Growing your own Heirloom Vegetables

Bringing C02 down to earth

•M KEY TO GROWING INSTRUCTIONS - ICONS

>ee key to growing instructions (right) • VEGETABLE GARDEN - Seeds and bulbs

PLANT TYPE I LIFE CYCLE ow to use this book HA Hardy Annual: survives frost. Life cycle 4-12 months. TA Tender Annual: frost sensitive.

HB Hardy biennial: life cycle 2 growing seasons

[ND YOUR CLIMATE COLOUR for Hp Hardy perennial. igetables you can grow nr Perennial roots with annual flowers, (life cycle 2 years plus). TP Tender perennial: dies in frosty areas. Cool Warm Hot

>e the 'Growing Days map' on p43 to guide you SEED SOWING —S°: Sow direct outside. your selection of vegetables and when to sow (see p44-45) sow ^ S': Sow as seedling into pots then transplant 21T1. sow outside.

Find your location on the map. This indicates _,„„ „ _, Space between rows by Spacing of seeds / transplants. p e number of growing days in your region. We m/cm x mlcm sp ace be,ween plants ve grouped the growing days into three broad Cool Warm Hot TEMPERATURE mes represented by icons that are coloured blue, Tasmania Melb-Adel Bris. Perth, GROWING DAYS inland Sydney een or yellow. The number of growing days Number days over 15°C Below 150 days 150-240 days 240+ days GROW GROW GROW {ermines what vegetables you can grow and months months months hen it is best to grow them. On p44-45 select the ilumn marked in your growing zone colour, and DAYS TO HARVEST Harvest Days from sowing seed days (including seedling stage). ant out your seeds in the months indicated for ch vegetable. Each individual vegetable entry ill display the climate colours and months of FRUITING TREES & SHRUBS - Container grown plants •wing appropriate for that vegetable. GROWING ZONES Cool Warm Warm Hot Growing Days X Cold Zone Coastal Inland IND YOUR CLIMATE COLOUR for Tas, Melb,M| Mildura. Sydney. Areas Ballaral, Adol. Dubbo. Perth. uiting trees and shrubs you can grow Orange. Bega, T'woomba Brisbane Canb Bunbury ;ooi Warm Warm Hot Growing Days 1-150 150-240 150-240 240+ Coastal Inland se the 'Cold Zone map' on p42 to ascertain what Cold Zones 9a.9b 10 9b 10,11,12 :es, shrubs, climbers and perennials you can grow a Frost icon !;ft| $ your area. Find your location on the map, it will Minimum Temperatures -7°C -rc P-4°CI -1°c i covered by one of the four colours, blue, pink, een or yellow indicating different zones. Fruit ants will be permanent members of your garden id are likely to be acquired as young plants in HEIGHT AND WIDTH J Height of mature plant >ts, or bare-rooted in winter in the case of some " Width of mature plant :ciduous trees, canes or shrubs. FOLIAGE (Jjk Evergreen

^ Deciduous

[ow do I grow fruit and vegetables? ^ Semi-Deciduous ;e the icon table (right) and on the inside of the ick cover for the symbols used for the type of SEASON OF HARVEST Harvest ant, sowing method, spacing and harvest icons month ir vegetables. TOTAL PRODUCE Yield The icons for fruiting trees and shrubs cover ost tolerance/intolerance, climate, height and idth of plant, type of foliage, harvest month and SUNLIGHT AND WATER REQUIREMENTS kely yield. equired sunlight icons are on the bottom section SUNLIGHT REQUIRED ^ Full sun F the page. Part sun or part shade

^ Shade only

WATER 444 Constantly moist soil (Above 850mm rainfall) Vegetables must be kept moist at alt times unless otherwise 44 Seasonal watering indicated in the text. 4 Drought tolerant (Below 500mm rainfall)

Heirloom pumpkin display at 'Fork to Fork' cafe, Heronswood Growing your own Heirloom Vegetables

Bringing C02 down to earth

Dedicated to Kent Whealey who rescued 25,000 heirloom vegetable varieties world wide through the Seed Savers Exchange. Clive Blazey Thank-you We could not have written this book without the help of Digger's staff, Jane Varkulevicius, Camilla Lazzar, Tim Sansom, Caroline Trevorrow, Jayne Anderson, Rex Ennis, Lisa Remato, Talei Kenyon, Phil Seymour & Lou Larrieu. Each has contributed to the sum total of knowledge that this book contains.

First published in Australia in 2008, by The Digger's Club Dromana, Vic., Australia Phone +61 03 5984 7900 Facsimile +61 03 5987 2398

© Clive Blazey

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Publisher.

Printer: Bookbuilders Desktop publishing: John P. Con- Photographs supplied and owned by The Digger's Club, except where otherwise attributed.

Distributed by: Bookshops: Unireps c/o University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052 Ph: +61 (02) 9385 0150 Mail Order: The Digger's Club - Heronswood, 105 Latrobe Parade, Dromana, VIC 3936 Ph: +61 (03) 5984 7900 diggers.com.au

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Blazey, Clive.

Title: Growing your own heirloom vegetables : bringing C02 down to earth / Clive Blazey.

ISBN: 9780646492766 (hbk.)

Notes: Includes index. Bibliography.

Subjects: Vegetables-Heirloom varieties. Climatic changes.

Dewey Number: 635

Other Digger's titles: The Australian Flower Garden, 2001 The Australian Fruit and Vegetable Garden, 2006

No Tasmanian old growth forests felled to make this paper FSC Certified Paper This book is printed on is FSC certified paper. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an international, non-profit organisation which was set up to ensure sound and sustainable forest management. It prevents the felling of old growth forests, protects watersheds and ensures harvesting of trees only if replanting replaces felled trees. Its guarantee is as sound and respected as an organic certification. The FSC certifies and labels forest products from paper to furniture using its chain of custody to ensure all wood products have been harvested sustainably. By choosing FSC certified paper or organic products you are supporting the best international practice. CONTENTS

BEING CLIMATE POSITIVE

Bringing C02 down to earth 6 Only a biodiverse world can adapt to change 8 Growing food in our cities 10 The story of heirloom seeds - what's new is old 12

ORGANIC GARDENING Know your soil 14 Soils - food for plants 16 Water, mulches and green manures 18 Pest control without pesticides 20

BEING SELF-SUFFICIENT The Mini Plot - Growing a year's supply in 40m2 24 Convert your lawn into a food garden 26 Getting children started 28 Kitchen gardens should be decorative 30 How much water does the garden need? 32 Hybrids, heirlooms or GM? 36

GARDENING BASICS Sowing seed successfully 38 Climate maps 42 Sow What When sowing calender 44

VEGETABLES TO GROW Cool soil - 1st planting 46 Cool soil - 2nd planting 56 Warm soil 66 Herbs 82 The gardens of Heronswood and St Erth 88 Index 90 Glossary 94 Bibliography 96 BEING CLIMATE POSITIVE

Bringing C02 down to earth

It will astound most people to realise that a visit to Biology is our ecological recycler. the supermarket to buy food is a greater threat to our The globalisation of our food supply is a very bad environment than all the pollution caused by coal fired idea that needs to be reversed. It transfers wealth power stations. to corporations at the expense of our environment.

Nearly 30% of the C02 in our atmosphere is caused Cheap food delivers a trashed ecosystem. In a hot, dry, by us not growing our own food. water-deficient continent, is it sensible to export 40% Non-renewable energy is used to plough the fields, of our water through the sale of meat and grains? Is it harvest and process the crop and take it to market. The sensible that only 1% of our population grows food for fertilisers, pesticides and weed killers used to grow the us? Do we want corporations to use our food supply to crop are derived from oil. In fact 75% of the energy increase their sales of chemicals? that is used to grow our food occurs once it has left "When it comes to choosing the food 1 buy, organic the farm. The kitchen fridge uses more energy than is actually my fourth choice. I would choose local and the farm tractor. In some areas more energy is used seasonal products, particularly from farmer's markets, to drive to the supermarket than is used on the farm. ahead of organically certified products, particularly Up to 25% of the energy is consumed in wasteful if those products have travelled long distances. I feel packaging. that our diet needs a diversity of foods, all of which I would consider ahead of organically grown food," says organics expert Tim Marshall. In our race for efficiency, farms are getting so large that neighbours are kilometres away and have lost the sense of community. The producer driven farmer never sells directly to the consumer and is oblivious to their anxieties. How else can we explain that despite 70% of the population slating they don't want genetically engineered food, less than 200 growers will impose genetically engineered crops on our food

THE IMPACT OF BOTTLED WATER Many of our buying choices have extraordinary impacts on global wanning. Are you aware that kitchen fridge an empty bottle of water costs as much to produce t more energy as a full container? This industry is valued at •i the farm tractor $35,000,000,000 and yet its direct water cost is Instead of buying fertilisers, which require Middle probably less than $ 17,500. The rest of the cost goes Eastern oil (and the wars that come from it) we could into carbon-polluting transportation and bottling. simply recycle the 47% of green matter that goes When you pay $1.60 for a litre of bottled water at the to landfill by composting at home, and save all that supermarket you could have filled 2000 litres by tap money. Nourishing our soil would improve our health for the same price. In America 90% of these bottles because we wouldn't be using fertilisers that pollute go to the tip. If we are serious about reducing global our streams and soil life, while our food would be free warming such absurd and avoidable consumer choices of pesticides. If this sounds like Utopia it is, and we have to be reversed. have been there, before the supermarkets manipulated our lazy nature. Growing food is the foundation of our ecological education. Ecology is not some study of life that is remote from us - it is us. Eco is derived from the Greek word for "house" so ecology is the study of our home, our planet - not anyone else's -it's ours! When we pollute the air or our rivers, we pollute our lungs and our bodies. EXPLAINING THE CARBON CYCLE

Plants, animals and microorganisms are largely composed of carbon. Plants process carbon from the atmosphere and in the presence of sunlight and water photosynthesise this into sugars for plant growth. The amount of "living carbon" found in trees and plants is about half the amount of decaying, decomposing carbon underground that we describe as organic matter. The oil and coal that we burn for energy are the concentrated stores of dead organic plants composted over millions of years. Before man burnt this energy the balance of recycling carbon from soil to plants to the atmosphere and back again was in equilibrium. By tilling our soils, burning nonrenewable fossil fuels, and paving over living soil we have increased

atmospheric C02 and caused climate change. By exposing soil microbes to the sun and adding fertilisers, Australian soils which are already low in organic matter have declined even further since agriculture started. We can solve climate change by planting trees, which takes decades, or by growing our own food organically and boosting the sequestration rate of carbon into soils. Raising the organic content of our soils is an immediate and easy solution to bringing

C02 down to earth. Allan Yeomans believes we only have to raise organic soil levels by 1.6% to reduce our atmospheric carbon and that can be done in much less time than it takes to establish forests.

SIMPLIFIED CARBON CYCLE Billion tonnes of carbon Store Annual* Atmosphere 766 +6.1 Plants (living) 600 Decaying plants and animals provide twice Below soil (decaying) 1500 as much carbon in soil Source: Kansas State University than in the atmosphere '99% of carbon is fixed in the Earth's crust and oceans, but we can control the annual increase of of 6.1 billion tonnes supply, such is the disconnection between supply and sizes almost every suburban block has enough space demand. Farmers are being encouraged to grow bio- to be self sufficient. It takes just ten square metres of fuels instead of food. As the price of fuel rises so does space - about the same space as a parked suburban the cost of food. We now have the absurd notion of 4WD to grow a year's supply of vegetables for one 'grain fed cars.' It has been estimated that it takes the person. In fact, even the tiniest front garden is large same amount of grain to fill the tank of a 4WD SUV enough to feed the whole family and still leave room vehicle for one week as it does to feed one person for for the family car. Instead of filling our gardens with a whole year! When food is grown for us it tastes like ornamentals we should replace them with edible crap - the only good food is food that goes bad! plants. Avocados thrive where camellias grow while If we grew our own food at home as we used to blueberries fruit in the same conditions as an azalea. generations ago, and as most people in China, India We must learn to grow our own food again. Solving and the rest of the world do, our carbon emissions climate change and restoring our soils to good health is would drop immediately. Growing your own food not a spectator sport. at home saves water too - up to 89% less than when it is grown for you. Despite the reduction in block

II BEING CLIMATE POSITIVE Only a biodiverse world can adapt to climate change

"Driven by energy from the sun, trees pump water "Our species is the first to turn its food supply into from the water table through the roots, trunk and one of the biggest threats to our health", writes Anne leaves up into the atmosphere through the process Lappe. of evapotranspiration. This process translates into In the short space of just one generation, powerful summer rainfall, helping to sustain crops. When the food corporations have turned the growing of forests disappear, this rainfall declines and crop yields food into an industrial system. Governments have follow." - Jim Amscombe, Hydrogeologist. deregulated our food system in the name of market fundamentalism, so that coiporations have turned our food supply into a threat to our health! Thirty four percent of the beef we eat in Australia is grain fed, so instead of grazing animals fed on grass powered by the sun, we eat animals fed on grains. These grains use 7-8 times as much energy to grow as the energy value of the food. Animals reach maturity much faster on a diet of grains but a diet so rich it is actually unhealthy for ruminant animals evolved to eat grass. This causes huge health problems for the cattle and sheep and then the consumers of those animals - us humans. Standing ankle deep in faeces with almost no exercise to build muscles while being forced to eat grains they were never designed to eat, puts the cattle under enormous stress. These feed lot cows now need to be fed antibiotics to keep them alive longer than 150 days. BRING CARBON DOWN TO EARTH BIODIVERSITY - NATURE'S FAIL-SAFE Our forests are the lungs of the earth. One hectare of tall wet forest can store the equivalent of 5,500 tonnes "Biodiversity is the sum total of all the world's life of C02 - which is equivalent to the annual emissions of forms, organisms and genes - it is Nature's fail-safe 1,300 cars. mechanism against extinction." Kenny Ausubel. Most of us think of biodiversity in terms of the fcvto animals we see and love, like the orange-bellied parrot moculture leguins store or the great panda, and ignore the plants, insects and 40% less carbon microbes that we can't see that in turn provide the 11 mi-logged forests habitat for those endangered animals. When we cut down old growth forests and turn them into wood chips we destroy a thousand years of biological activity that has reached a state of equilibrium. That old growth forest attracted rain and purified our water supply, maintained our carbon balance by recycling dead and decaying matter and provided a habitat for soil microbes, animals and plants. When we replace it with a monoculture of bluegums we lose rainfall, pure water, animals, plants and release carbon to the atmosphere. In fact, we lose our ecological inheritance (just to enhance the bottom line of one corporation), and this vandalism is endorsed by our governments! "Monoculture" and "biodiversity" are two words balanced almost equally in the weight of letters but hostile and destructive to each other in nature.

;mmm&m PM L FACTORY FARMING MEAT -THE AMERICAN WAY Almost all meat consumed in America, whether it is beef, chicken, turkey, pork, lamb or even salmon is derived from a grain-fed diet. Even milk and cheese is derived from corn since dairy cows don't eat grass anymore, since it is fed to dairy cows in feed lots. Hybrid or GE corn is planted four times as close as traditional corns and now provides yields of 10,000 lbs per acre, which is 9 times the yield of 1920 cultivars (just 12001bs/acre). To produce these prodigious yields the munitions factories that used to turn oil into explosives during World War 2 switched to making fertiliser. Oil derived pesticides were also produced once the demand for poison gas ceased. Synthetic fertilisers replaced be seen as a symptom - nature's explanation to the the natural organic processes, so instead of relying farmer that something is wrong. Instead of growing on carbon farming using the energy of the sun, grain with artificial fertilisers and pesticides, grazing Americans switched to fossil fuels to feed their crops animals should feed on solar-powered grass. In the which then feed their livestock. Americans arc now process of grazing, the animals exercise to build up literally 'eating' oil. This corn crop is so extensively muscle and their effluent becomes the food for the planted now, it uses 50% of all synthetic nitrogen grasses in a continuous recycling system. fertilisers which is the most ecologically damaging Polyface Farm in Virginia USA, a truly Utopian way to grow food. farm, is not only highly productive but provides At our current growth rate, 50% of Australian beef healthy food that has integrity. On this bio-diverse, will be grain-fed and kangaroo meat may be the only mixed farm, cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys and rabbits grass-fed meat available. Today it is rare to find a farm are farmed on rotation using minimal fossil fuels and with a diversity of animals, grains and poultry, that are without fertilisers or pesticides. The cows are moved grown in a sustainable way. frequently to ensure the grass is still plentiful - not When we farm as nature intended there is no over grazed. Three days later chickens are brought in waste problem, since one creature's waste becomes to eat the grubs that emerge from the cow pats so that another's lunch. Pests and diseases should really 20% of the diet of chickens is either grass or insects. The chickens roost in a mobile - "egg mobile" - so MECHANISM AGAINST EXTINCTION they exercise, have plenty of fresh air and are truly 'free range'. As the wood cutter and chipper destroy natural habitats, Pigs nest in the shelter of the forest rather than the hybrid plant breeder and molecular biologist destroy in cages amongst their urine. On just 100 acres the our horticultural inheritance upon which our food supply farmer produces: depends. Over 90% of our fruit and vegetable cultivars • 30,000 dozen free range organic eggs have disappeared in the last one hundred years. Out of • 10,000 free range chickens 2500 tomato cultivars less than 10 genetically different • 11,363kg of grass-fed beef tomato hybrids appear in supermarkets. Just ten apple • 11,363kg of free range organic pork varieties have replaced four thousand apple cultivars • 800 stewing hens available in the 1850's. • 1000 turkeys This collapse in biodiversity caused initially by the • 500 rabbits adaption of hybrids will accelerate dramatically if we allow genetic engineers to control our food supply. Already GM crops in the US - GM corn and GM soy - If you can't produce dairy products at home, choose are the dominant crops whilst GM canola plantings in organically certified produce because it will be grass- Canada are 80% of acreage. Ninety percent of our eggs fed and solar powered guaranteeing no pesticides and are in the White Leghorn basket, whilst 70% of our dairy fertilisers are used. Support your local farmers' market herd are dependent on the genetics of Holstein cattle. where you can talk to your farmer about the breed of With climate change and rising temperatures causing mass the animal or the cultivar of the fruit and vegetable, extinctions, we cannot afford for our food supply to be while being certain you are buying local produce. based on such a narrow genetic base. It is estimated that 75% of C02 pollution occurs Survival of the fittest presumes a biodi verse world. That after it leaves the farm gate. If you buy organic produce at fanners' markets you will cut emissions by is nature's fail-safe mechanism against extinction. up to 75%. II BEING CLIMATE POSITIVE Growing food in our cities

Cuba is the only country that has avoided the to replace imported fertilisers and, within a period globalisation of our food supply and returned to of three to four years, has boosted biological soil growing their own food. The country is now as energy activity to a point where 80% of the nation's food is independent as it is politically independent. Cubans organically grown. If Americans grew their own food and severed their dependence on middle eastern oil use 25 times less pesticides and their C02 emissions are 14% of either Australia or the US. Instead of would they need to fight the war in Iraq and fill the tractors they rely on animals to till the soil, reducing former Cuban jail ofGuantanamo Bay with terrorists? soil compaction and providing invaluable manure to replace imported fertilisers. The quality of food has CAN YOU AFFORD TO BUY improved and life expectancy of 77 years is equal to NON-ORGANIC FOOD? that of North Americans. Instead of eating imported Many people are scornful when the subject high fat foods their fresh food and vegetable diet of organic food comes up. With our globalised combined with greater exercise from gardening and distribution of food the C02 pollution created is never cycling has created a state of well-being at a fraction paid for by the oil companies. The next generation of the price of American health spending. will have to pay not just for the pollution from oil and coal fired power stations, but for deteriorating water supplies, eroding soils and the effect on their health from the consumption of so much pesticide. Organic systems of growing place an absolute ban on the use of synthetic fertilisers, pesticides and weedicides. Organic systems use less energy and take 2-3 years to reach soil health before the health benefits are expressed in the produce you buy. When you buy organic food you are paying for the real cost in the food - not some deferred liability. Cotton is the most pesticide-dependent crop in the world requiring $2.6 billion of chemical sprays each year. Some of those chemicals were being made in 1984 at Union Carbide's factory in Bhopal, India, where an explosion caused the death of 3,800 people. In the Philippines the health cost to farmers in medication and lost days through illness exceeds the original cost of pesticides that they use. In Essex in the UK the cost of removing pesticides from the water supply is 25% of the overall cost, and that isn't paid for by chemical companies but by the council. When you consider that we lose a greater percentage •sy: The Power of of our crops to pests today than fifty years ago, one unity: How Cuba The transition to a sustainable economy has required wonders why we still buy non-organic food. The e ,2008 ' " ' dramatic changes in behaviour. Being a Communist recent article in the consumer magazine Choice is country and isolated from the US and the Western particularly alarming: world initially required that it export sugar, citrus and Supermarket strawberries have the highest levels of rice in exchange for oil, tractors and fertilisers from pesticides compared to any other fruit. Although these Russia. When the USSR disintegrated in the 1990's levels are regarded as being within acceptable levels it was unable to provide fuel for its tractors, cars and by health authorities, they ignore the multiplier effects power utilities. Cubans immediately began growing of a cocktail of pesticide applications. In Choice's food within Havana by occupying disused building survey only 22% of growers had fruit with only one sites and today the city of Havana produces 60% of pesticide, while 63% of growers had multiple residues its own food. By recycling its green waste it was able

10 and 15% had a cocktail of four or more. Choice detected 150 different pesticides from 27 growers. The so called acceptable limits are based on the amount of pesticides consumed compared to the body weight of an average person. There are no warnings for children. Some of the pesticides used by growers are called systemics, which means they enter the sap stream and can't be washed off, turning the strawberry fruit into pesticide bombs. If your child is say one fifth of your body weight then the amount of pesticide consumed is five times as concentrated. If the strawberry your child is eating is one of those stacked with four pesticides, then you may be feeding your child with a dosage level 20 times over what our authorities said was safe! Instead of choosing organic food for the benefits of what it doesn't contain, you should consider buying it for what it does contain. A 20-40% increase in anti-oxidants is regularly reported to help cut the risk of cancer and heart disease. Organic milk has 60- 80% more nutrients than conventional milk. Organic systems are monitored and carefully regulated unlike the growing of non-organic food as the Choice article proved. The most immediate and dramatic way we can solve climate change and restore our biological systems to health is to start growing our own food organically. Organic soils are a greater store of carbon than either plants or the atmosphere, and are the most cost effective way of bringing CO2 down to earth.

THE MODERN (MONO-CULTURE) STRAWBERRY FARM

Huge-shouldered unripe strawberries have replaced The modern strawberry farm is the epitome of all that delicious, aromatic intensely flavoured strawberries. They is wrong with modern horticulture. Highly fertile soils are may look the same but they are pumped so full of fertilisers heavily tilled and fumigated to destroy all living soil microbes. and pesticides that they are a health hazard to our children. Plastic sheeting prevents the natural exchange of gases with the atmosphere. Unregulated pesticide and fungicide sprays are applied to this biologically dead soil to provide those fruits of deception to long distant supermarkets.

II BEING CLIMATE POSITIVE The story of heirloom seeds - what's new is old

their favourite capsicums, eggplants and herbs with them. It was not until our exposure to the 25,000 varieties under cultivation at Seed Savers Exchange in the USA, that we realised the poverty of our vegetable inheritance. Varieties that have been grown for hundreds of years in America never reached our shores. American groups such as Seed Savers Exchange, who preserve our garden inheritance, are surprised heirloom seeds are a new introduction to Australia. For what's new is old. At the turn of the 20,h century most families grew their own vegetables and fruit - we knew what we were eating because we grew it ourselves. But as people moved from the country to the city, more and more began to buy food rather than grow it themselves. Specialised growers, who were market- orientated, sprang up close to the cities and

Heirloom pumpkins at Plant selection goes hand in hand with population Seetlsavers growth. When man first domesticated plants 8000 Exchange, Iowa years ago he kept the earliest, the best yielding and the most disease-resistant strains for planting back the next season. This unbroken chain of evolutionary improvement has provided us with well-adapted regional strains of vegetables, now called garden heirlooms, which are incredibly productive, for all our culinary and cultural needs.

THE POVERTY OF OUR ENGLISH INHERITANCE Depending upon our English forebears for culinary vegetables has given Australians one of the poorest inheritances a country could have. In 1885, William Robinson, a famous English gardener, wrote in the introduction to the classic Vilmorin book The Vegetable Garden: 'We are meat eaters because our fathers had little to eat... Men killed and cooked; there was little else worth eating. A few generations only have passed since our most common vegetables came from the continent... The vegetable kingdom is usually represented by a mass of ill-smelling cabbage and sodden potato.' Fortunately, recent immigrants from Europe and Asia have enriched our choice, bringing seeds of chose higher-yielding varieties for commercial sale. Heirloom seeds were developed The profit motive became, for the first time, the major to provide food from the garden criterion for plant improvement. direct to the table. Fruit, vegetables It was the advent of supermarkets and refrigeration and flowers are all inter-planted so after 1950 that swung the balance from consumer- that pests never get the upper hand. chosen strains to producer-driven ones. Out-of-season Vegetables are picked at peak ripeness, crops such as tomatoes, capsicums and melons were enhancing their flavour, nutrition and life- grown in wanner climates and shipped thousands of saving anti-oxidants. Adapted to kilometres. New strains with tougher skins were bred local conditions they could be to slow the ripening process and increase shelf life. collected and replanted, giving The proud boast true to type continuously unifonn of Modern Seed CAN WE TRUST OTHERS TO crops. They were open-pollinated, freely exchanged Company's latest hybrid GROW FOOD FOR US? and available to all. They are a precious gift from our supermarket ancestors, encoded with thousands of generations of tomato As our lives have become so hectic, we have improvements. entrusted the growing of our food to market gardeners Today, only four per cent of the food grown in and fanners. This change has destroyed the nutritional Australia comes from our own backyards. Economic quality of our food, for example, fruit is picked rationalism has almost destroyed the wonderful unripe to extend supennarket shelf-life. Almost all biological diversity of our heirloom garden seeds. the beny fruits such as strawbenies and melons The food we buy might look the same as the food we are picked before sugars, vitamins and antioxidants grow, but it has unprecedented amounts of synthetic develop. Fruit is now sprayed with anti-ripening fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides. All these chemicals and a survey found that what supermarkets changes to our food have been forced upon us; we, as euphemistically call "Fresh Food" could be 9 months consumers, have never been consulted. old. Orchardists make much more profit by.pumping apples, grapes and tomatoes so full of water to boost The advent of genetically engineered food (GE) weight, that flavour, nutrition and antioxidant levels is a revolutionary change to our food that offers no are almost negligible. The quality of food diminishes nutritional improvement, but is designed specifically proportionally to the time and distance from harvest. to increase the profitability and market power of global You may be surprised and alarmed to realise seed and chemical companies. that 90% of the garlic we eat is imported. Our Heirloom varieties are a gardener's inheritance. quarantine department insists that every bulb We don't need new varieties, because we have an is fumigated with one of the world's deadliest inheritance 100 times as rich and diverse as the chemicals - the poison Methyl Bromide. This commercial market. Heirloom varieties are not fragile chemical works like a biological nuclear or exclusive, but available to all, and are capable of bomb, it kills weeds, insects and bacteria better yields and earlier crops than commercial hybrids. etc, rendering soils sterile and lifeless. It is We encourage you to grow them and become part 45 times as destructive to the atmosphere's of a vital preservation campaign. You will be growing ozone layer as the already banned CFCs. not only the tastiest vegetables in the healthiest way, but you will retain control of your food, which is as THE PROBLEM essential to us as pure air and clean water. WITH HYBRIDS The new hybrid supermarket tomato, for instance, had to be both box and contents SEED PLEDGE so flavour and freshness were sacrificed for shelf life and texture! Plant breeders Seeds are the basis on which our lives depend. convinced themselves that 'new equals We will promote their diversity and free availability, improved', so the older standard varieties andfight all attempts to own or destroy our inheritance disappeared as new hybrids took over. of open pollinated heirloom seeds. In meeting the particular needs of supermarket vegetables, hybrids became We oppose genetically engineered seeds that promote so altered as to be almost useless for the use of chemicals. We oppose patents and the control gardeners. Gardeners want early crops and late crops and continuity in between, that confers over our food. We support sustainable but above all, tasty crops. Industrial agriculture. agriculture wants crops that can be harvested all at once and shipped without loss over long distances.

II ORGANIC GARDENING Know your soil

Australian soils are the least fertile of any soils on IDEAL SOIL COMPOSITION our planet. They arc very old and have low levels of organic matter and are particularly deficient in Water phosphorus. Our native plants and animals have Minerals adapted to this harsh environment in unusual and 45% unique ways, but they have not provided our table with food, other than the macadamia. All our sources of fruit and vegetables come from overseas areas of higher soil fertility, and to grow them requires considerable enhancement of our soils.

BASICS FOR GROWTH To make growth a plant needs a continuous and matter uniform supply of sunlight, moisture, air and nutrients. 5% Plants and animals and all living things are principally made up of carbon compounds. Understanding the NATURAL AND ORGANIC SOILS carbon cycle is the basis of organic gardening. Plants In natural systems such as virgin forests or photosynthcsise and convert carbon dioxide (C02) permanent grasslands, recycling has been at the heart from the atmosphere into oxygen and organic matter. of sustainable organic soils for millions of years. Animals and micro-organisms consume most of this Soil organic matter is really plant or animal residues using up the oxygen, and returning C02 to the air in a in decomposition. Dead bodies of beetles, grubs, recycling process. earthworms, bacteria, fungi and decomposing plants Before the advent of chemical fertilisers, crops are consumed by millions of teeming earthworms and were grown by recycling manure and wastes to microbes. The earthworms alone can eat 100 tonnes of replace nutrients lost in the growing process. With soil per hectare (10kg per square metre) and increase the discovery of fossil fuels (which are really very the nitrogen level by a factor of 5, phosphorus 7 and old deposits of carbon), tractors were used to plough potassium 11. our fields and fertilisers were synthesized from oil Earthworms also open up soils and improve to replace the recycling process. When the Chinese, root and water penetration - as well as providing plant who maintained productive soils for 4000 years using nutrients in organic form. Under organic systems, organic methods, also adopted mechanised chemical instead of fertilising plants, soil micro-flora are fed agriculture, they too suffered serious soil degradation. first and the resulting product is incredibly rich soil It is now known that repeated cultivation and exposure which is capable of feeding plants and soil micro-flora of bare soil to the baking sun's rays, kills earthworms for hundreds of years. and other microbes which maintain the organic Humus is the final result of decomposition and is the process. best slow-release fertiliser which remains in soils for thousands of years. Most soils have organic contents OPTIMUM SOILS of less than 2%, but that 2% is enough to support The optimum conditions for growth occur when human civilisation if carefully managed; or put in 50% of soil volume is available to be filled with both reverse, human civilisations collapse when the organic air (25%) and water (25%). This openness is the and fertility levels of soils collapse. John Jeavons, in basis for providing ideal conditions for plant roots to his book 'How to Grow More Vegetables' states that penetrate and seek air, nutrients and water. The other organic soils have such capacity to hold moisture that 50% is composed of minerals, 45%, and 5% organic optimum growth can be achieved with up to 75% less matter. Soil depths of 12cm can support a rudimentary water than non-organic systems. Whilst plants can be vegetable garden but 20-40cm of good, open soil high grown without soil in high input hydroponic systems, in organic matter is preferred to grow healthy deep- these systems are totally dependent on nonrenewable rooted fruits and vegetables. sources of power and fertilisers. In the case of hydroponic tomatoes this is 20 times as much energy to produce as the food value.

