community | Balmain High

By MEREDITH KIRTON

Recently Mark Morrison, owner of online plant supplier, Morrison’s Garden Centre, which sells plants and products and delivers to the Sydney Metropolitan Area, has been working not in cyber space but in reality, doing great work with disabled children from Sydney’s Inner West.

Like many people, Mark has become interested in home grown produce and now sells and installs corrugated tank veggie gardens. (pic attached of example).  He was also instrumental in developing a veggie garden at Balmain High and provide ongoing support there for the staff of the Support Unit for disabled children.  A few images of the delight these kids are feeling from their interaction with their crops are attached.

Mark Morrison is a member of the  Australian Institute of Horticulture and is a Certified Nursery Practitioner.

His contact details are:

Morrison’s Garden Centre
Phone: 0409 201 063
Email: info@morrisonsgardencentre.com.au
Web: www.morrisonsgardencentre.com.au

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harvest | fennel

By MANDY SINCLAIR

Storage:
Always store fennel with feathery tops attached. Store in refrigerator for up to 5 days.

What to do with glut

• Freeze

Trim fennel then halve or leave whole. Blanch in a large pan of boiling water for 5 mins. Drain and refresh under cold water. Drain very well and pat dry with a clean tea towel. Pack fennel in clip lock bags and freeze for up to 1 month.

• Preserve
  

Fennel Oil

2 fennel bulbs, ends trimmed, bulb chopped
2 cups extra virgin olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 120C or 100C fan. Place fennel in a large baking dish. Pour over oil. Bake for 2hrs, until fennel has collapsed and very soft. Cool.
2. Strain oil, discarding solids. Pour oil into a sterilized jar or bottle.

Use when cooking fish, brushed on pizzas or tossed through pasta.

Pickled fennel

Combine 3 cups white vinegar, 1½ cups white sugar and 2 tbsp salt in a pan on medium heat. Stir until sugar dissolves. Increase heat to high and boil for 5 mins. Add 2 trimmed and chopped bulbs of fennel. Cover and remove from heat. Stand for 10 mins. Pack fennel into sterlised jars and cover with vinegar mixture. Seal and tore in a cool dark place for 1 week before using.

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grow | caulifower

By MEREDITH KIRTON

Cauliflower is one of those cold hardy vegetables that come into their own at winter when choices from the garden start to diminish.  It’s actually the flower head in bud that is eaten traditionally, but the stalks are also edible and can be peeled and then sliced up and added to stir fries and the like. Cauliflower is not a repeat harvesting plant, so the best way to ensure continuous cropping is to stagger planting times.  The first row could go into the ground in early March and then every fortnight plant another half dozen plants right up until May so that they all mature at different times and you have a continuous succession to nibble on.

Cauliflowers need a well dug over patch with added lime to “sweeten” the soil and stop it getting a condition where the stem and heart rots and turns black, which is a result of lack of available calcium caused by overly acid soils.  Many people also mix sage intro their rows of cauliflowers to try and repel white cabbage moth, which can also attach the outer leaves of the cauliflower.  Try mixing in other crops to distract them from their targets too, and even try the green-headed type as a novelty.

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grow | garlic

By MEREDITH KIRTON

Whether or not vampires are repelled by Garlic (Allium sativum) is not so important these days…. it’s just about how good it tastes! So don’t settle for imported garlic, grow your own flavoursome, organic bulbs and taste the difference.
It’s so easy too.  Simply get an organically grown knob from your grocer, or order some gloves from a seed supplier like Green Harvest Seeds, and then you’re ready to dig.  Choose a sunny, well drained position and plant each glove about 15cm apart and push them into the soil about down to your first knuckle joint on your finger.  This is traditionally down in the winter solstice and then they are ready to harvest in the summer solstice, but you can tell when they are ready to pull as the leaves start to loose their greeness.  They are then ready for hanging undercover where they can dry out and be suitable for storing.  Try planting 12 bulbs so you have a knob for each month, more if you really are garlic dependant!

You might also like to try Spanish or Giant Garlic (A. scorodoprasum) which has a dark violet bulb wrapper or Elephant Garlic.  The general guide is that the larger the bulb is the subtler the flavour and the smaller the bulb the more intense.  Garlic lovers can also try garlic chives, which are ideal for adding that flavour but can be grown in pots or as a border in the garden and don’t take up as much room.

There is a very good book too by Penny Woodward called Garlic and Friends. It has recipes for cold treatments, the history of garlic and many other interesting facts with its 248 pages.

Also, all garlic imported to Australia is sprayed with Methyl Bromide, another good reason to grow your own.

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grow | capsicum

By MEREDITH KIRTON

Peppers, as Capsicums are also known, are the mild mannered cousins ofchilli.  The sweeter, larger fruit form all summer and autumn and can be eaten immature, (green) or fully ripe (red).  There are also long and bellshaped peppers, and some have orange, purple or yellow skins.

