Regular readers of Secret Garden know that I’m a weather nerd, so it should come as little surprise to hear that at the end of each month, I religiously pull out my rainfall record and tally up the total for the preceding four weeks. Some months, the figure is cause for celebration, and optimism for the weeks ahead. Other months, more than I’d like to admit, it’s commiserations all round.

July was the latter. A paltry 24mm (one inch for the imperialists!) fell in the gauge – about half the long term Hampton average. This is just enough to keep the garden afloat during a cool winter, but on the back of an even paltrier 11mm in June, means that we’re heading into our driest months of the year with precious little moisture in the soil.

For purely ornamental gardens, a dry outlook isn’t much of a big deal. It means some jobs might need to be put off, and that some extra watering might be necessary to help young plants get established. But my garden is mostly about food. I’m setting it up to supply my family with as much home grown produce as possible from my two acre smallholding, and in this regard, it’s vital that I keep an eye on the weather forecasts and plan accordingly. The question is, how do you plan ahead when the weather is so fickle?

A good part of the answer is to understand the distinction between weather, and climate. Time is the key factor. Weather might be described as the atmospheric conditions over a short period of time, whereas climate refers to atmospheric patterns that occur over a long period of time. Global warming aside, climate is closely associated with the seasons and therefore, tends to be relatively stable, and consistent. With this in mind, my strategy should be to do what farmers do and plan for the months ahead using my garden’s long term climate as a basic guide.

The other thing I can do to plan ahead is consult indigenous culture, which in my view is a greatly overlooked source of wisdom about how to live well on earth’s driest inhabited continent. In Aboriginal society, landscape, plants, animals, ancestors and weather are all interconnected. By accumulating an intricate knowledge of the continent’s various climates over tens of thousands of years, the indigenous Australians developed a subtle description of the seasons and used their knowledge to predict the timing of various shifts in the weather.

As many as six, or as few as three seasons were recognised, depending on the location. In contrast, British settlers relied upon the basic four season description of summer-autumn-winter-spring so applicable to northern Europe. Though this remains the predominant model, indigenous wisdom is gradually being recognised.

Brisbane-based Gardening Australia presenter Jerry Coleby-Williams has taken a cue from indigenous climate observation to suggest that south-east Queensland experiences a fifth season. After a very brief spring in late August and early September, Jerry has observed that a pre-summer season occurs before the summer wet begins in December. He calls this pre-summer season “crematoria”.

It’s a foreboding kind of name, but one that perfectly describes the typically hot, dry, and windy weather that can persist during September, October and November. Last year we had a classic crematoria season marked by regular dust storms, and hot, north-westerly winds –awful conditions for gardening, particularly the establishment of new plants. Lots of gardeners relying on tank irrigation ran out of water.

Now I’m yet to hear the BOM identify a fifth season called crematoria, and in fact, the official climate models are predicting the development of a La Nina weather pattern during late spring and early summer. In other words it could get wet, and the evidence for crematoria is entirely anecdotal. But in my view Jerry’s on to something. If I’m to be serious about planning ahead for the coming season I’d be smart to take into consideration the potential for a few dry and windy months.

Here then, is my crematoria action plan: I’ll try to give young fruit trees better protection from drying wind and will water regularly; I’ll try to complete major plant-outs in the vegie garden following a rain event, instead of blindly following the calendar; I’ll top dress as many plants as possible with compost and replenish mulch in garden beds and around trees; I’ll attempt to make stored rainwater go further by using soil wetters and incorporating as much rotted organic matter as possible. Beyond that, I’ll continue to hold out hope that late 2010 will produce the creek flowing, dam filling rain we still so desperately need.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 7th August 2010.

One of the more interesting questions I’ve received from a reader was a simple, one line note that read “From which direction does the frost come?”. On first glance I wondered whether it was a riddle or an odd joke. Did the answer have something to do with the magnetism of the earth or was it simply such a weird thing to ask that I ought to check the envelope for white powder before replying just as succinctly, “The Right”?

Then I stopped fooling around and actually thought about the question. Does frost come from a direction? It’s a fair enough thing to ask, and the answer, strangely enough, is both yes and no. Let me explain.

Whenever I’m asked to describe frost, I suggest that it’s the result of very cold air that behaves similar to a mass of treacle or honey moving across the landscape. There’s no way, of course, that frost comes from a point on the compass, and when I say it comes from The Right, I’m only having a lend. Besides, “frost” is only the visible ice crystals that form as a result of moisture being frozen by cold air, not the air itself. But when the reader’s question is taken literally, the answer is also literal.