14 RAISING CARBON/ORGANIC CLAY LEVELS TO 5% Clay particles arc much smaller than sand and more Organic farmers achieve 5%-6% organic soil content regular, so they pack down tightly. Clay soils are by not just recycling manure and organic wastes, but 'heavy', and water is trapped in the smaller spaces. by minimising the damaging effects of tillage, by Clay soils need less frequent irrigation, and may growing green manure crops, and by mulching in become very boggy, ot dry and hard to penetrate. summer to keep earthworms and soil micro-flora active. It has been estimated that 80-90% of the SOIL STRUCTURE organic matter processed each year becomes available Soil particles are bound together by organic within 12 months and so the build up of organic matter matter, plant roots, bacteria and fungi, to form larger is a slow process that takes not years, but decades. clumps. Humus and the exudates of soil organisms arc 'gummy'. They form the strongest and longest- SOIL TEXTURE lasting bonds to hold soil particles together to form Ideal garden soil contains up to 50% pore spaces, aggregates. The shape and size of these aggregates and half of the space is filled with water. determine the 'structure' of soil. If there are Texture refers to the size of the mineral particles continuous pores between the aggregates from which the soil is made, and the proportion of soil animals move around easily and particles of each size - small (clay), medium (loam) water and oxygen move in and out and large (sand). of soil faster. The stability of the aggregates is important "Clay breaks your back too. They have to stay and sand breaks you heart" together through winter and summer, during hard Texture is important because it determines the rain and under traffic. spaces between particles of soil or pores. The best soils for gardening have a range of pore sizes, and continuous or connected pores that allow water, roots Tim Marshall and organisms to move through the soil. This is best achieved in a soil that has some particles from each size class (otherwise known as a 'loam'). The small spaces trap water and provide habitat for micro- organisms. The larger spaces allow free drainage and passages for roots, organisms and gas exchange. SAND Sand particles are large and irregular in shape. They fit together in an open structure with very wide spaces. Sandy soils therefore drain freely, and need watering more often.

SOIL STRUCTURE

TEST Feels gritty between Wet sand can be rolled into Water disappears into sandy • Place a handful of soil Sand your fingers. a pencil-shape, but will not soil fast, and plants wilt quickly. crumbs in a tumbler. retain the shape. Must water plants often. • Carefully pour enough Loam feels smooth Moist loam can be rolled into Water disappears into silty-loam water into the glass to cover Loam & silky between your a pencil-shape and will retain soil quickly. the soil. fingers. the shape. Holds water better than sand. • A good, stable soil will Clay feels very smooth Moist clay can be rolled into Water and nutrient holding hold together even when the between your fingers. a pencil-shape, will retain the capacity is high - can leave crumbs are wet. shape. With high-clay content longer between watering. • Poorly structured soil will the cylinder can be carefully fall apart. rolled into a ring without breaking.

II ORGANIC GARDENING Soils - food for plants

FERTILISERS avoid fertilisers by using composts, mulches and green manures to feed the soil releasing nutrients The word fertiliser is a misnomer for it means to slowly in time with the food needs of plants. feed rather than sexually fertilise plants. In the last It makes no difference to the plant whether it century chemical fertilisers have replaced natural receives its major nutrients, nitrogen (N), phosphorus soil building processes. The recent over-use of fast (P) or potassium (K), as inorganic chemicals or acting fertilisers combined with repeated tilling has organic manures and composts, but it makes a huge destroyed the organic buffers in our soils and our difference to the natural equilibrium of the soil. topsoils become eroded. Fortunately gardeners can Nitrogen(N), Phosphorous(P) Potassium(K)

FERTILISER NEEDS OF VEGETABLES The table left explains the NPK needs of plants grams / square metre and compares the nutrient levels of both chemical and organic sources of food. If your soils have good Vegetable type N P K organic levels you probably won't need to add any Leaf - cabbage/lettuce 13 4 11 standard fertiliser, but if not, the table shows how Fruit - tomatoes/melons 9 4 11 to replace chemical fertilisers with natural organic sources. Most chemical fertilisers release their Root - onions/carrots 13 4 18 nutrients over 2 months, whilst the growing period Legumes - peas/beans 5 3 4 of most plants is at least 6 months. High organic Potatoes 18 8 15 soils slowly release nutrients over the whole growing To convert to kg per hectare multiply by 10,000 period, often for decades. The primary puiposc is to ie 13 gram/metre = 130kg/hectare initially feed the worms and microbes, so application rates for compost and manures, or lucerne hay, can be 2-3 times as high with none of the risk of damage that APPLICATION RATES OF NUTRIENTS occurs with fast-acting soluble chemical fertilisers. Conventional N% P% K% Application Standard chemical fertiliser COMPOST (assuming no organic 5 8 4 100g/m material applied) Compost is composed of nitrogen, carbon, air and water, and its speed of decomposition is regulated by 200-300g/tree balancing these proportions. Good compost is never Citrus & fruit tree fertiliser 10 2 7 Max. mature high in nitrogen levels. It is balanced and rich in a tree 3kg variety of slow-release nutrients. More importantly, Replace with organics it should be rich in a diversity of microbic species. Blood & bone 4.5 5.0 .2 100g/m While it can be made using technical science, it can or add potassium sulphate handful of also be very simply and easily produced. Worm farms 4.1 4.6 3.8 80g to 1 kg of blood & bone compost heap produce excellent compost and are a particularly good Poultry manure source if you are unable to turn a heap yourself, or (decomposed, no ammonia 3.0 1.5 .8 300g/ms have limited space. smell) Typically, the greater the variety of materials, the Fish wastes 4 1 .8 300g/m2 better the end product. Seaweed .5 .1 .1 1 -3kg/m2 THE RECIPE FORA Lucerne hay 2.2 .3 1.0 1 -3kg/m2 GOOD COMPOST 2 Garden compost 1.4 .3 .4 1 -3kg/m 25% High-nitrogen material such as raw manure Organic sources of: Nitrogen Phosphorus Potassium and green legumes. (See table) The presence of 1st choice Blood & bone Blood & bone Wood ash nitrogen enables the micro-organisms to break down 2nd choice Manure Manure Granite dust high carbon materials like papers and cardboard. Compost Compost Basalt dust 35% Green plants with lower nitrogen levels such 3rd choice Lucerne hay Worm castings Seaweed as annual weeds, soft prunings, fresh lawn clippings Pea straw Sea grass and green herbs like comfrey, borage, tansy, valerian, Legumes (peas, beans, lucerne) Fern branches

16 nettle and chamomile. (Avoid diseased plants and of microbic species, and contains CARBON - NITROGEN perennial weeds.) predominantly pathogenic (disease MATERIALS 35% High-carbon material such as straw, woody type) organisms that are detrimental mulch, dead leaves, and paper or cardboard. to soil and plants. Organic material with a carbon to nitrogen ratio greater than 20:1 will use When a compost heap smells bad 5% Gritty material such as rock dusts, bone dust, up nitrogen in composting fresh wood ash and compost from the last good batch. it is telling us to turn it in order to Sources of organic Consumers of If you are going to turn compost you will need a allow in more air and also perhaps to nitrogen organic nitrogen heap of at least 1 metre by 1 metre to allow heat to add a little more woody material and build up. The temperature should reach about 55°C in a sprinkling of lime or dolomite. the centre, and this will kill harmful organisms, weed Good, well-aerated compost Poultry Card seeds, and encourage beneficial ones. Turning the should be fluffy and crumbly and a 5-15:1 500:1 manure board heap transfers material on the outside to the centre, very dark-brown chocolate colour rather than black. effectively heat-treating the whole heap. As this Vegetable 10-20:1 200-700:1 process continues, the heap shrinks considerably. Add Jarod Riicli waste water if it dries out but never soak. Grass Sometimes compost can become 15-25:1 Straw 40-150:1 too wet, which also reduces its air content. Never add too much or too little water to compost; aim for a slightly damp consistency through the heap. Turning should be practised every one or two weeks, regardless of size, to prevent the compost becoming anaerobic. Anaerobic compost is compost that hasn't had enough air incorporated into it and therefore lacks oxygen. These 'composts' are more likely to be rotting vegetation than actual compost. A smell similar to vomit, sulphur, vinegar, or an 'off' acidic smell, is an indicator. This lack of oxygen kills beneficial microbes and reduces the diversity

SOIL pH: ACIDITY & ALKALINITY Soil pH can affect plant growth, bacterial action, fungal growth and availability of nutrients. At either extreme of pH, nutrients can be unavailable to plants. Adding fertilisers to these soils could be a waste of time and money, unless you adjust the pH first. Simply correcting soil pH may help to make nutrients available without the need for fertiliser.

pH RANGE Correcting acid soil (approximate guide) lemon grapefruit pure water ammonia kg of limestone needed/hectare 1.3-2.4 3-3.3 7.0 10.6-11.5 sand sandy loam clay 1 pH point 1000kg 2300kg 4000kg per square metre 100g 230g 400g ALKALINE 2.6 - 3.6 5.5-7.5 8.8-10 Correcting alkaline soil (approximate guide) swampy garden soil limestone / peat soil chalky soils kg of sulphur needed/hectare sand sandy loam clay 6.0 - 7.5 is best for most garden plants 1 pH point 250kg 500kg 1000kg The pH scale ranges from 1 to 14 (as above) per square metre 25g 50g 100g 1 is extremely acid, 14 is extremely alkaline. An application of limestone or sulphur increases exponentially beyond the A pH of 7 is neutral. ideal pH range of 6-7.5.

Tim Marshall II ORGANIC GARDENING Water, mulches and green manures

WATER plant growth stops. Lettuce bolt to seed, and fruit trees abort their fruit and leaves to survive, until water is In a country as dry as Australia, many experts available again. still maintain that over-watering kills more plants Always group plants with similar water requirements than water shortages. Avocados, for example, are together. That is, don't plant capers that need little particularly susceptible and plants die in a few days if water with thirsty vegetables, as either the capers will air is flooded out of soils. So it is the flow of air, water be water-logged or the vegies will dry out. and nutrients through the soil that is vital for plant growth. Too much is just as bad as too little, which is CONSERVE WATER BY MULCHING why good drainage is vital to the availability of water. Soils actually pull water like ink to blotting paper Mulching is a process of covering soils to optimise and the soils with the smallest particles, the clay soils, the temperature and availability of water for plant have the greatest pull and hold the most water. growth. For maximum benefit always mulch soils Earthworms feeding on compost raise organic levels, well before the onset of hot weather. Coarse particles which also increases the water holding power of soils. of mulch (rather than fine) insulate the soil without By protecting the soil surface with mulching materials, grabbing precious water. If mulches pack down they ground covers or shade plants, the water reserve is absorb valuable water and prevent oxygen entering held in place longer, ready for plants to take nutrients, the soil. Straw, lucerne hay or leaves, with their open air and water. Sandy soils hold only a quarter of the structure, are better than tightly packed grass clippings water of clay soils and a third that of organic loam. or manures. So if you have the misfortune to garden on a sandy Always water the day before the onset of hot soil you will need to apply loads of compost or up to weather and ideally in the early morning to reduce 25% of the top 25cm soil surface with clay particles to the period of humidity that encourages the spread of successfully raise fruit and vegetables. disease. Water deeply to encourage roots to suck water deep down away from the surface. The water in soils is reduced as plants suck up water through the roots and transpire water through the WATER - DRIP VS SPRAY stomata holes on the underside of the leaves. On hot days this process is accelerated to cool the plant. Drip irrigation is such an efficient way to apply When temperatures put too much pressure on soil water that it is the preferred system for growing most fruit and some vegetables. Water savings of 60-70% water reserves, stomata close, supply of C02 stops and are usual because drippers apply water where it is PENETRATION OF WATER ON needed rather than wasting it on paths etc. This also DIFFERENT SOIL TYPES. reduces the opportunity for weeds to get started. Depth of soil wetted by 25mm of rain. Debilitating diseases which can destroy whole crops thrive in the humidity caused by watering foliage from Row Row overhead sprinklers but drip irrigation reduces the threat because water is only applied to the root zone. Whilst drip irrigation does have blockage problems, modern filter and in-line drippers have reduced this to a minimum. But to get vegetable seeds germinated, overhead spray irrigation is necessary, precisely because it waters the whole surface area. To minimise competition from emerging weeds, fibrous weed mats can be spread over the soil and individual seedlings planted into easily cut holes. If your vegetable garden is small or the plantings are not based on straight rows then overhead sprinklers will be more practical provided you water in the coolest part of the morning to minimise the spread of disease.

18 RAISED BEDS In parts of Australia that have heavy bursts of rainfall gardeners will need to raise their garden beds to speed the drainage of surplus water. Soil temperatures are raised, germination is speeded up and it makes planting and weeding much easier. WATER AND FLAVOUR Almost all fruit and vegetables have better flavour CS1R0 Clever when the plants are partially starved of water at picking Clover provides time. Commercial growers however have a vested weed free interest in flooding their citrus, tomatoes and peaches mulch into before picking to increase their weight and crop price. which lettuce or tomatoes are Consequently, the over-watered supermarket fruit, such planted. as apples, become tasteless and have less nutrients and antioxidants than smaller, carefully grown produce. and nutrients during those summer months when GREEN MANURES plant survival is threatened. Two plants stand out - Green manuring is an organic process of growing alfalfa lucerne and comfrey. plants to dig into the soil when they are still soft and Comfrey will out-produce even alfalfa yielding up sappy. This biomass is dug in like a manure to provide to 100 tonnes of organic matter per acre (UC Davis, plant nutrients and carbon. California). Its nitrogen content is so high it can replace manures when making garden compost. It is EXPLAINING CLEVER CLOVER used by poultry farmers to improve laying and the Green manuring has been refined one step further colour of egg yolks, and the strength of eggshells. Its with CSIRO's development of Clever Clover. leaves are a rich source of potassium, nitrogen, silica Legumes use nitrogen from the air, convert it to plant and iron. It grows quickly and can be harvested up to protein and eventually release it to the soil in a form 4 times a year. It is so tough that it can be cut with a that the vegetable crops can use. lawn mower and collected with the bag attachment. Clever Clover are legumes that grow through the GROWING YOUR OWN cold, wet weather, and being a self-perpetuating annual, die back in late spring. Not only do they provide LUCERNE HAY nutrients for your garden beds, they die down and The CSIRO has developed a complementary system form a mulch in time for the planting of tomatoes and whereby a deep-rooted, summer-active perennial other summer crops. The dying roots provide valuable legume can be grown alongside rows of vegetables or air pores for the roots of summer vegetables to grow fruit trees to access water deep down and provide a into, creating a soil aeration without the harmful highly nutritious biomass that can be cut to be spread effects of digging. It saves on weeding, digging and as a mulch. Alfalfa lucerne has roots that can grow as spreading fertilisers provided the timing is right. If, deep as four metres and it will provide biomass/mulch for example, the subterranean clover does not die for fruit or vegetable cropping systems. In these trials down when you want to plant out tomato seedlings or the lucerne was planted in alleys where access paths pumpkin seeds, simply solarise the clover by covering are. It was not watered and only occupied 50% of the area with clear plastic (25°C+ temperature) which the area, but produced six tonnes of hay/hectare that will effectively burn offthe foliage and roots without contained 20g of nitrogen, I05g of phosphorus and affecting the soil. 20g of potassium per square metre, which is enough When to sow in garden beds to support any vegetable crop. Sow in autumn, in rows on garden beds. Space 20cm Alley cropping - along side crops between rows at about 5 seeds per 2.5cm. Sow lucerne seed in spring at a rate of 10 seeds In late spring Clever Clover dies down. per 2.5cm. Then in late summer/autumn the seeds of Clever In summer, when the purple flowers reach 40cm Clover germinate to continue the cycle. high use hedge clippers or mow every 2 months. It is drought tolerant and provides fertiliser and free COMFREY mulch each year while it smothers weeds, builds soil In a climate as dry as Australia's it is vital to grow carbon and accesses water not usually available while those deep-rooted plants that mine the soil for water eliminating transport costs. ORGANIC GARDENING Pest control without pesticides

BLODIVERSE GARDENING shrubs alongside our food plants, we establish a balanced advantage that commercial growers are yet Pest plagues are the end result of bad horticultural to understand. At Heronswood we grow about 1000 practices. Natural systems have an in-built control different plants, which is 10-20 times as biodiverse mechanism to keep pests within manageable as the surrounding native bush. This is our insurance levels based upon balance and biodiversity. In policy against pest attack. We never grow large natural systems each pest has a predator that keeps numbers of any single plants, as do commercial populations in balance so that as populations increase growers, and we have never needed to use toxic so do the predators who feed on the pests. When pesticides. natural habitats are destroyed to make way for agricultural crops or backyards, nesting places for FLOWERS ARE NOT FRIVOLOUS birds or insects are destroyed, and a single pest gets an unnatural advantage, and inflicts damage to crops. Before agriculture was industrialised, flowering However, by spraying with toxic chemicals, natural plants played a vital role in food production. The self-regulating predators are killed along with the hedgerows that surrounded the fields were packed pests, causing the need for further spraying. with plants that fed and sheltered an army of pest exterminators, pollinators and beneficial insects. The Fortunately gardeners can harness the benefits of biodiversity of surviving hedgerows is legendary. It biodiversity, so that pest problems rarely occur. By is said that they can be dated by how many species of growing a combination of flowering perennials and plants and animals they support per metre. There are hedgerows with 1000 species per metre - they are a thousand years old. Home gardeners can mimic the biodiversity that supports a well-balanced ecosystem by planting out with shrubs, annuals and perennials that will attract this willing work force. Lacewings, ladybirds, parasitic wasps and hover flies are just a few of the insects that control pests such as aphids, caterpillars, mealy bugs and mites. Bees are invaluable for the pollination of flowers to produce fruit. It is said that the common honeybee is worth $8 billion dollars to the US economy, and all they ask for in return are flowers without pesticides. So flowers are not frivolous, they are as essential to the health of the garden as they are to the soul of the gardener.

ORGANIC PEST CONTROL INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT isect pests Damage Predators Approved controls Take a holistic ecological approach to pest problems by following integrated pest management principles. Parasitic wasp Derris dust, Pyrethrum, \phid/Thrip Sap sucking Grow plants that provide nectar for the predatory Insecticidal soap Ladybird insects that keep damaging insects under control. Larvae chew Bacillus thuringiensis Most of these insects need high protein, high sugar ibbage moth Parasitic wasp leaves Dipel (BT) foods in flowers that don't have deep pollen tubes. These can be found in the daisy family (Asteraceae), Parasitic Marigolds, Nematode Root damage and the parsley family (Apiaceae). As most insect nematodes Clean soil, damage occurs in summer, summer flowering plants Scale Sap sucking Parasitic wasp White oil predominate. Beertraps, Multiguard Spring flowering Snails Destroy seedlings Ducks, chooks pellets Woodash artichoke, calendula, marguerite daisies, gazania, Fruit fly Fruit Naturalure feverfew, yarrow, gaillardia

20 Summer flowering shasta, cosmos, zinnia, aster, sunflower, salvia, gaura, Queen Anne's Lace, parsley, carrot, fennel, coriander, dill Ban toxic pesticides whatever the damage. Toxic pesticides kill bees, which are so valuable to a gardener because they actually fertilise the flowers that produce fruit and seed. Beware of Malathion, Carbaryl, Diazinon, Chlordane, Rogor and Meta-systox which are extremely toxic to bees. There are some pesticides that are both safe for people and nontoxic to bees, which are certified under organic growing standards. (See table - p20) Grow your own food at times when pests are absent. In the humid tropics disease problems can be extreme so tomatoes etc are grown through drier winter conditions. Broccoli and other members of the crucifer family are grown through cool weather before cabbage moth larvae appear. Biodiversity is nature \ fail safe mechanism against extinction. CROP ROTATION - crops in the same soil. However it is also HOLISTIC SOLUTIONS true that if you have a biodiverse garden Crop rotation is one of those eminently sensible and follow the principles of organic soil reproduction policies that can be difficult to put into practice unless you will eliminate 90% of pest problems. you have large areas of garden that can be left fallow for 6 months. SUMMARY Crop rotation theory revolves around separating vegetables into three categories and rotating those ORGANIC GARDENING AND groupings to minimise nutrient depletion and pathogen CLIMATIC CHANGE build-up. Heavy feeders, which have high biomass As atmospheric C02 levels rise, so do air temperatures. and often shallow root systems deplete the soil and are Using the organic growing process we extract C02 followed by soil improvers that replace the nutrients as surely as if we turned off the power or drove fuel- used, and improve the soil ready for the planting of efficient cars. light feeders, the last of the cycle. As Tim Marshall says, "Organic matter made from Heavy feeders the remains of once living things in and on the soil, in various stales of decay, contains a larger store of Potatoes, com, broccoli, pumpkins, melons, leaf carbon than living plants. When the huge numbers of crops: lettuce, cabbage, silver beet. micro-organisms, which are also at least 50% carbon, Soil improvers are added, the soil store becomes much larger than Legumes that return nitrogen to the soil: the vegetation. " If gardeners andfarmers grew all our food organically we would cut our CO emissions by Broad beans, peas, beans, clover, alfalfa. : up to 25%, which would stabilise climate change as Sow these legumes to fix nitrogen: well as dramatically improve our health. By gardening Light feeders organically we would not only eliminate the need for Root crops: Onions, beets, carrots, parsnip, parsley pesticides, but save thousands of lives lost by handling and capsicums and leeks. toxic chemicals." Last, but not least, crop rotation does reduce the build up of pathogens caused by IMPROVING SOILS WITH LEGUMES

Vegetable garden production beds Adjoining beds or fruit orchard

Broad beans climbing peas in Sow lucerne Spring May-Aug, harvest Oct-Nov Autumn Clever Clover Sow Clever Clover

Climbing beans Sow in Oct-Nov, Summer harvest in April BEING SELF-SUFFICIENT

BEING SELF-SUFFICIENT The Mini-plot - a year's supply in 40m2

Growing your own vegetables is the single most WHERE TO START important step to a sustainable, healthy life. When Vegetables need plenty of sun in order to grow, so vegetables are grown at home they are fresh and free choose a spot in your garden that receives at least 6 of chemicals, eliminating food miles and cutting C0 2 hours of sun per day. Make sure that you can water it emissions by up to 30%. It takes a few hours of work easily so that your vegetables will be succulent and a week. productive. In just 40 square metres you can grow 472kg of You will need only 22,800L of annual vegetables which is enough for four people. So just supplementary water, which can be produced by a 10m2 will feed one person (see yields opposite). 7000L tank. PREPARE YOUR SOIL Healthy, organic food draws its goodness from the soil, so make sure your soil is brimming with vitality, with generous quantities of well rotted manure. Prepare your beds well by removing weeds and digging the area to break up the soil. This means that direct-sown seeds make contact with fine, moist soil for quick germination. Digging over the soil should take no more than a weekend's work. CROP ROTATION To minimise nutrition depletion, rotate soil improvers after heavy and light feeders. Dig in compost and blood and bone, then apply mulch after harvest to boost organic matter, worm activity and fertility. Don't plant the same vegetables in the same place two seasons running. By changing what you grow where, you will prevent pests HARVEST YIELD and diseases building up in the soil. CROP MONTH (APPROX.) Greens - Heavy feeders, apply compost, blood & bone (100 grams per metre) or follow with soil improvers Nov Lettuce 99 plants = 20kg Feb - Apr

Cabbage Jul - Sep 33 plants = 53kg Broccoli Jul - Sep 25 plants = 25kg

Silverbeet Jul - Aug 10 plants = 5kg Fruits - Heavy feeders, repeat above

Tomato Jan - Apr 5 plants = 75kg

Capsicum Feb - Apr 5 plants = 10kg Cucumber Dec - Feb 2 plants = 10kg Zucchini Dec - Feb 2 plants = 10kg Pumpkin Mar - Apr 2 plants = 6kg

Nov - Dec Strawberry 33 plants = 16kg Mar - Apr

Sweet corn Jan - Feb 50 plants = 35kg

Potato Jan - Feb 33 plants = 50kg Pods/Seeds - Soil improvers, puts nitrogen back into soil Pea May - Sep 200 plants = 10kg Broad bean Jun - Sep 100 plants = 20kg Beans Feb - Apr 132 plants = 50kg

Roots - Light feeders, apply compost, blood & bone or follow with soil improvers

Carrot Nov - Jan 100 plants = 20kg Parsnip May - Jul 66 plants = 12kg Beetroot Nov - Dec 100 plants = 20kg Onion Sep - Oct 100 plants = 25kg Garlic Dec - Jan 20 plants = 600g Total = 472.6 kg

II BEING SELF-SUFFICIENT Convert your lawn into a food garden

In an area no bigger than a domestic front yard food. The cost of being self-sufficient is less than any gardener can grow a year's supply of fruit and $250 to cover 10 packets of seeds, 24 strawberries, 15 vegetables. All you need is a space 12 metres across raspberries and 5 fruit trees. and 9 metres deep to provide 254 kilos of fruit and To help you get started we have drawn up plans vegetables. of the mini-orchard including mini-plot vegetable This mini-orchard can provide all the apples, beds (pg 24-25). The 12x9 metre garden could be oranges, avocados, peaches and pears to allow started in the front or backyard provided the garden everyone to be self-sufficient. In fact, each tree will gets more than half a day's sun and the fruit trees produce 2 to 4 times expected typical consumption, don't shade the tilled vegetable beds. Each bed is 10 so that family and friends can share in chemical-free metres long by 1 metre wide, which could be used to grow 3 rows of lettuce spaced at 30cm apart. The plan DIGGER'S DIG UP YOUR LAWN PLOT allows a 60cm spacing between the beds as a path and kneeling point to weed or pick strawberries. Vegetables to produce Our fruit selections are based on choosing single Total vegetables Harvest Approx. Row length selections of self-fertile fruit on dwarf root stock, and 162kg period crop yield Repeat sowing (RS) could be changed, remembering that you will need to Heavy feeders plant two pears to ensure cross-pollination. Two pears can be planted at 1 metre spacings to save space and Potatoes 68 kg Mar-Aug 8kg/m 8.5m ensure cross-pollination. Lettuce 10kg Every month 0.6kg/m 16.6m (RS 1.4 monthly) We have also chosen a fruit selection for gardeners Broccoli 10kg Every month 10m (RS 2m/5 sowings) in either frosty winter or frost-free climates. Avocados will take a few degrees of frost and suit plantings in Tomato 25kg Mar-June 10kg/plant 2.5m all capital cities and coastal areas, (except Canberra Pumpkin 15kg Mar-Oct 18kg/plant 1.0m and Hobart). In areas of heavy frost (CZ 9a), orange and avocado could be replaced by an apricot and Light feeders nectarine. Carrot 10kg Oct-May 5.0m Onion 4kg Jan-July 4.0m Soil Improvers

Beans Climbing 10kg Jan-Mar 5.6kg/m 1.8m

Peas Climbing 10kg Sep-Dec 1,3kg/m 7.6m Fruit - in dug beds

Strawberries 12kg Dec-Feb 0.5kg/plant 4.8m Cane berries 10kg Dec-Mar 2kg/m 5.0m

Rockmelon 10kg Mar-May 11 kg/bush Fruit - Trees Area required CONSUMPTION OF FRUIT & Apples 12kg Feb-Jan 27kg/tree VEGETABLES KG/PERSON Starch Oranges 12kg May-Sep 65kg/tree Meat (potatoes?) Peaches 12kg Dec-Mar 13kg/tree Australia Pears 12kg Feb-Aug 13kg/tree India Avocados 12kg All Year 50kg/tree China

Yields are a guide only based on Digger's vegetable trials, or Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2002 Royal Horticultural Society published data. Soils with low fertility or poor cultural practices would reduce yields. FRUIT TREES FOR FROSTY WINTERS CZ 9B Self-fertile Harvest Apple Macintosh y< Mar-Apr Pear: Nashi Partial cross Feb-Mar Beurre Bosc/Williams pollination Peach Anzac • Dec-Jan or Nectarine Goldmine Feb or Apricot Moorpark Jan-Feb Orange Washington dwarf May-Sep

Avocado Hass

FRUIT TREES FOR FROST-FREE WINTERS CZ 10 Self-fertile Harvest Persimmon Fuyu Partial May-Jun Mulberry Black Nov-Dec Fig Apr-May Avocado Hass All Year Orange Washington May-Sep Total area required 12m x 9m = 108m2 BEING SELF-SUFFICIENT Getting children started

LITTLE DIGGERS Your children will "Save the planet" if you teach them to grow their own food. Imagine the sheer delight when they sow turnips on Saturday and they are already up on Sunday or they could be munching radishes in just three weeks. Teach them how to bring carbon down to earth by explaining that the sun is the source of all energy, soil provides the nutrients and photosynthesis makes leaves green which is the source of our food. If they can sow it, grow and pick it, can you teach them to cook it? Next year they will be self-sufficient by following our Mini Plot instructions on page 24-25.

Sow IT QUICKEST TO FASTEST TO GERMINATE -1 DAY HARVEST- 20 DAYS

RADISH 'FRENCH BREAKFAST' MINI-TURNIP

GROW IT

TASTIEST TOMATO EASIEST TO GROW TALLEST - 4 METRES

TOMMY TOE YARD-LONG CUCUMBER ARMENIAN' MOST PATIENT 5 COLOURS IN ONE PACKET

SLOWEST TO GROW PARSNIP FIVE COLOUR SILVERBEET GIANT RUSSIAN SUNFLOWER 28 PICK IT BIGGEST SHOW OFF

SWEETEST TO EAT

SWEET CORN 'BREAKTHROUGH'

BEST SHOW AND TELL

MORTGAGE LIFTER TOMATO WORLD'S LARGEST PUMPKIN Developed by 'Radiator Charlie', a mechanic in small town USA See if you can beat the world record of 629kg with no formal plant breeding qualifications. By crossing different beefsteak varieties, he produced this prolific meaty tomato so popular for slicing and hamburgers. By selling the plants for $1.00 each he paid off his mortgage in just six years! Harvest: 90 days. Yield: 16.4kg/plant. MUMMIE'S FAVOURITE

RUDEST

MOST MYSTERIOUS

DELICIOUS STRAWBERRY 'TEMPTATION' MOON AND STARS WATERMELON Its buttery moons and constellations of ZUCCHINI stars, which are expressed on the foliage 'TROMBONCINO' and fruit are awe inspiring. II BEING SELF-SUFFICIENT Kitchen gardens should be decorative

Order and tidiness are the essential attributes of a the light beige gravel paths. Within each parterre arc productive vegetable garden. Order to most gardeners sumptuous groupings of vegetables with interesting suggests sowing row upon row in predictable straight foliage so that the effect, when viewed from above, is lines, for vegetables need to be rowed, hoed and of a rich embroidered tapestry. harvested. But straight lines, however practical, look Rather than attempt to copy Villandry, we decided so uninteresting; a triumph of craft over art. to create a vegetable garden using our natural turf for paths and its sharp edges to describe the patterns we POTAGER IN A PARTERRE wanted to express (see picture). Our cut turf gives Just as the English developed the decorative flower almost instant results (just a few weekends digging) garden and its finest expression in the cottage garden, and saves all the expense and waiting until the box it was the French who created the supreme triumph is large enough to define the pattern. A parterre a of art over craft in the wonderful vegetable garden I'Australien. at Villandry. Villandry is the culmination of two very We settled on a circular design with six segments strong French traditions; their great love of food and of 60° bisected by six paths to enable us to sow, hoe elegance, expressed in strict geometric patterns - Ie and harvest easily. This layout also suits crop rotations, potager en parterre. Instead of planting in rows, a where leaf crops (heavy feeders), follow nitrogen- series of interesting symmetrical patterns are edged producing legumes, which prevents the build-up of with the dark toning of English box and separated by soil diseases by rotating the crops at each planting.

