Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue #12.4 - 2021 i Good Organic Gardening

You’re probably reading this in late spring/early summer but we put this issue together in late winter — albeit a pretty mild one, at least here in this part of the Hunter Valley. While some of the trees, like the glum-looking jacaranda, are completely bare and shivering, the grevilleas and banksias are bursting with flowers as well as with the preposterous colours of the darting lorikeets and rosellas that love these flowering natives. There’s something similar happening in the gumtrees as well, which twitch all day with skirmishing miners and lorikeets and the occasional pair of more dignified galahs. It’s one of the glories of the Australian bush that it’s in winter, when there are fewer pollinating insects around, that many eucalypts choose to put out some of their fancier…

That distinctive sharp flavour of gin is down to the fruit of a spiky evergreen plant called juniper, which is a conifer and part of the cypress family. Although the fruit is smooth and round like a berry, it is technically a modified cone. The link between gin and juniper is a long one as the word “gin” actually derives from an Old French word for juniper. In northern European and Scandinavian countries, juniper berries are also used in brewing to flavour traditional beers and ales. There are many species of juniper (Juniperus spp.) and all produce berries but it is mainly common juniper (J. communis) that is used to flavour gin as its berry is edible. The juniper berry is also used as a spice to flavour foods: strongly…

Life is good on Victoria’s beautiful Bellarine Peninsula. Rachael Withington feels blessed to live there with husband Murray and their two children, Stella and Hugh. The Withingtons’ four-acre block is located in the rural community of Wallington, a 20-minute drive southeast of Geelong. At the back of the property is a 3m×13m vegetable patch overlooking an orchard and horse paddocks. Rachael is a health co-ordinator with the Tribal Wellness Movement, an initiative that supports healthy eating choices for kids and their families. It contributes to Nutrition Plus to promote gardening practices in Indigenous communities and nutritional support for children in schools. You could say her life revolves around good food and has since her childhood. One of her earliest memories is of her grandparents’ vegetable garden in Portland, Victoria, where…

Mushrooms belong to the fungi kingdom. Neither plant nor animal, they are nonetheless truly fascinating and their lifecycle sounds like something from a sci-fi movie. The mushrooms we eat are actually the fruiting bodies of a mycelium that grows on a substrate such as straw, sawdust, logs or even used coffee grounds. The growing mycelium slowly colonises and consumes the substrate before the fruiting bodies, or mushrooms, emerge from the mycelium. Once mature, the mushrooms release spores that land on the substrate and begin the cycle again. (If you’d like to read about this in more detail, the book Milkwood by Australian permaculture experts Kirsten Bradley & Nick Ritar has a whole chapter on mushroom cultivation, including a detailed run-through of the mushroom lifecycle.) Mushroom foraging can be fun and…

High-value tropical crops are attracting interest around the world and one that’s leading the pack is vanilla. Though it was long thought unsuited to climates outside its tropical homelands, growers everywhere are looking at how to produce this valuable plant under protected cropping. One of the world’s leading agricultural research centres, Wageningen University in the Netherlands, is conducting trials growing vanilla undercover and some local growers are already producing crops. As well as being able to produce a tropical crop outside the tropics by growing it within a protected environment, the grower can also manage the vanillin content of the seedpod, one of the ingredients that give vanilla its flavour. Research is also coming up with other important uses for vanillin, one of which is to create a drug to…

Protista and the moulds may sound like the name of a very loud garage band, but they’re actually a group of amazing organisms that silently rule the world. Protista comprise a broad group of single- and multicellular organisms, including brown kelp and mould, which are not plant, fungus or animal but possess characteristics from each group. They have a cell wall that encases their organelles, or mitochondria, which take in nutrients and in some cases chloroplasts that convert sun into sugar. Technically, Protista are eukaryotics, an evolutionarily advanced group of organisms that includes humans. Protista organisms have a far-reaching impact on all forms of life, including plants. The ancient nature of these organisms (believed to be the earlier stages of plant, animal and fungi development) means they can be either…

Ducks are a gardener’s best friend. They’re energetic, inquisitive and very resourceful. And they can eat as many slugs and snails as they like without adverse effects, a luxury denied to fowls, as gastropods are an intermediate host of tapeworms in chooks. There’s no searching for eggs with ducks; laying is usually done and dusted before 9am! The egg supply often continues over winter, which is a real bonus. When you keep ducks you have a crew of active watchdogs and, being insomniacs (because they can see at night), they’ll alert you when kids sneak in late or there’s an intruder around. All this could be code for noisy. There is often much loud quacking at night and the noise travels far on clear evenings. Trouble may result if neighbours…