Think about it. Cold air is denser than warm air. On clear, still nights during winter, warm air radiates away into the atmosphere, but the heavier, colder air descends and pools at ground level. It rolls down hills. Settles in hollows. Gets trapped against the base of walls and hedges. So, from which direction does the frost come? The answer’s clear: from above.

Now, for the heavenly minded among you, take heed. When I say “from above”, you shouldn’t get too excited. I’ve learnt from bitter experience that frost can wreak havoc in a poorly planned garden, causing one to hurl curses in the direction of hell. My garden experienced an ugly “black frost” in 2007 that saw the temperature drop to about minus ten. It froze the pipes solid for two days and burnt the foliage on 10 metre tall trees as effectively as the fires of Hades itself.

These days, I record every frost the garden experiences. I mark the date of the first and last frosts for the season, watch the weather forecast like a hawk, and measure the minimum temperature each night. I used to record all the details in my diary, but now it all goes into a notebook, alongside details about wind, rainfall and other tidbits about the garden.

This info has come in really handy. I know that our first frost can occur as early as Anzac Day, and the last can be as late as October. Summer vegies get planted later than they did in my Toowoomba garden as a result. I also know that we generally get about 40 frosts per year, about 20-30 of which are light (zero to minus three degrees), 10 are moderate (minus three to five) and a small number of which I categorise as heavy (lower than minus five). I figure that gardening has lots in common with farming, and no farmer worth his or her cabbages would be ignorant to the details of climate and weather.

All this talk about Hades and frost damage might give the impression that frost is some kind of malignant force. Sorry if I’ve given you the wrong impression. Now that I’ve learnt to choose hardy plants, I actually love frost. I welcome its arrival and mourn its passing. Why? The benefits of a good frost far outweigh any problems it might cause.

For one, there is the potential for pest control. A heavy frost is cold enough to kill some fungal spores, insect eggs, overwintering insects and even rodents, so it breaks the pest cycle better than any chemical. A good frost can also freeze moisture in the soil, helping to make it more workable.

And then, there is beauty. Find me a gardener hasn’t stood shivering but transfixed in the thin dawn light, taking in the sheer wonder of their otherwise boring garden transformed into a fantasy land of twinkling ice crystals. You know I’m not a raving fan of formal hedges and topiaries, but I am prepared to admit that nothing looks better on a frosty morning.

For what it’s worth, here’s my advice: use formal features judiciously when planning your garden, and spend the odd winter afternoon keeping them nicely trimmed. Then head inside, put a fresh log on the fire and pray that the morning brings temperatures below freezing point. Finally, the best advice of all: when dawn breaks, head outside in your bare feet, inhale deeply, and marvel at the wonder of frozen dew. Maybe frost does come from above, after all.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 5th June 2010. Photo courtesy Granite Belt Wine and Tourism Inc.

Is it just me, or are lots of deciduous plants colouring up late this year? Driving through Toowoomba the other day I noticed that the liquidambars are only now revealing their full autumn glory, and in my own garden, it’s a real mixed bag of: leaves that have already dropped; those that are at their peak of colour; and others that have only just started to turn.

In the “already dropped” category are plants like grapevines, stonefruit, Manchurian pears and mulberries. In the just turned category are apples, Callery pears, birches, Chinese tallows and pomegranates. That leaves the final category – deciduous plants that are at their peak. There ain’t many, let me tell you. Ornamental grasses like Miscanthus and Panicums are positively glowing in tones of gold and orange, a Chinese Pistacio is starting to hit its straps, rugosa roses are the colour of butter, and a smokebush, a highlight of late autumn, is in the midst of a spectacular display.

Smokebushes are relatively rare here in Australia. I’m not really sure why. Perhaps it’s because everyone’s obsessed with shrubs like photinia and murraya, seeing anything less common as exotic, and therefore, hard to grow. Nothing could be further from the truth. Lots of rare plants are highly gardenworthy, and in the case of smokebushes, so worthwhile that they deserve to be widely planted.

In the UK it’s a different story. Gardening is the national past-time and lots of breeding work has been conducted with the two of the five species in the genus – Cotinus obovatus, the American smokebush, and Cotinus coggygria, the Asian smokebush. Plenty of top notch plants have been bred as a result, and the pick of the lot, in my opinion, is Cotinus ‘Grace’.

A hybrid named by English nurseryman Peter Dummer for his wife, ‘Grace’ is one of those plants that truly lives up to its name.  It is exceptionally beautiful, and indeed, moves gracefully through the seasons. The foliage is a vivid port wine colour in summer, devoid of the leaden dullness so common in some purple leafed plants. In late autumn, the leaves change to a luminescent shade of scarlet.