DECORATIVE VEGETABLES

Outer panel Spring Summer/Autumn (50cm+ tall) (Autumn planting) Artichoke/Cardoon Broad bean Crimson Brussels sprout Ruby Kale Tuscan Black Kale Red Bor Inner Parterre (10-50cm tall) Leaf crops: Cabbage Drumhead January King Chicory Lettuce: Aust. Yellow Leaf Runs to Freckles Bunte seed too Red velvet quickly Golden-podded pea Cos Rouge d'Hiver scan Black kale Parsley / Penlla Silverbeet Five Colour Inner panel (10-50cm tall) Root crops: Carrot Beetroot

Parsnip Legumes: Dwarf beans Dwarf peas

Cumbers: Legumes - Snow pea: Purple-podded Golden-podded •rbeet Five Colour Beans: Scarlet Runner Broail bean Crimson Rattlesnake The planting beds had been covered by densely In summer we mix up red salvias with parsley, thatched turf so we had no weed seeds to bring to nasturtium Alaska, with its marbled foliage, and the surface when we first dug it over and planted our petunias or dwarf zinnias. seeds. The design also lends itself to the planting of a When it comes to planting the vegetables, the herb garden using the greys of lavender and santolina secret of success is to arrange vegetables into three to offset parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, or groupings, keeping the untidy sprawling kinds like those herbs could easily fit into a mixed planting of pumpkins out of the cut turf parterre and relegated vegetables and flowers each spring or autumn. Around behind or up a two metre trellis out of sight. Up this the outer circle of our cut-turf parterre we planted trellis, at both ends, we grow soil building legumes a lemon tree and grapefruit tree, because they are such as beans in summer and peas and sweet peas evergreen and the fruit are interesting in winter, but in winter. Within the two metre apron in front of cumquats or oranges could also be used. At the outer the trellis, we plant the less tidy and taller-growing perimeter we planted the very vigorous potato vine. Its vegetables such as sweet corn, silver beet and white flowers provided a pleasing contrast and it gave tomatoes. us a total screen within 12 months of planting. For It's surprising how many vegetables have those wishing to plant more fruit, citrus trees could be interestingly coloured leaves and fruits, such as used to provide an evergreen edible screen or dwarf the rich, bold colours of Tuscan black kale or the fruit could be cspalicred to increase fruit production. changing reds and yellows of five colour silver Our only maintenance, other then normal cultivation, is beet. When the predominant background colour to trim the turf edges and to cut the hedge twice a year. is green from the grassy paths, the grey foliage of Planting vegetables in patterns instead of rows leeks and the blue leaves of the red cabbagc become requires careful grading of heights and colours but fascinating highlights. The feathery tops of carrots the final result will look just as appealing as our finest are interesting next to the rounded shapes of lettuce flower gardens. and the deep green crinkle-cut leaves of January King cabbage. There are lots of fun contrasting colours, such as yellow pansies or the dwarf marbled leaves of nasturtium Alaska with blue cabbages. Black pansy combines beautifully with the grey upright stems of leeks, and all the lettuces make a fascinating checkerboard if you grow brown Freckles lettuce with green-heading lettuces and Italian red chicory. If you don't wish to plant a second crop of vegetables after the first harvest in autumn, then use your parterre as a flower garden. It would be a great success with all the "already dwarfed" bedding plants such as pansies, primulas, English daisies, dwarf sweet peas and Iceland poppies, whose flowering would be finished in November ready for the summer plantings. BEING SELF-SUFFICIENT How much water does the garden need?

Most of the fruit and vegetables that we eat have At our Heronswood garden, where we grow a water content of between 90 and 95 percent, so a vegetables, fruit and flowers, we have done extensive continuous and uniform flow of water through the soil trials on the amount of water we use and the area is essential. The nutrients that the plants need are only needed to become self-sufficient in food. During the available when they are dissolved in water, so water hottest summer in the 11 th year of the longest drought, not only provides moisture but food as well. No matter we found we needed to apply 570 litres of water for how much organic matter is contained in a soil it only every square metre of garden. We need supplementary becomes 'digestible' to plant roots when it is in soluble water from December through to April which is about form. Water is the lifeblood for plants. 150 days, so our daily application of water for each The average Australian uses over 1 million litres of square metre of garden is about four litres per square water each year - a tiny amount through the tap and metre each day. a huge amount in the provision of food, power and TOTAL WATER USE IN AUSTRALIA consumer goods, which is called embodied water. Of the one million litres of water consumed each (Direct and embodied) year, 70% of that water is applied by farmers irrigating Heronswood Per capita Typical household / home grown crops and pastures to grow our food (fruit, vegetables, use for: day (litres) (litres) meat and milk). Another 20% is used by coal-fired power plants and other industries to provide consumer Drink 4 4 goods so that 90% of our water use is embodied in the 228(150 days Food** 2,000 goods and food we buy. The amount we directly pay only) for washing and indoor use is about 6% and a further Industry** 560 560 4% for gardening. So far our governments have only Home 148* applied restrictions to gardeners, ignoring the 96% of 280 use that is beyond gardening. Total 2844 940 When gardeners grow their own food at home, we Per year 1,035,216 342,160 estimate that water use declines by 89% because home "Assuming there is no need for garden watering grown fruit and vegetables are vastly more efficient other than for food (48.000L) in water use compared to those grown on farms. It ** Embodied water takes !00,000Lofwater to produce just 1kg of beef, compared to 48L for a mixture of vegetables. Highly Following our yield trials we found that it only takes 2 organic soils hold up to five times as much water as 60m of space to grow the 242kg of fruit and vegetables heavily ploughed, heavily fertilised, chemically grown we consume each year. Our water requirement is 2 2 food. So when we grow our own food at home we can 34,200L (ie: 60m x 570L/m ), which is only 29% of the cut overall water use by 66% (see chart). catchment area of an average house.

WATER REQUIRED TO GROW YOUR OWN FRUIT AND VEGETABLES %of Australia's average Amount of Potential sources of water Area needed catchment consumption per supplementary to grow (m2) potential for % of potential roof water % of potential recycled head (kg) water needed t average roof needed $ grey water § Vegetables 96 10 5,700 5% 9% 12% Potatoes 54 8 4560 4% Fruit 92 42 23,940 20% Total 242 60 34,100* 29% 29% 37% * 60m2 x 570 litres of water = 34.200L t amount needed beyond the average rainfall for Melbourne of 655mm rain per annum It is better to supply j from an average roof size of 200m2 in Melbourne water directly to the § of average grey water for 2.2 people (89.000L) soil hy laying your drip irrigation and leaky hoses under the mulch.

32 To be sure our experience is relevant to all gardeners in the TYPICAL HOUSE BLOCK country, we have provided tables for all capital cities, applying our growing days maps to the applicable summer rainfall. We estimate a 7000L lank is adequate to provide water storage Front garden for 86 days in Sydney and 21 days for Adelaide. To help you 16m x 10m = 160m2 calculate your needs, read the tables on page 34. Vegie garden = 18m2 Vegetables and fruit are thirsty (444 - 850mm+) plants that Fruit garden = 42m2 will not yield or thrive in a 4 500mm rainfall. To grow fruit Supplementary water needed = and vegetables at Heronswood effectively, we use a total of 34.200L 1255mm of water per year, or 1255L/m2. This is simple addition per month = 6840L of annual rainfall, 655mm and 570mm in supplementary water. We have assimilated our water needs per plant drip-system to average annual rainfall patterns (see page 34). - '•mr^—Vr Typical house roof BASIC CALCULATIONS r10x20m = 200m2 Water tank Water needs: Supplementary Heronswood 7000 litres 4L / day / m2 (approx.) Growing season: 150 days (5 months) Total amount needed: 570L / m2 Total annual water used: 655 + 570 = 1255mm

Area needed to be self-sufficient in: Potential annual Rainwater harvest Vegetables: I Oin2 / person / year 200m2 x 655mm (Melb. annual rainfall) Potatoes: 8m2 / person / year x 90% =118,000 litres Fruit: 42m2 / person / year Total: 60m2 Water required: 570L x 60m2 = 34,200L See page 26 for details Collection capacity of house roof: Typical Australian house roof is: 10m x 20m = 200m2 Back garden For Melbourne gardeners annual rainfall is 655mm, so 16x12m = 192m2 potential roof harvest is: Drought tolerant, plants 2 200m x 90% efficiency x 655mm = 117,900L need no supplementary wat< Seepage 34 for your capitaI city calculation Water needed = Nil Size of storage tank needed: For the cool seven months of the year Melbourne's rainfall is adequate, but not to grow food during our growing season of 150 days from December to April. Rainfall during this period is 264mm, or 52mm per month. This translates to 9,360L roof ANNUAL GREY WATER USAGE harvest in a normal month. If the area needed to grow food is House of 2.2 people (Melb.) Recycled 60m2, the monthly water need is 1/5, 6840L, or 228L/ day, Toilet 32,000L so if the tank is 6840L this would give 41 days storage. See page 34 for your capital city's rainfall Bathroom (grey) 50.000L Washing (grey) 39.000L Cooking 23.000L Outdoor 106.000L Total 260,000L HARVESTING RAINWATER RECYCLING GREY-WATER To be self-sufficient in water, enough to provide a An even cheaper and more reliable water supply year's supply of fruit and vegetables, would require solution is provided by recycling grey-water. The about 34,200 litres. This amount of water is only 29% average household produces 89,000 litres of grey- of the potential collection from an average size house water which, if recycled, would exceed the water roof of 10m x 20m or 200m2 in total. However, natural needs for growing fruit and vegetables, which is only rainfall is adequate in Melbourne for example, for 34,200 litres per year. This water is available every seven months of the year, from May until November, day and has a capacity to water a garden 156m2. but supplementary water is needed for the 150 day Whilst the cost of plumbing required to recycle water growing season from December to April. Even during may exceed the cost of storing water, it eliminates the these months the natural rainfall is high enough to threat of drought and reduced rainfall entirely from the fill a rainwater tank of 7000 litres, which is equation. enough to supply 41 days of water supply (see chart below). HOW DO YOU BECOME MORE WATER EFFICIENT? Most gardeners, when asked this question, will immediately agree that drip-irrigation is the way to cut water bills by up to 50%. Using a drip-irrigation system, one, two or four litres of water per hour is slowly applied to the root zone of a plant. This way very little is lost from evaporation, wind or even run- off from paved surfaces, unlike overhead sprinklers. However, drip systems have two drawbacks that gardeners need to understand. Drip works well for trees and shrubs and row sown, established vegetables, but for irregular garden beds or creative garden patterns, the cost and unsightly placement of so many black plastic tubes can be a big drawback. Drip- irrigation does not wet the soil surface well enough to successfully germinate surface sown carrots, onions or lettuce for example, so overhead pulsating sprinklers are preferable. But more importantly, better garden practices can save more water than just changing the type ot sprmKier application.

HARVESTING WATER FOR YOUR GARDEN Harvesting/roof Growing season Average Average monthly Monthly storage Annual 2 Growing Capital city storage 200m - rainfall for month potential tank (days) 6840 litres rainfall (mm) season (days) (litres) 150 days (mm) -r 5 (mm) collection (litres) ie: 228/day Melb 44 655 118,000 150 264 52 9360 41 Syd 444 1214 218,520 240 551 110 19,800 86 Hobart 44 628 113,040 90 245 49 8820 38 Canberra 44 626 112,680 120 270 54 9720 42 Alice Sp 4 200 36,000 240 N/A ? ? ? Adel 44 528 95,040 180 135 27 4860 21 Perth 44 873 157,140 270 99 20 3564 15 Bris 685/ 137/ 24,660 108 1151 207,180 300 Apr-Sep 444 291 58 10,440 45 Darwin 1403/ Too wet Too wet 1661 298,980 360 Apr-Sep 444 125 25 4500 20

Annual rainfall Metric (mm) Symbols Other towns 10-20" = 240 - 480 4 below 500mm Broken Hill, Broome, Mt Isa, Moree, Mildura, Wagga, Bourke, Dubbo 20-35" = 480 - 840 44 500mm - 850mm 35-60" = 840 - 1440 444 above 850mm Albany, Darwin, Cairns, Townsville

34 BUILDING ORGANIC CONTENT IN SOILS In the series Discovering Soils, the CSIRO explain how soils with high organic content (up to 3.5%) hold 480% more water than sandy soils with no organic carbon. Every 1% gain in organic matter increases water holding by 137%, or to put the idea in reverse, if your soil is only 1% organic content, it will hold 60% less water than a soil with high organic content. Unfortunately, raising organic content is a slow process that may take ten years to rise from 1 % to 2%, but by building organic content you will also improve plant nutrition as well as reduce pest problems.

MULCHING Mulching of vegetable gardens is more fiddly than mulching perennials, trees and shrubs because plant spacing is closer and many materials, such as pea straw and lucerne, need to be broken up into 10cm pieces rather than more convenient 30 to 50cm lengths. However, mulching lowers soil temperatures, traps water, prevents weed competition and also increases carbon levels, so it is a vital stepping stone to maintaining water security. With the combination of mulching and building organic soil content, water use can be reduced by up to 75%, irrespective of the type of water application.

THE IMPACT OF TEMPERATURE ON GROWTH Temperature Plants have adapted to growing through a 40°C temperature range of about 15°C-35°C, but 40°C temperatures of 40°C cause a complete shutdown of photosynthesis and temperatures below 15°C 35°C 35 C cause very slow growth. In the tropics, with high temperatures all-year round, timber yields are four times greater than in temperate regions and ten times Tropical that of colder areas bordering the arctic. plant growth Many of the vegetables we grow, such as tomatoes, 20°C 20 G Temperate melons, pumpkins, capsicums and eggplants, come plant growth from tropical and sub-tropical areas. They must Arctic be sown and grown to fruit through 20°C-35°C temperatures, with continuous water supplying Photosynthesis / Growth nutrients every day. Plants from temperate regions, Melbourne's climate, Melbourne to enjoy the warmth such as leaf vegetables (lettuce, cabbage and spinach) of Sydney's climate, and Sydney to approximate that and root vegetables (carrots and parsnips) grow of Brisbane or Perth. Many of the trees and shrubs we through lower temperatures and must be harvested now grow will not survive this temperature increase, before flowering; a process which reduces the edibility but for the vegetable gardener sowing annual crops, it of the crop. The rapid growth of vegetables puts means that all of our growing seasons will increase by huge demands on the supply of water and nutrients, up to 60 days. This will improve our ability to grow but each garden has adequate rainfall to meet these more fruit and vegetables than ever before, provided demands, despite the imposition of water restrictions. we have water! Instead of waiting until Melbourne Climate change will have a dramatic impact on the Cup Day to plant tomatoes and corn in Melbourne the plants we grow and the supply of water. A temperature planting date will advance to September and provide a rise of 2°C by 2050 will cause Hobart to resemble 210 day growing season rather than 150 days.

II BEING SELF-SUFFICIENT Hybrids, heirlooms or GM?

The fundamental change in our food supply occurred from South America, this fast growing, after World War II when American plant breeders spectacular red-flowering bean thrived began creating hybrids to meet the long distance in the cooler parts of Australia. shipment demands of supermarkets. As a consequence, Likewise, Kent Whealey, founder 90% of our fruit and vegetable varieties, that we relied of the US Seed Savers Exchange, on 100 years ago, disappeared. was galvanised into action when his wife's favourite watermelon, Moon and Stars, disappeared from mail- order seed lists. He realised that the family favourite would be lost forever if his generation did not continue to grow the watermelon and save its seeds. In a desperate plea for help via country radio stations, he located some seeds and then began the long process of seed multiplication through a network of passionate gardeners. The Seed Savers Exchange was born and has now rescued 25,000 varieties of vegetables in the last 30 years. I made contact with SSE in 1991 and was astounded by the incredible diversity and beauty of our garden inheritance and immediately committed the Digger's Club to grow, trial and preserve suitable heirlooms for In 1978, the Digger's Club very first catalogue Australian gardeners. Dr Will began the process of preservation. Our first listed Trueman conducted extensive heirloom vegetable variety was Scarlet Runner bean, trials of heirloom varieties at our which appeared in Australia centuries ago as English Seymour farm and compared colonists planted their favourite varieties. Originating

OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL OF OUR FOOD CROPS

Genetically engineered seeds - Bypasses sexual reproduction and is a term to describe crop altering techniques that can't happen naturally. Genes from other plants, bacteria or animals are transferred in a laboratory across normal species barriers. Patenting confers monopoly control and saving seed is illegal. Available since 1996. Farmers cannot save seed. Heirloom seeds - Open pollinated seeds which have evolved over centuries from the crossing of two non-hybrid plants. Seeds are true to type and uniform and anyone can save seeds. Hybrid seeds - Developed for supermarket monoculture distribution since the 1950s. Sexually manipulated plants that are not genetically identical. Growers have to repurchase seed each year because second generations are not true to type.

36 " Nuclear pollution blows away - SWEET CORN genetic engineering keeps replicating. Corn is the only major crop that gardeners can choose all three seed types. Open-pollinated heirlooms have traditional sweet corn flavour. Hybrids have enhanced sugar levels but are unstable for second year planting. Genetically engineered com produces pesticides to control insects and is unsafe for human consumption. Being wind-pollinated, GE com has now contaminated their performance against the then standard the original strains we rely on for genetic diversity. varieties, such as Grossc Lisse tomato or hybrid capsicums, eggplants or cabbages. WHAT'S WRONG WITH Not only did heirlooms win every taste test, we found that we achieved superior yields GENETICALLY ENGINEERED in tomatoes, pumpkins, watermelons and SEEDS? cucumbers. Such is the myth of hybrid Genetically engineered seeds have been developed superiority. We also achieved earlier and as a vehicle to extend the sale of weedicides and later yields and consequently we dropped pesticides. Totally reliant on the protection of patents, every hybrid except for Sweet corn. We they give corporations, for the first time, ownership began seed production of heirloom of life forms, turning seeds into software! Relying on varieties across our complete range. evolutionary improvements developed over 12,000 If Moon and Stars watermelon was the years, GM corporations have been granted complete poster-child of the US movement, Five- ownership over plants with only one laboratory-spliced colour Silverbeet held that honour in gene inserted into hundreds of thousands of naturally Australia. evolved genes. These genetically engineered organisms The first stringless bean was Lazy (corn, cotton, soy and canola) confer herbicide Wife's Pole bean which appeared in tolerance to proprietary-owned chemicals such as Burpee's 1888 catalogue. Seed saver broad spectrum RoundUp™, so that a blanket spraying networks gave us seed and enabled us to kills all green life except the GM crop. The resulting reintroduce it (see original copy below). crop, which we eventually eat, contains high levels of Throughout this book we have chemicals. reproduced our trial results so you can To control insects, GM crops manufacture their compare the performance of our hybrids own pesticides which, if not approved for human and heirlooms and choose the best consumption, are fed to animals before being varieties for your garden. consumed by humans. In the US, where GM patents were first approved despite inadequate testing, none of the crops required labelling, enabling GM companies to avoid liability for resulting health problems or third party damage from the subsequent contamination of intermingled non-GM or organic seeds. Genetically engineered canola is about to be planted in Australia, with the endorsement of our Federal, LAZY WIFE'S POLE BEAN. Victorian and NSW governments. Most canola farmers This new pole bean has, for some years, been the favorite with our Bucks County farmers, and the last three seasons do not understand that canola is cross-pollinated by has become immenselypopularthroughout the entire coun- bees, who can spread the GM genes into neighbouring try. We presume it derived its name, which seems to us rather discourteous,from its immense productiveness,mak- canola fields up to 20km away. It took just three years ing it very easy to gather a dish, and from the ease with which they are cooked. The pods, of a medium,dark-green of GM canola plantings in Canada, to contaminate color, are produced in great abundance, and measure from 4% to 6 Inches in length; the illustration above represents a and totally destroy the livelihoods of non-GM and natural size pod ; they are broad, thick, very fleshy and en- organic canola fanners. Without labelling or liability tirely stringiest. The pods retain their rich, tender and stringless qualities until nearly ripe, and at all stages are for contamination, GM fanners have become willing unsurpassed /or snap-shorts, being peculiarly luscious. Many persons have testified that they never ate a bean ground troops for the corporatisation of our food [u>te so good in distinct rich flavor. Each pod contains supply. How can it be that in a democratic country ?rom six to eight round white beans, which make excellent winter shell beans. The plants stick well to the poles; and that has less than a thousand GM producers can force the vines are covered with clusters of handsome pods. They have also yielded well planted among corn. They their product on to 14 million consumers, or 70% of are late to mature but are valuable to extend the Australia's population, who don't want genetically season. We recommend every one to plant Creaseiack for early and Laty Wife's for late, and we are sure that engineered food? none will regret following this advicc. Perpkt. ij cts,; pint 40 cts.; quart 80 cts., postpaid. By growing heirloom varieties of garden seeds, that 4®- For Prices, by express or freight, at pur- are not hybridised or patented, and are freely available chaser's expense, SEE Bulk Price List of Beans, Peas and Sweet Corn, pages 70 and 71. to all, you will restore our garden inheritance. II GARDEN BASICS Sowing seed successfully

HOW TO SOW SEED OUTDOORS. S° low

• This is the easiest method of all. Sowing large seed • Prepare the garden bed by removing weeds. • Firm down the soil with a board or rake handle and water • Dig and fork over the soil to break up any clumps or thoroughly. Keep moist to touch at all times. Be sure to lumps. Incorporate any well rotted organic matter, blood and sow at the correct time by checking p44-45. bone or lime evenly through the soil. • Sow large seeds like peas, beans, corn and sunflowers in • Rake, and make sure the soil has an even crumbly texture - rows, by spacing them evenly along the row you have made like bread crumbs. with the rake handle to a depth twice the width of the seed. • Seeds of vining pumpkins, melons or cucumber are best sown in clumps of three instead of rows.

Sowing fine seed Germination and growing on • Direct sowing of fine seed like carrots, onions or • Keep your seeds moist (not wet). If your sown seeds dry poppies need shallower seed beds, so that seeds are not out they will fail to germinate. buried more than twice the width of the seed. • Use a watering can with conventional rose for large seeds • To minimise thinning, mix your fine seed with some dry and a fine mist or 'bottle top' waterer for fine seeds. Heavy sand so that seeds are well spaced, then cover the seed with watering will dislodge your seeds. sieved soil. • Protect your seeds/seedlings from birds and snails.

• When your seeds have germinated, usually 7-14 days, and • Now is the time to thin your seedlings if they are too have two sets of leaves, they will benefit from being watered close together. Thinning your seedlings will reduce with a weak solution of seaweed liquid or worm water. the likelihood of fungal diseases and ensure that each seedling has enough room to grow.

38 DAYS TO GERMINATION UNDERSTANDING GERMINATION Based on soil temperature, with days to germinate Source: Knott's Handbook The speed of germination is directly related to No germination the temperature of the soil at the time of sowing. If you sow tomatoes too early when soil temperatures bean 40+ are 10°C, seeds won't emerge for 43 days. If sown when temperatures reach 20°C, germination occurs beetroot in 8 days. Lettuce seeds become dormant at soil broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower temperatures over 35°C, whilst rockmelons won't germinate at all until temperatures reach 20°C. celery

corn

cucumber

capsicum, eggplant

lettuce

leek, onion

parsnip, parsley

pumpkin

rockmelon

radish, spinach

silverbeet

tomato

turnip

watermelon

zucchini

LIFE EXPECTANCY OF VEGETABLE SEEDS (length of time usual for seed viability under favourable conditions)

Long Life: 4-6 years Short life: 1-2 years

broccoli, artichoke, asparagus onion bean, beet, silverbeet parsley carrot, cabbage, turnip parsnip STORING SEEDS cauliflower, okra Seeds should be stored in a cool dry place cucumber, pumpkin, zucchini corn after ihey have been dried, to remove moisture below 10 per cent. Keep them in sealed jars with tomato, eggplant, capsicum peanut packets of drying crystals and store them in the rockmelon, watermelon refrigerator to give the seeds optimum life. pea, radish, spinach

II RAISING SEEDLINGS TO TRANSPLANT LATER. S1 ^

Many seeds need to be grown into seedlings before Hygiene planting in the garden. Sow into individual peat pots, jifTy If you arc using recycled punnets or trays make sure pots or quikpots so that root damage is minimized when they are clean to prevent any transfer of disease. If you 1 planting. This is the one step method. S can eat off, or eat with your propagation equipment, it is clean enough to raise seeds with.

Germinating 3 Sowing in pots • Place your seeds in a well-lit, warm position (15-20°C). • Fill your pot to the brim and firm it down. • Cover your pots, trays or peat pots with a dome of • Water thoroughly and gently so as not to disturb the flat plastic to maintain a humid atmosphere. Clear propagation surface. lids with adequate ventilation are ideal. • Sow your seed carefully so it is well spaced. This will prevent • When the seeds are starting to germinate, usually 10-20 days, the likelihood of'damping off' or fungal diseases due to over- the ventilation slots can be open during the day, and partially sowing. or completely closed at night, depending on the temperature. • Sieve some seedling mix over the seed to cover it by about twice Use a propagation thermometer to check. the width of the seed. That is, if the seed is 2mm wide, cover it • If your seedlings germinate and 'lean' towards the light the with 4mm of sieved seed raising mix. position is too dark, and your seedlings will be leggy. • Water gently. • When seedlings have their second set of leaves, place them in a sheltered spot outside to harden off a week before planting in position.

II ROOTING DEPTH OF VEGETABLES

Shallow 40 cm Medium 1 metre Deep 1.2 metre

broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower artichoke

beet, silverbeet asparagus

corn capsicum parsnip

carrot pumpkin, zucchini

lettuce, onion, leek cucumber, eggplant tomato

potato, radish, spinach turnip, rockmelon watermelon

SOIL WETTING DEPTHS

25mm 50mm 75mm

15cm

30cm EXPLAINED Water to a Depth 30cm 60cm depth of of soil 45cm Sandy 12mm 25mm 3 days 5 days

60cm Loam 20mm 40mm \\ 5 days 10 days Sandy soil Loam soil Clay soil 33mm 65mm 8 days 17 days Source: University of California - Davis *Number of days between watering

SOW TO TRANSPLANT LATER Bottom heat Potting on Sow in Jiffys lo reduce in-ground growing days. Tomatoes, eggplants capsicums. Bottom heal in the form of heated propagation trays When the seedlings have improves germination. A soil temperature of between grown their second set of Sow in Quick pots because growth is 17°C and 22°C is the optimum for most seeds. leaves use a knitting needle slow and weeding is reduced. Asparagus, 2 or skewer to lift the seedling 57>h> early indoors and pot on S artichoke, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, celery from under its roots and place cauliflower, broccoli, leek, onion, strawberry. Tiny flower seed or very expensive seed is usually in its pot half filled with sown in trays or punnets for transplanting later. You potting compost. can also extend your growing season by growing Cover the roots with soil to fill the pot. Water in. Eliminate the shock advanced seedlings indoors. In frosty or cool areas you of transplanting by planting in quickpots or peat pots - no bigger can start tender crops such as tomatoes or pumpkins than 8cm wide. A feed of weak seaweed solution will help them in late winter. By sowing early indoors you can grow grow. Keep them in their warm environment, uncovered. your vegetables into large advanced seedlings, to plant • When the roots can be seen at the bottom of the pots, take them when the risk of frost is over. outside to a sheltered spot to harden off for a week before planting out in the garden.

II GARDEN BASICS Climate maps

Average THE DIGGER'S CLUB COLD ZONE MAP absolute for all plants jtJ minimum temp. (°C) Cairns(II) Brnumr (II) ZONE TEMP. Imvmvillc (II) 13 16 12 10 11 4

Toowoombn f>b) 10 ' " ItrUbanc (10) -1

Bourkc (10) 9b KatgoorllC'Bouldcr (9b)

-4 Brolan Hill (10) 9a Milclura (9I» -7 <"im""7 • ,9a, 8 Albany(10) Mbury (9lt) Ji fnn'bc.rra (9ll) llcndiuo (9b) * _MJ -12 BUREAU OF 7 METEOROLOGY Melbourne (I0H -16

'aptetl from Mohan (91.) iversal plant < The Digger's Club 1998 Kilometres rdiness zones, >DA 110" 115"

II the vegetables we grow in Australia are introduced into Australia from the temperate and tropical climates overseas. We have iped these vegetables into three broad groups to be sure you sow and grow them through their correct temperatures. ool soil Soil temp Air temp \rstplanting: Asparagus, broad beans, broccoli, cabbage, leek, onion, peas, radish, spinach, turnip 10 - 20°C 5 - 25°C '.cond planting: Beetroot, celery, carrots, cauliflower, lettuce, potato, silver beet 10 - 20°C 10 - 25°C

'arm soil eans, capsicum, corn, cucumber, eggplant, pumpkins, melons, tomatoes, zucchini 15 - 20°C 15 - 30°C ool soil vegetables are all frost tolerant (hardy annuals and biennials) that grow and thrive through fluctuating cold and warm temperatures, nate zones 8, 9 and 10. 'arm soil vegetables come from the tropics (tender annuals and perennials - cold zone 11-13) and won't germinate in cool soils id are killed by frost. nd your zone on the map and choose plants that arc appropriate for those zones.

42 No. of days DIGGER'S CLUB above 15°C GROWING DAYS MAP ~ 9 ^y for annuals, fruit and v 330 vegetables 4

* Cairns (M0) 300 ' Broome (360) .Townsvlllc (360) 270

240

210

180 Inouonmha (240) Brisbane (300] 150 Buurke(270) 'Morec (2' Kalgoorllc-noiildcr (240) flilalc (150) 120 Broken Hill (240) Perth (270)

90 'Grl(nih(210| ' Sydney(240) Adel»lde(l80) " Jiosvral (180) 60 Albany(210) iberra (120) BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY i 30

The Rigger's Club © 2008 Kilometres

Almost all the vegetables we grow are annuals which are planted as seeds to grow through the correct temperatures to mature and be harvested. Some crops like tomatoes and watermelons need 120 - 150 days of frost-free weather and won't mature in cold climates like Hobart that have only 90 days over I5°C, however in Darwin with 360 days over 15°C two crops can be harvested! Find your location on the map and compare number of growing days for the vegetables you wish to grow. For simplicity we have grouped the 12, 30 day monthly zones into 3 groups within our growing guides and Sow What When calendar.

Growing days Towns

Cool below 150 days Hobart, Canberra, Bendigo, Armidale, Melbourne (frost affected)

Warm 150 - 240 days Melbourne & Sydney (frost free areas), Adelaide, Mildura, Bowral, Griffith, Albury

Hot 240+ days Brisbane, Perth, Bourke, Moree, Alice Springs, Toowoomba

Note: Sydney and Melbourne both encounter frosts in inland suburbs and the size of each city places them in 3 zones so look at the enlarged map for accuracy.

Visit our website at diggers.com.au and go to Climate maps for enlarged maps and more information

Our maps are based on the number and location of weather stations. Climates can alter by altitude (every 300 metres) so use local knowledge for greater precision. II GARDEN BASICS Sow what when

Vegetables Plant Days to Sowing Row WHEN TO SOW IN YOUR CLIMATE Seeds to sow type harvest method * spacing Warm A= Annual including (cm) x seedling Below 150 150 to 240 240 + B= Biennial outdoors Plant stage S1 growing days growing days growing days H= Hardy, survives frost spacing Frost affected: Frost free: Frost free: T= Frost tender indoors (cm) Melbourne (outer), Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Brisbane, Tasmania, Canberra, Adelaide, Inland Darwin, Sydney Ballarat, Orange COOL SOIL 1Q°C+

Artichoke Jerusalem (tubers) Winter winter Asparagus Mar-fop BroacLbeans April-July Broccoli Jim-Mar Qct-Frt Pec-Mar Garlic (bulbs) Mar-May Kale _ Any— Mar-J ill Leek Onion Barletta Onion Creamgold Onion Mild Red Ju'y-Sep July-Sep Pak Chov -Sgp-Apr Any Pea Fefr-Aug Potato (tubers) Alie-Pcg, July-ngc Radish Any Any Splnach__ Sep-Mar Aug-Feb Spring onion Any Any Any

MILD SOIL 12°CZ] Beetroot — • Cabbage Carrot July-Mar Cauliflower - HB irn^m Hec-Apr Celery/CderiatL HB 130- 170 July-Nov Chicory HB 60 JM Aug-Apr Fennel AMg-Pei'- Lettuce HA 50 - 80 —Alii— MacheJ.aiiib!siettucc Mizuna Mustard Red

Rhubarb (plant) Rocket, Arugula Sjiverbeet Apr-July

WARM SOIL 15°C+iZ Beans^bush — ^ Beans, climbing, numer, snake. L&. Corn L00JL2Q. Cucumber GxQund_£herry —i.^ Okra —IA- Punipkia Squash Summer/Gourds _ Sunflower —LA [Tomato Mar-Jun IZuechini (hush) TA 1 60-12,^ lept-Dcc

44 VERY WARM SOIL Plant Days to Sowing Row space (cm) x Cool Warm Hot 18°C type harvest method plant space (cm) Capsicum TA 90 - 130 S' 50 x 50 Sep-Nov Aug-Dec Apr-Sep Chillies TP 90- 130 S1 50 x 50 Sep-Nov Aug-Dec Apr-Sep Eggplant TP 120- 140 S1 60 x 60 Sep-Nov Aug-Dec Mar-Aug Peanut TA 140 s° 30x20 Nov Oct-Dcc Anv Rockmelon TA 80- 140 s 150x 100 late Oct-Dec Sep-Dec Julv-Oct Watermelon TA 80-130 s° 200 x 150 late Oct-Dec Sep-Dec Julv-Oct HERBS Basil TA 60 s< 30x20 Oct-Jan Sep-Feb Anv Chervil HA 60 s° 30 x 20 Sep-Dec June-Mar Apr-Julv Chives HP 90- 120 30 x 10 Oct-Mar Sep-Apr Anv Coriander HA 30-90 s° 30x20 Oct-Dec Aug-Nov Anv Dill HA 30 s° 30x20 Sep-Oct Aug-Jan Anv Nasturtium HA 60 s° 20x20 Aut-Spr Aut+Spr Anv Parslev HB 60 - 270 S1 30x30 Jul-Dec Jul-Dec Mav-Ang Perilla TA 60 S' 30 x 30 Oct-Jan Sep-Feb Anv l> Watercress HA 40 s 40x40 Jun-Dec May-Dec May-Aug

Growing days map: South-east Australia and Perth.

