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leafrootfruit

Isn’t it odd how it takes a fright to really motiv

Isn’t it odd how it takes a fright to really motivate us. I’ve heard variations on “My husband has cancer, so we’ve decided to grow a vegetable garden and eat more healthily” over and over again.

A huge percentage of my consultations are booked by folks who are making major lifestyle changes and want to start growing food. Often, it’s because of illness. Moving house is an obvious motivator to get stuck into gardening. So is retirement, or starting a new job, or going back to work after parental leave. But it comes down to suddenly having extra time, extra cash, or life-threatening motivation. Starting gardening, like starting running, needs a catalyst.

“I have such fond memories of home-grown tomatoes in my grandparents’ garden. I’ve been meaning to plant some for years.” For many people, smelling and tasting home-grown produce triggers nostalgia. And for some, it’s enough of a trigger to start getting their own hands dirty.

What about you, why do you garden?

➡ https://leafrootfruit.substack.com/p/why-do-you-garden

How big should your vegetable patch be? With the

How big should your vegetable patch be?

With the new planting season just around the corner, it’s time to start preparing garden beds. Perhaps you’re growing vegetables for the first time, or maybe you’re giving the patch an overhaul with some shiny new raised beds. How big should you make your new kitchen garden? “The bigger the better” is true for some folks, but not for everybody. The amounts of sunlight and shade you get will play a part in determining the answer. So too will the size of your property. But if you have plenty of sunny spaces to work with, then how big should you go?

You have four resources to consider when planning your vegetable patch. Your budget for each of these should determine the size of your patch:
• Sunny space
• Time
• Water
• Money.

Most folks focus on the available sunny space and completely neglect to consider or understand how time can affect their success. For me, water became the biggest limiting factor in my garden expansion.

Have a read of part six of the Vegetable Patch from Scratch series for more information on the various resources and how to make sure your vegetable patch is just the right size.
➡ https://leafrootfruit.substack.com/p/what-size-should-your-vegetable-patch

I’ve always been a gardener. There are photos of m

I’ve always been a gardener. There are photos of me as a four-year-old pottering in the garden. As a pimply teenager, I set up my own patch on the family farm, fenced it off from the cows and my sister’s horses and used my own pocket money to buy seedlings and seeds to plant it out. I’ve pottered with grow bags on London patios. And as a renter in Melbourne, I dabbled with making garden beds from timber pallets and growing trees in upcycled plastic beer kegs. Now my garden is one of the pillars on which I’ve built my life. No heath scares, no sudden revelations or dramatic catalysts required. I’m a gardener: always was, always will be.

But what about you? Why do you garden?

Can you spare a moment to help me with a little project that I'm working on?

➡ https://leafrootfruit.substack.com/p/why-do-you-garden

I succession plant my brassicas. Planting three cr

I succession plant my brassicas. Planting three crops only three months apart usually spreads the harvest from April to October. This year didn’t go according to plan. The unusually warm autumn and early winter have accelerated the growth of all three crops. The harvest times of crops one and two merged. Fortunately, this year, I’ve further reduced the number of plants I’m growing, and the glut wasn’t as painful as it could have otherwise been.

There has been plenty of broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower on our dinner plates. The Romanesco is slower to develop and is only just making an appearance.

The timing of crop three was good this year, and the plants are right at the stage I’d like them to be. Unfortunately, in the chaos of rampant autumn growth, they became swamped with weeds. The slugs mowed most of the seedlings down and now I’m left with just a handful of plants.

Between the heat and the slugs, the brassica harvest season will probably finish early this year. Given that the gluts from the last few years are still fresh in my mind, I’m not that worried about it.

Succession planting:
➡ https://leafrootfruit.substack.com/p/succession-planting-avoiding-vegetable-gluts

My annual harvest chart:
➡ https://leafrootfruit.substack.com/p/asparagus-to-zucchini-harvest-chart

Grow Great Tomatoes! I'm running a free workshop

Grow Great Tomatoes!

I'm running a free workshop this Thursday from 2 to 3 pm at Kyneton Library. Come along with all your tomato growing questions and say Hi.

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/grow-great-tomatoes-tickets-1988734222595

Pea plants will thrive all year here in my cool te

Pea plants will thrive all year here in my cool temperate climate, growing strong and healthy regardless of the season. But there’s a catch. If the plants are flowering when the frost bites, the flowers will be damaged. If I grow plants and they flower in the depths of winter, I won’t get any peas from them. This is why I sow my first crop of the year in July. This leads to flowering in spring, when frosts are less severe and I’ll get to pick some pods. Warm temperate growers (like growers in Melbourne) have far more flexibility with timing and can sow them any time of year, but now is as good a time as any.

It’s pea o’clock. Time for me to get planting.

How to grow peas:
➡ https://leafrootfruit.substack.com/p/how-to-grow-peas

All that rain in June and the unusually warm weath

All that rain in June and the unusually warm weather are allowing the grass and weeds to grow. Normally, June and July are too cold for them, and the whole garden settles into a state of dormancy. But the mower isn’t gathering dust this winter, and I’m starting to have nightmares about how busy this spring is going to be. I’m dreading how much I’ll be weeding.

June is normally my quiet time. A chance to rest up, read books by the fire and enjoy plenty of writing. But I’m too scared to relax this winter. A stitch in time saves nine, and this spring, I’m going to need every single in-time stitch that I can find. I’ve set up a new compost bay, ready for the influx of weeds. I’m desperately trying to get on top of all the odd jobs that I’d normally leave until spring. If they languish until spring, they’ll clog my to-do list before falling off it completely. I’m getting all my wood ducks in a line, to keep germinating weeds in check, so that spring doesn’t feel as hectic as it’s shaping up to be.