Cotinus ‘Flame’, a product of the same cross, has greener leaves than ‘Grace’ but will reach a similar size of about four metres tall and wide. While slightly less beautiful all year round it probably has more spectacular foliage in autumn, turning a fiery shade of orange. ‘Royal Purple’ has burgundy foliage that’s darker than ‘Grace’ and it’s also a slower grower, making it better suited to a small garden. ‘Golden Spirit’ is a newish cultivar with attention grabbing, lime coloured foliage through summer.

Smokebushes have a reputation for being hard to grow, but this is entirely unfounded. It is true that they prefer a cooler climate, but in my experience they are very drought tolerant plants and easy to manage in most soils and any position other than full shade. The autumn display is actually more intense in a soil that’s lean and hungry, so don’t worry too much if your conditions aren’t ideal. Smokebushes are adaptable plants.

In fact, my view is that smokebushes only have a couple of downsides. One is that they can look a bit leggy when young, having a tendency to send forth long, whippy shoots. This is a minor issue easily solved by pruning early on to create a compact, bushy habit. Some English gardeners recommend cutting back hard each year like you would a buddleja, but with Cotinus, this tends to produce foliage at the expense of flowers. I want to enjoy both, so I prune only when necessary to keep the bush looking shapely.

The only other issue is that some people have a reaction to the sap. Cotinus is in the same family as the genus Rhus, which is notorious for causing allergies, so take care when pruning. Other than that, Cotinus should perform well in all corners of the Downs. If your local nursery doesn’t stock any of the cultivars, ask if they can get one in for you or try a specialist supplier of rare plants.

By the way, for those curious about the plant’s common name of “smokebush”, Cotinus bears inflorescences of pinkish flowers in summer that, from a distance, look like a smoky haze arising from the bush. Cotinus is truly a plant for all seasons.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 29th May 2010. Photo by James Gaither via flickr.com.

There’s every possibility that you’re reading this week’s Secret Garden rugged up in front of the heater. The first big cold front of the season has swept through, leaving in its wake frosty mornings and doona induced dreams, and according to the bureau, another front is due to sweep through early in the week. It might be May, but have no doubt that winter has arrived.

For me, winter is my busiest time of the year. Besides writing, I run Thistlebrook, a small nursery growing and selling heritage fruit trees. A decent run of cooler weather means that deciduous trees are entering dormancy and I can make a start on tasks like grafting and digging up trees for sale in the form traditionally known as “bare root”.

Unlike containerised plants, which are grown and sold in a pot, bare root plants are literally bare rooted – the roots are free of soil. Some people get worried that buying nude plants in the middle of winter is bad for their health, but they won’t catch a cold, and are actually quite a bit easier to manage. Because there’s no foliage to support, bare root plants are much easier to handle than potted plants. They can be shipped through the mail, or left in moist sawdust until ready to plant out.

Bare root plants are also good deal cheaper, usually by around 50 percent. This reflects the lower costs of production. Another major benefit is that bare root plants grown in well managed soil are very environmentally friendly. There’s no pot to dispose of, they need less water during production and they are a lot lighter during transit, which means fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

Gardeners have developed some dodgy practices as a result of using containerised plants, including the creation of what expert English nurseryman Kevin Croucher calls “luxury planting pits”. These are often deep, poorly drained sumps backfilled with fresh organic matter that can drown or burn the roots of bare root plants. But there’s a worse problem with this practice. The major reason bare root plants fail is because the roots have been allowed to dry out prior to establishment. Fresh organic matter that isn’t fully decomposed will continue to break down after planting, reducing in volume and creating air pockets. Plant roots subsequently dry out and die in the air pockets.

Here’s how I go about planting a bare root tree. I start by analysing the planting site a couple of months ahead of planting time. If the existing soil is really poor, I amend it with compost and whatever else is necessary, perhaps lime or gypsum. If the soil is adequate, with good drainage and a reasonable structure, I simply dig a hole big enough to accommodate the root ball of the new plant, and ensure the fill to go back into the hole is broken up finely. I add no amendments to the soil. The plant is placed into the hole, with the graft union (if there is one) kept at least 10cm above ground level.

If the roots are young and flexible, it can help to make a mound in the bottom of the hole and spread the roots over it, but otherwise I just bung the soil in and give the plant a couple of wiggles to settle soil around the roots, firming it once the hole is filled. The next step is to water, even if the soil is moist. Doing so removes any remaining air pockets, and a dash of seaweed extract in the watering can will aid in root development. A donut of rotted manure can now be spread on the surface of the soil to gently feed the plant as it settles in, the lot is covered with mulch, and by now I’m just about ready for a cup of tea.