Find your location on the map and match the colour to how many growing days your area has. In our catalogues, for below 150 growing days select Cool from 150 growing days to 240 select Warm 240 growing days plus select Hot

Toowoomba (240) DIGGER'S CLUB Brisbane (300) GROWING DAYS MAP for annuals, fruit and . /nm Moree (270) vegetables Bourke (270) v '

Broken Hill (240) Number of days above Mildura (210) / 15° C

Griffith (210) / Sydney (240) Adelaide (180) # # *£owral(180) -^J lypanberra (120)

Perth (270)

Albany (210) eronswood

Digger's Club ©2008 Hobart

II COOL SOIL

II 1ST PLANTING

II Soil temperature for st sowing 10°C-20°C. Vegetables I Cool Soil 1 planting Air temp for growing 5°C-25°C.

Hardy vegetables for cool soil These crops come from frosty, temperate regions. All, except peas and broad beans, are eaten for their leaves, buds and roots, and so must be harvested before flowering. Higher temperatures force annuals like broccoli, lcttuce and cabbage into premature flowering which destroys edibility. Biennials like carrots and beet must be harvested before maximum size because the formation of flowering stalks destroys quality.

Jerusalem Artichoke

Artichoke Vinletla spring when the stem below the bud is still Artichoke, Globe pliable. The stem is also dclicious peeled and Globe Ariiclinke Hearts Cynara scolymus cooked. as they are not known as 'the windy root'for What would the antipasto plate be without the ij* Cool Warm Warm sow Coastal Inland nothing! Those wlw are not put off by this can hearts of globe artichokes? This magnificent Harvest Yield 1m x 1m vegetable with arching silver leaves makes 180 days 20 buds/pit enjoy their sweet nutty flavour masted, boiled quite a garden statement. Allow about 3 plants or in luscious creamy soups. Green Globe per person and replace your plants every third Produces fat buds with soft green fleshy to fourth year. Cultivation 'scales'. From Northern Italy. J 1.5m If the buds are left to develop they produce Artichokes thrive in almost any soil, especially brilliant lilac-blue flowers that can be dried for those with good drainage. From a winter- Violetta flower arrangements or enjoyed in the border. spring planting of the tubers, the stems reach The dusky purple buds of this form are up to 2m high topped with brilliant yellow considered to be the gourmets' choice. J1.2m Cultivation flowers showing their close relationship to the Yield: Up to 20 hearts per plant. sunflower. Harvest after the stems have died off The old adage of 'good ground grows thistles' in late autumn. If they are not all dug up, they can certainly be applied to this most noble can become invasive. In well-drained ground member of the thistle family. The flower buds (Jerusalem) Artichoke they can be stored in the soil to be dug at will. will be produced in profusion given plenty of Helianthus tuberosus Fifteen tubers should produce enough for a well-rotted manure and adequate water. lx>w maintenance and extremely productive family. The fat terminal buds are picked before root vegetable that has liigli levels of free amino opening, and the outer 'scales' removed to 5£ GROW GROW GROW acids. The knobbly root can be used just like • HP Winler Winler Winler reveal the hearts. The 'choke', or undeveloped sow potatoes, but taste much richer and are more Harvest Yield flower deep inside the bud, is removed for the 1m x 50cm 270 days 12 tubers/pit pmductive. However, be warned Jerusalem most succulent hearts. artichokes are best eaten with close friends, For itjjj best 'hearts', harvest the buds in

II Asparagus officinalis Planting asparagus is a sound investment as tliey thrust up tender spears that herald the start of a new gardening year and they increase their harvest for up to 20 years. The earliest of spring vegetables, nothing can beat the flavour offreshly cut asparagus straight from the garden.

Cultivation Its extensive root system appreciates deeply dug soil enriched with plenty of manure and compost, add lime for a pH of 7 plus. Plant your asparagus so the crown is covered by about 5-7cm of soil and water well. Asparagus is amazingly adaptable, thriving from cool climates to the subtropics. Male plants arc preferred to female, as fruiting (reproduction), is always a drain on resources - as any parent knows! Identify female plants Asparagus Purple by their small red berries, and remove, as their tlmad bean Aquadulce spears will not be as vigorous. A light cutting of spears in the second year for about 4 weeks will be followed (in time) by a harvest lasting up to 10 weeks. Always remove spears with a sharp knife cutting below the soil surface and cease harvesting when the spears become thinner than 1cm. Mulch asparagus generously to eliminate weed competition, and blanch the new spears.

GROW GROW GROW Sep-Nov Mar-Sep May-July t cm v in,™ Harvest Yield 1.5m x 30cm 2 years 12 spears/pit

Marv Washington Asparagus Broad bean Aquadulce The standard open-pollinated cultivar. Vigorous. from that, broad beans are easily grown in any Purple sunny spot. Although they are prone to wind damage, An Italian cultivar with royal-purple spears that they need a reasonable amount of air circulation will delight the eye and the palate. to prevent fungal diseases. The best solution Hybrids is to bang in stakes at the ends of the rows and Generally produce earlier in spring and are tie siring from stake to stake to support them. selected for all male plants. Pinch out 10cm off the top of the plant as the flowers are fading to help 'set' the pods.

Broad Beans w. GROW GROW GROW sow Mar-Aug Apr-July Apr-July Viciafabci =n,™ „ on,.™ Harvest Yield 50cm x 20cm 60.120 days 1 kg/metre This higli-protein, cool-season bean is an excellent soil improver, and can only be Aquadulce completely enjoyed when you grow your own A dwarf variety less prone to wind damage that and have the choice of harvest lime. The produces heavy crops from smart black and delicious pods can he picked when small and white flowers. A real Seville long pod that can tender and steamed whole, shelled when they extend to 20cm long if you want them that big, are larger, or left to reach full maturity to be or pick at 15cm for sweet and tender beans. stored as dry beans to add to stews and soups. Jim Cultivation Crimson-Flowered Broad beans can be planted from autumn The convicts of Norfolk Island planted this to spring as long as they are sown so that precious heirloom (1778), which has been flowering would have finished before the onset brought back to cultivation by The Digger's of 20°C days. Club. The brilliant crimson flowers are a great Preferring slightly alkaline soil, the addition addition to the winter garden followed by light of some lime is useful in more acid soils. Apart crops of succulent pods. J90cm Broad bean Crimson-Flowered

II VEGETABLES I COOL SOIL 1ST PLANTING

Purple Sprouting

Green Sprouting Brussels Sprout 'Ruby' Broccoli Brussels Sprout Brassica oleracea Italica group Brassica oleracea The most deserving of crops that is both nutritions and delicious and teeming with Gemmifera group antioxidants. This close relative of cauliflower Romancsco A very new vegetable, having only been around for about 200 years. Some may say that it is and cabbage has been recognised as a separate as this will stop the production of new shoots. 200 hundred years too long if they have only vegetable from its parent, cabbage for about When broccoli is stressed by temperatures over tasted the large green bullets that you buy in 400 years. In Italy broccoli refers to the tender 29°C, lack of water or nutrients, it will start the shops! However these heirloom varieties undeveloped flower buds that are produced on to flower prematurely. In windy gardens, the produce much smaller delicately flavoured all the cabbage family in spring. plants may need to be staked as they grow top sprouts, and when you grow your own, the The Italians enjoyed these shoots so much heavy through the season. spring flowering shoots can be used as broccoli that they started to select plants that produced HA GROW GROW GROW and its top knot of leaves serves as a mini the best and most plentiful of these shoots. sow Anytime Mar-Aug Feb-June cabbage. Sprouting broccoli is the first form of this new 60cm x 40cm Remove the leaves as the sprouts form from vegetable. Unfortunately, commercially grown Harvest days = from transplant to harvest. broccoli is drenched in pesticides but broccoli the base up, and stake well. Loosely formed sprouts are a sign of too much nitrogen. Best in is so productive and easy to grow, lliat no home Green Sprouting (Italian Calabrese) frosty areas. Grow through summer for autumn garden should be without it. Small heads of blue-green are followed by and winter harvest. Prone to white cabbage Broccoli can be grown year round in cool broccolini-like side shoots for up to 3 months. butterfly. climates, however the ubiquitous white cabbage 190cm. Harvest: 80 days. Yield: 3kg/plant. butterfly is always a problem as the weather warms, so grow and harvest your broccoli in Romancsco Cultivation the cooler months, or use organic controls such Lime-green heads with more delicate broccoli Grow as for broccoli. as Dipel, Den is dust or Pyretlirum. flavour. Best in cool climates. Dews not produce GROW GROW side shoots. J90cm. Harvest: 71 days. Oct-Feb Doc-Mar narvcai i ICIU Cultivation Yield: 250g/plant. im X 50cm 140-160 days 60-70 spr/plt Preferring a slightly alkaline soil like other members of the cabbage family, broccoli is Purple Sprouting Ruby easier to grow than cauliflower, and if you plant With all the virtues of the green sprouting Buttons of burgundy-red nutty sprouts with the sprouting varieties they can be continually broccoli, this has the added advantage lavender-blue leaves make ihis heirloom the harvested for up to 3 months. It is worth of decorative dusky purple shoots rich in most decorative of brussels sprouts. A smaller preparing your ground well with manures and anthocyanins. The best broccoli for really cold plant than green cultivars, it also produces fewer, smaller sprouts. Its beautiful colouring compost, so that the seedlings can grow and areas, being the most frost tolerant. Tall plant. however, makes it less attractive to white produce quickly. Broccoli needs plenty of Not for hot areas. J1.2m cabbage butterfly. J60cm. blood and bone or well rotted manure through its growing season in order to produce over a Premium Crop hybrid long period. Large uniform heads for single, rather than Long Island Always pick the central bud first as this will continuous harvest. Tolerates heat well and The standard green sprout before F! hybrids encourage the growth of side shoots. Pick the produces quickly. J 80cm. Harvest: 69 days. were developed. J 70cm. shoots regularly and do not allow it to flower. Yield: 250g/p!ant.

50 Cabbage Brassica oleracea Capitata group Cabbage has been cultivated for over a thousand years, and as such, has been selected into many different forms. The different varieties suit varying regional cuisines, a range of harvest limes, and I suspect the cottager's pleasure, when you consider how truly beautiful this staple vegetable can be. Rich in folates, a must for mothers to be; cabbage also promotes stomach health, its raw juice being an old remedy for peptic ulcers. Mini Emerald Acrc Sauerkraut (fermented cabbage) is also used traditionally for poor digestion, as well as being the most common form of preserving cabbage for winter. Whilst on the subject of stomach health, it is worthwhile noting that cabbage cooked with caraway or fennel seed, Red Drumhead reduces the 'windy'effects associated with its consumption.

Cultivation In the garden, cahbage appears to enjoy the company of peas, potatoes, bush beans, lettuce and cucumber. However, cabbages are prone to soil-borne diseases, so rotate your cabbage beds on a 3 year cycle, and never put cabbage roots January King in the compost. Early-season Cabbages need rich soil with some lime Mini Kmerald Acrc for a pH of about 7.5, and adequate water, so Our fastest. In only eight weeks from planting that their growth is never checked. A good out, this one forms neat, green, softball-sized cover of mulch will insulate them from hot heads and can be spaced like lettuce. An dry spells of weather. Their most damaging heirloom that holds well. Yield: 1.6kg. Pak Choy pests are the caterpillars of the white cabbagc butterfly. Dipel, derris dust and pyrethrum are all effective organic controls for these Mid-season Asian Cabbages voracious pests. Make sure that you treat the January King Asian cabbages are faster growing and better leaves thoroughly with special attention to A semi-savoy (crinkled leaf) cabbagc in shades suited to the hotter weather than European the underside of the leaves where they prefer of blue-green, pink and turquoise, that is almost cabbages. to hide. Those who grow red cabbages can too beautiful to sacrifice for coleslaw. Almost. Bok Choi, Pak Choy just pick the caterpillars off, as their fat green Prefers some shade. Yield: 6.8kg. Brassica rapa Chinensis group bodies are easy to spot. Thick, curved, succulent leaves, arc a must for Selecting the right variety for the right Late-season stir-fries and soups. Leafy and non-hearting, planting time will ensure that your cabbages Red Drumhead pak choy likes to be grown quickly, so plant don't just split and bolt to seed. Early varieties Dense, flat-topped heads of deep purple-blue in rich, moist soil for tender stems in just six are quick growing and sweet, and should be to pickle, or liven up hearty winter meals. weeks. planted out in late winter to harvest in summer. Resistant to caterpillar attack. Pests that do take .„ Harvest 30cm x 10cm days Mid season cabbages arc planted in spring and liberties arc easily spotted. Yield: 3.3kg. 40 early summer to harvest in summer and autumn. CABBAGE TRIALS Late season varieties are planted in late summer Wong Bok Brassica rapa Pekinensis Group No. of days A baby Chinese cabbage with crisp, almost and autumn, to harvest in winter to spring; they Days to Head before white, heavily hearted heads are used raw in are preferred for pickling and Sauerkraut. After harvest weight extensive trials at our Seymour farm we found splitting salads and slaws, marinated, pickled, for the that open-pollinated heirlooms were earlier Standard Korean national dish, kimclii, and added to than hybrids and held without splitting far soups. It is the only cabbage that absorbs salad Superette longer. 66 3.6kg dressings readily, As with pak choy, ample Hybrid water and rich soil is the key to success. Wong Heirloom bok is prone to more pests and diseases than GROW GROW GROW pak choy and is extremely vulnerable to slug July-Mar Any Any Emerald Acre cn,_ „ naivoii neia damage. Sow in peat pots as it resents root 50cm x 30cm 100.l60days 10kg/metre January King disturbance.

Red Drumhead 30cm x 10cm aoTys

II VEGETABLES I COOL SOIL 1ST PLANTING

Jaime dit Poitou l.eek Leeks Hardneck Garlic Allium ameloprasum Replant these to produce a head of garlic in 2 Leeks have been revered since Egyptian times years time, or sprout and use fresh. for their subtle flavour and elegant fonn. Leeks are a biennial running up to flower in late spring. Although this is detrimental to the Cultivation Plant garlic cloves pointy end up about 7-8cm eating quality of the leek, the flower heads rival deep in rich, well-prepared, well-drained soil the beauty of many of the ornamental Alliums in a sunny position. After the autumn equinox such as A. giganteum. is best, as garlic makes most of its leafy lop Kale Tuscan Black growth in days of declining daylight hours. The Cultivation leaves in turn feed the bulb when days lengthen Kale The tastiest leeks grow in nutrient-rich soil with into summer. Garlic can be grown in more Brassica oleracea a pH close to neutral. Transplant tall seedlings tropical areas (to Sth Queensland) but the heads into 10cm deep holes to ensure a long shank, or and cloves will be smaller. Acephala group hill them up with straw as they grow. Keep your garlic well-watered and fertilized Tuscan Black Kale is the most elegant of the GROW GROW GROW HB throughout the growing season but withhold sow Sep-Mar Aug-Apr Jan-Mar cabbage family looking like a miniature palm water before harvest to guard against fungal tree with quilted elephant grey leaves. It can in/.™, „ K Harvest Yield JUcm x 15cm ioo-160days 6 shanks/m infections and promote storage life. Weed easily be integrated into ornamental plantings control is essential as garlic resents competition making a beautiful edible sculpture. The easiest Elephant for water and nutrients. When the leaves start to and most heat tolerant brassica to grow. Tall blue-grey leaves, and spectacular flowering yellow and die off harvest when there are still Tuscan Black is a highly valued kale for stems. It produces 6.5cm thick shanks to 16cm 4-5 healthy green leaves left on the stem. The making rolls, where the leaf is used (like long. Jim. Yield: 160g bases of these leaves will form the 'tissue-paper' cabbage) as a striking black coloured wrap. covering the garlic head. Withhold water for 'Cavallo Nero' in Italian markets has proved to Jaime du Poitou a few days prior to digging. Garlic should be be a popular dish at the Heronswood Haivest This French speciality has fans of yellow-green hung to dry for about 2 weeks for the skins to cafi, where gram for gram it supplies twice the leaf and 5cm wide shanks to 20cm long. I75cm harden for a storage life of 6-7 months. levels of antioxidants of broccoli. GROW GROW GROW Pick the young leaves from the top of the Garlic Allium sativum HP Mar-May Mar-May Mar-May 'tree', as these are the most tender, and use just Harvest Yield like cabbage. Tliey are also excellent with olive Avoid imported garlic that has been blasted 20cm x 20cm iso-210days 5 bulbs/m oil and shallots. with Methyl Bromide (highly toxic) and grow your own. We have taste-tested the garlics and rated them from mild (1) to knock-your-soeks-off (10). Cultivation Garlic has been valued for both its culinary and medicinal properties for thousands of years. Hardneck Plant your seedlings in spring to ensure a year's The active constituent allicin is released when Elephant or Russian garlic A. ameloprasum supply of leaves before the flower shoots (used the clove is crushed, and is known to have This is in fact a form of leek with large, mild- like broccoli) appear the next spring. A good antibacterial and antiviral properties as well flavoured cloves. Rated 2.5 frost will only improve the flavour. Grown as boosting the immune system. Garlic will mainly in northern Europe where it is harvested moderate cholesterol, blood pressure and fight New Zealand Purple Large purple and white even when the ground is covered in snow, it is cancer. High in antioxidants, garlic is possibly heads. A selection from this variety 'Glen Large' still rare in Australia when we have the choice the ultimate health food. Excellent for relieving is suitable for NSW and Sth Qld. Rated 6 of growing many other green vegetables. As a colds and flu, and reducing the likelihood of close relative of the wild cabbage, it does not cross-infection! Chinese Red Red skinned cloves. Rated 8.5 require rich soils. If cabbage white butterfly is a pest use organically certified Dipel or rotenone Garlics are divided into two general types. powder (Derris dust). Softneck varieties have no flower stem and Softneck produce 12-13 cloves per head lliat can store Biofresh White skinned and bred to producc GROW GROW GROW for up to 9 months and are ideal for braiding. HB sow Anytime Anytime Mar-July high allicin levels. Rated 9.5 r „_ „ Harvest Yield Hardneck/topsetting varieties (preferred by 50cn m x 50cm . days 2.6kg/m 50 160 chefs) produce a flower stem that can be seen Australian White White skins and pink cloves. in the centre of the bulb and carry small bulbils. Rated 7

52 Onions Allium cepa Long day late varieties Cultivated by the ancient Egyptians, onions Creamgold rejoice in rich, open soil and moist conditions. The golden-brown globes of this spicy onion The tasty leaves grow prolifically which in turn store the best of all. feeds the formation of the bulb. Ixmg day/short night or late varieties are not suitable for the Mild Red Odourless (heirloom) tropics but short day, early varieties may be The sweetest of red salad onions producing grown anywhere in Australia. flattened bulbs of exceptional flavour.

Cultivation Hurcttunu Yellow All onions require rich well drained soil. An Italian heirloom also known as cippolini Onion seed can be sown dircctly into the used traditionally for pickling. Harvest at 5cm garden, however many gardeners find it more wide and use for kebabs and salads, or when effective to sow them in punnets. Transplant the the skin turns yellow-brown at 7-10cm wide. seedlings at their correct spacing when they are Firm and sweet. about half as thick as a pencil, planting them no uo GROW GROW more than 2.5cm deep. Mb sow Jul-Sep Jul-Sep Potato Onion It is essential to keep onions weed free. ->n,-m « Harvest Yield 30cm x 10cm 100-120days 10bulbs/m Harvest onions grown for their bulbs (not spring onions) when the leaves wither and collapse. Spring Onion A.fistulum Long day, late varieties have the longest storage Slender bulbs and crisp emerald hollow leaves life, especially when grown on heavier clay are the vital ingredient for salads and stir fries. soils. Sow anytime all climates.

GROW GROW GROW HB & Short day early varieties 1 " sow Anytime Anytime Anytime Harvest Yield Barletta (heirloom) 30cm x 10cm 60 days 1 kg/m An early variety with the bulb maturing when day length reaches 12-13 hours. This white Onions from sets onion can be lifted at pickling size (70 days), Onions can be grown from 'sets' or immature or left to mature as an excellent salad onion. bulbs. These are much easier to manage than Spring sowing produces smaller bulbs seeds, and can be just pushed into the ground.

GROW GROW GROW GROW GROW GROW HB so&w Mar-July Mar-July Feb-May Oct Sept July Harvest Yield Harvest Yield 30cm x 10cm 30cm x 10cm 100-120 days 10 bulbs/m 120 days 7 bulbs/m

Tree Onion Multiplying onions These onions will produce offsets us well as the primary bulbs increasing in size. Replant some offsets for the next crop. Potato onions This perennial onion is closely related to shallots, and can be used in much the same way. Stores for 6 months when dry.

Shallots A staple of French cuisine, these dclicately flavoured bulbs are a must. They arc low in acids and can be eaten by those who find onions indigestible.

Tree onions Mild flavoured onions that grow from the small bulbils produced in its llower head. Plant the larger bulbils just below the soil surface about 20cm apart. Tree onions are the most tolerant of tough conditions, surviving frozen soil.

GROW GROW GROW Sep-Oct Apr-Sep Apr-July „ narves* neiu Members of the Allium family: leeks, garlic and onions. 30cm x 10cm 120days 10 bulbs/m

II VEGETABLES I COOL SOIL 1ST PLANTING

Peas Pisium sativum Peas are one of the oldest vegetables in cultivation (about 9000 years) and can be grown almost year round. There are many different varieties that fall into distinct groups. The dwaif growing peas generally produce earlier than the climbing types; there are also varieties specifically for shelling, eating whole (mange tout) and those used for drying. Pea shoots (the top 5 to 7cm) can also be haivested for stir fries, when the plant has reached full height. Pinching out these shoots has the added advantage of promoting fruit set. Even dwaif peas benefit from some support to grow on, a teepee of twigs in the border or a large pot, old chicken wire or just some strings Sugar Snap Climbing Purple Podded Pea run between some stakes. Peas, like all legumes, return nitrogen to the soil, enriching the ground for following leaf crops like salad greens. Peas are one of the most nutritious vegetables to grow, being the richest food source of vitamin Bl. They rival liver for the highest concentration of nutrients, but are generally much more popular on the plate, especially with children!

Cultivation Peas are tolerant of varied soil types, although slightly alkaline deep loams that have just grown a crop such as tomatoes or potatoes are perfect. Their large seeds are easy to handle, and germinate quickly making them ideal for children to grow. Peas prefer the cooler months, as temperatures over 25°C reduce (lowering. Golden Podded Pea Snow Pea GROW GROW HA s GROW sow Jan-Oct Feb-Aug Mar-July Whole Pod or Mange Tout Harvest Yield 60cm x 10cm 40-70 days 1-5 kg/metre Delicious flat peas to be flung into stir fries or salads, or just eaten straight off the vine. Shelling Peas The whole pod is sweet and succulent, some Snow Peas No matter how early you pick these peas, the needing stringing like beans. An Asian, and now Australian favourite. These pod is always stringy. Ample water while Growing these peas is one of Ihe best ways to flat peas can be eaten pod and all and are ideal growing will ensure full fat pods. introduce children to vegetables. Sampling peas steamed, in stir fries or in salads.

straight off the vine is not only tasty, but sets a esl Greenfeast up the psychological link between growing and Dwarf t60cm~1m yoI day7 s Traditional juicy peas, especially good when eating rather than just 'consuming'. Harvest picked young and tender, an option not Climbing {l.5m<— 1m 44 days available in the shops! The pods can be left on Golden Podded the vine to produce dry peas for use in soups The most prolific of whole pod peas, and Sugar Snap and stews. possibly the most beautiful. The two-tone blue Sweet, juicy pods enclose full size succulent flowers rival sweet peas for colour, and the 1.2m Harvest peas. Siring as for beans. So sweet these are 65 days slender golden pods are delicious. definitely a favourite with children. Don't be surprised if you never get a sugar snap indoors - 1.2m Harvest Purple Podded 60 days they are often eaten entirely in the garden. Extremely ornamental peas with purple-pink 60cm 1m flowers. The deep burgundy pods contain Dwarf t ~ 40 d'ays wrinkled peas of exceptional flavour. Shell Harvest fresh or leave to dry. Climbing Jl.Sm*—1m 44 days 1.2m Harvest 65 days

54 Spinach Bloomsdalc IW,

French Breakfast Radish Radish Raphanus sativus Spinach It is unclear where radishes are from, but wild Spinacia oleracea radishes are found growing in sandy coastal Deep green, crunchy leaves rich in the areas in Western Europe and also in Japan. We antioxidants vitamins C and E are the reward do know that it was part of the rations issued for growing this extremely hardy crop. to workers on the Great Pyramid in about Seeds germinate in soil temperatures ranging 2780BC. There are three types of radishes, the from near freezing to 30°C. However, to small, quick-growing summer varieties that are prevent spinach from growing straight up to Easter Egg Radish familiar to Australians described below, the seed, sowing time should avoid long daylight large, long season Asian varieties for winter hours and hot weather. Harvest leaves as baby haiyest, and the Rat-Tail or Mougri types from spinach as early as 8 weeks after sowing, and Turnips Brassica rapa India. The latter variety is grown for its long, then decapitate the plant leaving the pink-white Turnips and Swedes have declined in popularity nutty tasting seedpods, which can be used much stems that will resprout. Spinach appreciates since the advent of refrigeration. We have, like beans. being sown after peas or beans for the most however, been missing out on a powerhouse delicately flavoured of leaves. Some partial of nutrition, and when grown well, quite a Cultivation shade in hot regions can extend the harvest gourmet treat. Turnips need to be grown quickly Radishes are closely related to cabbages so their period by discouraging it from bolting. to ensure mild sweet roots, so give them full requirements are much the same (see p55). The sun, plenty of water, and blood and bone mixed GROW GROW GROW HA smaller salad types are ready in just 20 days sow Feb-Aug Feb-June Apr-July with a bit of lime as side dressings. Thin the and ideal for children, giving speedy results. It Harvest Yield 30cm x 20cm 40-60 days 2 kg/m seedlings to 10cm spacings. is essential to sow radishes thinly, "about one GROW GROW GROW HB seed every 5cm - any closer and they may fail Bloomsdale (heirloom) sow Any Jan-Apr/Aug-Oct Feb-May Harvest Yield to produce an adequate root for harvesting. The Thick, savoy (crinkly) style leaves are held on 30cm x 10cm 35-60 days 10 roots/m young leaves can also be used in salads. Grow a compact plant. It maintains a neat rosette of radishes with plenty of water and nutrients as leaves for some time as it is resistant to bolting. TURNIP "fRIAL S hot, dry weather causes hot, pithy roots. Standard 39 days 57 days it A GROW GROW GROW New Zealand Spinach Mini Tokyo 5 Star 56g 255g nA sow Any Any Any Tetragonia tetragonoides Harvest Yield 20cm x 5cm 20-60 days 20 roots/m Easy to grow, sprawling perennial substitute for Heirloom spinach in the warmer months. It may not look Gilfeather (heirloom) 43g 400g Easter Egg like spinach but it certainly tastes like it. Also Pink, purple, red, white or violet, you never known as Warragul Greens, it revels in heat or know what colour the fat, oval roots will turn coastal sand and is a native of both Australia out to be! Resistant to becoming hollow or and New Zealand. pithy. Pick the young stem tips for steaming or adding to soups and stews. New Zealand Round Red spinach makes a weed resistant ground cover in Brilliant bright red round roots, that are noted semi-shade and can also be trained up a trellis for their mild flavour, and crunchy texture. Very or used to cascade down banks. quick grower and resistant to pithiness. HP S GR0W GROW sow Sep-Mar Aug-Feb French Breakfast Harvest 1m x 1.2m 40-60 days A garden favourite since the 1880s. The rose- tipped white roots are crisp and tasty. Turnips

II COOL SOIL

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II 2ND PLANTING

II Soil temperature for sowing I0°C-20°C. nd Vegetables I Cool Soil 2 planting Air temp for growing 10°C-25°C.

Beetroot Beta vulgaris Beetroot actually belongs to the same species as silverbeet. A native of the European seashore, Beta vulgaris was grown and selected for different characteristics - one for a leaf crop, another for roots that could be eaten when young or stored in cellars over winter, and another, used as stock feed, called Mangelwurzel. The selection of root crops for human consumption is, of course, our concern. Most varieties of beetroot are ornamental as well as useful, so don 7 be afraid of giving them a prominent position in the garden. Their red, yellow or white veined leaves can also be harvested for salads, stir fries or steaming.

Bull's Blood Cultivation Beetroot prefers a rich soil with well decomposed manure dug in. Drainage is important, as is a pH of 6.5-7, so add some lime or dolomite while you arc at it. They also tolerate sally conditions. Soak the corky seed in warm water overnight for even germination. The seed will germinate in soil temperatures as low as 12°C, but quicker Burpee's Golden, Globe, Chioggia & Albina results will be had at temperatures close to 20°C. In mild, frost free areas avoid sowing in autumn as they may run up to seed prematurely. Although beetroot can grow at very high densities, it is best to thin the seedlings - the thinnings can be utilised in salads. Roots with irregular colour, or woody, tough roots can be the result of irregular watering or a very high pH - above pH7.5.

GROW GROW GROW Burpee's Golden Chioggia Sep-Feb July-Mar Apr-July 1 YI 8,d Globe Mini Gourmet 30cm x 10cm ."ft™? , ll , . 55-140 days 3 kg/metre A large growing beet that is familiar to all Sophisticated purple, baby beetroot to be served Burpee's Golden (heirloom) Australians as canned beetroot. Deep red, round whole and the most intensely flavoured when Dating from before 1828, this orange skinned roots. harvested early. Can be sown at closer spacings beet is a clear golden yellow when cooked. It in the garden. is ideal for salads and messy caters, as it does White Alhina (heirloom) not bleed. A dual purpose variety bred for root Pure white, extremely sweet round roots which Bull's Blood production and its gold veined leaves that can do not bleed. A dual purpose beet with large Incredibly deep red roots, and dark leaves be used in salads. Sweeter than conventional leaves. make this very sweet beet both ornamental and varieties and the best baby beet. delicious. The juice from Bull's Blood is the BEETROOTTRIALS 1995-YIELD only red food colouring allowed under Swedish Standard Chioggia (heirloom) 55 days 144 days law. This is the beauty queen of the beetroot world, Derwent Globe with alternate, onion-like concentric lings of Heirlooms red and white. These exceptionally sweet roots Golden 7g I92g were traditionally grown outside Venice where Mini Gourmet 12g 255g it has been part of their recorded cuisine since Chioggia 48g 346g 1583. Slow to bolt. Albina 24g 342g Globe II Celeriac Apium graveolens var. rapaceum Celeriac is certainly not the beauty queen of the mot vegetable kingdom. However, its earthy, sweet, nutty flavour reminiscent of parsnip, is becoming more popular outside its culinary homeland of France and Germany. Steam and slice to serve with salad dressing, grate into salads, steam, fry, bake or boil in soup, to enjoy celeriac's'high levels of potassium and vitamins A, B and C. The leaves can be used as a stock and soup flavouring, like celery.