WHEN AND WHAT TO EAT People are increasingly concerned about what they eat, but when you eat also matters. This new piece of research involved more than 21,000 people, who were followed for 11 years. The findings showed that: • Regularly eating a Western-style lunch of refined grains, cheese and cured meat was associated with a 44 per cent increase in the chances of cardiovascular disease-related death.• Eating a fruit-based lunch was associated with a 34 per cent reduced risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) related death.• Eating a vegetable-based dinner was linked to a 23 per cent reduction in CVD mortality and a 31 per cent reduction in all-causes mortality• Consuming a snack high in starch after any meal was associated with a 50–52 per cent increase in risk of…

When health student Cherrie and her partner Kevin bought their first house on the outskirts of Melbourne, they inherited a large backyard of grass and several small trees. Cherrie thought the extra space would be good for her terrier, Stubbs, but he was not impressed. Cherrie and Kevin already had design ideas for the garden but hadn’t considered what Stubbs might need aside from a kennel: “I realised that we share our garden with Stubbs. It’s not just about us,” says Cherrie. “I wondered what changes we could add to make him feel calmer and enjoy the space more.” With an interest in natural therapies, Cherrie began to look at some low-maintenance solutions that could help bring a sense of serenity into the garden. “I went with perennials such as…

JO IMMIG Jo is an environmental scientist, photographer and writer. She has worked in the environment movement for decades and is co-ordinator of the National Toxics Network, an organisation dedicated to creating a toxic-free future. She has written many articles for magazines and is the author of two books: Toxic Playground and Safer Solutions. SOME ASS HOLES ARE USEFUL Herds of feral donkeys and horses roam the world’s deserts, including parts of northern Australia. Descended from beasts of burden and the workhorses of previous labour forces, they are seen as pests and targeted for mass eradication. However, new research shows they perform an important task that could prove useful as environments become more arid and the climate continues to warm. Both donkeys and horses dig wells, known as “ass holes”,…

If you’ve never heard of sea buckthorn you’re not alone, as it isn’t grown widely in Australia, although it has quite a CV as a medicinal and therapeutic plant. It’s closely related to Elaeagnus, which is often grown as a hedge plant in cool and coastal climate conditions. As its common name suggests, sea buckthorn is a coastal plant and native to northern Europe and Asia. Its name may be familiar from cosmetic labels as it is used in face creams and lotions. The berries in particular are rich in vitamins (including A, B and C) and in antioxidants and are added to some cosmetics as they are said to have anti-ageing properties. The berries are also used in sunscreen lotions, to treat burns and to combat a range of…

Austral-Ind, on the Leschenault Estuary near Bunbury in Western Australia, was founded in the 1840s as a place to breed horses for the British Indian Army. It was a forlorn hope. Poor soil, erratic rainfall and lack of water meant the settlement failed to thrive until the postwar era a century later, when Bunbury began to expand north of the Collie River. Now called Australind, the area is filling up with housing blocks like Jacqueline’s 570m2 property. More than half of her block is lush tropical garden, despite the fact that the local soil is no better than it ever was — lifeless sand, most of it. THERE’S FRUIT HANGING LIKE CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS AND WATERCRESS GROWING IN WATER IN FOAM BOXES UNDER ENORMOUS TROPICAL TREES. Jacqueline started by digging organic…

NOVEMBER 2021 The calendar says it’s still spring but it feels more like summer in many parts of Australia. Staggered planting from now on will extend the summer harvest. DECEMBER 2021 It’s the end of another year but a good time to plant those salad vegies that love the heat, including cherry tomatoes, as well as the wonderful summer cucurbits. ⚫ New moon ◐ First quarter ⚪ Full moon ◑ Last quarter When the moon is waxing from new moon to full moon, it is increasing light and drawing sap flow upwards. During the waning from full moon back to new moon, light decreases and sap is drawn downwards. This movement of sap flow has an influence on how well new plants will grow. There are four phases, each lasting…

The tangy warmth that fresh ginger adds to cooking makes dishes delicious, soothing and uplifting all at the same time. This Asian herb, native to monsoonal rainforest floors, produces knobbly rhizomes beneath thin grass-like leaves up to a metre tall. If your backyard isn’t a frost-free tropical rainforest with free-draining soil and high rainfall, don’t worry because it’s possible to grow ginger as far south as Melbourne — but there are a few tricks to learn. In cooler climates, ginger is best grown during the warmest months of the year. If you’re growing it in pots (which can be repositioned subject to the weather), you can plant out rhizomes from September and completely harvest all the grown ginger rhizomes around April before the temperature drops again. Those of you lucky…