Before the jug goes on though, there’s one final question: to stake or not to stake? Generally, the answer is “not”. Small plants rarely need staking at all, and when planting a tree in a windy site, the best option is to get out the secateurs. Take the canopy of the tree back by at least half, always cutting above an outward facing bud. This has the effect of balancing the foliage to the rootball, avoiding top heaviness and allowing the trunk to flex slightly in the wind.

A lot of gardeners are hesitant, but this early pruning is worth it. You’ll end up with a stronger tree with a more extensive root system that shoots away strongly in spring, and will be providing fruit or shade in next to no time.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 15 May, 2010. Photo by Justin Russell – Maples, Davidson Arboretum, Highfields.

For most of the year, seasonal change is gradual and persistent, but in April the shift from summer to winter becomes obvious. Dawn air has a crispness that didn’t exist a month ago and as the polar jet stream moves north, the first big cold front of the season will push deep into the continent. In cold areas, the first frosts are due within weeks.

Plants respond to this impending cold in various ways. Some see it as a chance to flower and set seed in anticipation of winter rains. Lots of native plants, particularly those from the southern states, fall into this category. Others either cease growing or slow their growth right down until conditions are again favourable in spring. Deciduous plants herald the looming winter by changing colour and shedding their foliage.

This creeping dormancy is a boon for “leaf peepers”. These people are the train spotters of the gardening community and travel to areas in the world renowned for autumn colour. The north eastern United States is prime leaf peeper country, but we’ve got some decent areas here in Australia, including Bright in Victoria, the Blue Mountains in NSW, and of course, here in Toowoomba and the around the Downs. One of my favourite local spots for a bit of leaf peeping is Davidson Arboretum at Highfields.

But for those of us who like to grow temperate fruit, the onset of “doona weather” is a bit like welcoming back a much loved visiting friend. A lot depends on the individual variety, but it’s fair to say that without an appropriate period of cold weather, deciduous fruit trees get all confused. If temperatures are too warm, some will fail to go into dormancy, others will go dormant but not know when to wake up in spring, others will wake progressively or sporadically.

This need for a tree to experience cold temperatures is known as a chilling requirement, measured according to a scale of chill units or chilling hours. You may have come across the terms high chill and low chill – these refer to whether a tree requires lots of cold weather while dormant or very little. The simplest way of measuring the chilling hours for your garden is to add up the total number of hours below seven degrees Celsius accumulated during winter. Here in my garden on the western fall at Hampton we get around 1000 hours of chill in an average winter. Stanthorpe has similar chilling hours but Toowoomba has somewhere in the vicinity of 600 – 800 hours. Various locations on the Downs will have anywhere between about 400 hours of chill to 1100.

Once you have a rough idea of the chill units for your area, it’s possible to make more informed choices about the fruit varieties it might be possible to grow. Requirements vary widely according to the species of fruit and the variety, but here’s a very general guide: cherries, apples, European plums and pears need high chill conditions (800 hours plus); apricots, peaches and quinces need medium chilling hours (400 to 800); Japanese plums, persimmons, mulberries and figs are considered to be low chill (100 to 400). It’s nowhere near that clear-cut though (some apples are low chill for example), so check with your nursery prior to purchase to make sure you’re not being sold a dud.

Plant dormancy is a tricky beast to pin down. So many factors can come into play that despite the best efforts of researchers, there is still uncertainty and many growers manage to turn conventional theory on its head. We know one thing for certain – there’s more to dormancy than simply cold temperatures.

Day length plays a role, which might explain why there are very few deciduous trees endemic to equatorial climates. For apples and some other plants, extended winter rainfall can mimic chilling hours. It’s not fully understood why, but scientists believe that a substance gets washed off the trees, making them think they’ve experienced a cold winter. Apple growers in highland California experienced this phenomenon in 1995 after an unusually warm and wet winter. Farmers were petrified that fruit set would be terrible because of the lack of chill, but on the contrary, bumper crops set new records.