Chicory

Celery Chicory Cichorium intybus var.

Celeriac foliOSUm Radicchio, Witloof An ancient salad vegetable closely related to Cultivation endive, an annual, while chicory is biennial. Plant out celeriac seedlings in well enriched, Chicory is three vegetables in one, producing moist soil with as little root disturbance as bitter leaves to enliven a bland salad, and the possible. As it grows remove any side shoots. delicately flavoured chicons, Italian or Belgian Water them deeply for the best roots. Seedlings witloof. The mot, masted and ground, is used arc frost sensitive and enjoy some shade in as a substitute for coffee. The leaves are said to summer. aid digestion and boost the immune system. GROW GROW GROW Fennel sow Aug-Dec July-Nov Jan-June Cultivation 50cm x 20cm "J™. 3 m Chicory prefers a rich, slightly acid soil (about Fennel pH6) in full sun, and can be sown directly into Foeniculum vulgare var. Celery the garden. Very wet weather can cause the leaves to rot, so remove any affected leaves azoricum Apium graveolens var. dulce before the condition spreads to the healthy Florence fennel produces the fat. white, swollen Celery, as most of us imagine it, is all about leaves. leaf bases that are often called 'bulbs'at the long crunchy fluted stems lo eat raw or chopped Generally harvest your chicory/radicchio greengrocer. They have a refreshing light anise into winter soups and stews. Like celeriac, it when it has formed a compact head, leaving at flavour. The seeds are used to flavour sweet is high in potassium and its diuretic properties least 2cm of stem above the root. The stem will and savoury dishes, and when green and can assist in cases of high blood pressure and re-sprout to form a bonus crop! unripe, taste like black jellybeans. Fennel aids joint complaints. To grow your own witloof, decapitate your digestion and the seeds were chewed by smart Home gardeners prefer the blanching, or 3-5 month old chicory in winter, or early spring, Roman ladies to suppress appetite. one could say self-blanching types. They need leaving about 2cm of stem. Cover the chicory far less work (and digging) and produce white with about 30cm of straw or coco peat to Cultivation stems when wrapped with cardboard a few exclude all light from the stem. Keep moist for Folklore has it that fennel has no friends in the weeks before harvest. the chicons to develop in about 3 to 4 weeks. garden, and therefore should be planted away Alternatively you can grow your chicory on from other vegetables. However, fennel with its Cultivation to flower. It produces beautiful sky blue daisies femy feathery leaves and airy discs of yellow Plant seedlings in blocks rather than rows. A that can be picked fresh for salads or pickling. flower, is easy to place in any sunny spot in the position with a little shade in hot, dry areas is GROW GROW garden. Best planted in cooler months to avoid beneficial, as celery demands constantly moist sow Aug-Mar Aug-Apr boiling. •?nrm * ?0rm Harvest Yield soil and its shallow root system can easily dry x 20cm g0 180 days 1 kg/m UD GROW GROW GROW out. Mulch well. Harvest stems from about 4 HS sow Sep-Feb Aug-Dec Feb-Aug months after planting out. Red Treviso tn,_ v on.,- Harvest Yield 50cm x 20cm 90.12odays 5 bulbs/m GROW GROW GROW As the weather cools, the leaves change from Aug-Doc July-Nov Jan-June warm to dark red. Keep for winter greens, or Florence Fennel 50crn X 20cm Harvest Yield divide and hill up with straw for pale pink X /ucm 150.170days 3 bunches/m A refreshingly mild anise flavoured fennel. chicons. Chop into salads or serve with seafood.

II VEGETABLES I COOL SOIL 1ST PLANTING Carrots & Parsnips Daucus carota & Pastinaca sativa Since the days of the Roman Empire, carrots and parsnips have been lumped together. They were both valued as slewing vegetables and required very similar growing conditions. Carrots have changed most from those limes. The orange carrot that we now accept as 'normal'was bred by the Dutch as late as the 1600s. They used the then common European white varieties, with yellow and purple carrots, (thought to have originated in Afghanistan), to produce the familiar orange.

Orange carrots are extremely rich in beta- Heirloom Carrots Cauliflower carotenes, which is credited with reducing the risk of cancel: Beta-camtene, which takes its name from carrots, is converted by the body to Cauliflower vitamin A. Brassica oleracea

Cultivation Botrytis group Carrots and parsnips prefer an open, loose soil. Although cauliflowers have been cultivated Those with stiff clay soils are best to select the for almost 2000years they did not become short round carrots, rather than the long varieties. widespread until after their introduction to Itqly Sow your seed directly into shallow furrows Three Colour Purple Carrots 500years ago. In the 19th Century they were a symbol of luxury, especially in the US, where in ground that has just grown a hungry crop, Carrots such as tomatoes or cabbages. Carrots arc not the perfect cauliflower dome with bechamel All Season/Topweight greedy, and too much nitrogen or manure will sauce on the dining table showed the prestige Plant year-round except for autumn in cool result in forked roots. of the host. climates. Orange with a red core and virus Weed control is critical, so a very fine mulch resistant. Yield: 235g/plant. of lawn clippings or coffee grounds (ask your Cultivation local cafe to save them), will help keep the Cauliflowers have similar needs to other Baby soil moist and weeds at bay. A strip of semi- brassicas, but are more demanding to grow. Harvest delicious finger length carrots in 8 permeable material can be stretchcd over the They insist on a pH of about 6.5, plus they arc weeks, or leave to grow 20cm in another 2 seedbed to prevent the soil drying out. Remove also prone to clubroot, which makes the plant months. Great for close sowing and heavy soils. the material as the seed germinates. wither and turn yellow. So add some lime to Yield: 228g/plant. Carrot seed will take a tew weeks to your well-manured soils and maintain moist growing conditions for the best results. In warm germinate and parsnips even longer. Mix some Paris Market/Mini Round seed of quick growing root vegetables such as regions plant your seedlings in late summer A space saver to sow thickly. Ideal for pots and radishes, turnips or beetroot with the carrot/ and autumn to avoid the heat which will make heavy soil. Pick young. Yield: 95g/plant. parsnip seed, to help out-compete the weeds. them bolt. The size of the head is determined by These other vegetables can be harvested just as growing conditions and spacing. Purple Three Colour the carrots are needing more room. Carrots and To ensure the whitest of cauliflower, tie up The rich purple-red skin conceals bands of parsnips should be thinned to about 10cm apart the side leaves into a top knot to shade the brilliant orange and amber crunchy flesh. Quick for large carrots - the thinnings can be used as heads, or grow self-blanching types whose growing and productive. Yield: 200g/plant. baby carrots. Hill up the soil around carrots/ leaves cover the developing cauliflower. parsnips to prevent 'green shoulders'. GROW GROW GROW Parsnip HB so&w Nov-Jun Dsc-Apr Jan-Apr GROW GROW GROW Harvest Yield HB Sep-Feb Jul-Mar Feb-Nov Hollow Crown 60cm x 30cm sow 130-170 days 6-9 kg/m Harvest Yield Once a staple food in Europe, the parsnip 20cm x 10cm 60-130 days 2-3 kg'm declined in popularity when potatoes arrived Mini/Snowball from the New World. Cultivate as for carrots As early as hybrids, this mini planted at 30cni (above). Parsnips develop their sweet nutty spacings will producc snowy 10cm heads in flavour when left to store in the soil over winter. just 90 days from transplanting. Space at 60cm It is one of the few vegetables that improves for larger heads. Yield: 3-6kg. with late harvest. This heirloom variety has been a favourite since 1820. Purple Cape HB GROW GROW GROW Bred in South Africa, Purple Cape has large Aug-Feb Jul-Mar Feb-May heads more frost tolerant and less pest prone Harvest Yield 30cm x 15cm 120-300 days 1.S kg/m than other varieties. It is certainly more Hollow Crown Parsnip decorative in shades of dusty purple-pink.

60 Greens for salad Australian cuisine lias moved a long way since the days when iceberg lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers constituted the only salad imaginable. The revolution of using mixed leaves, creating a diversity of tastes, textures, colours and of course nutrition has developed since the early 1980s. We owe much to the English 'salad queen 'Joy Larkcom, who tapped the rich vein of regional salad greens from all over Europe and Asia. Salad greens (and French mesclun) are packed with antioxidants, iron and folates. A diet high in salad greens has long been viewed as an easy path to good health, especially Arugula if they have been grown organically. This is not the case with bought salad mixes that have been harvested some days previous, and sprayed regularly for pests and diseases. Fortunately this group of plants are exceptionally easy to grow at home. Wild Arugula Mache/Corn Salad Valerianella locust a Cultivation These mild, nutty flavoured leaves can be Any moist, well-drained soil that gets at least substituted for lettuce. Also known as Lamb's half a day's sun will thrust up all the folate you Lettuce, it will regrow once cut. 120cm. are likely to need. Sow your seeds directly into GROW GROW GROW HA the garden or pot that they will grow in. Aut-Sp Aut-Sp Aut-Winter Harvest When the seedlings have their second set of 30cm x 20cm 21-90 days leaves, thin them out leaving 20cm between plants. The reject seedlings can form your first Mizuna Brassica juncea var. japonica crop. Keep the remainder well watered and Mounds of beautifully filigreed, mild flavoured fertilise with a weak seaweed or fish emulsion leaves with a touch of pepper. A vety vigorous Mizuna every 2 weeks. Start harvesting your first leaves cut and come again mustard green. J 25cm Tatsoi from about 3 weeks depending on variety, and HA GROW GROW GROW Brassica rapa Chinensis group just keep picking! Many of these vegetables Any Any Any Harvest Tatsoi, or Chinese Flat Cabbage, forms a will regrow once cut, so one sowing could keep 30cm x 20cm 20-120 days perfectly symmetrical rosette. The deep green up a supply for a few months. When sowing spoon shaped leaves have a nutty flavour and salad greens in summer, place them in the Red Giant Mustard Brassica juncea arc eaten young in salads, or steamed when shade, (south or east side), of climbing beans or For those who like it hot. The huge, bronze- older. 115cm trellised tomatoes so they do not bolt up to seed. green leaves with striking white midribs add GROW GROW GROW structure to the vegetable garden. Spice up stir- HB Any Any Any S GROW GROW GROW HA sow Any Any Any fries, flavour ham, or toss into salads for that Harvest 50cm x 30cm 30-60 days Harvest 30cm x 20cm extra zing. Harvest at 15cm for salads, or use 21-90 days larger leaves for steaming. Jim

GROW Arugula, Eruca saliva HA S GROW GROW syn. Roquette sow Any Any Any Deliciously spicy leaves can be grown year 30cm X 30cm 5o"*00 days round, but best in cool weather. J 25cm Arugula, Apollo Larger leaves than the species, that are also more tender.

Wild Arugula Diplotaxis sylvestris Finely divided leaves with rich, nutty, spicy hot flavour, that stores well once picked. The most tolerant of poor, dry soils and summer heat, it is slower to bolt than Roquette. J 10cm

Watercress, see p91.

Red Giant Mustard Tatsoi

II VEGETABLES I COOL SOIL 1ST PLANTING

Lettuce are so decorative! difficult to grow, and their blanched white Lettuce Lactuca sativa leaves offer little nutrition. The butterheads Lettuce is no longer just lettuce. Thanks to with softer, almost velvety leaves are less pioneers like Joy Larkcom, we are becoming demanding, and their outer green or red leaves, Australian Red Velvet and Yellow Leaf used to a huge diversity in the flavours, textures provide more nutrition. All heading types have moisture and added potash will see them grow and colours of lettuce. Not only are they to be harvested at their convenience rather without check. decorative in the salad bowl, but as a cool than ours. Cut them before they start to look Premature bolting and subsequent bitterness season crop they can make a display to rival conical - a sign of bolting. They do not regrow. is usually the result of stress caused by poor flower gaixiens. Use lettuce as a colourful Grow as seedlings then transplant. transplanting techniques (if not sown outdoors), border or edge in sunny atvas of the gaiden in Cos or romaine varieties are characterised damage to their shallow roots, lack of fertilizer, winter and spring, or shadier areas in summer. by long elegant leaves with crunchy thick lack of water or planting in hot weather (over Quick-growing mini varieties are useful midribs. They can be sown close together to 28°C). So when transplanting lcttuce choose a to plant with slower growing vegetables produce upright leaves that are harvested cool, cloudy day, having sown in peat pots to like broccoli or cabbages. Or plant them before they form a heart. Not only do you not minimise root damage. Mulch lettuce seedlings underneath pea teepees, the lettuce will mature have the bother of tearing up the lettuce, but well to conserve moisture in the soil and and be harvested before the peas grow up the the plants will regrow, giving you two crops prevent weeds interfering with the root system. teepee and block out the light. This way you from the one sowing. A fortnightly feed of weak seaweed soh*ion can maximise your garden space. Loose-leaf lettuces offer the most diversity or worm water will keep them growing. Avoid In fact lettuce will grow just about anywhere of colour andflavour, together with the longest high nitrogen chemical fertilizers, as these will including pots, window boxes or the humble harvest period and highest nutritive value. promote soft sappy growth that is a magnet for foam boxes from the green grocer. Once they have developed about 5 or 6 leaves aphids, leaf miners and caterpillars. Lettuce is a member of the milk thistle you can harvest them leaf by leaf, as you need. Birds, slugs and snails arc the most persistent family producing a milky sap that can make Grow different varieties to boost biodiversity, of pests. Shelter your young seedlings from the leaves taste bitter, especially when they are confuse pests, and for the best looking salads. birds with a low 'roof' of wire or plastic netting about to bolt up to seed. By selecting the right Lettuce seed will not germinate over 28"C, but and use snail traps filled with beer to lure slugs varieties for the right season, and providing will germinate in punnets in the crisper section and snails to drown happily. Netting can be good growing conditions, this problem can be of the refrigerator. removed once the seedlings are established, in eliminated. about three weeks. There are generally three broad groups of Cultivation In summer, letluccs are best grown in the lettuce, the heading or hearting variety, the The best tasting lettuces are grown fast. Grow shade of other plants such as trellised tomatoes upright growing cos or mmaine, and the loose them in beds that have just been vacated by or climbing beans. leaf cut-and-come-again sorts, often referred to peas or beans, as all leaf crops, especially GROW GROW GROW HA as salad bowl varieties. lettuce, enjoy plenty of nitrogen. Loose soil "M sow Any Any Mar-Aug The heading types like Icebeig are the most Harvest Yield with plenty of organic matter will retain 30cm x 30cm 50-80 days 3 heads/m

62 Loose-Leaf Australian Yellow Leaf Huge, luminous, chartreuse green leaves are the perfect contrast to reds and greens. An Australian heirloom rescued by Digger's with the help of Seed Savers Exchange seed bank. It holds for up to 9 weeks even in warm weather. An outstanding performer in our trials.

Butterhead Freckles Bunte Forellenschuss Delicately flavoured butter lettuce with small heads to 20cm across. The rounded slightly crinkled leaves are splashed with red.

Goldrush Curled and crinkled, this lime green beauty adds a unique texture. Slow to boll.

Lollo Biondo and Lollo Rosso Vegetable parterre at Heronswood Frilled and frothy, the ruffled leaves of these two make a spectacular salad of lime green, pinks and red.

Red Velvet Viola Crepuscute The deepest, shiny, rich-rcd of any loose-leaf lettuce with a crunchy texture.

Royal Oakleaf First listed in 1771, its thick sweet midribs stand the heat belter than nearly all other loose Nasturtium Milkmaid leaf lettuce, reintroduced to the public by Digger's.

Cos or Romaine Cos Verdi Nasturtium Empress of India Fresh green with crunchy mid ribs. What would Caesar salad be without it'.' Edible Flowers Red Leprechaun Mini The salad garden, and the salad, can he Shiny, purple-red paddles of leaf with pinkish brightened up by the addition of edible flowers. midribs have more bite than most. Useful for inter-cropping; that is, growing between slower Calendula, Pot marigold Calendula vegetables, under teepees or in small spaces. Calendula officinalis Alaska Calendula, from the Latin calendulae, meaning Green splashed white saucers of leaf make Rouge d' Hiver 'through the months', will flower almost year great foliage contrast even before they flower in An elegant French cos with deep brown-red round in mild areas. The brilliant yellow or cither yellow or red. leaves fading to green in its heart. This French orange petals can be added to salads, stir-fries Apricot Tip Top - apricot flowers. variety is a great performer in winter (its name and eggs, not only to brighten them up, but to Empress of India - dark leaves and red flower. means 'Red of Winter'). Our trials showed it as aid in digestion. Also known as poor man's Peach Mclba - yellow streaked with ruby. holding well over summer. saffron, the dried petals are used for food Milkmaid - creamy white blooms adorn this colouring as well as making a tea to boost the trailer. immune system. 160 cm Heading Lettuce GROW GROW GROW HA H Aut-Sp Aut-Sp Anytime Great Lakes •E GROW GROW GROW HA sow Aut-Sp Aul-Sp Anytime Harvest A crisp green ball of leaf that is slow to go 20cm x 20cm 120 days Harvest to seed in summer, unlike other head-lettuce 20cm x 20cm 60 days varieties. Similar to the commercial 'Iceberg'. Violets and Pansies Viola spp. Nasturtium Tropaeoluin minus Sweet violet, Viola odorata, is a tough Red Iceberg Not only are the flowers edible, but also the perennial with scented flowers to add to late A tastier alternative to the common Iceberb leaves, stems, flower buds and seeds. Attracting winter and early spring salads, together with with burgundy and green leaves. bees and hoverflies, use nasturtiums as a living the young leaves. Sweet violets and Heartsease mulch under fruit trees. Toss leaves and flowers Viola tricolor make exquisite garnishes for into salads, sandwiches, egg, and cream cheese. sweet or savoury dishes. 120cm

Pickle the flower buds to use as capers, or grind ... GROW GROW the ripe seed as a substitute for pepper. J20cm HA Aut-Sp Aul-Sp 20cm x 20cm "a™*

II VEGETABLES I COOL SOIL 1ST PLANTING

Yellow fleshed potatoes Kipfler - Creamy yellow flesh that is the standard by which other varieties are judged. Great baked or boiled, unbeaten for salads. Yield: 400g/plant. Spunta - A huge oblong potato with yellow flesh and skin. It makes the best chips - just like Pringlcs without the chemicals. Very high yiclder. Desiree - A high yielding Dutch variety with soft pink skin and creamy flesh. Great for all cooking methods, except chips. 130 days to maturity. Yield: 1 kg/plant. King Ed ward - This heirloom potato raised in 1902 has stood the test of time, with creamy flesh and skin dappled pink. Great for boiling, chips and mash. Unbeaten for roasts. Royal Blue - Rich, royal blue skin fades to golden brown when made into crispy chips or crunchy roast potatoes. The creamy yellow flesh ensures luscious mash. Pink Eye - Of unknown origins this beautiful cream and purple potato was first recorded in Heirloom potatoes Tasmania in 1944. The waxy yellow flesh is Cultivation ideal mashed or boiled as 'new' potatoes. Nicola - Rich, sweet, yellow flesh tastes as if it Potatoes Potatoes are not fussy as to soil, but it docs was already buttered. Ideal for mashing, baking Solanum tuberosum need to be well loosened and should not have and slicing. Yield: 700g/plant. J Some say the greatest treasure brought back grown potatoes for at least 3 years. Adding Dutch Cream - Delicious Dutch bred potato to Europe from the New World was potatoes. organic matter will help retain moisture in with exceptionally creamy-yellow flesh that The Incas grew an extraordinary diversity of the soil and this is vital for potatoes, as they is perfect plain boiled with a little salt. Bake potatoes and their civilization thrived. The Irish, demand plenty of water when the potatoes whole for tasty torpedoes to top with cheese before 1845, depended on just one variety but are forming, from flowering time to harvest. and chives - a meal by itself! when their one variety of potato succumbed to Potatoes also enjoy the addition of potash and blight, the starvation of 1.5 million people and blood and bone to the soil. the emigration of millions followed. Use certified disease free seed potatoes to White fleshed potatoes Monocultures, unlike the agricultural lesson the chances of disease, and plant them Browncll - An Australian selection from diversity of the Incas. encourage the 10cm deep when the soil temperatures reach the 1881 American potato 'Adirondack'. Its concentration of pests and diseases. Unlike I5°C. The healthiest plants come from seed that pink-brown skin hides firm white flesh best the Irish, modern commercial potato growers has been planted whole, rather then cut. Seed for boiling as 'new' potatoes or mashing when depend on a huge array of pesticides, can also be sprouted in a warm cupboard, and older. Stores for up to 4 months! herbicides and fungicides to ensure a then planted out. Bison - One of the favourites in our taste tests successful crop, so this means commercial Hill up the soil or heap mulch around them, with cherry red skin and deliciously smooth, potato crops are drenched in chemicals, as they grow to exclude the light. Remember dense, white flesh. Perfect for baking or boiling particularly the Russet Burbank variety that all parts of the potato plant are poisonous and makes the tastiest of potato salads. grown for McDonalds™. By growing your except tubers that have 110 green tinge. 'New' Toolangi Delight - Australian bred. own and planting lots of varieties, you can potatoes can be dug before the plants wither, or The chefs favourite for gnocchi with rich reduce chemical use and discover the amazing harvest 'old' potatoes when the plants have died purple skin and brilliant white flesh. Also one culinary variety of potatoes. down. I11 frost free areas cut the plants down of the best for chips and mashing. Seed potatoes are actually not technically and cover with straw to stop them resprouting. Leave the crop in the ground for 2-3 weeks seed, but an identical clone of the parent, just Growing potatoes in one square metre. as offset bulbs of daffodils are genetically before digging so the skins harden, before You don't need a large space to grow potatoes. Try identical to the parent daffodil. As clones, storing in a dark airy spot. One seed potato growing them in a cylinder of chicken wire held they cannot evolve or adapt to vaiying should yield 10 potatoes. upright with 3-4 star pickets. Prepare the soil at the environmental conditions, as seed can. Seeds GROW GROW GROW Aug-Dec July-Feb Feb-Sep base of the cylinder and plant 3-4 seed potatoes. are the result of sexual interaction, and Cover them with straw mixed with some manure. 1m * -Mirm Harvest Yield therefore can adapt to change. Hence modern im x 30cm 120 days 3 kg/m As the plants grow 20cm above the straw mixture commercial potato civps are extremely add more so that just the tips of the stems are vulnerable to seasonal and cultural variations. Varieties visible above the second layer. Repeat this to about So take out a biological insurance policy, You can have the right potato for every culinary I -1,2m high - or however high your chicken wire and plant lots of different varieties to ensure a occasion. Yellow-fleshed waxy potatoes are the cylinder is. When the leaves die down, remove the good crop. choice of chefs and gourmets everywhere. chicken wire and harvest your potatoes. Deep pots like wine barrels can also be used.

64 Rhubarb Rheum x hybridum Rhubarb would have to be one of the most productive and easy to grow of perennial food plants. Tolerant of total neglect, it will, however, abundantly repay any horticultural kindness such as plenty of well-rotted manure and moist soil in the growing season. Rhubarb was called 'rhabarbarum'by the Romans after the manners of the Siberian people who grew the vegetable it means 'barbarian'! As a perennial crop, good soil preparation is essential. Well-rotted manure, compost and blood and bone can be dug in with abandon. An application of lime is also useful for those with very acid soils.

Yellow stemmed silverbeet R. 'Glaskins Perpetual' Vigorous plant with green-red stems that are the least acidic of all Rhubarb.

R. 'Ever Red' Five Colour silverbeet Compact cultivar with deep burgundy- silverbeet, generous as always, it is possible red stems with the longest harvest period, to get two plants out of one seed! In temperate producing from April to September. Ideal for a climates you can start to harvest leaves in about dramatic statement in smaller gardens or even two months. Always leave about half a dozen pots. leaves to allow the plant to keep growing. Older plants are more tolerant of over-harvesting, R. 'Silvan Giant' as they can draw on their swollen roots for A real giant with red and green striped stems up nourishment. Mulch and water your silverbeet to 80cm long. It crops right through summer. in dry weather to prevent them bolting prematurely. Additional fertilizing with blood and bone, or seaweed/worm water solutions, Silverbeet will keep them growing vigorously. When Beta vulgaris var. cicla supply outstrips the appetite, the older outside leaves can be consumed (with joy), by the Silverbeet. Swiss Chard or Sea Kale beer are backyard chooks. No garden should be without all one and the same. Those noting the botanic silverbeet. Rhubarb liver Red name will see that it is the same species as beetroot - only through centuries of cultivation Cultivation GROW GROW GROW Plant out rhubarb crowns in winter making sure one variety has been selected for mot sow Aug-Feb Jul-Mar Apr-Jul that the root system is well spread out, and the production, the other for its leaves. Therefore C«,_ „ K,_ narvesi neiu 50cm x 25cm 60.360 days 2 kg/metre crown just below the soil surface. Keep your the same five colours are evident in beetroot rhubarb well mulched, and delay harvesting and silverbeet. Five Colour Mix (heirloom) any stems the first year, so that the crown can Silverbeet should be in every home garden, Dazzling, colourful and extremely nutritious. develop. In the second year some stems can be as there are few vegetables that require less Midribs of red, orange, yellow, pink or white pulled (not cut), never taking more than half the care. It is the easiest vegetable to grow. Its make this the perfect fountaining accent total stems. The tastiest rhubarb is harvested flavour is less refined than that of spinach. plant for any flower or vegetable garden. just when the huge (but poisonous), leaf is fully However, as a cool weather biennial, silverbeet Rainbow chard or Five-coloured silverbeet expanded. can be harvested as needed for a year to 18 is so ornamental, it can brighten any garden. Rhubarb can be 'forced' to produce stems in months, unlike spinach. Reasonably fertile Decorative and productive! Listed in Vilmorin early spring by placing a box or barrel (open soil, in sun or even part shade, will suit this 1888. It is a signature plant for the heirloom at both ends) over the crown. The barrel can native of the seashore - it relishes sally soils. preservation movement. then be surrounded by fresh manure to heat the Silverbeet is tolerant of varying conditions, and soil, and stimulate growth. The taller the box or if a few plants are allowed to go up to seed, Fordliook barrel, the longer the stems will be. it will happily self sow, supplying the folate requirements of a household - and some of the Dclicious deep green leaves and while stems. HP 5E- GROW GROW GROW sow May-Ocl May-Ocl May-Ocl neighbourhood as well! 1m * 1m Harvest Yield Yellow (heirloom) x im 360 days 1.2 kg/m Cultivation Rich golden stems, so you can colour co- Sow the corky seed in early spring with ordinate your garden.

II WARM SOIL FROST FREE

II „ . ;— Soil temperature for X j ill | hr0St • •— sowing 15°C-24°C.

Vegetables I warm sou £ling Warm soil Hot weather (tender) vegetables come from tropical regions and their fruits are eaten just before seed matures. Seedlings arc frost sensitive. Don't plant before last frost. Beans Phaseolus vulgaris j \" y Jfeg^IH Whatever you call them, French, pole, siring, ' |A fWaH^HP' J snap or bush beans, they all have the same " 'fjm (M^^* ' origin, and are definitely not just green. Seed Savers, USA, has over 2500 heirloom cultivars ' Beans are ideal to plant after the hungry cool- IjfcLjfSy ^ .. season crops of brassicas, as their roots can V i • JB Dragon's Tongue Bush Bean fix nitrogen in the soil. Climbing beans outcrop A ^^L, S bush beans producing three times the yield, but ' J require extra thought in regard to trellising. \ W^k •<

Cultivation These fast growing annuals should be direct sown or planted out after all risk of frost. Pick daily for highest yields. Well drained, pH Scarlet Runner Bean neutral to alkaline soil in full sun is ideal, as is the addition of potassium and blood and bone. Painted Lady Runner Bean Mulch around your beans thoroughly - beans Perennial Runner beans are shallow rooted and are easily damaged with Phaseolus coccineus close cultivation. Many beans can by used fresh, or left on Cultivation the plant to form large seeds for use in winter Runner beans are also known as seven year soups and stews. Sow beans repeatedly for up beans as they die back in autumn to re-emerge to six months for a continuous supply. the next spring. Preferring cool climates, runner Rattlesnake Climbing Bean ta 55 GROW GROW GROW beans will not set pods when the temperatures sow Oct-Jan Sep-Fob Any Rattlesnake soar over 30°C and arc best planted in some Green streaked purple beans are as delicious 70cm x 15cm essays shade in warmer districts. These beans need as the pink and purple flowers are pretty. cross-pollination, so plant them with bee Climbing beans (pole) Flowering and fruiting continuously for four attracting plants such as lavenders, borage, Immensely productive, climbing beans can months. teucriums and thymes. They crop heavily in be grown on tomato trellising, on tripods or late summer and autumn. through light shrubs such as large Salvias, as Bush beans (French or Dwarf) All runner beans are climbers, so they will they do in their native Mexico. Bush beans are easily grown and always look need some form of support. They are worth Yield: 4.5kg/in neat. However they tend to crop all at once, so growing for their flowers alone and are as pretty make successive sowings every two weeks or as sweet peas. Blue Lake so. Space 50cm x 10cm. Yield: l.5kg/m Although the plants will re-emerge each Grown since 1885, Blue Lake rated 97% for spring, they lose vigour over time and should taste in our taste tests. Classic slender green Dragon's Tongue be replaced every 3 to 4 years. beans. Yield: 295g/planl. Extremely beautiful, wide, succulent pods of GROW GROW pale lemon streaked with purple are delicious Oct-Jan Sep-Feb Lazy Housewife both as a fresh or dried bean. . ndivcbi iioiu 70cm x 15c r m 40-120 days 2 kg/m Thought to be the first stringless bean dating from 1802. Described in Burpee's 1888 farm Italian Romano Varieties include: annual as being broad, thick and very fleshy, A Mediterranean favourite with wide, flat Painted Lady and entirely stringless "it derived its name, 12cm beans, than can be used fresh or dry for A 19th century variety with scarlet and white which seems discourteous, from its immense minestrone soup. flowers that produce early ripening pods. productiveness making it easier to gather..." Our oldest and still the most productive. Snake Bean Scarlet Runner Vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis The traditional favourite has brilliant scarlet Purple King Suitable only for areas with long warm flowers. The purple flowers are followed by slender summers, the Snake or Yard Long bean is best purple pods that are easy to see against the deep grown in subtropical and tropical regions. The Sunset (Rare) green leaves, making them easy to pick. The pencil-slim beans grow to 90cm long and taste Has luminous pale salmon-pink flowers beans lum green when cooked. more like mild asparagus than a typical bean. producing succulent pods.

II Capsicum & Chillies Capsicum spp. Capsicum and chillies (or peppers) are another gastronomic treasure from Central and South America. All capsicums have high levels of vitamin C and other antioxidants with the hot varieties being beneficial for colds and the respiratory system. Heirloom capsicums not only come in amazing colours, they produce earlier in the season and have higher yields. The more mature the fruit, the more developed the flavour, be they sweet or hot varieties.

