The Benefits of Liquid Fertiliser

by Justin Russell on October 28, 2011

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.

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Lilac – A Spring Showstopper

by Justin Russell on October 22, 2011

Our lilac is flowering! This is cause for celebration in any spring, but it’s extra special this year because the plant was given to us by a friend over at Ravensbourne (thanks Kym). Her garden is warmer than ours, so the lilacs she had planted never bloomed very well. Rather than coddle them along she dug the mature shrubs out of the ground and gave them away. I love this aspect of gardening culture – the swapping of plants and hard won wisdom, so I was really keen to see the plant thrive.

For a year it piddled along and did next to nothing other than blow over in a storm. I re-staked it, mulched, gave it plenty of seaweed extract and a dressing of wood ash in the hope that it would get a liking for our conditions and send out lots of beautiful new roots. For months during summer and autumn our lilac looked horrible. It was alive, but had failed to leaf out and was a bunch of bare sticks in an otherwise lush garden. Now, after a cold winter, the lilac looks beautiful. It’s covered with big panicles of grape coloured flowers and the fragrance…wow. What a knockout.

I should have had more faith that the plant would do well. For those who aren’t aware, the lilac genus, Syringa, is most closely related to privet and that’s a plant in more than enough abundance around our parts. We have a large windbreak of the non-weedy small leaved variety on the western side of our house. It was planted thirty years ago by the property’s original owners and went absolutely ballistic during last summer’s big wet. Down at the creek, the large leafed privet is a serious weed. What’s more, lilacs are generally grafted onto a privet rootstock. Should I be surprised that our plant is thriving? Probably not.

When push comes to shove, lilacs are a tough and adaptable plant. Their ideal conditions are a slightly alkaline, relatively impoverished soil, plenty of sun in summer, and a cold winter to produce the best flower displays. I’m not sure if they’re growing lilacs down at Stanthorpe, but their conditions should be ideal. In the blacksoil parts of the Downs, it would pay to improve drainage with some gypsum and compost, while on the red soil plateaus an annual dressing of lime (or wood ash) each autumn.

Lilacs are best purchased bare-rooted in winter and for best results, a special technique should be used when planting. You see, lilacs are difficult plants to strike from cuttings. But they are easy to graft, so propagators put the named lilac variety onto either a seedling lilac or a privet rootstock. However, privet grafts usually fail in five to ten years and lilac seedlings tend to have inferior flowers. Both these problems can be overcome by planting your lilac extra deep, making sure the graft union is buried about 20cm below soil level. In time the named lilac will grow its own roots above the graft, and any suckers coming from below ground can simply be cut out. Note that this is the opposite of what you should do for most grafted trees, which need to be planted with the graft union above soil level.

As for pruning lilacs, there’s two golden rules: first, avoid pruning if you don’t need to; and second, if you must prune, do it just after the plant his finished flowering. Lilacs flower on wood formed the previous summer and autumn, so if you prune in April or July, you’ll be cutting off all the flower buds. Who wants a lilac that never flowers? Not me. Flowers are the lilac’s raison d’etre.

There are more than 2,000 named lilac cultivars, but the most commonly available in Australia are either hybrids or cultivated forms of Syringa vulgaris, the common lilac native to the Balkan Peninsula. The vulgaris types tend to have more fragrant flowers, so I’d be inclined to keep an eye out for ‘Belle de Nancy’ (compact, mauve flowers), ‘Congo’ (dark purple flowers), ‘Madame Lemoine’ (pure white, double flowers) and ‘Sensation’ (purple flowers with a white border). Specialist growers are also likely to have a range of species available, including Syringa afghanica, which has pastel blue flowers and lacy foliage.

I have absolutely no idea what variety the lilac in my garden is. And you know what? I don’t really care. I’m just happy that the plant survived the wettest summer in 40 years, and that it’s flowering. You’ll excuse me then, if I finish up for another week and race outside to take a whiff of that heady fragrance.

 

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 15th October 2011. Photo by Justin Russell

Don’t forget to check out our new site, The Radish, edible gardening from roots to fruits.

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Announcement – The Radish is live!

by Justin Russell on October 17, 2011

The garden at Thistlebrook has gone to the dogs. Weeds have taken hold. The lawns need mowing. Seedlings sit in the greenhouse waiting to be planted. The neglect is plain to see, but there’s a good reason. For the last month or so I’ve been holed up in my office putting the finishing touches on a brand new project designed specifically for home food growers.

