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Our Recent Facebook Posts

Our Recent Facebook Posts

Our Recent Blog Posts

  • The Impact Of Compost On Garden Soil: A Case Study August 3, 2021
  • What is the best compost method? September 17, 2020
  • The Leaf, Root & Fruit guide to Covid-19 Panic Induced Edible Gardening March 17, 2020
  • Garden Ecosystems Part Three: How to Turn your Garden into a Resilient Ecosystem September 2, 2019
  • Garden Ecosystems Part Two: Attracting Beneficial Insects into the Garden August 26, 2019
  • Garden Ecosystems Part One: Pest Predator Dynamics and Balance August 20, 2019
  • Plant Soil Conditioner Trial March 6, 2019
  • Spring Planting Guide for Melbourne August 22, 2018
  • How to Grow Great Tomatoes in Melbourne August 16, 2018
  • Day Length and Plants (Photoperiodism) July 30, 2018

leafrootfruit
Sweetcorn is not a crop for small spaces. The plan Sweetcorn is not a crop for small spaces. The plants grow quite tall, and only produce around two cobs per plant. They require a lot of water, and nitrogen to grow strong, healthy plants, so are difficult to grow in pots. Good quality sweetcorn cobs rely on great pollination. Each of the silks hanging out of the end of the cob links to one of the kernels inside the cob. Each kernel need to be pollinated by the male flowers on top of the plants. If the kernels aren’t pollinated (by the wind), then they don’t swell and fill with the delicious sugary sweetness. There are a couple of tips I recommend to ensuring you grow great sweetcorn: - Plant in blocks (not long rows) - Plant at least 30 corn plants (I have seen successful crops grown with fewer numbers, but pollination is not always that great with less than say 24 plants) - Sweetcorn is very thirsty and requires lots of water to thrive, so water regularly and deeply. - Sweetcorn loves lots of compost rich soil We plant successive crops of sweetcorn every fortnight to ensure a continuous supply in late summer and early autumn. AS with most of our summer crops, our sweetcorn is a bit behind that of other years. However, we're looking forward to harvesting our first cobs at some time in February. Three Sisters Gardening is a great way to grow sweetcorn and still maximise the use of small spaces: https://www.leafrootfruit.com.au/three-sisters-gardening-companion-planting/ #sweetcorn #threesisters #marketgarden #organic #hybridseed #pollination #silks #successionplanting #summercrop #gardeningtip #growyourown
Happy New Year to you all! Today we have finally Happy New Year to you all! Today we have finally picked our first zucchini of the summer. What a strange season when tomatoes are harvested before zucchini... certainly a first for our garden! What's happening in your patch? #zucchini #summerabundance #kyneton #veggiepatch #homegrown #strangeseason
It's been a crazy season for establishing summer c It's been a crazy season for establishing summer crops in Victoria. Spring was especially cool, we had four consecutive frosts in the middle of November. Soil was waterlogged in early spring due to heavy rainfall. In central Victoria, soils quickly dried out in December and we've hardly had any rain in weeks. Rampant slugs and earwigs have added to the problem. These challenging conditions wiped out several crops of cucumbers and other Cucurbits. Our tomato seedlings were damaged by the frost, but survived. We delayed planting other crops such as capsicums, eggplants and basil. Other crops such as beans have been replanted several times in an effort to outsmart the earwigs and slugs. It's generally been a frustrating time in the veggie patch. We are still yet to harvest a single zucchini and I had assumed our first tomato was still weeks away. Imagine my surprise when I wandered through the patch this afternoon and discovered our first ripe tomato! This variety is Broad Ripple Currant. It is the most cold-tolerant variety that I've come across. It is often my first tomato harvested of the season. Melbourne based gardeners consider it a decent achievement to harvest a ripe tomato before Christmas. For us in central Victoria it is usually considered a pipe dream. However, here we are, after a most challenging spring, harvesting our first tomato before Christmas! Sure it's "only" one cherry tomato (cherry tomatoes usually ripen much sooner than slicing tomatoes) and it's much later than the first tomato we harvested last year (on the 2nd of December) but here it is... the very unlikely Christmas tomato! How are your tomatoes coming along? Want to know how we manage to harvest tomatoes so early in the season? Check out the blog post on our website: https://www.leafrootfruit.com.au/how-to-grow-great-tomatoes-in-melbourne/ #christmastomato #frommygarden #broadripplecurrant #kyneton #beathebirds #coldtolerant #gardentips #howtogrow #veggiepatch #heirloomtomato #weehoo
Espaliered red currants in the fading sunlight. Pl Espaliered red currants in the fading sunlight. Plump and juicy berries with a tartness that is perfect for sprinkling on top of a Christmas pav. I wasn't sure that they would respond well to horizontal cordon espalier, but so far so good! We have also espaliered black currants, white currants, jostaberries and gooseberries along one section of our netted enclosure. In a few years the whole wall should look amazing, covered in ripening fruit in the lead up to Christmas. What's happening in your patch this week? #christmasberries #redcurrants #beatthebirds #backyardorchard #nettedenclosure #espalier #espalieredcurrants #pavlovatopping #kyneton