Cultivation The Capsicum family have a greater demand for heat than tomatoes, so in cooler areas start your capsicums indoors so that they can he planted outside as advanced seedlings after the risk of frost. Biodegradable pots are recommended, as they are susceptible to transplant shock. Choose Iteirlonm capsicums a warm, sunny spot and cultivate it deeply adding dolomite to supply the Capsicums need Bell Peppers Chillies for calcium and magnesium. The boring green oblong blobs that are found in Habanera Air circulation is also important as they can supermarkets are actually just unripe capsicums Named for Havana in Cuba and only for succumb to moulds and mildew in humid areas. that would turn red if left to mature. It is a extremely cool customers, Habancro is 30 If there are temperatures of 38°C or above bit like eating unripe apples! Heirloom bell times as hot as Jalapeflo. Its distinctive flavour expected, arrange some shade for your plants, peppers come in orange, black, yellow, white, blends beautifully with tomatoes, makes the as the flowers will drop in these conditions. purple and of course red and green. Seven best chilli oil and great chilli sauce. Heat 10 out Regular harvesting improves the productivity colours in all. of 10. and vigour of the bushes, and of course they Varieties can be harvested before they mature depending Chinese Giant, Sweet Chocolate, Sweet Jalapeno on what level of flavour is desired. Pick the fruit Cheese Pimento and Mini Capsicums. Named after the town of Jalapa in Mexico's with secateurs to avoid damaging the plant and Veracruz region. Jalapcno's thick-fleshed 7.5cm always wear gloves when harvesting chillies! Bullshorn fruit can be chopped into salsas and stews or Yoghurt is (he best first aid. The Italians selected long slender bullshorn anything that needs that extra touch of spice! All Capsicum need high soil temperatures shaped capsicums especially for frying. Harvested when red, it has a sweet flavour and to germinate, between 23°C and 28°C is ideal. Varieties can be dried by smoking when (hey are called If you are considering saving seed of your Jimmy Nardello, Corno di Torn and chipotlc chillies. Heat rating 5.5 out of 10. capsicum, be warned, they cross very easily Marconi. and the gene for hot flavoured capsicums is Cayenne dominant. Alma Paprika Tapered, translucent red fruits to 10cm long Rating: Sweet-0 1 2 3 4 5-Hot Beloved by Hungarians, this capsicum is dried Cayenne chillies are traditionally used dried and powdered as Cayenne pepper. Heat rating GROW GROW GROW and ground for the most authentic goulash. TP so55w Sep-Nov Aug-Dec Apr-Sep 8 out of 10. Harvest Yield 50cm x 50cm 90-130 days 2-3 kg/m Santa Fe Grande A pale yellow 5cm long chilli with a light, refined flavour. Heat rating 6 out of 10. Trials at Digger's (Seymour) Days to fruit Yield / Plant Bell Peppers Standard Californian Wonder - Green to Red 124 1,28kg Sweet Chocolate - Black (Red inside) 109 2.01kg Purple Beauty 101 1,28kg Chinese Giant - Emerald to Ruby 127 1.19kg Mini-Sweet - 5cm fruit Red, Black, Yellow 93 1.10kg Bullshorn (Fryers) Corno Di Toro - 20cm long red 136 2.5kg Jimmy Nardello - 20cm thin walls, very sweet 93 1.47kg Gypsy Hybrid -Yellow to Red 124 0.64kg Chilli

II VEGETABLES I WARM SOIL

Zea mays There is only one way to experience the true taste of sweeteorn, and that is to grow it yourself. Corn originated in Central America and the Indians relied on it for the production of flout; porridge (called hominy grits by settlers), and popping corn. They also maintained strains for 'green' corn that was sweet and harvested 'in the milk', that is when a corn kernel would ooze a milky substance when pierced. The cobs were then slow roasted and dried to be mixed with beans to make the nourishing winter dish 'succotash'. Today most gardeners want to grow 'sweet corn' with traditional corn flavour. They have been developed from the Indian selections, however most varieties offered today are hybrids or 'supersweets'. Their sugar levels are higher than the heirloom varieties, and the Golden Bantam harvest time not as critical. It is, however, good hill up the soil around the stems to encourage advice to have the water boiling before you go more root growth, and start to apply seaweed to pick the com! solution or worm water at regular two weekly intervals. A thick mulch is essential to suppress Open- Traditional sweet corn flavour weeds and maintain moist soil. Climbing beans pollinated where sugars convert to can be sown at this stage, which will climb the starch rapidly and it is vital to corn stalks, and pumpkins and squash are also (OP) pick and eat within hours. traditionally planted at their base to make the Hybrid Corns have higher sugars and most of limited space. sugar tenderness and can be eaten Harvest your sweeteorn when the kernels enhanced raw. They do not need to be give out a milky substance when pierced (SE) isolated from traditional corn. - the fluid will be watery if it is under ripe. Have the highest sugar levels Harvesting of popcorn or flour corn should take and much slower conversion place when the leaves covering the car have to starch, giving up to 10 dried. Peel back the leaves, and hang the cobs days of heightened sugar to dry before rubbing the kernels from the cob. Hybrid levels. Seeds will not produce GROW GROW GROW Supersweets supersweet flavour if they Oct-Jan Sep-Feb Any cross with OP or SE hybrids. (SS) They need to be isolated by sowing 10 days later. They require more water than the Traditional Corn (Open pollinated.) SE or OP varieties in order to Golden Bantam (heirloom) 1902. swell their shrunken seeds. This is the 'corniest' of sweeteorn. Rich yellow Honey & Crearn GE corn is currently banned in Australia. As it cobs on 1.5m stalks. is wind-pollinated it readily contaminates all Sugar Enhanced Hybrid other corn with pest or hcrbicide resistant genes, Ornamental Indian Corn (heirloom) Dwarf F] Its widespread planting has contaminated non- A collection of heirloom varieties with Our most adaptable and easiest to grow GE corns in Mexico and the US. multicoloured cobs that can be dried for flour sweeteorn and the earliest to fruit. Hardy from production, or just to admire. J2m Tasmania to Cairns. J1.7m. Cultivation Com demands a rich, well-prepared soil with Variegated Corn Supcrsweet Hybrids a neutral pH. Corn is so greedy for nutrients, Striped leaves of icy while and cool lime linged Breakthrough F| they are ideal planted after a crop of peas or pink produce small cobs of deep burgundy Twice as sweet as ordinary corn and keeps its broad beans, and can be sown directly into the black that can be eaten fresh. Jim flavour for up to 10 days. J 1.9m bed after frost at minimum I6°C (24°C for supersweets). Sow corn in blocks rather than a Baby Corn Fi Honey and Cream Breakthrough Fj row to help with pollination. If you only grow Fresh baby corn is the most delicate of So sweet it doesn't need cooking, with plump a few plants jiggle the male flowers (at the top delicacies and makes sophisticated stir-fries yellow and white kernels. J1,9m of the plant) to shake the pollen onto the 'silk' - never put up with the tinned variety again! which is part of the female flower, to improve Plant at normal spacing. Harvest continuously White Corn Fi pollination. before the silk appears, to grow up 4 to 6 cobs The shiny white kernels arc super sweet and so When the seedlings are about 30cm high, per plant, or leave the cobs to mature for golden rich they taste like they arc already buttered. popcorn. 4-6cm fruit. J2m 12m

70 Cucumber Cucumis sativus Cucumbers are natives of Asia and Africa and were grown by the Greeks from where they were spread to the rest of Europe. There are several different strains of cucumber where they have been adapted to regional tastes and climates African field cucumbers are the dark green types with bitter skins most often found in supermarkets. The smooth-skinned burpless cucumbers, small fruited varieties for pickling as gherkins, apple cucumbers and long striped fruit are fmm Asia. C. Mini White

Cultivation Cucumbers need a rich soil lhai does not dry out, and has a pH of above 6.5. Seeds sprout readily at soil temperatures of 2()°C. They arc the fastest and easiest of vegetables to grow. Cucumbers arc traditionally grown as a sprawling vine, but will also thrive when grown on a trellis or teepee. Ideal for pots. Choose a well-ventilated, sunny spot for your cucumbers, as they are prone to moulds and mildews in humid, still weather. Pick your cucumbers regularly as soon as they arc edible size to encourage more flowers and fruit.

GROW GROW GROW TA sow late Oct-Dec lale Sep-Jan July-Oct Harvest Yield 120cm x 100cm 60-80 days 10-23 kg/m C. Spacemaster Varieties Sweet and Striped Cucumbers arc also divided into regular and The sweetest cucumber that can grow to I m burpless varieties. The burpless cucumbers long. Elegantly curled, ribbed, striped and do not need peeling, so gardeners who want drought tolerant. Yield: 6.5 fruit/plant. to maximise their antioxidant intake should 1 I'-XHI'l"" Lislatla di Gandia choose the burpless types. Lebanese Classic short Mediterranean smooth-skinned seasons. Their stiff branches will need staking Spacemaster variety for pickling or slicing. Yield: 16 fruit/ in order to support the weight of the fruit. A bush cucumber that won't overrun your plant. Eggplants have few pest and disease garden. Produces deep green 20cm fruits ideal problems, except aphids, which are easily dealt for slicing. Yield: 8 fruit/plant. Mini White with using pyrethmm. For maximum yield, pick With the freshest taste and crunchiest texture. the fruit as soon as it is ripe - when the skin is easily indented when light pressure is applied. Burpless Cucumbers Use fresh or pickled. Yield: 12 fruit/plant. Tp GROW GROW GROW Armenian Cucumis melo flexuosus 1 y xm Sep-Nov Aug-Dec Mar-Aug Pale fruit with a refreshing flavour. Never goes an „,„ Harvest Yield Eggplant cn pithy or hollow. Actually a melon disguised 60cm x 60cm 120-140 days 5-10 kg/m as a cucumber! With huge yields and fruit that Solarium melongena reaches I m with curious ribbed skin. Stores Eggplants come from tropical Asia. They are Varieties well. now pai l of the cuisine from Greece (mousaka) Long Purple to Japan (pickles). They range from the Purple oval fruit to 20cm long. This heirloom fruits almost 3 weeks before the industry Lemon voluptuous 'Long Purple', delicately streaked standard hybrid Bonica F|. Yield: 3.5kg/plant. A tangy flavour that never turns bitter like Listada di Gandia, orange Turkish varieties, Crystal Apple. Prolific. Yield: 15 fruit/plant. and the white globe-shaped fruit that gave them their present common name. Listada di Gandia This early maturing, delicately striped eggplant, Mexican Sour Gherkin on a space saving, heavy bearing, 30cm bush, This heirloom climbing cucumber tastes both Cultivation is an Italian heirloom. The skin of the 15 to sweet and sour, just like a gherkin without the Eggplants, or aubergines, require more heat 20cm fruit looks worthy of a da Vinci ctching. work! The 3-5cm fruits look like miniature than tomatoes, but similar conditions, and being and the fine-fleshed, almost seedless fruit is the watermelons and drop from the vine when ripe. slow-growing, require a long, hot growing gourmet's choice. Yield: 7.7kg/plant. season. In frost-free areas eggplants can be treated like perennials, producing fruit for a few

II VEGETABLES I WARM SOIL Peanuts Arachis hypogaea Not a nut at all, but a highly nutritious legume, valuable in the kitchen, and as a soil improver in the vegetable garden. Peanuts can be grown as far south as Melbourne, but for good crops a 140-day growing season is essential. The peanut is a lax, almost trailing plant, and makes an ideal ground cover between other plants. The nuts are produced in the most remarkable and horticultural!}' unique fashion. The stems bearing the yellow flowers bend and bury themselves in the ground, where the nuts Okra develop about 5 to 10cm under the soil surface. They are well named 'ground nuts' in their Okra native South America. Abelmoschus esculent us Cultivation Okra is also called Lady's Finger, and as a Plant fresh nuts with their papery covering native of tropical Africa, found its way to intact, but without their shell in sandy, loose America via the slave trade. The immature soil after frost in a warm position. Keep the pods are eaten when tliey are about 7cm long surrounding soil open and weed free. When the before they become fibrous. It is one of the vital plants arc about 30cm high, hill up soil around ingredients in Creole and Cajun cuisines where the plant so that the flower stems can root Heirloom pumpkins it is eaten fresh, sauteed with tomatoes, corn, quickly into it. When the leaves turn yellow and capsicum and onion, marinated or used to make the veins on the shells darken, cut the taproot, gumbo. To say that gumbo is a type of soup is lift the entire plant, and hang to dry in an airy Pumpkins like saying that a Rolls Royce is just a type of shed. In areas with shorter growing seasons car. Okra is the magic thickening ingredient in harvest can be delayed until after the first frosts. Cucurbita maxima, C. pepo, gumbo, being extremely mucilaginous, with a Although the plant will be killed, the nuts will C. moschata taste reminiscent of eggplant. Okra can also continue to develop. As you can guess from the many species cited be deep fried in cornmeal and served as a Dry the plant for at least 3 weeks, but no above, pumpkins are part of a large family that vegetable by itself. longer than 3 months. Discard any nuts that includes zucchini, squash and gourds. Okra has high levels of both soluble and show symptoms of fungus or moulds, as this is However 'real'pumpkins, or winter squash insoluble fibre, folic acid, potassium, calcium extremely toxic. as they are called elsewhere, are something of and magnesium so it is well worth growing. TA •55 GROW GROW GROW an Australian speciality. Nowhere else in the Three to four plants are sufficient for a family, sow Nov-Dec Sep-Dec Any world are pumpkins held in such high esteem, but why not plant more? As a close relative of Harvest 30cm x 20cm 140 days rivalling potatoes on the family menu. hibiscus and hollyhock, okra is very ornamental. Amy Goldman, in her definitive book "The Complete Squash', maintains that Australian Cultivation pumpkins are 'the most highly evolved on the Soak fresh okra seed overnight to improve planet'with "mealy, sugary brilliant orange germination rates, and sow outdoors (soil flesh ". She is referring to our selections of temperature 20 - 25°C) in clumps of three. Cucurbita maxima, unlike the watery Cucurbita Select the strongest seedling and remove the pepo varieties thai were most often grown as rest. Water, and mulch well to reduce weeding. marrows or for stock food. This latter species The soft yellow flowers are produced in generally have the glowing golden orange skin, about 60 days and the immature fruits can a huge seed cavity (useful for making Jack O' be harvested 3 to 4 days after flowering. It Lanterns) and a thin layer of pretty ordinary produces for months until it's 1.5 metres tall. lasting flesh. JJH Gregory, a Massachusetts Harvest every other day, as they become seedsman of the 1800s, staled thai "to bring tough if harvested when the fruits are more them, when prepared in any way, to the table is than 7cm long. If you miss a few, allow them to rob the stock and wrong the family". to develop into dry pods, the seeds can then be Cucurbita moschata includes the extremely harvested and ground to make a substitute for tasty elongated Butternut, and some of the coffee, similar to chicory. flaiiisli, deeply-ribbed (or 'cheese') pumpkins ta GROW GROW GROW such as 'Musquee de Provence', which are boili sow Nov-Dec Oct-Dec Any excellent table varieties. Rn*-m v sn™ Harvest Yield 60cm x 50cm 70 days 0.5 kg/m Peanuts

72 Bohemian Pumpkin Manage the unmanageable Pumpkins are lusty, vigorous plants that can rampage through the garden with vines up to trunbark Pumpkin 10m long. Growing them along the ground is Cultivation not for neat freaks. However pumpkins are easy Dr Will Trueman in Digger's pumpkin patch. Seymour Whatever pumpkin you plant, they are the to grow on a trellis. Plant them near their future Will Trueman conducted all the vegetable easiest of the cucurbits to grow. Pumpkins like support, and when the vines are about I m trials that you see in litis book. He is the person their tucker, so dig loads of well-rotted manure long, lift and lie them to the trellis. Continue most responsible for proving the superiority of into a wide area around where they will grow to weave them onto the support through the heirloom vegetables over modern hybrids. We (more of (his later). Pumpkins germinate easily, season. If you are worried about the fruit are all indebted to his work. but should not be in the garden until after the falling (I have never seen this happen - they " Virtually no new varieties are being risk of frost. Taking about 2 weeks to come up arc amazingly strong), slip an old stocking over produced for gardeners, so preservation is vital at soil temperatures of 15°C, they are much the young fruit, and tie the end to the trellis. As to our gardening inheritance ". quicker with soil temperatures of 18°C to 20°C+. the pumpkin grows, the stocking will stretch to As the table below indicates, heirloom Gardeners in cooler or frosty areas can start accommodate it. pumpkins out-yield the industry hybrids. their seedlings in a warm position in peat or If you arc growing your pumpkins along jiffy pots and then plant out after the frost, to the ground it is possible to layer sections of PUMPKIN TRIALS 1993 - 1996 make the most of shorter growing seasons. the main stem so that another set of roots Total Pumpkins need at least 4-5 months of warm will develop. At a point where there is a leaf Yield conditions to ripen. Sow more than you need growing from the stem, remove the leaf and in case of failure, you can always remove any bury that section of stem, with about 10cm of Standards / Hybrid seedlings excess to requirements. soil. The resulting new root system can take Pumpkins need plenty of water through advantage of the store of water and nutrients Sweet Mama F their growing season, so it appears odd that (dug in previously), away from the main root Butternut they should prefer to be planted out on a raised system thus improving vigour and yields. Heirlooms C. maxima mound. Pumpkin seedlings are very susceptible Harvest your pumpkins when the stalk Australian to rotting when small, so it is essential they 152 6.52 3.25 20.3 attaching it to the vine turns woody and Qld Blue have good drainage. You can make a series of corky. Cut (not tear), the stalk from the plant, Jarradale 131 4.6 3.5 16.1 shallow furrows to act like dams to catch water, and store your pumpkin in a cool airy spot. a metre or so from the seedling. Mulch the area Never lift your pumpkins by this "handle" as Aust. Butter 119 5.5 3.25 17.9 well to protect their shallow root system and if it breaks off, the pumpkin will begin to go Ironbark 124 3.65 2.4 8.3 reduce weed competition. mouldy within days. Turkscap 119 5.9 3.1 18.3 Soils with a pH of 5.5 to 6.8 are ideal for GROW GROW GROW Bohemian 119 5.1 1.8 9.2 pumpkins, as is some extra potash. Prone lale Oct-Dec lale Sep-Dec July-Oct n mainly to fungal diseases, these can be 200cm x 200cm 120 ^0days 10-20 kg/pit Pollination by hand managed by not planting pumpkins in the same Transferring male pollen to the female flower is ground for about 3 seasons, and making sure easy with all pumpkin and squash. they have an open, well-ventilated position. NB Female flower is open to illustrate plants' parts. Always hand pollinate using closed or semi-closed female flowers. (See p7H)

Musquie de Provence Waltham Butternut pumpkin VEGETABLES I WARM SOIL

Pollination and Seed Saving Pumpkins are characterised by having separate male and female (lowers on the one vine, (monoecious). The males are carried on long stems up to the leaf canopy, while the females grow close to the main stem and have a round, swollen, hall-like structure behind the petals. This is the ovary that will eventually form the pumpkin. Bees are the main pollinators, however you can try your hand at pollinating them yourself. Children find this quite a magical activity and it's a great introduction to how life perpetuates. At first light before the bees stir, select a male llower (a tall one) with plenty of loose pollen on the rod-like stamen. Peel off the surrounding petals and gently brush the inside Triamble of the female flower (the lumpy one) with the pollen. The female flower should be just turning orange and the petals loosely closed, or just partially open. Ignore older flowers, and try to find at least 2 male flowers for each female for maximum success. Some girls just don't take to the first boy they meet! A perfect pumpkin should be the happy result from this union. Hand pollination is most successful when the weather is settled, and carried out early in the morning. (See p77) Pumpkins of the same species cross readily, so if you grow more than one of a particular species, the seed from the resulting pumpkins Turk's Turban Deticaui Pumpkin will not come true to type - they would be the unique combination of, for example, whatever Trianible C. maxima C. maxima varieties you (or your neighbours) Also known as 'Shamrock' or Tristar' pumpkin. Butternut C. moschata have planted. Its three distinct lobes make it easy to cut into The standard for taste, but unfortunately the If you want to save your seed and want to meal sized portions and stores uncut for long poorest yield in our trials. grow different sorts of pumpkins, you can grow periods. The flesh is orange, dense and sweet. one from each different species. For example 3.5kg fruits. Delicata Bush Mini C. pepo you could grow Turk's Turban (or any other C. Tastes just like a sweet potato with green and maxima), Butternut (or any other C. moschata), French Bred yellow striped skin. The 450g fruit are ideal both for the table, and Delicata Mini Sweet (or Musquee de Provence C. moschata baking size for small households. Must have any other C. pepo). The three species do not Beautifully-formed, heavily-fluted fruit. It can hot weather. Yield: 3kg/plant. interbreed/cross pollinate, so you can save the be eaten green, or left to mature when the skin seed of any resulting fruit, and know it will be turns a rich brown, and the vibrant orange flesh Red Kuri C. maxima true to the varieties you planted. is excellent for baking and never stringy. A Japanese prize selection of baby Red Hubbard. Store it on top of the kitchen dresser and admire Elegant teardrop shaped pumpkins of brilliant Heirloom varieties its beauty - it will last for ages. 8kg fruits. red-orange with outstanding flavour. 2kg fruits. Once again heirloom varieties have proven superior to hybrids and mainstream varieties in Potimarron C. maxima Turk's Turban C. maxima our trials at Heritage Farm Seymour, Victoria. This French pumpkin is named for its rich The most curiously shaped of all pumpkins, chestnut flavour. Glowing orange-red skin for striped orange, white and green - no two are great looks, 1 to 2kg fruits for convenient size, the same. Stores well. 5.9kg fruits. Australian Bred and excellent storage qualities. The Potimarron Australian Butter C. maxima is also tops for taste, savour the smooth, dense World's Largest C. maxima Pale orange skin conceals fine-flavoured flesh. flesh. Delectable. Prize-winner of the world's largest pumpkin The 5.5kg fruit stores well. Yield: 17.9kg/plant. (629kg), also known as Atlantic Giant. If you remove competing fmit and pump in nutrients, Ironbark C. maxima International Varieties fruit of 227kg are not uncommon. This Australian heirloom is as thick skinned Bohemian C. maxima as some of our politicians making it our best This one wins the beauty prize, its sweet dense storing pumpkin. Great flavour. 3.5kg fniits. flesh is covered in jade-green skin fading into pink. Prolific and stores well. 9.2kg/plant.

74 Rockmelons Cucumis melo There is no substitute for a home grown melon that has been left on the vine to soak up the ; : sun, ami picked when perfectly ripe. What J] masquerades as rockmelon, or cantaloupe (depending on where you are fivm), in the greengrocer, bears no relation to the sweet dripping lusciousness of a well-grown melon. Commercial offerings are generally harvested all at once regardless of individual ripeness, y V then blasted with ethylene before sale in a m vain attempt to ripen the fruit and increase sweetness. This cannot be done. The sugar Prexcoil Fond lllitnc content of melons when picked remains the same, despite changes in its colour and/or perfume, thai this treatment promotes. If it looks and smells ripe - then it must be. Not so. A good melon is indeed a luxury. A luxury that most gardeners can afford - depending on climate. French Cliarentais As a fmst tender annual, melons need to be "If it's left on the vine to catch the last surge of started early in cool climates, but the extra sucrose and not gassed with ethylene then the effort will be well rewarded. These natives melon will truly earn its name", Amy Goldman of Asia and Africa have an incredibly rich and diverse heritage, being first mentioned Ha'Ogen in Chinese literature in 560 AD. Alrhougli an Sweet, succulent, fragrant and green fleshed, estimated 90% of melon heirloom varieties are this melon is both productive and relatively now extinct, there is still an amazing array from Eden's Gem compact. The skin turns yellow when ripe. An which the home gardener can choose. What we Japanese, leaving nothing to chance, use MRI Hungarian heirloom that was rediscovered in commonly call cantaloupe is actually a netted scans to judge ripeness at their Rockmelon Israel. Hence its Hebrew name meaning 'the muskmelon. The honeydews, with smooth skin, shows! However most gardeners need to fall anchor'. 1,5kg fruits. store well enough to last through winter. back on more external signs. When ripe, the rockmelon will turn a different colour to what it Muskmelons Cultivation has been up until then, if they arc 'netted' (with rough corky skin) the netting will be dense, Musky odour, ribbed with netted skin. Rockmelons (and watermelons) need to be Eden's Gem sown into very warm soil, about 18-22°C is regular and raised. The skin will depress easily, but not break when it is pressed. Lastly, there So delicious that Amy Goldman, author ideal. Like pumpkins, they are best sown on of 'Melons, a passionate growers guide', mounds about 1m apart. Sow 3 or 4 seeds is the fragrance of many melons (not all) being sweet, neither cucumbcrish nor fermented, commented that 'Eden's Gem', "may cause where you want one plant, to ensure you get at drooling"! The neat 500g fruit are produced on least that. Excess seedlings can be pinched out. that indicates that a season of nurturing has culminated in a mouth-watering melon. the early maturing vine ideal for cooler climates A sandy well drained soil of pH6 is ideal. or just impatient gardeners! Prolific. While the vines arc growing and flowering they need plenty of water and nutrients so good soil & GROW GROW GROW TA sow late Oct-Dec Sept-Dec July-Oct Mini Melon Minnesota preparation is crucial. However, once the fruit Tiny orange melons just 10cm in diameter with 150c1 enrm x„ 100cmn™m .Harvest . Yielg d has set, too much water can lead to watery, less 84 130days 5 15k /m exceptionally high sugar content. This compact tasty fruit. grower has vines only lm long so every Pollination is sometimes problematic. True Cantaloupes gardener has space to grow their very own Rockmelons have both perfect flowers (with Dessert melons par excellence. melons. Noted for its resistance to fusarium male and female organs in the one flower) French Charentais (heirloom) wilt. and stamcnate or male-only flowers. Bees are The orange-flcshed favourite is to French essential to pollination, so plant plenty of bee gourmets what Grange is to Australian wine For winter storage attracting plants, or in an ideal world, have connoisseurs. Best suited to cooler southern Naples (Tendral Verde) your own beehive. Rockmelon flowers are districts. A true cantaloupe of the highest Succulent, whitc-flcshcd, 2kg melons are much smaller than those of pumpkins, so hand perfection when eaten at highest sugar level. dripping with sweetness, higher than any other. pollination is quite a challenge. For the largest 1.3kg fruits. Can be stored for months. and most luscious of melons, allow only 2 or a maximum of 3 fruits to set, before pinching out 'PrescoU Fond Blanc' the ends of the vines. This deliciously fragrant French heirloom was Rockmelons cross just as easily as pumpkins grown extensively by Parisian market gardeners and a distance of a kilometre is recommended if before 1850. The thick, orange flesh was you want to save your melon seed. described by Vilmorin as 'fine-flavoured, juicy Knowing when to harvest your rockmelon and melting'. Allow only 1 or perhaps 2 melons is a skill based on careful observation. The per vine. 2-3kg fruits.

II VEGETABLES I WARM SOIL Tomatoes Lycopersicon esculentum The backyard tomato patch is something of an Australian tradition. If only one food crop was grown, it was generally a tomato. There is nothing like the taste of a home grown tomato, warm and fragrant off the vine. Tomatoes are rich in nutrition and antioxidants, namely lycopene, vitamin E and potassium, all essential for good health. Tomatoes, a New World crop from South America, spread to the rest of the world after the Spanish conquest. The first reference to it in Europe was by the Italian botanist Matliiohis in 1544. It was regarded initially as a novelty, then an aphrodisiac, and then it entered into the mainstream of almost every cuisine on the planet. It is practically impossible to imagine the Italians without tomatoes, and yet it has only been part of their culture for 250 years. Tomatoes in European hands have changed Some of the 4000 heirloom tomatoes. considerably in that time. The first tomato Cultivation introduced was in fact yellow, not red, and When growing your tomatoes from seed sow over the years, different cultures and regions them 6 to 8 weeks before you intend to plant selected varieties that suited their climate and them out. In warm, frost-free areas, (CZ 10+) their cuisine. There are tomatoes for cool and seeds can be sown direct into the ground warm climates, some for sauces, others for when soil temperatures reach 15°C or more. fresh eating. Tomatoes were bred specifically (See p44-45for how to sow outside or for for drying, or others to be hollow so they can transplanting later). be stuffed. Tomatoes should never be planted in the At around 1900, there were at least 4000 same soil two years running. It is best to move varieties. Sadly, with the advent of commercial your tomato patch each year, returning to the fanning many of these have now disappeared, original bed, after a break of three seasons. This replaced by tomatoes bred for machine is to prevent the build up of disease carrying harvesting. These are bred for shelf life and organisms in the soil. shipping, certainly not for taste. Tomatoes need an open sunny position with Elfie As the 20th century progressed, the number plenty of air circulation to thrive, and although of seed companies dwindled, and the survivors trench. Lie the seedling in the trench (5-7cm remarkably easy to please as to soil type, a good promoted hybrid tomatoes, whose seed cannot deep), and cover with soil, making sure the loam will produce the best results. be saved and replanted next year. Higher prices bottom leaves are above soil level. Don't worry could he demanded for supermarket hybrids, so Tomatoes are best planted in beds that have if they look uncomfortable, they will soon it was the best way to improve the bottom line. been heavily manured for a previous crop, such straighten up. Tomatoes form roots along their as broccoli. A soil that is too rich in nutrients stems when they come into contact with the This was a tragedy for gardeners, who began will produce prolific, but soft, sappy, disease- soil; so a good strong root system should result. to lose the best tasting tomatoes, bred for prone growth. Well-rotted compost being high Some gardeners plant all their tomatoes this disease resistance, long harvest, and flavour. in organic matter, but low on nitrogen, is the way, others prefer to plant bushier seedlings There was never a case of feast or famine, just perfect addition to a tomato bed. If your soil vertically, to encourage a deeper root system. a good steady supply for up to 4 months. With is acidic, below pH 6.5, add lime (calcium) or the assistance of Seed Savers Exchange, USA, ideally dolomite (calcium and magnesium). The Digger's Club pioneered the reintroduction Training Spread it at rate of 2 handfuls per square metre of heirloom tomatoes after Dr Will Trueman There are two general types of tomatoes and (about 6<)-70g) and work it lightly into the completed trials at Seymour from 1994 to 1996. they require different training techniques. surface soil. Calcium is essential for tomatoes. The results are published throughout this book. Indeterminate tomatoes It prevents 'blossom end rot', which is when the The most useful for the home gardener are When you plant heirloom tomatoes you can bottom of the tomato, furthest from the stem, the indeterminate types, largely abandoned by be part of a link in a chain that stretches back goes soft, weepy, and rots. in time. A chain that has linked Europeans and commercial growers, but prolific and easy to Asians for half a millennium, and continues grow. These are the tomatoes that resemble Planting your tomato seedlings further back into history to include those South vines in their manner of growth. They arc called Plant out your seedlings when the soil reaches American gardeners/farmers who were the indeterminate becausc there is no determined I5°C or more, and after the risk of frost. Night first to grow tomatoes. A single seed holds that limit to their growth. They will produce fruit temperatures over 30°C will cause blossoms much history. from January to June until the weather stops to drop. If your seedlings arc on the leggy side, them. These are the tomatoes with the highest don't worry, they can be planted in a shallow

76 yields over the season, and they need a support of some sort to grow on. They produce best when they are treated like a climbing pea. Train them to a trellis (a double row of ring-lock fencing is ideal) or a teepee. They may be trained to a single stake, but this will involve pruning, that will decrease your yields. Now that the howls of "don't you pinch out the laterals," have subsided, suffice it to say, "no you don't"; unless for reasons of space, to deliberately decrease your yield, or to produce fewer, marginally larger fruit. The laterals are the small side shoots that develop just above a leaf and look exactly like a seedling, but without the roots. If you are after high yields, and long harvest, leave them there to develop further. However, if you do pinch out the lateral, it can be planted, like a cutting, and given warm moist conditions, it will develop into a separate tomato plant identical to its parent. Trellises and teepees can be many and varied, the important thing to do is to thread your tomato vine through them throughout the season, so your tomato is well supported. Amisli Paste solar radiation, and they will most likely get Determinate tomatoes sunburnt and develop decay if exposed. Leaves Determinate tomatoes, (including many are an essential part of the plants 'machinery', hybrids), are short and bushy and generally gathering energy from the sun, if too many Ida Gold need no support to grow on. They are leaves are removed, you will be weakening 'determinate' because their growth will stop your plant. Problems once a 'determined' amount of growth has been Pests and diseases produced providing a shorter, earlier and more Fertilizing Tomatoes are prone to all sorts of diseases, concentrated harvest period. This is certainly Too much fertilizer is not good for tomatoes. It some of them carried by pests. Some books useful for commercial growers, or even can lead to soft sappy growth beloved by all would make you feci that it was a miracle if home gardeners who want to preserve their manner of caterpillars and aphids. It could also you got a tomato to the table! harvest in some way. Principe Borghese, for delay the formation of flowers and subsequent The good news is that tomatoes are easy example, is traditionally used for drying, so it is fruit. Especially problematic are the inorganic in hot dry summers. If you use good organic advantageous to have most of your crop ready fertilizers that arc high in nitrogen. principles of soil preparation and rotation, and to process in a short period of lime, but they Well-rotted, animal manures (or pcllctiscd have a sunny, airy and preferably biodiverse, won't provide fruit in April, May or June. manures) are ideal when the plant is building garden to grow them in, you should not have Determinate varieties are often ideal for pots, its framework for the season. Watering with loo many problems. Hybrids grown in mono- hanging baskets, or grow bags, and can be left weak seaweed solution and worm water are also cultures are far more disease prone, so breeders to sprawl in the garden provided they have beneficial, every few weeks, once flowering concentrate on disease resistance, which rarely some straw to sprawl on. The suaw will prevent has commenced. However in general it is better affects biodiverse backyards. the fruit becoming grubby from contact with to under-fertilize, rather than over-fertilize, in Fungal diseases can occur in damp cool the soil, and if the fruit contacts wet soil, it may order to grow the tastiest fruit. conditions, or when the leaves have been rot. splashed with water. Target spot produces Whatever type of tomato you plant never Watering conccntric spots on the leaves while bacterial remove the leaves to expose the fruit to the speck manifests itself by leaving lots of tiny Tomatoes need to be kept moist while they sun. Tomatoes ripen through temperature, not black-brown spots on the leaves. Sclcrotina is a establish themselves; once off and growing, it is woolly fungus found on the leaves, that occurs of less importance. Often, in early summer, the PRUNING & LATE PLANTING TRIALS in wet humid weather. Heirloom tomatoes arc tips may look wilted on a particularly warm day, often resistant, but move your tomato bed next however this is nothing to panic over. If wilting Tigerella Yield Late planting Normal planting season anyway. (14/12/94) (26/10/94) and general floppiness extend to the branches, it is most definitely time to water. As with roses, These diseases will certainly reduce •Unpruned 5.8kg 20kg the vigour of the plant, but are rarely life- •Lightly 4.4kg (-25%) it is best to water the soil, not the leaves, so as threatening. Remove the most badly affected of pruned not to encourage fungal diseases. the leaves and improve air circulation. Perhaps •Heavily 1.0kg (-83%) Too much water will dilute the flavour of the thin some branches that are growing too close pruned fruit, and will prevent the development of a together - the problem can be solved by good deep extensive root system. So once the plant observation and good husbandry, even if you Impact of planting delay on yield has set fruit, don't worry if just the tips droop can't change the weather. Max. yield Tigerella: 20kg/plant in the middle of the day, if they have recovered If disease is a recurring problem in your Transplant 3 weeks late: 13kg/plant by the next morning, watering can be put off a area each season, growing the vine-like 10 week delay: 5.8kg/plant little longer. indeterminate varieties, well spaced on a trellis.

