In Our Garden



Photoperiodism bolting plants Melbourne 8
It is quite common for leafy greens such as silverbeet and rocket to flower and set seed in spring. It’s called bolting and is caused by a phenomenon called photoperiodism. Around late October and early November, I start receiving a lot of inquiries related to coriander, silverbeet and parsley. Usually […]

Day Length and Plants (Photoperiodism)




Good bugs and bad bugs in the garden
Recently, I wrote a blog post on the large number of whitefly currently plaguing gardens across Melbourne. While their numbers are still quite high, I’ve noticed a huge increase in predatory insects over the last fortnight. We’ve had plenty of ladybugs, spiders, praying mantis, hover flies and lacewings in our […]

Whitefly Predators







2
Aphids hate the cold. At the moment, with the unusually warm weather they are thriving in protected micro-climates in gardens all over Melbourne. Today, when I was out pottering in the garden, I noticed that all of my parsley and coriander plants were covered in aphids. The plants have been […]

Attack of the Aphids!



4
It’s Peanut Sunday here at LRF Head Quarters in Hawthorn East! Earlier in the year we planted out an experimental crop of peanuts and today we harvested them. As you can see, our crop was a huge success. It was so exciting to uproot the withering plants and finding masses […]

Peanut Sunday


Autumn planting guide onion
Our garlic is leaping up out of the ground at the moment and it’s not too late to get yours in. As long as you’ve got a sunny spot for it, growing garlic is very easy. It loves moist (but not waterlogged), friable soil with plenty of organic matter and […]

Garlic