Hats off to zucchinis — they really know how to keep gardeners well fed. Not only bountiful from summer to autumn, they are also fast croppers. Generally, their overabundance means gardeners have excess fruit to give away. Zucchinis are part of the pumpkin and squash tribe and, like those prolific vegetables, they originated from the Americas. Zucchinis form a large-leafed vine with a prickly stem that sprawls out across the garden over summer. While they take up space, their growth has the bonus of deterring weeds. The real excitement starts as the yellow flowers appear among the leaves. These flowers are either male or female and both are needed to form a zucchini. Although the flowers look alike, the difference is that the centre of the male flower is filled…

COOL & TEMPERATE VEGIES • It may be cool still but now’s the time to begin planting herbs such as dill, parsley, oregano, rosemary, rue, thyme and sage. In slightly warmer zones, add basil, sweet or purple, to the mix. Plant lemon balm and mint into pots — you don’t want them taking over!• Once the threat of frost has passed it’s also the time to consider planting summer’s big guns like beetroot, carrots, spuds, cucumber, eggplant, leeks, silverbeet and zucchini.• Shelter your pumpkins under a crop of tall sweet corn, planted in blocks at least a metre square to maximise wind-pollination and yield.• For some garden colour to not only please the eye but also attract pollinators, put in some chamomile, petunias, snapdragons or marigolds.• How’s your garlic looking?…

In traditional medicine, rhodiola (Rhodiola rosea) has many uses. It was first described by Dioscorides in De Materia Medica in about 60 CE. In Russia, Scandinavia, Mongolia and China, rhodiola has been used for centuries to cope with the bitterly cold climate and stressful lives. It was also used to increase physical endurance and resistance to high altitudes. Its main use, however, was as a brain tonic, but it was believed to relieve anaemia, fatigue and depression as well as for infections, infertility, impotence and gastrointestinal disorders. While there is some debate about the effectiveness of rhodiola (largely due to lack of recent clinical research), there is a long history of its effective use in those countries. RHODIOLA HAS BEEN SHOWN TO HAVE NEUROPROTECTIVE PROPERTIES AND IMPROVES SYMPTOMS OF DEPRESSION,…

Nestled in the suburb of Palmwoods behind Queensland’s Sunshine Coast is a garden humming with activity and overflowing with fresh produce. Its owner, Anne Gibson, having recently downsized from 10.5 acres to just 450m2, has been brainstorming how to use every available square inch. As she says, the bonus of gardening in the subtropics is you can grow a wide range of edibles all year round. There are really five seasons in Southeast Queensland, she adds, which throws up all sorts of weather-related challenges. “The trickiest is our summer period, December to March,” Anne says. “The heat, humidity, storms and increased insect activity are enough to make even the most experienced gardener despair at times.” Anne manages her summer gardening by working early in the morning and late in the…

Have you ever thought about growing some more unusual fruiting trees? If you’re in a warm temperate, subtropical or tropical location there is a plethora of choices. Keep in mind, though, that quite a number of tropical and subtropical fruiting trees will grow in a wide variety of climatic zones if frosts are limited and you have the right microclimate. BASIC FRUIT TREE CARE It’s all about the dirt. For fruit tree success, soil preparation is key. Adding good amounts of organic matter in the form of compost and well-rotted animal manures is a good start. If your soil has poor drainage, organic matter will help improve this with the addition of some gypsum as well. Raising the soil level and planting your trees in a mound is another option…

COOL & TEMPERATE VEGIES • It’s finally warmed up now, even in cooler areas. Seedlings planted in November as well as ripening salad crops could use a feed around about now — a seaweed tea or low-environmental-impact liquid fertiliser — plus some shade and regular water. Plant dwarf beans from seed for a quick crop.• Now is a good time to put in capsicums, cucurbits and, if you haven’t planted some already, sweet corn. You might also try tomatillos and maybe a crop of borlotti beans for autumn harvest.• It’s a good idea to check the vegie garden once or twice a day. Be on the lookout for pests as well as crops to harvest. Take the hose or watering can with you. On hot days, water early in the…

According to the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, “Food is thy medicine.” I’m not a herbal health expert and I’ve not written my book Future-steading (see below right) to share extensive wisdom on the topic. But a book about connection to the natural world, ritual building, self-care, nourishment, localisation and seasonal life would not be complete without acknowledging that an ability to make and use herbal remedies would join the dots for resilience as comprehensively as food production. Herbal health remedies are as much about the growing process and the power of pouring love into the creation of poultices and potions as they are about soothing a specific ailment. However, I want to shine a light on the idea that you could in fact support your own health and vitality simply…

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