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Some of the produce from our own garden

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The nets are off! Today the interns and I removed

The nets are off!

Today the interns and I removed the insect exclusion netting from our winter brassica crops.

The netting was installed on the day we sowed the seeds and was useful in preventing white cabbage butterfly from laying their eggs on the young seedlings.

White cabbage butterfly are extremely seasonal. They love mild, humid conditions. They thrive in January and February, but the numbers slowly dwindle with the cooling weather.

Here in Kyneton, the ambient temperatures are quickly dropping. So too are the white cabbage butterfly numbers. I haven’t spotted one in the garden for around a week. My brassica crops are booming and the first crop especially is pushing against the netting and needs more room. So it’s time to give them some room to grow.

Removing the netting allows the crops to be weeded more easily and I can monitor the developing florets. It will also increase the airflow around the plants which will help reduce all sorts of fungal diseases that can afflict brassicas.

If there are any stray white cabbage butterfly about and they lay their eggs then the plants are big enough to cope with a few holes in their leaves.

Folks in warmer climates can avoid the need to net their brassica crops by simply waiting for the WCB numbers to dwindle. But it becomes too cool, too quickly for us to wait here in Kyneton. The insect netting is essential to brassica success in cool climates like ours.

What about you, are you still observing white cabbage butterfly in your garden? Or have their numbers dropped in your area also?

#whitecabbagebutterfly #brassicas #winterveg #cropprotection

🍅 Problematic passata! ❓ Beth recently conta

🍅 Problematic passata!

❓ Beth recently contacted me asking what had gone wrong with her passata.

‼️ “This has never happened before. The lids were tight, so maybe the water was too hot?”

👍 Beth is spot on with her diagnosis. The water bath temperature was too high and it has caused a lot of the passata to be forced out of the bottle. Sometimes I get distracted when bottling fruit and have the same thing happen. When water bathing produce, the water needs to be at a very gentle simmer, not a rolling boil.

➡️ This week I’m trying something different. I’m sharing a few of the questions that I’ve recently been asked by my readers. You can read the post with my answers to those questions on my Substack page.

#passata #blowouts #toomuchpressure #gentlygently

You might think this is a fungus or other diseases

You might think this is a fungus or other diseases afflicting your apples, but it’s not.

Woolly aphid (Eriosoma lanigerum) is a sap sucking pest of apple trees. It has a fluffy white appearance and usually appears in autumn. Affected branches may show distorted growth the following year.

This major pest of apples will overwinter in the root system of the tree and increase in numbers over the summer and explode in growth in the humidity of autumn. The root ball may grow masses of galls as a protective response to the infestation.
Woolly aphid like humid conditions. Cramming lots of trees into a backyard orchard will reduce airflow and increase humidity. This is more likely to lead to an increase in the chance of woolly aphid infestation.

Netting your trees individually also reduces airflow and increases humidity.

Woolly aphid outbreaks were very common for me when I lived in Melbourne. Since I moved to Kyneton, I hadn’t seen any infestation in my trees until yesterday. I even brought about 40 apples trees here from Melbourne. These trees had shown severe symptoms in Melbourne, but have never shown signs since they were moved here. This is because our summers are hotter and drier. The reduced humidity prevents the aphid from thriving.

However, this year, the aphid has managed to establish on one lone tree of mine. It’s probably a combination of the rainfall in December and January and netting it. The infestation is only minor and I won’t do anything about it. I’ve nearly finished the harvest from the tree, so will soon be able to remove the netting and the “problem” should resolve itself. There’s even a few spotted amber ladybirds feasting on them.

Rootstock selection is the most critical aspect of preventing woolly aphid outbreaks. Some apple rootstocks confer resistance to the tree, so this pest is never an issue. Other rootstocks are highly susceptible.

Read more about which rootstocks to choose and which to avoid in my guide to rootstock selection ➡ Head to my Substack to read it.

📈 Population dynamics in action. 📸 The firs

📈 Population dynamics in action.

📸 The first image was taken on March 14. It shows a self-sown broad bean plant covered in aphids. They appear to be overwhelming the plant.

🐞 However, keen eyed gardeners may notice the spotted amber ladybird in the middle of the photo. Some ladybirds, such as this one eat aphids. This ladybird is already taking care of the abundance of aphids.

⏩ Fast forward a month, I took the second image of exactly the same plant this afternoon (April 14). Not an aphid to be seen. There’s some slight leaf damage further down the stem, where the aphids were feasting, but all the new growth is pristine.

❓️What did I do to fix this pest outbreak? Nothing at all!

☠️ If I had panicked, back in mid-March and sprayed the aphids then I could have convinced myself that the spray was effective. After all, I sprayed, and there’s no longer any aphids.