The lesson I take from this lack of certainty is that it’s okay, even advantageous, to experiment. Unless you’re a commercial grower and success is a financial imperative, the best advice I can offer is to get hold of a few trees and try them out. Sure, you might make some mistakes. But you’ll avoid the biggest mistake of all – a refusal to get stuck in and have a go.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 10th April, 2010. Photo by Don Sutherland via flickr.com

The air might be cooling at this time of the year, but to the gardener’s benefit, the soil will retain summer’s warmth for weeks to come. If you don’t believe me, try dropping your daks on a crisp autumn morning and make contact between your bare bum and a bare patch of ground. Compared to the air temperature, the soil should feel warm. This technique works better in spring than autumn, but it was how they did it on the low tech days of old. Try it, but remember that bare bums and ground dwelling wolf spiders don’t mix! If you are the modest type (or fear spiders), try poking a finger in the soil. Better still why not save yourself, and the neighbours, from embarrassment and poke a thermometer into the soil.

The combination of warm soil but cooler air temperatures makes autumn the ideal time to get stuck into some planting. Evergreen trees, shrubby natives, hedging plants, perennials and spring bulbs can all go in now, allowing time for strong root growth before winter without the stress of hot air temperatures.

As well as planting out newly purchased or propagated plants, autumn is also the best time in the year to transplant existing shrubs, perennials and even small trees. Even experienced gardeners make the mistake of planting things in what turns out to be the wrong spot, but it’s hardly the end of the world. With care and confidence, most plants can be dug up and moved to a better location.

For small plants, transplanting is simply a matter of digging up, dividing if necessary, and replanting in well prepared ground. Evergreen perennials like bearded iris, agapanthus, and liriope cope beautifully with autumn transplanting, but it’s suitable for herbaceous types as well. Species geraniums, herbaceous salvias and other spring flowering perennials are actually better divided now than in winter or spring.

Woody shrubs are slightly more difficult to move, but not much. The three keys you need to bear in mind for successful transplanting are: (a) prepare the new planting site in advance, adding any soil amendments and having stakes and other materials ready to go; (b) keep as much of the plant’s root ball intact as possible and keep it moist by wrapping in damp hessian; and (c) water deeply after replanting using a seaweed extract to stimulate new root growth. There’s always an element of risk when transplanting, and the plant will usually experience some degree of shock at such invasive treatment, but if you do these three things your transplant should recover fine.

For larger trees, the first thing to determine is whether the plant is deciduous or evergreen. If deciduous, you’re much better off waiting until the tree is dormant and leafless before attempting the move. If evergreen, transplanting is basically the same as for shrubs, but requires a combination of brute strength and delicate treatment. As a rule of thumb, the younger a plant is, the better it will transplant. Unless you have access to specialised tree digging equipment, the risks will be greater than for small trees and shrubs, but so can the rewards. Besides the three rules mentioned earlier, there a couple more worth considering before you put spade to soil.

Firstly, it may pay to prune the canopy of a tree to be transplanted by up to fifty percent. This helps compensate for any roots that are damaged during the transplanting procedure by reducing transpiration. Secondly, newly transplanted trees will generally require staking for the first year or so after being moved. This helps anchor roots against strong winds. Thirdly, transplanted trees will usually need to be planted in a good sized hole (double the width and depth of the root ball) that’s backfilled with existing site soil. Backfilling with fresh compost or manure is a recipe for disaster. You should, however, ensure that the soil is broken up finely and firmed in to make good contact with the roots. This process, combined with deep watering, will help remove any air pockets which may cause roots to dry out and die.

Once you’ve got your plant in its new position, there is one final requirement: patience on the part of the gardener. This is standard practice for anyone working with plants and seasons, but is especially important with a new transplant. If you were suddenly uprooted and transplanted to a different home, you’d take a while to recover and so it is with plants. Don’t expect too much too soon. Use the opportunity to hasten slowly.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 27th March 2010. Photo by Justin Russell – Queensland bottle trees at Crows Nest transplanted from Acland coal mine.

One of the things I love most about living in a temperate climate is that we get to experience four traditional seasons. You only need to look out the window at this time of year for a reminder – the leaves are turning – and while global warming will have an effect on our climate, it’s reassuring to know that unless it can tilt the earth’s axis, the timing of the seasons will remain constant for all the years to come.

Today, March 20, is the autumn equinox. It’s the official start of the autumn season (March 1 is just for convenience), and in scientific terms, it means that the earth’s poles are an equal distance from the sun. Today we experience approximately 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night. From today, the earth’s South Pole will gradually tilt away from the sun, shortening our days until the winter solstice arrives on June 21. Then the days will again grow longer until the summer solstice. Then the ancient cycle will repeat. And repeat. And repeat. They say nothing in life is certain except death and taxes. When Benjamin Franklin coined the phrase, he forgot about the seasons.

The role seasonal change has on plants is varied. Flora originating from tropical climates tend to be responsive to periods of wet and dry. Lots of Australian plants show these tendencies, and many of those indigenous to our area will flower and seed just prior to our wet season in summer. Other plants respond primarily to temperature, needing a period of cold weather to initiate flowering (vernalisation).