Are you planning a big weekend of gardening ahead? Are you planning a big weekend of gardening ahead? If so you might find our monthly planting guide and newsletter quite useful: http://eepurl.com/hOwLtz We are going to be spreading wood chip mulch across some new perennial beds and planting under story plants in our orchard. It's a bit later in the year than we planned, but hopefully the La Nina summer ahead will help them settle in well and thrive anyway. What are you planning to do in the garden this weekend? #plantingguide #ediblegardening #whattoplant #weekend #gardening #veggiepatch #backyardorchard #gardenplans #weekendplans #melbourne #centralvictoria #newsletter #gardenguide #gardentips
A few early morning moments from our garden. What' A few early morning moments from our garden. What's happening in your patch? #inmygarden #morninglight #carrotflower #nettedenclosure #solitude #reflection #grateful #kyneton #chickentractor #berrypatch #blueberries #justbecause #cropprotection #ecosystem
Today was an exciting day in our household. We wel Today was an exciting day in our household. We welcomed a hive of bees into our garden. We're new to bee keeping, but Caryn has been doing plenty of research to ensure we are responsible apiarists. With her calm and methodical approach the bees will be in great hands. We're looking forward to watching them buzz around the garden, assisting with pollination and making plenty of delicious honey. #bees #longlangstroth #honey #pollinators #honeybee #beesuit #orientationflight #macedonranges #kyneton @waggleandforage
These two strawberries represent a pair of firsts These two strawberries represent a pair of firsts for our household... The first ripe strawberries of the season The first harvest from our new netted enclosure I'm not sure which one I'm more excited about! It will be a tasty, albeit meagre dessert at ours tonight. What's happening in your garden? #firstharvest #cropprotection #strawberry #berrypatch #desert #nettedenclosure #frommygarden #centralvictoria #sprummer #summeriscoming #abundance #growyourown #pickedtoday
What a great day it was today for gardening. Melbo What a great day it was today for gardening. Melbourne Cup day is a rough guide to when tomatoes can be planted out in Central Victoria. The weather forecast for the next week looks pretty good so we planted some of our tomatoes into the garden today. We use a trellis method that I have refined over the years. It involves running wire mesh horizontally between star posts. This allows the plants to grow up through the mesh whilst being supported and allowing good airflow. No string required with this method! We place some insect netting over the whole garden bed straight away. This creates a warm microclimate to help the plants establish. It will also prevent birds from taking fruit as it ripens and will stop any fruit fly infestations should they find their way into our veggie patch. See our blog post for more information on growing great tomatoes: https://www.leafrootfruit.com.au/how-to-grow-great-tomatoes-in-melbourne/ #melbournecup #gardening #tomatoes #growgreattomatoes #springplanting #beatthebirds #QLDfruitfly #trellis #gardeningwithchildren #kyneton #macedonranges #heirloom
Next Thursday is the first one of the month... whi Next Thursday is the first one of the month... which is the day I send out our very popular newsletter and planting guide. A lot of work goes into putting the newsletters together. There's content to write, photos to take and a very helpful volunteer who reviews it all to check for typos and grammar. We get a lot of positive feedback about the newsletters, so all the hard work is worth it! Like many Victorians we were without power for a lot of the day. Our internet was also pretty patchy for most of the day. I was supposed to be focusing on admin today, but instead of spending the day doing admin, I grabbed the camera and headed outside to take some snaps for newsletter. This little fellow stopped by for a quick look at what I was up to. After resting for a minute on the camera lens, it was back to the apple blossom, working hard to pollinate the flowers. If you haven't already done so, you can sign up to our mailing list here: http://eepurl.com/g8-ZhT #busybee #newsletter #storm #camera #infocus #canon7D #espalier #honeybee #signupnow #gardeningadvice #plantingguide #gardenguide #melbourne #victoria #kyneton #macedonranges #centralvictoria #ediblegarden #vegetablegarden #fruittrees
Asparagus is coming thick and fast now... at this Asparagus is coming thick and fast now... at this time of the year it becomes a staple, when not mulch else is producing in the veggie patch. A few weeks back we were struggling to harvest any spears. An infestation of Red Legged Earth Mite was stunting the growth of the spears and causing them to dry out. To remedy the infestation we weeded the patch thoroughly as RLEM like to hide and breed up amoung weeds, particularly flat weeds such as cape weed. Then we gave the plants a good feed with some general purpose organic fertilizer and plenty of chicken manure. The result was the RLEM disappeared within days and the asparagus started producing whopper spears such as these. What's happening in your patch at the moment? #asparagus #kyneton #veggiepatch #gardenpest #spring #gardeningwithkids #giantproduce #spear #dinnertime
A great day for a spot of soil prep today... This A great day for a spot of soil prep today... This bed is destined to become our sweetcorn patch this summer. The girls love soil prep days... Plenty of bugs and worms for them to peck at. I'm generally against hybrid chooks. However, these Hylines have a huge appetite and therefore forage a lot more than heritage breeds. It makes them great for turning compost and soil. Because they eat a lot, they also poo a lot... Which means extra nitrogen for our corn crop this year! They help with pest control. These girls have become an essential part of our team. The eggs are just a bonus! Chooks courtesy of @3bearsfarmhq #springtime #hybridchook #hyline #chickentractor #rotaryhoe #soilprep #springplating #compost #permaculture #headsdownbumsup #gogirls #eggscelent#marketgarden #kyneton #macedonranges
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