The Radish, a blog about edible gardening from roots to fruits, is now live! We’ll be updating a few times per week with articles and growing fruit, vegies and herbs, ideas for using your produce in the kitchen, and for the adventurous, some of my deeper thoughts (I do have them occasionally!) on “the good life” and agrarianism.

We think the new site is going to be a blast, and while I’ll still be posting my weekly updates here at thistlebrook.com.au, I’d really encourage you to subscribe to The Radish. Subscriptions are free, and all you need to do is click on the appropriate links at the top of the site, or better still, skip straight to the subscription links by clicking here to subscribe by email or by RSS feed. In return you’ll get lots of helpful and thought provoking articles delivered straight to your inbox or feed reader.

I’d love to hear your feedback on the site, so please let us know what you think. And get involved, if you can. The comments section below each post is the ideal place to ask questions, answer questions and share your own tips with fellow home growers.

That’s it for now, other than to say, head over and check out The Radish.

Happy gardening,

Justin

p.s. If you’re wondering how we came up with the name for The Radish have a read of our About page.

 

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An Apple for Every Climate

by Justin Russell on October 14, 2011

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.

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A Classic Plant Combination

by Justin Russell on October 7, 2011

One of the best plant combinations I’ve ever seen was in the garden at Vineyard Cottages in Ballandean. On a central arbour marking the axis of two intersecting paths is a yellow banskia rose, and a purple Chinese wisteria. The two were in flower when I visited a number of years ago, and the image will be forever burnt in my memory. The purple and yellow flowers set against the hazy blue backdrop of Sundown National Park was simply stunning!

Is it any wonder? Everything about the combination is spot on. Yellow and purple complement each other on the colour wheel, which means that in theory, the combination should work nicely. But as any half knowledgeable artist will tell you, mixing colours also has a lot to do with combining the right shades of a certain colour. In the case of banksia rose, the yellow is a soft lemon shade, which means it teams perfectly with the wisteria’s dusky lavender.

But there’s more to a good plant combination than colour alone. The other reason banksia rose and wisteria work so well together is that they both like very similar growing conditions. Because they hail from the botanical hotspot of southern China, which has a climate ranging from alpine to subtropical, the two plants thrive right across the Darling Downs. Cold winters aren’t a problem, nor is drought, heat, or heavy black soil.

The only major difference between the two plants is the way in which they are pruned. Banksia roses are a cinch. Unlike most modern shrub roses that flower on the current season’s growth, banksia roses flower on wood that grew last summer, and the plants only flower once in spring. So if you’re going to prune you should do so just after the plant has finished flowering. This will give the new wood a chance to form before the plant goes dormant in winter. Don’t prune in winter like you would other roses. If you do, you’ll cut off all the flowering wood for the following spring.

Wisterias are a bit harder to prune, but they’re not as difficult as many gardeners imagine. Unlike banksia roses, wisteria flowers on short, finger-like spurs that form along lateral branches growing from the main trunk. With this in mind, wisterias are pruned for two reasons: to keep the plant relatively compact, and to encourage the formation of these flower spurs.

Ideally, wisterias are pruned twice a year. After the plant has finished flowering in spring it will start to send out lots of whippy shoots. In summer, these “side shoots” can be pruned back to about 30cm from where they originate on the lateral branch, leaving about four to six leaves on the shoot. If you want to extend the plant, leave some of these side shoots in place to grow on. Then in late winter, shorten the side shoots you pruned in summer even further. Take them back to about two or three buds. This will encourage the side shoots to become flowering spurs, and all being well, you’ll get to enjoy a magnificent display of flowers in September.

Besides staying on top of summer and winter pruning, the other way you can encourage wisteria to flower is by growing them in quite lean soil. Avoid applying lots of high nitrogen fertiliser. All this will do is tell the plant to send out new growth and you’ll end up with a triffid-like monster that never flowers but does a great job of crushing your back fence with it’s weight. Fertilise your banksia rose after pruning to encourage new flowering wood, by all means. But with your wisteria you should either avoid fertilising altogether, or at most, apply some “flower and fruit” fertiliser that’s low in nitrogen but high in potassium and phosphorous.