Plants growing closer to the poles, however, tend to be responsive to day length. The fancy term for this is “photoperiodism”. It’s all still a bit of a mystery to scientists, so let’s consider how it works in gardening terms: Photoperiodism basically means that some plants are long day length, forming flowers as the days grow longer, and some are short day length, forming flowers as the days grow shorter. Others are day length neutral.

Onions illustrate this response to day length perfectly. Short day varieties form bulbs after the summer solstice as the days are getting shorter (and night grows longer). The seed of these plants should be sown in summer, and the swollen bulbs harvested in early winter. Long day varieties form bulbs as the days grow longer after the winter solstice. They should be sown in late winter or early spring, and harvested in early summer.

Another member of the allium family that can be sensitive to day length is garlic. In most parts of Australia cloves are planted now, on or close to the autumn equinox. This allows the plant to grow foliage through the winter, and form bulbs as the days lengthen in spring. Harvest takes place around November.

For gardeners, this poses a potential problem because the closer you live to the equator, the less day length changes throughout the year. There are roughly 12 hours of day and 12 of night all year round. Day length sensitive varieties of garlic will either form very small cloves, or they may fail to form a bulb at all.

Toowoomba is located at a latitude of approximately 27 degrees south, which is roughly the same as South Africa and southern Brazil, or equivalent to California and southern China in the northern hemisphere. The wash up for garlic (and other light sensitive crops) is that day-neutral varieties may perform better than those that originated closer to either of the poles. If your garlic is failing to form bulbs, make sure you plant it at the correct time of year, or try varieties such as ‘Glen Large’ (day-neutral, bred in Gatton) or ‘Australian White’ (originally from California).

Everything is relative of course. Factors such as elevation, proximity to the ocean, and oceanic cycles all affect the way plants grow. The key point is that the rotation of the earth around the sun doesn’t change. The change in day length is reliable, and for that reason, the seasons are largely fixed. Why this knowledge gives me a sense of comfort I’m not really sure, but it’s probably got something to do with hope: When I stuff something up in the garden (or in life for that matter), I know that there’s always tomorrow, or next season, or next year. As long as I draw breath I can always start anew.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 20th March 2010. Photo by Jennifer Dickert via flickr.

Have I ever told you how much I love autumn? It really is my favourite season, and already I’m hanging out for a late April day that starts cool, becomes pleasantly warm, and offers a clear sky of rich cerulean blue. If you’re like me, it’s perfect weather for sitting outside in the sun doing diddly squat. It’s also perfect weather for gardening, and my Mum can rest assured that amongst the bumming around there’ll be plenty of work happening too.

In temperate parts of the world autumn is traditionally the time for harvesting crops grown through summer, so at the moment I’m bringing in crops like beans, pumpkins, eggplants, broccoli, rhubarb, and late tomatoes. I grow smaller tomato varieties like ‘Tigerella’, ‘Green Zebra’ and ‘Jaune Flamee’ at this time of year because they’re less prone to fruit fly damage will bear up to 20kg of fruit on each plant. This makes them ideal for preserving at the end of the season.

Once crops are in and beds cleaned up, it’s time to start sowing seed for winter. Here at Thistlebrook we can expect our first frost as early as Anzac Day, so the first thing I do in March is sneak in some late beetroot, carrots and parsnips. We eat lots of carrots so I’ll pop in half a dozen rows to see us through winter. I always sow the seed directly into the garden. Carrots transplant poorly from punnets, and seed is much more economical – a few packets will set you back less than $15 yet yield dozens of kilograms.

Once the roots are in, my focus shifts to alliums, which are plants in the onion family. Garlic is a favourite of mine so I generally plant at least a bed full of nice fat cloves around the autumn equinox, roughly March 21. These won’t be ready until November. With such a long growing season, nutrition and drainage are important, so I prepare the soil thoroughly with rotted manure, compost, and even some pelletised chook manure.

I once tried planting supermarket garlic. What a miserable failure. Hardly any cloves sprouted, and those that did were sickly and weak. I’ve since learnt that most garlic we buy in the supermarket, especially the imported stuff, is sprayed with the chemical methyl bromide and sometimes a growth inhibitor to increase storage life. No wonder it performs so poorly. I get much better results from organic garlic that I’ve either grown myself, or that I purchase from a certified organic grower (Green Harvest and Eden Seeds are a couple of options).