Capsicums love the hot weather, and in fact can only be grown when the temps get above 21 degrees, so don’t bother sowing in winter or early spring unless you have a glasshouse or similar.  Six plants should feedthe family, spaced about 60cm apart.

Your soil should be well fortified with manure as capsicums love a bit of fertiliser, especially chook poo!  Whilst they happily grow in the heat and thrive in full sun, they do need regular and even water supply in order to set fruit.

Pick capsicum when the fruit is firm, at whatever colour stage you prefer. Heavily laden bushes may need staking.  Like tomatoes, the fruit can suffer from fruit fly attack so baits will help and nets can protect them from bird attack.

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grow | almonds

By MEREDITH KIRTON

Middle eastern and Mediterranean countries have long loved the almond, but Australia does have some fine areas for growing our own nuts, like the Adelaide Hills and Riverina.  In fact, almonds just like mild winters, no severe spring frosts, which damage developing kernels, and warm, dry summers and humidity and water logging can be a problem.  Water requirements are minimal compared to many fruit trees, and they are drought resistant once established.

Growing to about 6m in height and width, the tree is ideal for the backyard, but does need to either be one of the self pollinating types, or planted with another variety to cross with and make sure bees are about to do their work!

Depending on your taste and microclimate, almonds are either picked in January/ February, when they are young and bitter, or in March/April, when the kernel is sweeter.  Simply spread out a sheet, knock the nuts off the tree and gather up the sheet and your crop.  Peel off the flesh and the nut lays inside.

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community | open garden

By MEREDITH KIRTON

Mandy Stubbs, discovered her passion for permaculture 3 years ago.  Her garden prior to this conversion was supposed to have been a fairly easy care affair (and for 9 years this suited them well (except when the drought hit the following year and much of it died!) …that is until the reality of global warming and climate change struck, and books like those of David Suzuki changed her perspective on everything. Husband Paul is slower to yield, however, and at the moment is prone to thinking, in the mind of Mandy at least, that she’s always “going on about the planet and being an Eco Warrior …driving him around the bend!”

Mandy firmly believes “not to be put off by what others think.  If you believe it you can’t help yourself, but act”.  Now a coordinator of the Permaculture Sydney North Lane Cove Group (www.permaculturenorth.org.au) , Mandy does lots for the cause, including helping at Permapatch (www.Permapatch.org.au) , a community garden in the grounds of Chatswood’s Uniting Church on Mowbray Road, which has about 50 members, and designing many of the Permaculture’s garden displays for various shows, including one which she got to take out the coveted “Garden Display Award” for in the 2008 Gardening Australia Expo Sydney.  “I got to kiss Peter Cundal”, remembers Mandy, “and show people that they can grow edibles in small spaces in Sydney, in everything from pots and vertical plantings”.

Mandy certainly lives what she believes, with her garden reaping many vegetables and recycling all its green waste with worms, compost and chickens. “I adore my chooks”, says Mandy, “you give them scraps and they give you manure and eggs!”  Mandy’s own mother taught her much as a child growing up in England.  “I grew up with all those fabulous fruits, chicken, rabbits, veggies.  Everything was home grown and home made, even many of our clothes”.   Economic necessity was the reason back then, and might be the persuasion needed for Mandy’s own son. Nick, 22, is certainly beginning to see the garden in a new light too.  “He’s starting to come around”, says Mandy, “especially seeing he needs the money, so often asks if he can help!”

Always there is work to be done in the garden, but Mandy’s favourite time is going out at 6pm into the garden with a glass of wine and finding something to pick for dinner.  “I love looking at all the things – cuttings, seeds and so on, that I’ve been given by friends”.  Mandy believes in giving back, and plans for 2011 include a “greening the verges” project in her suburb where grass is replaced by food bearing and nature attracting plants, and she can stick in a sign that reads “please pick the food”!

Mandy Stubbs’ garden is open as part of the Australian Open Garden Scheme 26 and 27 March, 2011
The address is 5 Second Ave, Lane Cove.  There will be fee talks at 11am and 2pm daily on permaculture and composting.

There are around 150 different species of edible plants to encourage diversity. Verge planting with fig, guava, apple, herbs and veg.  Also pure breed chickens, bee hive, composting, worm farms, rain tanks, water recycling, solar. Tea, coffee, homemade cake. Homegrown/homemade items for sale. Diverse range of organic herb and vegetable seedlings for sale.   Experts will be on hand all day to answer gardening and sustainability questions. Sponsoring Permaculture North Lane Cove, towards helping the community live sustainably in all different kinds of ways. $6 Open Garden Scheme entry fee.  www.permaculturenorth.org.au

Photography by SUE STUBBS  | Blog designed by RED PEPPER GRAPHICS