Finally, if you’re going to grow a banksia rose/wisteria combination, it pays to give a bit of thought to what you’re going to use to support the plants. Strength is a primary consideration, as a mature wisteria is heavy, and a mature banskia rose only slightly less so. In the garden down at Ballandean the plants were trained on an arbour made from solid hardwood, but they also had a wisteria growing on a solid post-and-rail boundary fence. If you’re handy with a welder, or know someone who is, steel can be a more reliable choice.

Combining plants for best effect is an art form, just like any other. Good combinations are hard to achieve, so if you’re after a showstopper for your garden, take my advice – banksia rose and wisteria are a match made in horticultural heaven.

 

First puublished in the Toowoomba Chronicle 1st October 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, wisteria and banksia rose, Vineyard Cottages, Ballandean.

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Growing Strawberries the Easy Way

by Justin Russell on September 30, 2011

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.

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Garden City or Mining Boom?

by Justin Russell on September 30, 2011

Today, the Saturday of the Carnival of Flowers parade, is the biggest day of the year in Toowoomba and for the first time in a decade the Garden City is truly living up to its name. Thank goodness for summer rain. There was always going to be long term benefits from last January’s floods, and its fair to say they’ve arrived. The annual flowers appear to be brighter than ever and the new foliage on deciduous trees is the most exciting shade of lime green I’ve ever seen. Such a magnificent display is largely due to good soil moisture, flowing creeks and rivers, and full dams.

This year I’m hoping to get out to lots of local gardens to take it all in. I’d encourage you to do the same. So many people put in such a huge amount of work to get Toowoomba ready for Carnival that it would be a shame to see their efforts go to waste. Have a picnic in one of the city’s parks. Tour some of the prizewinning gardens. Have a wander through some of the outstanding exhibition gardens, open for charity. A spring like this doesn’t come around often so my advice is to breathe it all in and give thanks for nature’s beauty and abundance.

Then, once the parade floats are back in storage and the annuals are starting to fade in the summer heat, I’d urge you to do something else – take some time to reflect on what you’d like Toowoomba to be in the future. I know it’s an odd suggestion, especially on a day when we’re supposed to be celebrating everything great about Toowoomba, but the way I see it, the city is at a crossroads.

Toowoomba can go in one of two directions in the current decade: it can become the support centre for a vast extractive industry based around the mining of coal, and coal seam gas; or it can become the sustainable food and farming capital of Australia. Don’t fall for the hype that we can have a kind of hybrid future where mining and agriculture can coexist. They can’t. It’s one or the other, and the citizens of the Toowoomba region and our elected leaders have to make a choice.

The former option, Toowoomba as a mining support centre, is short-sighted in the extreme. It is short-sighted for the reason that we forget the simple scientific fact that every child gets taught in primary school – some resources are not renewable. In other words, mines have a lifespan. They are productive for two or three decades until the minerals therein are exhausted, and extraction becomes non-viable. There’s absolutely no doubt that during the lifespan of a mining project jobs and wealth will be created (as long as China keeps buying our resources), but the question we ought to be asking is what happens in 30 years when the gas rigs have rolled out of town and the open cut mines are being “rehabilitated”.

Toowoomba might be close to some non-renewable energy reserves, but let’s not forget that the city also sits smack bang in the middle of some of the richest farmland in Australia. To the east is the Lockyer Valley with it’s famous black soil. To the west, the fertile alluvial plains adjoining the Condamine River and its tributaries. To the north, productive red soil range lands prized for market gardens, dairying and livestock. And to the south, the Granite Belt, internationally renowned for its orchards and vineyards. If we look after our farmland it has the potential to feed and clothe a growing population for many decades to come.

For what it’s worth, I’ve decided to throw in my lot with a future based around sustainable farming and food so here’s what I’d love to see happen within the decade: greater support for the development of farmers markets and other innovative means of getting locally produced food to local communities; the creation of more food producing community gardens in Toowoomba and the larger towns; a kitchen garden in every school across the Toowoomba region; schemes to help enthusiastic young farmers get access to land; and most basic of all, rock solid protection of our best quality farmland from all forms of mining.