Like garlic, another allium with a long growing season is the leek. I reckon leeks are a magnificent plant. They’re highly ornamental in the garden, easy to grow, and absolutely superb in the kitchen – leek and potato soup served with crusty, home made bread is a staple late winter meal in our household. Unlike carrots, leeks transplant well from punnets. I make 10 centimetre deep holes with a dibber, pop the lanky seedlings in, and water to wash soil around the roots. This results in lovely long, blanched shanks.

Onions are a trickier proposition. I won’t bother this autumn, but I could have sown short day-length varieties now. These onions start to form bulbs as the days get shorter right up until the winter solstice, but don’t they keep as well as the long day length varieties, and form bulbs as the days get longer. These are best planted in spring, so I think I’ll hold off until then.

Right, that’s the alliums done. Just a few more seeds to plant out. Peas do best in spring where I live, but we never plant enough for our needs and I’ll sow some shelling varieties like ‘Alderman’ and ‘Purple Potted’. Alongside these I might pop in a snowpea or two. In any spare beds I’ll sow a green manure, usually a mix of mustard to fumigate the soil, a legume to fix nitrogen, and oats to provide bulk. This will be dug back into the soil prior to the spring planting season.

The final plants to go in are leafy greens. I always grow the odd cabbage through winter as they’re frost resistant and handy to feed to the chooks, but my preference is for things like raddichio, rocket, mizuna, spinach and kale. These germinate readily, grow rapidly, and can be harvested a leaf at a time. They’re great in warm salads and stir-fries. Which reminds me: autumn is traditionally a time for feasting, drinking and making merry. Let’s all resolve to “seize the day”.

First published in The Toowoomba Chronicle 2nd March 2010. Photo by Justin Russell “Purple Podded peas”.

Just six days to go and our household will be waking at the crack of dawn to three very excited children. Christmas is nearly here, and with it will come all the paraphernalia that is now associated with one of our few remaining ancient festivals. There’ll be lots of long standing traditions as well, many involving plants, but in the hub-bub of presents and food we don’t tend to dwell upon those. Do you ever stop to think about why on earth we decorate a plastic pine tree? What’s with the tradition of hanging a holly wreath at the front door?

To understand the meaning behind many of these traditions, we have to first put Christmas in a geographical context. In Australia we’re blessed with a wealth of evergreen plants able to survive our relatively mild winters, but in Europe, evergreen plants are actually quite limited in number. Conifers such as yew and fir are the mainstay because of their fine leaves, while others like holly, box, and ivy had tough enough foliage to withstand heavy frosts and snow. Little wonder that in a mostly drab winterscape, people felt the need to bring a bit of greenery into the house. In fifteenth century London it was recorded that at Christmas, every house and parish church was “decked with holm, ivy, bays, and whatsoever the season of the year afforded to be green”.

Our Christmas tradition of adorning a conifer with baubles and other decorations dates back to the Middle Ages, when the Church would hang apples from a tree on Christmas eve, a date on the Medieval calendar known as “Adam and Eve Day”. The chosen tree was an evergreen, most likely a fir tree because it would hold its leaves throughout the European winter, symbolising life and renewal.

Christmas is also about the pear tree. One 18^th century tradition during the twelve day Christmas festival was to go “wassailing” in local pear and apple orchards. The term wassail means be whole or be in good health, and wassailers would pour cider, perry, honey, spices and pulp from baked apples around trees in the orchard in the hope that they might thrive and produce bumper crops. An old rhyme goes: “Wassaile the trees, that they may beare / You many a Plum and many a Peare: / For more or lesse fruits they will bring, / As you do give them Wassailing.”

Rural folklore tells us that the male partridge was once considered in the same light as the rabbit is today – a lusty suitor capable of producing many offspring. So a partridge in a pear tree had connotations of fertility, one of the most common pagan preoccupations. Then there’s the Christian tradition, which suggests that the partridge represents Jesus Christ, the gift of Christmas, and the pear tree symbolising the cross on which he died.

Oliver Cromwell and his post-Reformation Puritan cronies tried to put an end to all this frivolity in the mid 1600’s. Moralisers and wowsers to a man, the Puritans believed that Christmas was a Catholic festival with pagan practices and no biblical basis. So, in 1647 they passed an ordinance banning Christmas. As with most bans, the festival simply went underground. Clandestine church services were held on December 25th and violent clashes occurred in places like Canterbury and London between supporters and opponents of Christmas. Songs such as the Twelve Days of Christmas became radical protest anthems.