🤔 However, in actual fact, the spray would probably have been ineffective. Or worse, it would also have killed the ladybirds, that were taking care of the problem, allowing the aphids to proliferate for even longer. When in fact, a solid dose of patience and a bit of “do nothing” gardening was all that was needed.

➡️ Read more about pest predator interactions, population dynamics and “do nothing” gardening in my Garden Ecosystems blog series. Head to the LRF webpage to read it.

#aphids #ladybird #goodbugs #broadbeans #gardenecosystem

🥶Yesterday morning we had a very light frost. I

🥶Yesterday morning we had a very light frost. It was so light that I didn’t think it was worth mentioning. It was only visible on a few weeds here and there. However, today I’ve noticed frost damage on some of the vegetable plants, such as this tromboncino.

✏️I record the date of our first frost every year and it usually occurs in the last two weeks of April, so we are right on track (I’m not going to bother recording yesterday’s event as the first frost as it was such a light one). The end to most of my summer vegetable crops will come very suddenly with the first severe frost. However, some of my crops will continue to produce due to the microclimates that surround them. For example, my tomato crops are protected with insect exclusion netting to protect them from birds and QLD Fruit Fly. This netting also protects the plants from light frosts, so they can produce a bit later into the season than they would otherwise without the microclimate that the netting creates.

🌸🍁A lot of folks assume that microclimates are most important in spring. When they allow some sensitive summer crops to be planted into the garden a bit early. However, microclimates can also be very important at this time of the year as they can extend the harvest period by a fortnight, or more. Early autumn morning wanders through the garden are a great opportunity to observe microclimates in action.

Read more about microclimates in Part 2 of the Vegetable Patch from Scratch. Head to my Substack page to read it.

#microclimates #firstfrost #jackfrost #autumnmornings

📨 Over the last 39 weeks I have emailed out the

📨 Over the last 39 weeks I have emailed out the entire Vegetable Patch from Scratch series to my subscribers.

❓ In my email next week, I plan to answer some of the frequently asked questions about growing vegetables. Now it’s your turn, what questions about growing vegetables do you have for me?

🍃🥕🍅The Vegetable Patch from Scratch is a serialised gardening guide is designed to help everyone from complete novices to seasoned gardeners to get more productivity from your vegetable patch with less effort.

It covers everything you might want to know about growing vegetables, including:
• working out where to put your patch
• how to set it up
• planting and tending your crops
• common problems
• harvesting and preserving.

You can see the index with links to read the whole series here ➡
https://leafrootfruit.substack.com/p/a-vegetable-patch-from-scratch-series

Is autumn the new spring? 🌸 I’ve always love

Is autumn the new spring?

🌸 I’ve always loved spring. The blossom-covered trees and the seedlings sheltered in the greenhouse hold a promise of a summer bounty. Until I moved to Kyneton, it was my favourite season of the year.

🍂We have many deciduous trees and the spectacle of autumn leaves has me looking forward to this time of the year with great anticipation. The vibrant colour is already sweeping across our garden, the temperatures are cooling and soon enough we’ll be lighting the fire of an evening to keep us warm. For me, autumn has become the new spring.

📷Autumn is the best time to visit my garden. Aside from the leaf colour, you can still observe the productive garden in full swing, the upcoming winter crops and the netted orchard in all of its glory.

Come along to a guided tour of my garden on April 21. Hear all about the how and why I’ve designed and planted my garden. Bring a friend or two and make a day of it. Tickets are selling fast and two sessions have already booked out. I’ve just announced a third (and very much final) session on the Sunday morning.

➡Head to the events page of the LRF website to book tickets

#gardentour #macedonranges #kyneton #onehourfrommelbourne #permaculturefarm

Meet Spike! (I know, it’s not the most origina

Meet Spike!

(I know, it’s not the most original name for an echidna).

Spike has been hanging out in our garden since November. He is quite young and about half the size of other echidnas that have visited in the past.

Spike roams across the whole property and beyond. He’s well known in several of the neighbours’ gardens, probably because none of us have dogs. To prevent hares from wreaking havoc, we have some extreme fencing in some parts of the property. Spike just slides under the fences with incredible ease. We keep finding him in the most random of places. Spike even ventured into one of our outbuildings when someone left the door open. He’s also a ninja, who can quickly disappear without a trace. I’ll often spot him in the garden, go and tell the kids, only to return to find no sign of him, vanished, without a trace.

Spike often disappears for a few days, but keeps showing up fairly regularly around the house. He is a little shy, but doesn’t seem phased our presence, so long as we are quiet and don’t make any sudden movements One of the kids’ favourite activities is to predict where Spike is headed and then sit down in his path to hopefully have a close encounter with him.