So what will we choose – Toowoomba the Mining City, or Toowoomba the Garden City? One promises to create rivers of gold for a short period of time but will come with long term by-products like pollution, degradation of farmland, and in the case of coal seam gas, mountains of salt spewed up in the drilling process. Toowoomba the Garden City might not create rivers of gold, but if managed well, it can sustain us well into the future. I’ve made my choice, and it’s to get back to the garden. What about you?

 

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 17th September 2011.

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The Problem with Artificial Fertilisers

by Justin Russell on September 16, 2011

When Kylie and I were newly married and had moved into our first house, we were given a tiny little hand-me-down black and white TV. Being a long-time footy fan, I’d attempt to watch games in black and white, and Ill tell you, it was a seriously frustrating experience. It was almost impossible sometimes to distinguish between the opposing teams.

A year or so later we inherited another TV, still a tiny little box but this time, a whiz bang colour version. You can guess what happened. The change from watching the footy in black and white to watching it in vibrant colour was absolutely mind blowing.

This is how I like to think about spring – it’s as if nature is suddenly playing out in full colour, rather than black and white. Life appears to be bursting forth all over the place, and there’s an obvious sense of urgency in the air. The garden looks fresh, but I know that some plants are using up all their stored energy reserves and will soon be hungry. One of the major spring tasks for the gardener, therefore, is to provide nourishment. But there’s a catch: nourishment means a lot more in garden terms than simply throwing around a packet of urea or super-phosphate in the hope that it will “green things up”.

The true way to a healthy, well nourished garden is by continually building healthy, biologically active soil. Bottom line. Healthy soil is a diverse ecosystem full of decomposed rock minerals, decayed organic matter, micro-organisms, and beneficial fungi, and will therefore support plants that naturally resist pests and disease. By contrast, gardens that are over fed with artificial fertilisers look lush, but they’re actually bloated and sappy, fed on what is the equivalent of junk food.

I use no artificial fertilisers in my garden at all. Nothing is applied to the soil or a pot that is based on synthetic chemicals, which means no orange slow release pellets, no ammonia or urea, no super-phosphate and no soluble “liquid” fertilisers. None. These fertilisers damage, rather than enhance, soil life, so the only fertilisers I use are those made from natural products such as manure, blood and bone, worm poo, fish emulsion and rock minerals. This is not a boast, just a simple statement of my principles, and actions.

One of the reasons I abhor the use of chemical fertilisers is because in my view, they are weapons of violence and war. If you think this sounds far fetched, consider the history of chemical fertiliser use. It all began in the peace-time years immediately following World War Two. Munitions factories that had been making bombs from ammonium nitrate were re-purposed to produce cheap, nitrogen-rich agricultural fertilisers. More recently, ammonium nitrate fertiliser was used to make bombs used in July’s Mumbai bombings and confessed Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik even went as far as to purchase a farm so that he could access chemical fertilisers to make bombs.

This isn’t to say that chemical fertilisers can’t be used for peaceful purposes. Of course they can. There is also no doubt that the use of chemical fertilisers have greatly increased crop yields, and as a consequence fed billions of people. But so have natural fertilisers, and they can be used with few of the risks associated with synthetic chemicals.

One of the major issues arising from over reliance on artificial fertilisers is a serious deterioration in soil quality. Chemicals can provide specific plant nutrients, but they contribute nothing to the biological activity of soil and excessive use can lead to ground that is effectively dead – nothing more than a medium to keep plants from falling over. An obvious consequence of poor soil quality is even greater dependence on artificial fertiliser for a farm or garden to remain productive.

The washup is that I’m not what you’d call a gung-ho plant feeder. I never throw fertiliser around willy nilly, even if it’s a natural product, and I only fertilise in a limited range of scenarios: to give young seedlings raised in pots a healthy start; to provide nutrients to container plants grown in potting mix; to replace nutrients leached on very free draining soil; to ensure healthy growth of particularly hungry plants such as citrus trees and vegies; and to give a quick boost to heavily pruned plants such as roses.

I basically ignore all the gardening experts telling me to fertilise like there’s no tomorrow. Instead, my real concern is with the soil. I’ll use fertiliser when and if it’s required, but my overwhelming concern is with the health of my soil. Nourish it, and not only will my plants be well-fed, but I will be too.

 

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 10th September 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, unfertilised cottage garden in spring.