I’ve spent seven years refining my garden maintenance strategies, observing and managing weeds. I’m now much more efficient at keeping the garden neat and tidy, all without resorting to chemical sprays. However, this year is going to be the test. This is the year it could all come undone. But this year is also another learning opportunity, a chance to discover even better ways to go about it.

Come along to my upcoming workshop Controlling Weeds Naturally on Friday 4 September and I’ll show you what I’ve learnt and how to reduce the amount of time you spend weeding your own garden.

Find out more:
➡ https://site.corsizio.com/event/6a1644f6ab66dc30049dd747

I’ve cleaned out my greenhouse. Set up my heat mat

I’ve cleaned out my greenhouse. Set up my heat mat. Sown my tomato seeds. They’ve already germinated. There will be no Fool’s Garden this year, but I can already taste those Christmas tomatoes!

➡ https://www.leafrootfruit.com.au/is-a-heat-mat-the-best-way-to-germinate-tomato-seeds/

➡ https://www.leafrootfruit.com.au/early-spring-planting-fools-garden/

➡ https://www.leafrootfruit.com.au/how-to-grow-a-christmas-tomato-without-a-greenhouse/

➡ https://leafrootfruit.substack.com/p/how-to-grow-tomatoes

A New Leaf! Accountants celebrate EOFY. Retailers

A New Leaf!

Accountants celebrate EOFY. Retailers love the tax time sales (somehow spending money saves you money?). Parents and teachers alike just want to fall over the gastro-infested, cough-riddled line at the end of term two. But for me, the first of July signals the start of the new gardening year.

To the unseeing eye, not much is happening in the garden now. Winter crops have long been planted and mine are already very productive. But the winter solstice, just gone, is a big reset, the southern hemisphere’s gardening equivalent of New Year’s Eve.

Keen observation and meticulous records have been the key to my gardening success. It’s how I’ve learnt to sow tomato seeds when the wood ducks begin nesting. How I’ve learnt to transplant those tomatoes into my garden when the chocolate lilies and my callistemon are blooming.

I use a financial year diary for recording my garden observations. It keeps all the recorded observations for the whole gardening year in the one place. To celebrate the start of a new gardening year, last week I cracked open a fresh new gardening diary, the eighth since my young family and I moved to our six-acre property and forever-home in Kyneton.

You can read about some simple methods to record your own data, and download some templates to help you do it, here:
➡ https://leafrootfruit.substack.com/p/recording-garden-observations-garden-diary

Happy new year!

🌿What to plant in July ❄️Now that we're in the mi

🌿What to plant in July

❄️Now that we're in the middle of winter, your planting options are slim. Leafy greens such as spinach, silverbeet, kale and lettuce will grow well over winter.

🪴My planting guide generally refers to vegetables planted in the garden (as opposed to a greenhouse). This planting may consist of seeds directly sown (my usual and preferred method) or plants transplanted as seedlings.

🥕 My Vegetable Patch from Scratch series is popular with novice and seasoned gardeners alike. It covers everything you might want to know about growing vegetables. It could save you a bit of time and frustration by steering you away from preventable crop failures.

➡ https://leafrootfruit.substack.com/p/site-analysis-where-to-put-the-vegetable-patch

🌸 HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE! ☀️Today is the shortest

🌸 HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE!

☀️Today is the shortest day of the year. For the next six months the days will increase in length.

🌏 The Earth tilts on its axis throughout the year. This makes the Sun change its path through the sky at different times of the year. In my part of the world, the winter solstice occurs today, 21 June at 6.24 pm. At this point the South Pole will be tilted as far away from the sun as it can get.

❄️ In winter the Sun rises very north of due east and sets very north of due west. At midday today it appears very low (28 degrees) on the northern horizon.

☀️In summer, the Sun rises very south of due east and sets very south of due west. At midday on the summer solstice it appears almost overhead (75 degrees).

📐On the equinoxes, the sun is 52 degrees above the horizon at midday.

📏 In the next day or so, go outside at midday (if the sun is shining through the clouds) and mark our where the shadows are in your garden. Any areas in full sun at
midday are likely to be in full sun all year round. This helps you to analyse your site
and decide where to locate elements such as vegetable garden beds.

💻 It doesn’t matter if the sun doesn’t come out, or you are too busy at midday. You can look up the angle of the sun at different times of the year for your latitude. This enables you to calculate the length of shadows cast by objects of various heights (at midday). There’s finally a use for your high school trigonometry! This image shows the calculations for MELBOURNE (and all locations on the same latitude).

🌳The amount of sun your backyard receives at different times of the year is influenced by many factors. These calculations are only for sun angles at midday. They don’t take into account morning and afternoon sun, the influence of trees (deciduous vs evergreen) and other complications.

📖 Read more about site analysis of your garden in Part One of the Vegetable Patch from Scratch series.

➡ https://leafrootfruit.substack.com/p/site-analysis-where-to-put-the-vegetable-patch

Once the solstice has passed, the garlic plants wi

Once the solstice has passed, the garlic plants will begin investing energy in bulb formation. This month, I’ll carefully weed around all the plants and then give them a thick mulch of compost. This layer of compost will help to suppress the weeds and give the plants a nutrient boost to help with forming big, tasty garlic bulbs.
Read more about growing garlic here.
➡ https://leafrootfruit.substack.com/p/how-to-grow-garlic

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