Spike digs about in the garden a fair bit, and disrupts a lot of the mulch, but no more so than the blackbirds do. Despite the destruction, it’s hard to not smile when Spike is around. The kids adore him and I’ll admit to sitting on the ground and watching him for ages. Echidnas are such remarkable creatures, so docile yet strong. They’re built like tanks and have a ferocious appetite for ants. Spike is one of the many wonderful creatures that call our garden home. I see it as a sign that our garden ecosystem is thriving.

What creatures call your garden ecosystem home?
https://www.leafrootfruit.com.au/garden-ecosystems-designing-resilient-gardens/

🍏🍎 What’s your favourite apple variety? T

🍏🍎 What’s your favourite apple variety?

Today I the kids and I enjoyed some school holiday fun with an apple taste test. Together we picked 20 varieties that are currently ripe. Some were a little past ripe, others not quite there yet. There’s a few varieties that are ripening for the first time this year. I was particularly keen to taste for the first time ever, Pittmaston Pineapple, Blue Pearmain and Spartan.

I prefer the Japanese style apple such as Fuji and Akane, packed full of sugary sweetness, crisp and juicy. Spartan was similar to these.

Pittmaston Pineapple didn’t disappoint, with some rich flavour. I found Blue Pearmain a little bland, but very juicy. Angus rated it as his favourite. Four year old Emily quickly became overwhelmed with the choices, but nominated Golden Delicious as her favourite.

There wasn’t really a bad apple in this lot though. They all have merit and deserve their place in the orchard.

So tell me, what's your favourite variety of apple?

#heritageorchard #appleflavour #schoolholidayfun #homegrownfruit

The zucchinis in the #Foolsgarden2023 are just han

The zucchinis in the #Foolsgarden2023 are just hanging in there.

I thought they were done in late February. At the time, both plants were becoming overwhelmed with powdery mildew thanks to the very wet January. Dewy nights in March exacerbated the spread of this fungal disease, but somehow the plants are surviving… just. Perhaps the absence of rain for two months helped the plants to survive?

I’m picking one or two zucchini a week. Just enough, without creating a glut. And I can’t believe how many Fungus Eating Ladybirds (Illeis galbula) are on the plants. Normally there’s a few per leaf, but there’s dozens on some of the leaves.

On the whole, the Fool’s Garden is just about finished. The cucumbers are well and truly spent. The two Jaune Flamme tomatoes only have a few fruit remaining on the vines.

How's your summer crops faring? Are the done, or are they still pumping out plenty of produce?

#powderymildew #zucchini #summercrops #theendisnigh

🫐🍓The berries have struggled this autumn. I’ve significantly increased the irrigation to the berry patch, but I think it’s just been too dry. I’m still picking a few handfuls of raspberries, strawberries and blueberries every week, but it’s nothing on the abundance that we picked from the same patch at this time in 2023.

Spring 2022 was very wet, but the flip to dry in November meant that most of our raspberries shrivelled on the canes. They bounced back with incredible abundance in autumn 2023.

Spring 2023 produced an astonishing feast from our berry patch, but our summer and autumn crops have dwindled. It’s the complete opposite pattern to the previous 12 months.

I’m almost glad for the respite from needing to spend hours harvesting berries every second day. The freezer is full of frozen berries. We have enough jam to last the next three years. And I’m busy enough with the abundance of pome fruit (which was hugely lacking this time last year, when I was drowning in berries). If we ever have an autumn that is perfect for both berries and pome fruit, it might just break me!

See my monthly newsletter for more on what's been happening in my garden, head to my Substack page to read it.

How are your berries faring this autumn?

#berrypatch #gardeningwithkids #berrynice #mixedberries

Smut! Would you eat it? This rather ugly looking

Smut! Would you eat it?

This rather ugly looking sweet corn cob is actually a delicacy called huitlacoche. It’s also called smut and is caused by a fungus (Ustilago maydis). I’ll admit it doesn’t look that appetising but it is delicious.

The fungus causes these large blue-grey galls to form on the cob. I’ve been wanting to try this for years, but have never had the privilege of it forming on my crops. Finally it has happened.

You can cook it, eat it raw, use it in salads, there’s so many ways to prepare and use it. I chose just to break some bits off to nibble on. It tastes just like a mushroom, with a similar texture. Some of the more mature galls had pleasant but bitter aftertaste (a bit like a mushroom flavoured IPA beer, if such a thing ever existed).

What amazed me the most was that my 7yo son, Angus tasted it. Lately he has been turning his nose up at anything new. He avoids damaged fruit at all costs, and even hates any browning on toast or roast vegetables. However, he jumped at the opportunity to try huitlacoche AND he loved it. The rest of the family were not going to touch it. "Yuk".

What about you? Would you try huitlacoche?

#huitlacoche #cornsmut #wouldyoueatit #funkyfood

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