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September

by Justin Russell on September 8, 2011

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.

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Cherries: Sweet, Sour and Ornamental

by Justin Russell on September 8, 2011

Blossom season has arrived on the Downs, and we ought to celebrate. It’s a privilege to inhabit a part of the world that experiences four seasons, and considering our spring is fleetingly intense we should all make an effort to embrace the wonder of the natural cycle.

If we were living in Japan, a nation beset by catastrophes far more monstrous than our January floods, spring blossom would currently be a national obsession, with hanami (flower viewing) parties held in parks and gardens throughout the islands. And rightly so. On the back of a winter that has been colder and drier than average, spring is a welcome gift. It’s a reminder that change, though inevitable, brings opportunities for renewal.

While a range of blossom trees are enjoyed in Japan, the plant at the centre of the hanami festival is Prunus serrulata, the non-fruiting, ornamental cherry known by the Japanese as sakura. The tree is widely grown outside of Japan, and though the species is uncommon on the Downs, it’s many cultivars, including ‘Kanzan’, ‘Shirotae’ and ‘Ukon’ are popular.

I haven’t grown any of these varieties in my garden yet, but I do have a Prunus ‘Okame’, planted (with thanks) by the previous owners and currently blooming in all its spring glory. Being a hybrid between the Formosan cherry (Prunus campanulata) and the Mt Fuji cherry (Prunus incisa), Okame combines the best features of each species. It produces a mass of pink flowers on a fairly upright tree in early spring, much like P. campanulata, while colouring up superbly in autumn like P. incisa. It really is a beautiful, undervalued plant.

But as much as I love our Okame, my enthusiasm for cherries is directed mostly toward the edible cherries, both sweet and sour. Sharing many of the same attributes as the non-fruiting species, fruit bearing cherries are just as ornamental in spring but come with the significant bonus of delicious, home-grown produce. Why Toowoomba Regional Council doesn’t plant edible versions of some plants is beyond me. Imagine being able to wander through a local park, enjoying not just the shade of a cherry tree on a summer’s day, but also being able to harvest some fruit. It would mean that TRC would have to resist spraying the trees with chemicals, lest they poison the public, but that wouldn’t be a bad outcome.

If council was to get adventurous with its public plantings, the cherry I’d recommend above all others is the sour cherry, Prunus cerasus. In Australia sour cherries carry the stigma of being a “cooking” fruit, but in Europe it is by far the most commonly grown cherry tree. The reason it’s so popular overseas is that the tree has considerable advantages over its sweet cousin.

Cold winters are essential for both species, but sour cherries tolerate more summer heat, are genuinely self-fertile, are less attractive to birds, come into bearing earlier, and form a tree half the size of the sweet cherry, which can reach a height of 10 metres. Additionally, the fruit of sour cherries won’t split open during wet weather like some sweet varieties do, and the tree is more resistant to brown rot.

These advantages apply equally to home gardeners. I’ve just planted a Morello sour cherry in my garden and I’m looking forward to using the fruit in the kitchen. Maggie Beer is a big fan of sour cherries, as is UK smallholder Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall of River Cottage fame, who describes jam made from Morello cherries as “superb”.

Last but, certainly not least is everyone’s favourite, the sweet cherry. Christmas lunch in the Russell family wouldn’t be complete if a bowl of sweet cherries wasn’t on the table alongside the bon-bons and baked ham. This summer, I’m hoping to harvest the first fruit from our own trees. To keep them small and net the fruit against birds – the botanical name of sweet cherries is Prunus avium, after all – I’m growing the trees in a restricted bush form, where the vigour of the tree is spread over a large number of small branches.

To date I’ve planted Stella, a self fertile variety from Canada and Naploeon, an old French “white” cherry, but have two more waiting to go in the ground, the NSW bred ‘Ron’s Seedling’, and ‘Early Burlat’, developed in Morocco during the 1930′s. There are many other good varieties beside these four. If you’re keen to give sweet cherries a try be prepared to prune the trees to keep them manageable, consider their pollination requirements, and most importantly, plant in a cold micro-climate. Cherries, both sweet and sour, are fruit for the coolest parts of the Downs. But if you do manage to get cherries thriving, these superb trees will provide generous rewards for many seasons to come.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 27 August 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, Okame Cherry.

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