The next time you hang a bauble from a pine tree, it’s worth remembering that Christmas has a lot more going for it than spend-ups and booze-ups. Its traditions are deeper and richer than just family get togethers, and its history can help inform the way we live our lives in the future. Decorate your home with evergreens. Bake some apples. Hang a wreath of native holly from the front door. Get beyond the superficiality of what’s become a festival of commerce, and reclaim the old ways of celebrating the 12 day festival the Medievals called Christmastide.

To loyal readers of Secret Garden: a sincere thankyou for supporting the column again in 2009. I count it a great privilege to write about something I love every week, and hope that you’ve caught a bit of my passion for gardening, the seasons and the natural world. Best wishes for a happy and meaningful Christmas, and here’s to a big year of home growing in 2010.

First published in The Chronicle 19th December 2009.

Stonefruit season has arrived again. At least according to the supermarkets, that is. I bought some early season nectarines this morning and honestly, they’re hard enough for Andrew Symonds to whack for six over the straight boundary at the Gabba. The kids tried one though and loved it, so in the interests of fairness, I’ve sliced the cheek off a piece of fruit tonight just to give it a go. I may as well have eaten an early Granny Smith. The nectarine was crunchy, sour, dry, and lacking even a hint of the melting sweetness I crave.

Why must every piece of fruit have the texture of a crisp apple? Is this trend toward conformity a ploy of the food marketing boffins or is it driven by the demand of consumers who’ve never tasted a premium, home-grown piece of fruit? Are we not mature enough to enjoy a range of textures and flavours, like we do with other types of food? Imagine how bland dining out would be if every vegetable on the plate had the texture of raw carrots and every cut of meat tasted like a prawn. You’d be bored stiff.

Let me use the poor old peach as a means of illustrating my point. Big commercial growers and their customers, the supermarkets and fruit shops, are highly unlikely to ever sell a properly ripe peach. Why? A properly ripe peach is soft. It will travel poorly, and just a bit of pressure from a neighbouring piece of fruit will bruise the flesh and allow rot to quickly set it, rendering the fruit unsaleable. Add to that issue the furriness of a peach’s skin. It’s never worried me, but lots of people seem to be so put off by a bit of peach fuzz that they prefer to eat a nectarine, even though a nectarine is simply a smooth skinned peach.

One of the great joys of growing your own fruit is that you are invited to enter a world of diversity. Unlike much of our society, which seems intent on becoming “progressively” more homogenous, home grown fruit promises variety. It enables the home grower to include a few different trees to extend not just the range of flavours, but the length of the harvest. If space is limited, even a single tree offers variety by enabling the grower to pick fruit at various stages of ripeness. I’ll take a choice like this any day over the dictates of a massive supermarket chain.

If you share my enthusiasm for home grown stone fruit, here are my picks of some of the best varieties for the backyard.

Apricots

For centuries the heirloom variety ‘Moorpark’ has been a favourite with both home and commercial growers, and in my view it’s still the pick of the crop. Exquisite flavour and a melting texture. ‘Trevatt’ was bred in Victoria as an all purpose variety that is good bottled, dried, or eaten fresh. Provide well drained soil and a position protected from spring frosts.

Peaches

‘Anzac’ is an Australian bred heirloom that crops early, bears heavily, and features white flesh that makes for very good eating. For those wanting to try their hand at preserving, the variety par excellence is ‘Golden Queen’, though any late ripening, clingstone variety will perform well. Why grow an ornamental flowering peach when you can grow a fruiting variety?

Nectarines

A forgotten variety in the commercial drive for visual perfection, ‘Goldmine’ isn’t much of a looker, yet its white flesh tastes superb. It has the added bonus of being resistant to the fungal disease Peach Leaf Curl. The variety ‘Fantasia’ sounds like a nightclub but it’s actually the world’s most widely grown nectarine, which says something about the quality. All nectarines are self-fertile.

Plums

I’m a sucker for the old European plums like ‘Greengage’ and ‘Coe’s Golden Drop’, considering them to be handsome trees with unbeatable fruit. If I were to put sentimentality aside though, I’d recommend Japanese plums, a distinct species, as the best plum for the average home grower. If a single tree is required ‘Santa Rosa’ is the pick because it doesn’t require a pollinator, but if you have space for a second tree ‘Elephant Heart’ produces blood plums with a delicious cherry flavour.

Cherries

For those living in the higher chill parts of the Downs, cherries are an excellent crop for the backyard. ‘Stella’ is my pick, being self-fertile, resistant to cracking (a problem with cherries), and a slightly dwarfing tree. Another favourite is ‘Napoleon’, an old French cherry that produces delicious yellow-red fruit in time for Christmas. Pollinate with Stella.

First published in The Chronicle 28th November 2009. Photo by Justin Russell.