II VEGETABLES I WARM SOIL could be the best solution, rather than the denser-foliaged determinate types. If you are really desperate, a copper-based spray such as Kocidc is a good organic control. More serious diseases are Fusarium and Verticillium wilts, and wilting caused by nematodes (organisms that attack the root system). These diseases/pests all come from the soil, hence the importance of good crop rotation. Sowing mustard in autumn can also alleviate this problem. Many heirloom varieties Tommy Toe arc resistant to these diseases, so changing the tomato you grow may solve the problem. Blossom End Rot, the base of the tomato rotting, is caused by lack of calcium, sec under main heading 'Cultivation'. Tobacco Mosaic Virus can also affect tomatoes - so smokers make sure you wash your hands well before handling your tomatoes. The heirloom 'Green Zebra' seems to show resistance to this debilitating virus. A good way to 'clean' beds that have Green Zebra Wapsipinicon Peach harboured nematodes or Sclerotina fungi Heirloom tomatoes Ida Gold (determinate) is to grow a resistant crop. Plant silverbeet (indeterminate unless stated.) Extremely early ping-pong ball sized fruit. or beetroot to cope with the Sclerotina, and Harvest days = from transplant to harvest. Produces mountains of golden globes well brassicas (cabbagc, broccoli etc), to sort out the before Christmas if planted early. Good flavour. nematodes. Black Russian Harvest: 62 days. Yield: 4.1kg/plant As rich and sweet as a Fabergd jewel, though Selecting Varieties not as good looking. Originally from Russia. Red Fig Determinate or indeterminate, cherries, fresh Harvest: 77 days. Yield: 7.1 kg/plant. A vigorous vine hung with hundreds of fire salad tomatoes, pastes or beefsteaks? One engine-red, 3cm, perfect, pear-shaped tomatoes. decision in tomato selection for the home Black Zebra Incredibly productive, we pickcd 'Red Fig' for gardener is fairly easy. Heirloom tomatoes have Exotically striped black and red, this 'zebra' 4 months in our trial garden at Hcronswood and better flavour, good disease resistance, and has a piquant, complex flavour never to be our cafe customers were treated to their rich crop over a long time, unlike hybrid varieties. forgotten. Harvest: 85 days. tomato soup taste! Instead of settling for big reds, heirlooms come in ten colours! White, cream, yellow, orange, Green Zebra Siberian (determinate) green, black, purple, pink, brown as well as red. One of the lop for taste and yield, it is The most cold tolerant of all the tomatoes, GROW GROW GROW magically striped green and yellow when ripe. producing bright red plum shaped fruit to 7cm SepMar Aug-Fob Any Birds don't find it attractive. Fruits after frost. wide. Perfect for hanging baskets and pots. M 100cm x 60cm 120 ^ys ^Tg/m Harvest: 82 days. Yield: I3.6kg/plant. Harvest: 91 days. Yield: 6.4kg/planl.

Tigerella Heirloom vs Hybrid Tomato Yields Enormous crops of red and yellow-striped Plant yield/month 1994, 1995, 1996 Seymour, Victoria Yield tomatoes of exceptional flavour are produced Heirloom Days to kg/ 70% 68% over a long season. Our highest yielding tomato Tomatoes Harvest plant and lops for taste. Harvest: 73 days. 60% HeirloomTigerella 20kg Tigerella 73 20.0 Yield: 20kg/plant. Hybrid Celebrity 18.6kg Grosse Lissc 86 16.4 50% Amish Paste 86 15.7 Tommy Toe (Red & Yellow) 40% Tommy Toe 72 11.3 37% Rated the highest in our taste tests for its sweet Green Zebra 82 13.6 fresh flavour, thin skin, and smooth good looks. 30% Hybrids One expert said it was the best tomato he had 24% •j25% tasted in 50 years! From January to June it Apollo F, 75 10.8 20% (Aus) produces baskets full of 3cm fruil for salads and sandwiches. Harvest: 72 days. Celebrity F, 85 18.6 10% (US) Yield: 11,3kg/plant. 0% Feb 1Ma r Apr May June Wapsipinicon Peach Monthly Harvest Beautiful crcamy coloured fruil is covered in a Ideal garden Tommy Toe (indeterminate) - 3% 44% 22% 13% 18% fine fuzz. Heavy crops of this extremely sweet Typical dwarf, Principe (determinate) 26% 74% - - - - fruit can be expected - especially as the fuzzy Typical lale, Amish Paste (indeterminate) - - 69% 16% 15% skin seems to deter fruit fly.

78 Cherry Tomatoes (All indeterminate unless stated) Cherry tomatoes arc indispensable for salads and cheese platters and are so sweet they can be eaten by the handful - just like Smarties!

Beam's Yellow Pear This 'pear' is the most elegant of all the 'cherries'. No food stylist would be without it! Harvest: 80 days. Yield: 1.7kg/plant

Cherry Roma With the dense flesh of a Roma tomato, this 2cm cherry tomato has an "addictive sweet- Broad Ripple Yellow Currant spicy flavour", says Kent of Seed Savers Exchange. Dry them for use over winter. Trellis or stake.

Broad Ripple Yellow Currant Literally thousands of golden, grape-sized globes even under the harshest conditions. Extremely juicy and sweet with that extra zing making it a favourite with gourmets. Black Krim Harvest: 77 days. Yield: 7.4kg/plant. Principe Borghese (determinate) Lemon Drop As its name suggests this was the tomato for This sophisticated cherry tomato is definitely the average Italian. Used for dried tomatoes in 'adults only". Shaped like tiny lemons of winter. Crops all at once. Non-staking. translucent yellow, it has a fresh zesty tang, Harvest: 77 days. Yield: 2.9kg/plant. refreshing any salad, and is especially good with cheese. The lem fruits arc produced in Beefsteak or Slicing Tomatoes profusion for up to 3 months, even in damp and (all indeterminate) dull weather. Huge meaty tomatoes that can cover a Brandywine hamburger in a single slice, and that turn bread Rouge de Marmande Sugarlump into a meal, as Italians do with bruschetta. Late- A prodigious producer of deep-red medium The sweetest of bright red 3cm fruit held in fruiting varieties. fruit earlier than all others. Harvest: 77 days. trusses up to 20cm long, with 6 to 12 fruit per Yield: 14.2kg/plant. truss. Harvest: 81 days. Yield: 8.6kg/plant. Black Krim This full-flavoured black tomato needs to be White Beauty Wild Sweetie sliced to show its true beauty. Perfectly-formed, large tomatoes to 500g in The first and last crop. Who needs a summer Harvest: 92 days. Yield: 7.1 kg/plant. alabaster while are the colour contrast to make romance if you have this wild sweetie? Let her salads look and taste icy-cool and crisp. grow as she will and you will reap thousands Brandywine Harvest: 112 days. Yield: 8.8kg/plant. of wild berry, sun-drenched fruit. The flavour Huge pink-red tomatoes weighing up to one sensation of summer. Kids' favourite. kilo. This late cropper seems to embody all the Hybrids Harvest: 69 days. Yield: 4.4kg/plant. wamith of summer. Apollo F[ (determinate) Large, round, red fniil that crops early in the Elfie Paste and drying tomatoes season. Australia's most planted garden hybrid This gigantic tomato rates the highest for taste Paste tomatoes were originally bred for making has half the yield of Tigerella! in this group. Its pale apricot colour is the 'Clark tomato paste and sauce. They have fewer seeds Harvest: 75 days. Yield: I0.8kg/plant. and dense flesh. Kent' disguise for its super tomato flavour.

Amish Paste Grosse Lisse TASTE TEST* An Australian garden favourite, its name says it If you only chose one tomato, this Amish Out of a possible 100 points. all, meaning huge and smooth. variety is the most versatile. Delicious for fresh Tommy Toe 72 Harvest: 86 days. Yield: 16.4kg/plant. eating, bottling or sauce making. Broad Ripple Yellow Currant 69 Harvest: 86 days. Yield: 15.7kg/plant. Apollo Hybrid 66 Mortgage Lifter Amish Paste 66 Developed by 'Radiator Charlie', a mechanic in Anna Russian Tigerella 66 small town USA with no formal plant breeding Ox-heart shaped and a deep red-pink, this is the Grosse Lisse 64 qualifications. By crossing different beefsteak earliest to fruit of the paste type with clusters of Green Zebra 63 varieties, he produced this prolific meaty 500g fruit bursting with flavour. Dclicatc wispy Mortgage Lifter 59 tomato so popular for slicing and hamburgers. foliage. Supermarket Roma 44 By selling the plants for $1.00 each he paid off *Rated by panel composed of chefs and his mortgage in just six years! gardeners, (not Digger's staff), March 6. 1993. Harvest: 90 days. Yield: 16.4kg/plant.

II VEGETABLES I WARM SOIL Watermelon Citrullus lanatus There is a reminder of the freedom of childhood and long summers days thai makes watermelons irresistible. A native of Africa, watermelons have been cultivated since Egyptian times though we would scarcely recognise them - they looked more like a large cucumber. Grown mainly around the Mediterranean and Southern Russia, the watermelon found a new home in the southern United Slates where many heirloom varieties Moon and Stars are still grown. Watermelons and muskmelons take no more lime to ripen than pumpkins, and deserve to be Blacktail Mountain grown because the sweetness and flavour is so superior to commercially grown varieties. Heirloom varieties Primitive watermelons evolved as a water Moon and Stars storage unit to provide moisture to feed its "The Moon and Stars watermelon is the poster seeds. The citron or jam melon will store for child of the heirloom seed movement. Its buttery about 8 months after harvest, when just after moons and constellations of stars are awe- the summer solstice, it will split open to reveal inspiring. Unique among watermelons, both its geminated seeds, and Jlow with juice to foliage and fruit are bedecked with heavenly nourish them. Re warned you don 7 want this bodies", says Amy Goldman. But the Moon happening in your pantry! and Stars almost slipped into a black hole until Modern watermelons for fresh eating can Kent Whealy of Seed Savers Exchange, after Golden Midget split in the garden when ripe, so keep a close a ten year search, rescued this treasure from eye on them at harvest time. This 'splitting', or extinction. Sweet red or yellow flesh. Thick some describe it as exploding, can he the result skin enables storage throughout winter. Harvest: of growing warm-climate varieties in cool 126 days. Yield: 3-4 fruit/plant. 13kg/fniit. areas, as daytime temperatures below 25°C can encourage this trait. Jam Melon Citron Red Seeded Also known as the Citron melon, its flesh is Cultivation hard and inedible raw. It is used mainly for Watermelons need lots of heat hut are more jams and preserves in Australia, such as melon drought tolerant than other melons, due to their and lemon jam. The Jam Melon stores well, deep root system. They prefer a deep sandy soil so its processing can be put off until winter, with plenty of well-rotted manure dug in. The when the bulk of the home harvest has been deeper you dig the better, adding gypsum to preserved. One of the most beautiful melons heavier soils to improve drainage. - deep, fresh green overlaid with pale green Jam Melon Plant out your watermelons in the same patterning. Cream of Saskatchewan manner as pumpkins (p77), and once A sorbet made from Canadian Cream of established, less frequent, deep watering is the Heirlooms to grow for cool Saskatchewan Watermelon re-awakens most efficacious. summers. memories of the most extravagant champagne. In really hot areas, watermelons can become It will never appear in the market because it is Golden Midget sunburnt so choose a spot where they can so delicate that it splits in the field, or in transit. Ideal for cooler climates, this space saving receive some shade from the midday sun. In Splitting is a perfect indicator for the cook who watermelon will be ready for harvest in just 80 cooler areas a position facing north or west gardens, who can quickly retrieve the melon days. Its sweet red flesh, is superior to anything is best. If you have a north facing brick wall, and share it with the family. Harvest: 121 days. you can buy in the shops. No need to guess plant your watermelons there to benefit from its Yield: 2-3 fruit/plant. 4.7kg melon. when they are ripe, as the rind turns golden radiant heat. when they are ready! Harvest: 80 days. Watermelons are considered ripe when the 3kg fruits. Sweet Siberia tendril (like a curly pig's tail) near the fruit Collected in Russia where rapid ripening is shrivels and dies. Also the underside of the Blacktail Mountain mandatory, it is a small vine for small spaces. watermelon, where it is in contact with the This cooler climate variety with small 4kg fruit Named after the mountain in his backyard that ground, starts to look pale yellow, rather than has juicy orange flesh. Harvest: 114 days. prevented the ripening of watermelons. This pale green. Yield: 4 fruit/plant. breeding breakthrough of Glen Drowns, is TA SE- GROW GROW GROW precocious, and a blessing for cool climate late Oct-Dec Sep-Dec sow late Oct-Dec Sep-Dec July-Oct gardeners. The small 6kg fruit with black-green v i1 c„ HarvesHarvest im x 11.5-smm on.n80-13n0 Haudayes rind yields red, exceptionally sweet, succulent flesh. Harvest: 121 days. Yield: 3-4 fruit/plant.

80 Zucchini, Squash and Gourds Cucurbita pepo Just one diverse species supplies die home gardener with lender zucchini (meaning baby marrow in Italian), huge vegetable marrows for stuffing, (or friendly gardener competition), and the gourds used for centuries as containers. The meal-and-two-vegetable English version of cuisine with its watery vegetable marrow has been replaced by the French courgette or Italian zucchini. Just pick your squash when they are small and lender.

Cultivation In Vilmorin's classic French text 'The Vegetable Garden' 1885, he stales they "will grow anywhere if supplied with plenty of manure and moisture at the root". Plant them out in warm soil, 15°C+ and stand back. If picked often for litack Beauty Courtis the table they will produce all summer. Bush varieties save ground spacc and are easy in large pots, whereas the running vine- like squash (like pumpkins and cucumbers) can be trained to climb a fence, tripod or pergola to give midsummer shade, or left to sprawl planted at 2m spacings. Our heirlooms arc ready to pick in just 60 days, but be sure to pick them before they turn into marrows!

GROW GROW GROW TA Oct-Dec Sep-Dec Any

,m.„ „ on.™ Harvest Yield 100cm x 80cm 50-i25days 5-24 fruit/pit

Varieties Zucchini & Squash Zucchini and Squash Again heirlooms are the smart choice for gardeners after high yields and early harvests. /jtcchini flowers Jbr frying. Black Beauty Crookncck Prolific, bushy plant, that is easy to grow. Pick This beautifully shaped and coloured squash often for the tastiest small zucchini. Produced out-yields Black Beauty by a factor of three. 50% more fruil than the hybrid Black Jack The Crookneck also has a smaller maximum Tromboncino St/uasli in a difficult year at Heritage Farm Seymour, size than the conventional Black Beauty or Varieties Gourds Victoria. Black Jack, and therefore produces fruit of more edible size, even with less frequent Birdhouse Gourds harvesting. If left on the bush to dry it can be A canopy of lush green, decked in white used as a decorativc gourd. Yield: 24 fruit/plant. flowers. The fascinating fruit can be used for bottles or carved into bird feeders. Days to Fruit per Variety harvest plant Tromboncino Dinosaur Gourds This Italian heirloom is much more than a Standard Heavily veined rippling reptilian skin is enough novelty. Rapid-growing vines produce pale Black Jack Fi to scare any unwelcomc visitors! The club for lime coloured, seedless, tasty fruit, best picked 55 5.8 green activists. Zucchini at 20cm. although if unpicked, it will stretch to Heirlooms a onc-mctrc, hard shelled beige gourd. Decorative Table Mix Black Beauty 61 8.6 Beautifully bizarre gourds including Ebony Spaghetti Squash Crookneck 57 24 Acorn, Crown of Thorns, Bicolor Pear and Looking more like a melon than a squash, this Spoon, Nest Egg, Bottle and Warted Gourds. Ebony Acorn 123 18.4 fruit can be boiled whole, cut open, and the flesh shreds into ready-made pasta, which Spaghetti Squash 123 5.4 makes low carbohydrate 'spaghetti'. Pick when yellow. 1.85kg fruit.

II

Herbs

Basil Sweet Ocimum basilicum Basil tea is a tonic for low spirits and anxiety, and certainly its brilliant green leaves, white flowers and superb fragrance arc an antidote in themselves! A famous companion plant to tomatoes both in the garden and the kitchen, it demands full sun, good drainage and a neutral to alkaline pH. Protect from frost and damp to avoid fungal problems, and pinch out (lowers to encourage leaf production. Start advanced Chervil seedlings indoors to maximise length of harvest.

TA GR0W GROW GROW Sep-Feb Any Coriander sow Oct-Jan Harvest O 30cm x 20cm 60 days Bay Laurus nnbilis This handsome evergreen tree makes a dense if slow-growing hedge, can be trimmed and trained for topiary, or just left to develop into Basil a screening tree. The powerfully aromatic leaves arc indispensable in the kitchen, and Chervil Anthriscus cerefolium are effective in ridding kitchen cupboards of Chervil's femy foliage has a mild anise and weevils and cockroaches. Requires a sheltered parsley flavour. A signature herb of French position with adequate drainage. Can be prone cuisine, it makes up part of the famous fines to scale insects that are easily controlled with herbes together with parsley, chives and white oil. tarragon. Bolting in hot dry conditions, it prefers a cool shady position. Pinch out Chives Onion HP # $ Cool Warm Warm Hot flowering stems to extend harvest. Sow every Chives Onion Allium schoetioprasum * Coastal Inland 4 to 5 weeks for a continual supply. 7m • 4m Harvest No herb garden is complete without this O * ^ I 2 years GROW GROW GROW classically delicatc plant. The hollow, rounded HA Sep-Feb July-Mar Apr-July Capers Capparis spinosa SOW leaves make perfect fountaining clumps, while ii Harvest Revelling in scorching dry heat and stony o 30cm x 20cm 60 days the rosy-mauve hemispheres of flower nod soils, this gourmet delight will start to produce shyly from slender stems. All parts of the plant the flower buds (which can be pickled or dry Chives Garlic Allium tuberosum are edible. Always leave 4-5cm of leaf when salted), in their second year. Taking 5 years to Tufts of flat, strappy leaves make these ideal- harvesting. edging plants, which producc 7cm flat heads of reach full production, the caper bush is really -55- GROW GROW GROW a sprawling shrub and will live to 50 years old, starry white flowers for months. More robust HP ^ Oct-Mar Sep-Apr Any than onion chives, they have a delicious garlic Harvest producing up to 8 kilos of buds per year. 0 * 30cm x 10cm flavour, with all parts of the plant being edible 90 days either cooked or raw. Used as a garnish or Coriander Coriandrum sativum vegetable in Asian or European cuisine. The Coriander may look light and gauzy, but its most drought-tolerant of chives. flavour is the cornerstone of cuisines from the HP A GR0W GROW GROW Middle East, India, South-East Asia and China. r Sep-Apr Any sow Oct-Mar The ferny leaves must be used fresh. Seeds O * 30cm x 10cm todays can be dry-fried for spicy dishes and the roots are essential for that nuance of Thailand. The pale-pink flower heads are invaluable in the

"""in GROW GROW GROW HA : Oct-Dec Aug-Nov Any

H O ** 30cm x 20cm 30 90days

Capers Chives Garlic

II Applemint

Common Mint Mint Mentha spp. Used for millennia for the treatment of headaches, colds, diarrhoea, and indigestion and in some cultures to promote virility, mint is also an integral part of modern Australian cuisine. Can be invasive, so confine roots in a container.

Common Mint M. viridis What would roast lamb be like without it for Juniper mint jellies and sauce? Dill Anethum graveolens Peppermint M. x piperita From Lithuania to Laos, the leaves and seeds of dill are the vital ingredient for salads, pickles Dark leaves make the best tea with a rich fruity scent. and yoghurt dishes, and of course cucumber. The blue-green feathery leaves contrast well with salvias and dahlias, while the yellow Variegated Applemint M. suaveolens umbrella flowers attract beneficial insects to 'Variegata' fruit trees and vegetables. Is not only decorative in the garden, but also the perfect accompaniment to fruit salads and long HA GROW GROW GROW Lemon Verbena cool drinks. Sep-Oct Aug-Jan Any Lemon Verbena Aloysia triphylla O » 30cm x 20cm "odayl The most intensely fragrant of deciduous shrubs HP * * Cool Warm Warn, Hot for the herb garden introduced from Chile in O 0 444 J 60cm<—>60cm Harvest Juniper Juniperus communis 1794. Plant it next to a pathway so that you can Elegantly upright conifer, the Juniper forms a brush against the bright light green foliage or neat column of grey-green foliage. The purple plant a hedge to act as a living clothesline for Marjoram, Golden Origanum vulgare berries can take up to 2 years to ripen. Both lemon scented bed and underclothes. Rich in 'Aureum' male and female plants are required for fruit. the antioxidant vitamins A and C, the refreshing An invaluable lime-yellow ground cover for Thrives in sun or part shade. tea helps ward off colds; or sip it after dinner foliage contrast in hot, dry positions. The to aid digestion. Only 3 or 4 leaves are needed flowers are pale pink on reddish stems, but the 1 HP Sfc sfs Cool Warm W^" to flavour savoury dishes, milk puddings or of golden leaves are (he main game. They arc mild * * Coastal Inland course, tea. enough to chop straight into salads. Golden Olfe, * 14m ~ 1.5m Han,est Marjoram is best used before the plant flowers, so keep it at about 10cm high by clipping it TP 5§» Cool Warm Hot Lemon Grass Cymbopogon citratus over with hedge shears. In the tropics and sub tropics, this sturdy, 0 4* J 2m ~1m clumping grass, makes an almost impenetrable, HP IFC SFE mni Warm Warm HP Sjf ooot Coas|al lnland and certainly fragrant, edge to garden beds. In 0 ^ 44 60cm x 20cm £ a™mo temperate areas, it grows well in pots that can n be moved around to suit the warmest, frost free and most humid parts of the garden. To harvest cut the stems at the base just above the soil. Save the leaves for a refreshing tea rich in vitamin A, which is reputed to fight fungal and bacterial infections, or tie them in a knot and throw in with the cooking water to fiavQiir rjrp nr vpaptnhlf»s tp * S'^fr Hot O ft. " J 1,5m «-»60cm .H™* Lemon Grass Marjoram HERBS

Oregano Oregano Greek Origanum unites Neat grey-green leaves set off a frosting of white flowers on stems to 60cm in summer. Harvest while in bloom (both the dried Summer Savory leaves and flowers arc used). Indispensable in Mediterranean cuisines, it is just as useful Summer Savory Satureja hortensis planted with roses and lavender. Cut to the Pink and white flowers decorate Summer ground to harvest and clip back again in autumn. Savory's glossy leaves. They have a piquant peppery flavour, traditionally used to flavour HP 5§S Cool Warm Warm Rosemary legumes. It forms the 'herhes deprovence' Coastal Inland together with rosemary and thyme and can be o * ^ J 30cm«-»40cm "a^est Rosemary Rosmarinus officinalis cultivars Green, fragrant, drought tolerant and tasty, added to meat dishes, stuffings and marinades; rosemary is the quiet beauty that no garden especially for olives. Parsley Petroselinum crispum should be without. Rosemary contains up to 20 Savory's botanic name is derived from the P. crispum var neopolitanum antioxidants and is renowned for improving the Greek saturos, meaning Satyr (lustful mythical Parsley is possibly the most popular, and one memory. Hanging Rosemary (50cm x 70cm), beings), as it is supposed to possess aphrodisiac of the easiest herbs to grow. Use parsley not flavours meat and potato dishes while qualities! It should not however be taken during only for flavour, but also for its beneficial R. 'Tuscan Blue', (1.5m x 80cm), has long pregnancy, as it stimulates the uterus. effect on the blood, its high iron, vitamin C and slender stems ideal for threading kebabs and potassium content. Best grown as an annual, P. GROW GROW GROW satays. Dwarf rosemary (70cm x 80cm), makes July-Dec July-Dec July-Dec crispum or curly parsley is the most ornamental a neat hedge to rival Japanese Box and is as 0 4 30cm x 30cm but P. c. var neopolilanum, Italian parsley, with useful in the kitchen as its cousins. flat leaves has the best flavour. Harvest sprigs Tarragon French Artemisia dracunculus from the outside of the clump to extend supply. HP »§S 3fJ Cool Warm Warm Hot French tarragon is an aromatic perennial that Coastal Inland HR C5 GROW GROW GROW dies down in winter. The silky leaves form a sow July-Dec July-Dec May-Aug . rv Harvest O• Anytime dense ground cover in well-drained poor soils, 0 *4 30cm x 30cm so days and are famous as one of the 'fines herbes' Sage Salvia officinalis of French cuisine. The delicatc anise flavour Perilla, Shiso Perilla frutescens The thick, felted, silver-grey leaves of this enhances egg, fish, pork and chicken dishes. 'Atropurpurea' sub-shrub are as beautiful in the border as Good French chefs always use tarragon Little known in Australia, Perilla (or Shiso) they are versatile in the kitchcn. In spring, vinegar for mixing their mustards. Cut down leaves, stems and seeds have been used in sage is smothered in mauve flowers. Pinch old leaf stems in mid-winter. China since 500 AD. The Japanese use it as out new growth in early spring and autumn to we do parsley. Its antimicrobial qualities have keep the bush compact. Use it to whiten teeth HP * $ Cool Warm Warm Hot made it an important ingredient for Asian-style and strengthen gums. Used to flavour poultry, 0 0 44 ^ 60cm x 60cm gp'-Aut' pickles, and its high levels of linoleic acid assist cheese and bean dishes. Great in poor soils. in dissolving cholesterol. The frilled purple GROW GROW GROW leaves with a spicy citrus/mint flavour are Sep-Feb Aug-Mar Any decorativc and delicious. Grow just like basil. 0 4^ 50cm x 50cm go

GROW GROW TA cS GROW sow Oct-Jan SepFeb Any 44 30cm x Harvest 0 30cm 60 days

Perilla Tarragon

86 Tea Camellia sinensis Why not make a brew of your own organic tea packed with antioxidants? Whatever style you enjoy, green, black or oolong, this handsome shrub can supply it. Pick the tips of the new shoots to make the cuppa you prefer; then sit back and admire this glossy leaved Camellia sprinkled with pure white or pink winter flowers with golden stamens. Keep clipped to 1 m high for maximum harvest. Needs some shade in hot dry areas.

HP $ Cool Warm Warm Hot Coastal Inland o 0 «» fc. 11.6m «—»2m "ajvest

True Curry Leaf Murraya koenigii A graceful evergreen tree that thrives in the tropics and sub-tropics, but can be grown in all cooler mainland capitals where it is deciduous. The ferny leaves are dried to be added Madras True Curry Leaf style curry powders, or can be added to savoury dishes for a warm spicy flavour. True Curry Leaf is used for all stomach disorders in Asian cultures where the peppery fruits are also used. Watercress TP yVar") Hot Watercress Nasturtium officinale Coastal Contrary to popular belief, watercress does O « ^ 12m ~1m 2 yoare not have to be grown in flowing water. It can be grown in moist garden beds or pots placed Turmeric Curcuma longa in ponds. Prefers a neutral to alkaline pH. If you garden north of Sydney you are lucky Add some lime if you have acid soil. A close enough to be able to grow turmeric. Elegantly relative of broccoli and mustard, it is packed pleated elliptical leaves grow from the rhizome with antioxidants plus iron and iodine. Thought that is ground to make the brilliant yellow spice. by the Greeks to improve brainpower, it also Turmcric's warm earthy flavour is used in Indian increases milk yield in animals (including and Asian cuisines, and is rich in antioxidants. humans). Pinch out flowers to extend harvest. Harvest the rhizomes in autumn when the leaves An excellent salad green. die down for the best flavour. Cook fish wrapped HA -55- GROW GROW GROW in its leaves or decorate the salad with its flowers. sow June-Dec May-Dec May-Aug 0 0 Mi 40cm x 40cm ^days TP Hot Vietnamese Mint Persicaria odoruta This native of South East Asia flourishes in o ** 11m —1m 2""ears' any moist soil, whether in sun or part shade Zanthoxylum piperitum, Japanese Pepper and can easily be grown in a pond if you Japanese or Sichuan pepper can be grown from have particularly dry gardening conditions. Thyme Thymus spp. Tasmania to the sublropics, forming a prickly The elegantly pointed leaves with chocolate deciduous shrub. The leaves arc used in soups Thyme was once a symbol of courage and vitality. brown markings have a flavour reminiscent of and salads, while the 'pepper' is derived from There are creeping and bush thymes to fill any coriandcr that bccomes increasingly hot as the the husk (pericarp) of the seed. The 'pepper' is sunny spot. The lawn thymes elegantly colonise leaves age. Use young sprigs for salads or the an ingredient of both Chinese Five Spice and edges and gravels, while the bushes, to 36cm, in older leaves with any poultry dish and of course the Japanese spice mixture shichimi and is grey-green, or silver and yellow variegation, arc laksa. Vigorous, confine to pots. reported to lower blood pressure. great in pots or dry borders.

