do nothing to my strawberries other than pick, and enjoy, them. I don’t spray, fertilise, or water. My plants don’t have viruses, but they do get the occasional bit of grey mould during wet summers. I don’t worry about it. And I’m not a commercial grower, so I ignore the traditional advice that strawberry plants should be completely replaced every three years to prevent disease taking hold. In spite of my laissez faire approach we get bumper crops of berries every spring, summer and autumn that more than justify the minuscule amount of time I put into the the plants.

So what’s your excuse? I don’t mean to be rude, it’s just that if you’re keen to grow strawberries but haven’t yet had a go, I’m wondering what’s holding you back? If space is limited try growing strawbs in pots or hanging baskets. If your soil is black clay try raised beds. If you’re worried you don’t have the requisite skills, take comfort in the fact that you only need the bare basics.

There’s a common misconception about strawberries that they are delicate, and therefore, difficult to grow. While it’s true that the berries themselves aren’t very robust, the plants are actually quite resilient. The ideal growing conditions are a free draining, slightly acidic soil that’s full of organic matter, a position in sun or dappled shade, and some supplemental irrigation during really hot, dry periods. These needs reflect the plant’s origins in the woodlands of Europe where wild strawberries grow naturally in the humus-rich, semi-shaded soils of the forest floor. Replicate these conditions at home as best you can, and you’ll be on a winner.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit trickier to pick a winner among the few strawberry varieties offered for sale in the nurseries. Truth be told, many are superseded commercial varieties that were bred for qualities such as transportability, extended harvest and disease resistance. Like most commercial fruit, flavour isn’t top priority. For home growers, the situation is reversed. My primary consideration is flavour, so I try to choose fruit and vegies that are, more than anything else, absolutely delicious to eat. Usually this means looking to specialist nurseries for the right plants.

With this in mind I’ve just planted out a new patch of strawbs. The variety is ‘Hokawase’, an old Japanese selection that is blessed with one of the most incredible flavours on the face of the planet. Hokawase is so good you’re unlikely to ever find your local supermarket. The berries don’t transport well (strike one), they go soft in the punnet (strike two) and only bear in spring and early summer (strike three, and they’re out!). But for me, Hokawase is precisely the kind of strawberry I want to grow.

‘Red Gauntlet’, my other main variety, is incredibly productive but lacks the flavour of the best strawberries. I’ve also got an unknown variety that nearly rivals Hokawase, but the next best is the much overlooked alpine strawberry or fraises des bois – the wild strawberry of the wood. This plant runs like crazy, which makes it a good groundcover, and it produces little fingernail sized morsels that burst in your mouth like sherbet. Still, they’ve got nothing on a just picked Hokawase.

The gates of berry heaven are wide open and all gardeners with an ounce of enthusiasm for growing their own fruit are welcome to enter.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 24th September 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, Red Gauntelt strawberries and calendula in the vegie patch.

September is the most irresistible month of the year. For gardeners living in a four season climate, the few short weeks of transition from winter to spring are so full of promise that it’s difficult not to get carried away.

For the wise heads out there, heed this word of caution. Be patient. Try and curb your enthusiasm just a wee bit. I know it’s hard. The sun’s out, the weather feels warm, the soil’s moist after the recent rains and all the nurseries are selling your favourite summer vegie seedlings. It seems like the perfect growing weather. This is certainly true for some plants, but for true warm season vegies, we’re not quite there yet. The air temperature is warm enough but the soil is still cold. If you doubt me, try the bare bottom test used by medieval peasants. Drop your daks, place your bare bum on the soil surface and test the temperature. I’ll bet it feels darn cold.

The problem with cold soil is that some seeds – corn, beans, pumpkin and tomato for instance – need a soil temperature above 15 Celsius to germinate. Capsicum, eggplant and melons need even warmer soil – 18C or more. Try sowing these seeds early in September and you are likely to be disappointed with the results. Plus, there’s still a chance of late frost and a single decent freeze may wipe out all of your warm season crops and you’ll have to start over. Old timers have learnt to take it slow and steady in September. They know that time lost at the start of spring will be well and truly gained by the end.

Inevitably, some of you will completely ignore this advice and rush headlong into the season without caring a fig what the weather may or may not do. Who am I to judge. Excitement gets the better of us all and I too have been guilty of starting plants too early in spring. If I’m to be really honest, I think I might have lost a few plants on a frosty night or two last October.

So if you simply can’t resist the urge to get some summer plants in the ground, you might want to try planting seedlings. You can purchase these if you like, but you’ll get better value for money, not to mention better plants, if you raise the seedlings yourself from seed. Start the seeds indoors. Light isn’t essential for germination, but warmth is, so look for balmy places like the top of the fridge or a bench top near the oven in the kitchen.

Once the seeds have germinated, which might take anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks, it’s vital that they go outside into a well lit position. Don’t fall for the mistake of placing them on a sunny windowsill. The tiny seedlings will become weak and leggy as they crane toward the light. Put them out into bright shade or morning sun, and avoid covering the seedlings with those clear plastic mini greenhouses. If the seedlings blow about a bit in the breeze and are in bright light they will develop stout, strong stems that eventually support healthy plants. Also, don’t saturate the soil either before or after germination. Water daily, by all means, but allow the soil to dry out a little between times.

What should you sow the seeds in? I like to use a custom seed raising mix and biodegradable pots. I make the former from fairly sandy commercial seed raising mix (Debco is my favourite brand, if you are wondering) and perlite combined at a ratio of two thirds to one third. It doesn’t really matter what brand or mix you use as long as it is sterile, to avoid problems such as damping off, and reasonably loose. I don’t add any fertiliser to the mix. Instead, I start feeding the little seedlings with a weak fish emulsion fertiliser once they are up and growing.

Biodegradable pots can be made from toilet rolls, egg cartons, or rolled up newspaper. I’ve got a big carton of coir punnets sitting in my propagating area so I use those, but the principle with all the various materials is the same. When it comes time to plant the seedling in the soil, put it in pot and all. The pot will decompose, and the seedling will suffer very little transplant shock. Wouldn’t you be happier if you weren’t squeezed and cajoled and shaken from your bed in the morning? One of the hallmarks of master gardeners is that they have learnt to think like a plant.

All the best for spring everyone. As American farmer Joel Salatin might say, may your earthworms dance with celebration and your carrots grow long and straight.

First puublished in the Toowoomba Chronicle 3rd September 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, pansies.