HP * $ Cool Warm Warm Hot TP 515 Cool Warm Hot HP * $ Cool Warm Warm Hot 0 * <&. 20cm x 20cm 0 0 »t 1m x 50cm 0 0 44 ^ 13m ~2m

Thyme Vietnamese Mint Japanese Pepper

II THE HEIRLOOM GARDEN DISPLAYED The Gardens of Heronswood & St Erth

MICROCLIMATES The Mornington Peninsula is surrounded by water which gives the area its maritime climate. The blistering northerlies that flow across the bay cool quickly, providing lower summer temperatures than Melbourne. In winter the water in the bay retains heat which prevents frost, thus providing a longer growing season than most of Victoria. We are growing a wider range of subtropicals than you would cxpect to see in Victoria. We are planting avocados to replace 50-year-old camellias, and have established hedges of feijoa and Chilean guava. By planting adjacent to heat retaining walls or by covering surface areas with stones or concrete, night

v temperatures moderate the climate and extend our garden display from September to May.

The Garden i Heronswood's historic house was completed in 1871. The Gothic revival house was designed by Heronswood is the home of The Digger's Club and Edward La Trohe Batemun for its garden is a living catalogue of all the evergreen Professor Hearn. Clive and fruits and vegetables described in this book. Penny Blazey, the 8th owners, acquired the house and garden Deciduous fruit trees that need more chilling hours in 1983 and established the are planted at our cold climate garden at St Erth at Digger's MaiI Order Club. Blackwood Victoria. At Heronswood we have five separate vegetable gardens and it is within these gardens we have rescued the best heirloom vegetables described in this book. The garden has extensive plantings of fruits and flowers which are all available for sale at our St Erth or Heronswood shops or by mail order via our six catalogues. Much of the delicious food we grow in the garden Heronswood's dry is served in our cafd so not only can you see all the garden looking over Port Phillip Bay wonderful and rare foods growing but you can taste them too. OUR GARDENS Many would describe Heronswood as a cottage garden as if this refers only to the style of our flower planting, but it should also describe the interplanting of vegetables, fruit, roses and herbs. It is this interplanting that prevents the build up of pest problems. We are in the process of organically certifying our gardens. If you come and visit Heronswood don't be intimidated by the standard of gardening, our gardens are managed with a staff of three. Considering the area is equivalent to 25 house blocks, this equates to only five hours work each week for the typical gardener. To live in a beautiful garden and be self-sufficient is a wonderful reward for so little effort. Our gardens are water efficient in that we have cut our water use by 60% in the last 3 years. GIVE A CHILD A TREE TO PICK FROM No matter how small your garden or how demanding the work pressures, make sure you plant the seed of gardening for your children. To see the look of wonder Heronswood's on your child's face when they pick their first fruit is thatch-roofed cafd sheer joy.

WHAT IS THE DIGGER'S CLUB? The Digger's Club is Australia's largest garden club which began in 1978. Seeds and plants are available via mail order, direct to your door, (not available in nurseries) Club members are entitled to: • Six catalogues per year • Up to 30% discounts on plants, seeds, books and bulbs • Free entry to our gardens and festivals • Eight packets of seed free All the vegetables arc available in our Garden Annual. Our gardens 70 minutes from Melbourne, open 7 days Heronswood, 105 Latrobe Parade, Dromana, Victoria 3936. Melways 159 C9 St Erth, Simmons Reef Rd, Blackwood, Victoria. Melways 609(or 909) Ell diggers.com.au or ring 03 5984 7900 To join the club see coupon inside dust cover Index

A

Abelmoschus esculentus 72 Scarlet Runner 68 Capsicums Acephala group 52 Sunset 68 Alma Paprika 69 Acidity 17 Beetroot 58 Bell Peppers Alfalfa lucerne 19 Beetroot Trials (table) 58 Cheese Pimento 69 Alkalinity 17 Bulls Blood 58 Chinese Giant 69 Alley cropping 19 Burpees Golden 58 Mini Capsicums 69 Allium Chioggia 58 Sweet Cheese Pimento 69 ameloprasum 52 Globe 58 Sweet Chocolate 69 cepa 53 Mini Gourmet 58 Bullshom sativum 52 White Albina 58 Corno di Toro 69 schoenoprasum 84 Beta vulgaris 58 Jimmy Nardcllo 69 tuberosum 84 Beta vulgaris var. cicla 65 Marconi 69 Aloysia triphylla 85 Biodiversity 8 Capsicum spccies 69 Anethum graveolens 85 Biodiverse gardening 20 Capsicum trials at Digger's 69 Anthriscus cerefolium 84 BokChoi 51 Carbon cycle 7, 14 Anti-oxidants 11 Bottled water Simplified 7 Apium graveolens var. dulce 59 Impact of 6 Carbon - Nitrogen materials 17 Apium graveolens var. rapaceum 59 Bottom heat 4 i Carbon storage 7, 8 Apollo 61 Brassica Carbon to nitrogen ratio 17 Arachis hypogaea 72 juncea 61 Carrots 60 Artemisia dracunculus 86 juncea var. japonica 61 All Season/Topweight 60 Artichoke Globe 48 oleracea Acephala group 52 Baby 60 Green Globe 48 oleracea Botrytis group 60 Paris Market/Mini Round 60 Violctta 48 oleracea Capitata group 51 Purple Three Colour 60 Artichoke (Jerusalem) 48 oleracea Gemmifera group 50 Cauliflower Aruguia, syn. Roquette oleracea Italica group 50 Mini /Snowball 60 Apollo 61 rapa 55 Purple Cape 60 Asparagus officinalis 49 rapa Chinensis group 51 Celeriac 59 Hybrids 49 rapa Pekinensis Group 51 Celery 59 Mary Washington 49 Broccoli 50 Chervil 84 Purple 49 Green Sprouting 50 Chicory 59 Aubergines 71 Premium Crop hybrid 50 RedTreviso 59 Purple Sprouting 50 Children's gardening B Romanesco 50 Little Diggers 28 Basil Sweet 84 Bunte Forellenschuss 63 Chilli Bay 84 c Cayenne 69 Bean, Broad 49 Habanero 69 Jalapeno 69 Aquadulce 49 Cabbage 51 Santa Fc Grande 69 Crimson Flowered 49 January King 51 Chives Garlic 84 Beans Mini Emerald Acre 51 Bush beans (French or Dwarf) Red Drumhead 51 Chives Onion 84 Dragon's Tongue 68 Cabbages, Asian 51 Cichorium intybus var. foliosum 59 Italian Romano 68 BokChoi 51 Citrullus lanatus 80 Snake Bean 68 PakChoy 51 Clay 15 Climbing beans (pole) Tatsoi 61 Clever clover 19 Blue Lake 68 WongBok 51 Climate Lazy Housewife 68 Cabbage Trials Table 51 Climate change 21, 35 Purple King 68 Calendula officinalis 63 Climate maps 42-43 Rattlesnake 68 Camellia sinensis 87 Cold zone map 42 Perennial Runner beans Capers 84 Comfrey 19 Painted Lady 68 Capparis spinosa 84 Common Mint 85

II Compost 16 F J Consumtpion of fruit and vegetables 26 Coriander 84 Farming Japanese Pepper 87 Coriandrum sativum 84 Energy use 6 Juniper 85 Corn 70 Factory farming meat 9 Junipcrus communis 85 Corn Pollination Table 70 Genetic modification 6 Sugar Enhanced Hybrid Strawberry farm 11 K Fennel 59 Dwarf F1 70 Kale 52 Florence Fennel 59 Supersweet Hybrids Kitchen gardens 30 Breakthrough F1 70 Fertiliser 16 Honey and Cream Breakthrough F1 Application rates of nutrients (table) 16 L 70 Fertiliser needs of vegetables (table) 16 Lactuca sativa 62 White Corn FI 70 Flowers, Edible 63 Lady's Finger 72 Traditional Corn Calendula, Pot marigold 63 Laurus nobilis 84 Baby Corn F1 70 Nasturtium Leeks 52 Blue Popping Corn 70 Alaska 63 Elephant 52 Golden Bantam 70 Apricot Tip Top 63 Jeune du Poitou 52 Ornamental Indian Corn 70 Empress of India 63 Legumes Variegated Corn 70 Milkmaid 63 Improving soils with legumes 21 Corn Salad 61 Peach Melba 63 Lemon Grass 85 Crop rotation 21, 25 Violets and Pansies 63 Lemon Verbena 85 Cuba 10 Foeniculum vulgare var. azoricum 59 Lettuce 62-63 Cucumber 71 Cos or Romaine Burpless Cucumbers G Cos Verdi 63 Armenian 71 Garden plans 27 Red Leprechaun Mix 63 Lebanese 71 Garlic 52 Rouged'Hiver 63 Lemon 71 Hardneck Heading Lettuce Mexican Sour Gherkin 71 Chinese Red 52 Great Lakes 63 Mini White 71 Elephant/Russian 52 Red Iccberg 63 Sweet and Striped 71 New Zealand Purple 52 Loose-Leaf Spacemaster 71 Softneck Australian Yellow Leaf 63 Cucumis melo 75 Australian White 52 Butterhcad Freckles 63 Cucumis melo flexuosus 71 Biofresh 52 Goldrush 63 Cucumis sativus 71 Genetic modification 37 Lollo Biondo / Lollo Rosso 63 Cucurbita maxima 72 Farming 6 Red Velvet 63 Cucurbita moschata 72 Germination 40 Royal Oakleaf 63 Cucurbita pepo 72 Days to germination 39 Life expectancy of vegetable seeds 39 Curcuma longa 87 Globalisation Light feeders 21 Cymbopogon citratus 85 Globalisation of our food supply 6 Loam 15 Cynara scolymus 48 Goldman, Amy 75 Lucerne hay 19 Gourds 81 Lycopersicon esculentum 76 D Birdhouse 81 Daucus carota 60 Decorative Table Mix 81 M Decorative vegetables 30 Dinosaur 81 Machc 61 Digger's Club 89 Grain fed cars 7 Manure 19 Dig up your lawn plot (table) 26 Green manures 19 Manures Dill 85 Growing days map 43 Green manures 19 Diplotaxis sylvestris 61 South-cast Australia 45 Marjoram, Golden 85 Drip irrigation 18 H Mentha E Mentha spp. 85 Heavy feeders 21 suaveolens variegata 85 Earthworms 14 Hclianthus tuberosus 48 viridis 85 Ecology 6 Herbs 84-87 x piperita 85 Eggplant 71 Heronswood 88 Mini-plot 24-25,27 Lislada di Gandia 71 Humus 14 Mint 85 Hybrids 13 Long Purple 71 Mint, Common 85 Eruca sativa 61 Mint, Peppermint 85

II Mint, Variegated Applemint 85 Perilla, Shiso 86 R Mizuna 61 Persicaria odorata 87 Mulching 18,35 Pest control 20 Radicchio 59 Murraya koenigii 87 Organic (table) 20 Radish 55 Using flowers 20 Easter Egg 55 N Pest control without pesticides 8, 20 French Breakfast 55 Pesticides Round Red 55 Nasturtium officinale 87 Non-toxic 21 Raised beds 19 Nitrogen 16, 17 Pest management 20 Raphanus sativus 55 Non-organic food 10 Integrated pest management 20 Red Giant Mustard 61 Nutrients 16 Petroselinum crispum 86 Rheum x hybridum 65 o Petroselinum crispum var neopolitanum 86 Rhubarb 65 pH 17 Ever Red 65 Ocimum basilicuni 84 Phaseolus coccineus 68 Glaskins Perpetual 65 Okra 72 Phaseolus vulgaris 68 Silvan Giant 65 Onions Phosphorous 16 Rockmelons 75 Long day late varieties Photosynthesis 7 For winter storage Borettana Yellow 53 Pisium sativum 54 Naples 75 Creamgold 53 Polyface Farm 9 Tendral Verde 75 Mild Red Odourless 53 Potager 30 Muskmelons Spring Onion 53 Potassium 16 Eden's Gem 75 Multiplying onions Potatoes 64 Mini Melon Minnesota 75 Potato onions 53 Growing in one square metre 64 True Cantaloupes Shallots 53 White fleshed French Charentais 75 Tree onions 53 Bison 64 Ha'Ogen 75 Onions from sets 53 Brownell 64 Prescott Fond Blanc 75 Short day early varieties Toolangi Delight 64 Rooting depth of vegetables 41 Barletta 53 Yellow fleshed Rosemary 86 Oregano Greek 86 Desiree 64 Rosmarinus officinalis 86 Organics Dutch Cream 64 Organic gardening 21 King Edward 64 s Pest control Kipfler 64 Sage 86 Insect pests (table) 20 Nicola 64 Salvia officinalis 86 Origanum onites 86 Pink Eye 64 Sand 15 Origanum vulgare Aureum 85 Royal Blue 64 Satureja hortensis 86 Spunta 64 P Sea Kale beet 65 Potting on 41 Seed Pledge 13 PakChoy 51 Pumpkins 72-74 Seeds Parsley 86 Australian Bred Germinating 40 Parsnip 60 Australian Butter 74 Hygiene 40 Hollow Crown 60 Ironbark 74 Life expectancy of vegetable seeds 39 Parterre & I'Australien 30 Tri amble 74 Raising seedlings 40 Pastinaca sativa 60 French Bred Sowing 38 Peanuts 72 Musquee de Provence 74 When to sow 19 Peas 54 Potimarron 74 Storing seeds 39 Golden Podded 54 International Varieties Seed Savers Exchange 12,36 Greenfeast 54 Bohemian 74 Self-sufficiency Purple Podded 54 Butternut 74 Garden area needed 33 Shelling Peas 54 Delicata Mini Sweet 74 Mini-plot 27 Snow Peas RedKuri 74 Planting and harvest plan 24 Climbing 54 Turk's Turban 74 Water needs 33 Dwarf 54 World's Largest 74 Silverbeet 65 Sugar Snap Pollination and Seed Saving 74 Five Colour Mix 65 Climbing 54 Pollination by hand 73 Fordhook 65 Dwarf 54 Pumpkin Trials (table) 73 Yellow 65 Whole Pod or Mange tout 54 Soil Perilla frutescens Atropurpurea 86 Building organic content 35

II Correcting acid soil 17 Tomatoes - heirloom Heirlooms to grow for cool summers Correcting alkaline soil 17 Beefsteak or Slicing Tomatoes Blacktail Mountain 80 Growth 14 Black Krim 76 Cream of Saskatchewan 80 Ideal composition (chart) 14 Brandywine 78, 79 Golden Midget 80 Improving soils with legumes 21 Elfie 78, 79 Sweet Siberia 80 Organic soils 14 Grosse Lisse 78, 79 Heirloom varieties pH 17 Mortgage Lifter 78, 79 Jam Melon Citron Red Seeded 80 Soil improvers 21 Rouge de Marmande 79 Moon and Stars 80 Structure 15 White Beauty 79 WildArugula 61 Texture 15 Cherry tomatoes Witloof 59 Water penetration 18 Beam's Yellow Pear 78 WongBok 51 Soil wetting depths 41 Broad Ripple Yellow Currant 78 Solanum melongena 71 Cherry Roma 78 z Solanum tuberosum 64 Lemon Drop 78-79 Zanthoxylum piperitum 87 Sowing seed 38 Sugarlump 78-79 Zea mays 70 Cool soil 44 Wild Sweetie 78-79 Zucchini 81 Mild Soil 44 Determinate tomatoes 77 Black Beauty 81 Very warm soil 45 Salad tomatoes Crookneck 81 Warm soil 44 Black Russian 78 Spaghetti Squash 81 Sow what when 44 Black Zebra 78 Tromboncino 81 Growing days map - South-east Aus- Green Zebra 78 tralia & Perth 45 Ida Gold 78 When to sow in your climate chart Red Fig 78 44-45 Siberian 78 Spinach 55 Tigerella 78 Bloomsdale 55 Tommy Toe (Red & Yellow) 78 New Zealand Spinach 55 Wapsipinicon Peach 78 Spinacia oleracea 55 Tropaeolum minus 63 Squash 81 True Curry Leaf 87 StErth 88 Trueman, Will 73 Summer Savory 86 Turmeric 87 Swiss Chard 65 Turnips 55 Turnip Trials (table) 55 T V Tarragon French 86 Tatsoi 61 Valerianella Iocusta 61 Tea 87 Vietnamese Mint 87 Temperature Vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis Impact on growth 35 68 Temperate plant growth 35 Viola spp. 63 Tropical plant growth 35 Tetragonia tetragonoides 55 w Thyme 87 Water 18,32-35 Thymus spp. 87 Amount required to grow fruit and veg- Tomatoes etables (table) 32 Heirloom vs Hybrid Tomato Yields Conservervation 18 (table) 78 Drip irrigation 34 Hybrids Drip vs spray 18 Apollo F1 79 Efficiency 34 Inderterminate tomatoes 76 Grey water 33-34 Paste & drying tomatoes Penetration on different soil types. 18 Amish Paste 78 Rainwater harvest 33-34 Anna Russian 78 Stats for capital cities (table) 34 Principe Borghese 78 Storage 33 Pruning & Late Planting Trials 77 Usage (table) 32 Taste Test- 79 Watercress 87 Watermelon 80

II anopy The area that is covered by a Fertilizer Substances that contain Glossary cplant' s leaves - like the extent of an compounds that help plants to umbrella. grow. See Potassium, Nitrogen and Acid soil Soil with a pH less than 7. Clay A soil in which the soil particles Phosphorus. Low pH affects the availability of are extremely small (less than Fruit The part of the plant that soil nutrients. Acid soils are usually 0.002mm). Clay soils are poorly contains seed/s. low in calcium and magnesium but drained but hold water and nutrients/ Fruit set When small fruits are formed high in available iron. organic matter well. soon after flowering. Alkaline soil Soil with a pH greater Cold air drainage The propensity of than 7. Alkaline soils are low in cold air to sink; the opposite of hot Genetic engineering Transferring available iron. air rising. Cold air drainage makes genes from plants, bacteria or Annual A plant that completes its life low-lying areas colder and more animals in a laboratory, across cycle in one year. Started from seed frost prone than areas halfway up a normal species barriers. it will grow, flower and die within hill. In cool areas it is desirable to Genus A rank or grouping of plants one year. plant frost-sensitive plants where the that is made up of one or more Antioxidant Compounds that cold air will flow past rather than species (sometimes thousands) all of reduce free radicals that can cause collect and form frost. which are closely related (generic: of cancer and high cholesterol. Many Cross-pollination The transfer of the same genus). antioxidants can be found in the pollen from one variety of plant to Germination The first stage of a pigments/colours in fruit and the stigma of a different, but related seed's development into a plant. vegetables. plant (eg between two different The seed swells and the seed root Apical meristem The meristem varieties of pear) to ensure fruit. (radicle) is visible outside the seed (growth point) at the top of a stem or Cultivar A cultivated variety of coat. branch. plant propagated by gardeners for Axillary meristem A meristem its particular attributes. One wild Heirloom seeds Open-pollinated, (growth point) occurring on the sides species of plant may give rise to publicly owned seed, produced by of a stem or branch. many cultivars (eg Jonathan and crossing two parents of the same Granny Smith are both cultivars of variety. Biennial Cool winters initiate spring the domestic apple). See Variety Hermaphrodite Plants that bear flowering. Life cycle depends on flowers that include both male and sowing time. Vegetables: To prevent Deciduous Describes plants that female parts. Sometimes called flowering sow Spring-Autumn. shed their leaves at the onset of their 'perfect' flowers, they can be self- Flowers: To encourage flowers sow dormant season (either winter or the fertile or need cross-pollination from Autumn. dry season). another plant of the same species. Biennial bearing When a tree or Dioecious A plant that bears male Humus The dark material that results shrub bears fruit prolifically in one flowers on one plant and female from decayed organic material. It is year and none or very little the next flowers on another. Therefore two essential for a healthy functioning year. Often caused by lack of fruit plants are needed in order to obtain soil. thinning. It can be a useful trait to fruit (eg kiwifruit). Hybrid Sexual reproduction from break the lifecycle of some pests that Divide/Division A propagation plants that are not genetically attack the fruit. process. Plants are removed from the identical. Bolting When a vegetable prematurely ground and broken up into smaller flowers and seeds due to growing pieces, with each piece having roots Lateral growth A bud or shoot conditions or lime of planting. and shoots. resulting in growth at the side of Bordeaux A mixture of copper Dormant Describes a stage in a the main stem or shoot, making the sulphate and hydrated lime. It can plant's life cycle in which there is no plant bushy. be applied as a dust or mixed with growth. Legume Members of the pea family water and used as a spray to control Drainage The ability of the soil to that can convert atmospheric fungal problems such as wilts, peach retain or shed water. Good drainage nitrogen to nitrogen-rich nodules leaf curl and rust. It can damage leaf enables water to flow easily through on their roots. These nodules slowly tissue so is best used just before leaf the soil so that the plant's roots are release nitrogen to the soil in a form buds burst in spring. Compatible not sitting in soggy ground. that is easily taken up by plants. with organic gardening techniques. Loam Soil in which there is an even Bulbil A small bulb that forms on the Epiphyte Plants that have evolved mix of fine particles (clay) and above-ground plant parts (usually to grow in trees. The demand sharp coarse particles (sand). the flower stem). It can be planted drainage and they cling to their host/ to grow into another plant. Useful support with aerial roots. IVIeristem A growth point/bud. A for propagation/increasing plant Evergreen Describes plants that retain part of the plant that contains, or numbers. their foliage year round by renewing has the potential to contain actively and replacing their leaves a few at a dividing cells. time. II Monoecious A plant that bears set and is involved in many aspects tuberosum (potatoes), the genus separate male and female flowers on of plant metabolism. Phosphorous name is Solanum and the species the one plant (eg hazels, pumpkins can become unavailable to plants name is tuberosum. Species is often and corn). when the pH is outside the range abbreviated to sp. (Specific: of the of pH6-7.5. Australian soils are same species.) Nematodes Unsegmented worm- generally lacking in phosphorus. Sport A stem on a plant that is like creatures that attack the roots Blood and bone is a good source. different from the rest of the plant. It of certain plants. The best control in Photosynthesis The means by which may bear a different-coloured flower, vegetable crops is to maintain good plants convert the sun's energy and have slightly different foliage, or rotation. carbon dioxide into simple sugars show an inclination to climb. When Neutral soil Soil with a pH of that fuel plant growth. parts of this stem are propagated a between 6.5 and 7. Any nutrients Pinch out/back The removal of the new cultivar/variety may result. present in the soil are easiest for growing tip of a shoot to promote Spur A short, often lumpy side-shoot plants to extract when the soil pH is bushy growth. The growth is soft that bears fruit for a few years. neutral. enough to pinch off with your thumb Stamen The male part of a flower Nitrogen One of the three major and forefinger. consisting of the filament (like a fine nutrients essential for plant growth. Potassium/Potash One of the three stalk) and the pollen-bearing anther. Nitrogen stimulates leaf and shoot major nutrients required for plant Standard A plant grown on a single growth: too much nitrogen results growth. It helps to form thick cell stem with ball-like or weeping in soft, sappy, disease-prone growth walls on the outside of plant parts, vegetation at the stem's apex (eg and contributes to the pollution of thus protecting them from attacking standard bay tree). rivers and creeks; too little nitrogen organisms. It also plays an important Sucker A shoot growing from an results in poor growth and pale, role in governing the extension of underground root or stem. yellowed leaves. stems. A light dusting of wood ash is Surface root system The root system Nitrogen-fixing plant A plant that, rich in potassium. that is active very close to the soil with help from soil micro-organisms, Pollination When the male pollen surface. All citrus have surface root forms nitrogen-rich nodules on its is transferred to the female stigma systems. Such root systems should root system. Most of these plants and the pollen grains stretch not be disturbed, so do not cultivate are members of the pea family down the female style to reach around these plants and mulch well (legumes). The roots of these plants and fertilize ovules in the ovaries. to prevent drying out. should be left in the ground to The resulting seed/s contain an provide nitrogen for future crops. embryo, which if germinated will Terminal bud The bud at the Node The point on the stem from display characteristics of both very end of a shoot or branch. By which a leaf or another stem grows. the pollen parent and the ovule removing this bud other buds further parent. The male and female organs down the stem will be encouraged to Organic matter Any material may be situated in one flower grow. See Apical meristem. derived from something once living (hermaphrodite), in separate flowers Tip pruning Cutting back the tips of a (eg carbon based materials such as on the one plant (monoecious), or on stem by 15 to 20cm. prunings, grass clippings, paper, separate plants (dioecious). Transpiration The proccss by which cotton or woollen material, hair or plants expel water vapour from their feathers). Composted organic matter Rootstock A plant that forms the leaves as part of photosynthesis. is essential for healthy soil. root system in a grafted plant. A bud Triploid An organism that contains or stem of a desired variety (called three complete sets of chromosomes. Perennial A plant that lives for more a scion) is grafted/budded onto the This may make their pollen than two years. It may be short-lived rootstock. The rootstock can affect unsuitable for other plants of the (three to five years), a herbaceous the size, vigour and the disease same species. (non-woody) perennial or woody resistance of the plant. perennial (a tree or shrub). Variety A species variation that has Pericarp The layer that surrounds Sand A soil in which at least 85% of occurred in a natural ecosystem. the seed. In an apricot this includes soil particlcs are large allowing for We have used this term to indicate the llesh that we eat and the hard excellent drainage but poor nutrient/ cultivars to simplify the text. covering of the kernel inside the organic matter and water-holding Vegetable A plant that is grown for its apricot 'stone'. capacity. edible leaves, stems, buds or roots pH The measure of hydrogen and Species A division of distinct plants (eg cabbage, celery, cauliflower and hydroxyl ions in the soil solution that can cross-pollinate (breed) potatoes respectively). (soil water) indicating whether the with other species within the same Vegetative growth Plant growth that soil is alkaline or acid. genus. There are one or more species consists of leaves and stems only - Phosphorus One of the three major in every genus. The genus name no flowers or fruit. nutrients required for plant growth. appears first, followed by the species It promotes root growth, seed/fruit name: in the example Solanum

II Bibliography

Vegetables • John Wiley & sons, 1980, Knott's handbook for vegetable growers • Clive Blazey, 1999, The Australian vegetable garden, New Holland Publishers, Australia • John Jeavons, 1974, How to grow more vegetables, Ten Speed Press • Amy Goldman, 2004, The complete squash, Artisan, New York • Amy Goldman, 2002, Melons for the passionate grower, Artisan, New York • Vilmorin-Andrieux, 1885, The vegetable garden, John Murray. Reprint The Jeavons, Leler Press, California, 1976 • William Woys Weaver, 1997, Heirloom vegetable gardening, Henry Holt and Co • Tanya Denchla, 1994, The organic gardeners home reference, Storey Books

General • Kevin Handreck, 1993, Gardening down-under, CSIRO • Michael Pollock, 2004, The RHS fruit and vegetable gardening in Australia, Dorling Kindersley, London • Robert Kourik, 1986, Designing and maintaining your edible landscape naturally, Metamorphic Press • Miriam Polunin, 1997, Healing foods, Dorling Kindersley, London • Suzanne Ash worth, 1991, Seed to seed, Seedsavers Exchange, Iowa • Eliis and Bradby Rodale, 1996, The organic gardener's handbook of natural insect and disease control • Edna Walling, 1985, A gardener's log, Anne O'Donovan Pty Ltd, Macmillan • Stephen Faciola, 1998, Cornucopia. A source of edible plants, Kampong Publications • J. Joseph, D. Nadeau, A. Underwood, 2002, The color code, Hyperion, New York

Heirloom seed sources • The Digger's Club, 105 Latrobe Pde, Dromana, Victoria, 3936. www.diggers.com.au • Eden Seeds MS 905 Lower Beechmont Qld, 4211 www.edenseeds.com.au • Phoenix Seeds PO Box 207, Snug, Tasmania, 2054 • Seed Savers Exchange www.seedsavers.org

Climate change • Tim Flannery, 2005, The weather makers, Text Publishing, Australia • K. Dow & T. Downing, 2006, The atlas of climate change, University of California Press • Lester Brown, 2007, Plan b 3.0, Earth Policy Institute • Michael Pollan, 2006, Omnivore's dilemma, Penguin Group, USA • Jared Diamond, 2005, Collapse, Penguin Group, USA • Veil research report, Sustainable and secure food systems for Victoria University of Melbourne

II

KEY TO GROWING INSTRUCTIONS - ICONS

• VEGETABLE GARDEN - Seeds and bulbs See key to growing instructions (left)

PLANT TYPE I LIFE CYCLE HA Hardy Annual: survives frost. Life cycle 4-12 months. How to use this book

TA Tender Annual: frost sensitive. HB Hardy biennial: life cycle 2 growing seasons. FIND YOUR CLIMATE COLOUR for Hp Hardy perennial. Perennial roots with annual flowers, (life cycle 2 years plus). vegetables you can grow TP Tender perennial: dies in frosty areas. Cool Warm Hot Use the 'Growing Days map' on p43 to guide you SEED SOWING jg S°: Sow direct outside. (see p44-45) sow in your selection of vegetables and when to sow ££ S': Sow as seedling into pots then transplant them. sow outside. Find your location on the map. This indicates Spacing of seeds I transplants. .„m SpacM e between rows by m/cm x m/cm sp ace belween planls the number of growing days in your region. We have grouped the growing days into three broad Cool Warm Hot TEMPERATURE Tasmania Melb-Adel Bris, Perth. zones represented by icons that are coloured blue, GROWING DAYS inland Sydney green or yellow. The number of growing days Number days over 15°C Below 150 days 150-240 days 240+ days GROW GROW GROW determines what vegetables you can grow and months months months when it is best to grow them. On p44-45 select the column marked in your growing zone colour, and DAYS TO HARVEST Harvest Days from sowing seed days (including seedling stage). plant out your seeds in the months indicated for each vegetable. Each individual vegetable entry FRUITING TREES & SHRUBS - Container grown plants will display the climate colours and months of sowing appropriate for that vegetable.

GROWING ZONES Warm Warm Hot Growing Days X Cold Zone Cool Coastal Inland Tas. Melb, Mildura, Sydney, FIND YOUR CLIMATE COLOUR for Areas Ballarat, Adel, Dubbo, Perth, Orange, Bega. T'woomba Brisbane fruiting trees and shrubs you can grow Canb BunUuiy Cool Warm Warm Hot Growing Days 1-150 150-240 150-240 240+ Coastal Inland

Cold Zones 9a,9b 10 9b 10,11,12 Use the 'Cold Zone map' on p42 to ascertain what trees, shrubs, climbers and perennials you can grow Frost icon m t in your area. Find your location on the map, it will Minimum Temperatures -TC -1°C -4°C -1°C be covered by one of the four colours, blue, pink, green or yellow indicating different zones. Fruit plants will be permanent members of your garden and are likely to be acquired as young plants in HEIGHT AND WIDTH J Height of mature plant pots, or bare-rooted in winter in the case of some *-* Width of mature plant deciduous trees, canes or shrubs. FOLIAGE tjj Evergreen

^ Deciduous How do I grow fruit and vegetables? ^ Semi-Deciduous See the icon table (left) and on the inside of the back cover for the symbols used for the type of SEASON OF HARVEST Harvest month plant, sowing method, spacing and harvest icons for vegetables. TOTAL PRODUCE Yiold The icons for fruiting trees and shrubs cover frost tolerance/intolerance, climate, height and width of plant, type of foliage, harvest month and SUNLIGHT AND WATER REQUIREMENTS likely yield.

SUNLIGHT REQUIRED 0 Full sun Required sunlight icons are on the bottom section

0 Part sun or part shade of the page.

HI Shade only

WATER tit Constantly moist soil (Above 850mm rainfall) Vegetables must be kept moist at all times unless otherwise it Seasonal watering indicated in the text. i Drought tolerant (Below 500mm rainfall)