Many single use plastics come into our homes in disguise!

Did you know that chip packets, lolly packets and even food sachets are actually made of plastic?

In fact, single use plastic is used all across the food industry to get food products to us as cheaply as possible. And part of the reason is that plastic weighs very little!!

Previously we used glass and paper but they added weight and bulk. Then they discovered plastic!

And now the plastic doesn’t even look like what we think plastic should look like. The chip packets look like aluminium foil. But they are plastic!

Recycling??

And, YES, all these single use plastics are easily recycled!!

All you need to do is rinse them out (so they don’t smell out the collection centre) and drop them into the Redcycle bins at Coles when you are next shopping! The recycled plastic is makes new shopping bags, plastic bottles, even the foam matting used in childrens play areas.

What to Do?

I know you don’t need any more jobs to do! But this one is really easy, I promise you!

All I do is keep a soft plastics recycle bag near the front door, and drop in any single use plastics that come into my home. This includes the plastic bags used for the Blood and Bone and potting mix that I use in the garden!

When the bag is full, I take it to Coles when I’m next going shopping. Redcycle do the rest!

And NO, I didn’t eat the chips and lollies from the photo! I picked these bags up when walking my dogs this morning (hence this post)!

Sadly, we are responsible for the Whiskers sachets. Even though it’s cat food, my dogs love it for breakfast! However, I feel a lot better now that I know that I can rinse and recycle the satchets instead of them going to landfill where they can sit for 1,000 years before breaking down!

So, while we are trying to cut down on the single use plastics, why not make sure that you recycle those plastics that do come in with your shopping?

Let me know what other items you recycle through the Redcycle bins? I am sure there are plenty of other plastics that we just don’t think to recycle

And, as a bonus, you can reduce the amount of rubbish in your council bins!

Here’s to living more sustainably

Your Edible Garden Guru

The post Single Use Plastics Recycling appeared first on Delectable Garden.

Living a Low Plastic Life

If living without plastic was easy, we’d all be doing it! 

Most of us are aware at a rational level that plastic has significant negative impacts on the environment. But plastic is so widespread in our lives today it seems impossible to imagine life without it!

And that is one of the reasons that deter people from trying to living without plastic.

So, in the spirit of Plastic Free July, I thought I would start with some of the reasons you might have heard, or given yourself, for not trying to reduce our plastic consumption.

Reason #1
Plastics are everywhere and, while I see that there is a problem, nothing I do will make any impact.

Sadly, this is the most common comment that has been made to me since I first started talking about trying to reduce my plastic consumption! But we can make a difference! It was consumer demand that led to the banning of single-use plastic carrybags in supermarkets! And it was consumer demand that led to the re-introduction of 10 cent recycling for plastic bottles and glass bottles in most Australian States and Territories, despite very heavy lobbying by companies such as Coca Cola for over a decade.

Reason#2
Not all plastics are bad.

This is true. Without plastic we would not have motor cars, lots of household appliances, clothes and shoes and many of the newer medical breakthroughs. Not all plastic is bad. It’s just the single-use plastic, like the plastic bags we use to separate our veggies when we take them from the supermarket to our homes. I mean do we really think the bananas, already perfectly wrapped by nature, need another bag just to be transported home to the fruitbowl?

Reason#3
I’m not ready to go cold-turkey and stop using plastic.

While a few people do manage to go cold turkey and eliminate plastic from their lives, its not always easy or practical to do this. It’s great if you think you can achieve this, but to me it seems a little bit like diving headfirst into all those new years resolutions. You start with a bang, but don’t manage to keep it going past the 3rd of January! It’s better to start slowly, try taking you own reusable bags to the supermarket when doing your shopping, or refusing single-use plastic bags for some or all of your fruit and vegetables. Every little bit helps ?

Reason#4
You are not going to throw out all your current house-hold plastic. It would be costly, time consuming and inconvenient to find replacements.

The thing is, you don’t have to throw out all your plastic bottles and containers. You just need to make sure that you don’t buy any new stuff ? In fact if the plastic currently in your home is useful, and serving a purpose, then it is far better staying in your home and being used, than it is clogging up landfill.

Reason#5
I’m already doing everything possible to minimise my use of plastics.

This was my personal favourite and the reason I was most aligned with! I thought that because I didn’t drink take-out coffee, I take my own cloth bags to the supermarket, recycle all my soft plastic in bins at the supermarket etc that I was doing okay with plastic free living. Then I looked around my home. What about the shampoo bottles, all those tubes of makeup and moisturisers, the toilet paper wrappings and so on! And this didn’t go near the fridge and the pantry, with all the butter, milk bottles, sauces etc ?? And even outside, what about those seedling punnets from the Big Green Shed!

Reason#6
Alternatives cost a lot more and are less convenient.

I’m sure that there is some truth to this. However, people survived before plastic came along and, while there will be some inconvenience, I’m looking forward to finding solutions and alternatives for plastic free living and sharing these with you.

Reason#7
I forget/forgot my recycle bags when I went shopping, therefore I have failed, so there is really no point in trying again.

Going plastic-free is like any new practice that we try and take on. We are not going to get it right first time, every time. However, like that diet you adopt to try to lose weight or like trying to give up alcohol, there will be lapses and mistakes. It is important not to give up at the first hurdle but to keep on trying!

Reason#8
But I put everything in my recycle bin!!

Another reason that I was partially aligned to! Recycling still means that a lot of the plastic will end up in landfill or in the ocean ?? Less than one-third of plastic in Australia actually gets recycled!! Recycling really should be seen as a last resort, not the start of the journey!

Let me know which reason you have for not living without single use plastics, or if you have another reason that I haven’t thought of for not trying to reduce your plastic use.

I hope you will join me in signing up to Plastic Free July. For further information visit www.plasticfreejuly.org

Here’s to living more sustainably

Your Edible Garden Guru

The post If living without plastic was easy, we’d all do it! appeared first on Delectable Garden.

And one of the major reasons is the awful, tragic effect that plastic pollution is having on animals, especially in our oceans ?

However, I am not going to use any of those heart-wrenching photos of animals killed by plastic rings or plastic bags in their gut!

Not because I don’t believe that it is happening! But because those photos and that information make me feel sooo sick in the gut, sad and powerless. So it almost seems easier to give up, than to try and make any difference! ? After all, I’m only one person right?

I was also horrified to read that plastic rubbish was recently found at the bottom of the Mariana trench. ? That is nearly 11,000 metres below sea level. That is about 3,000 metres deeper than Mt Everest, if you inverted Mt Everest!

And I know that plastic pollution is found at the top of Mt Everest!

But you need to be in a submarine to visit Mariana trench! And the number of people who have achieved this (unlike Everest) are in single digits!

Another reason my Plastic free living journey was when I read that scientists have found shreds of micro-plastic in our poop. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to think that I am eating and digesting enough plastics that it is coming out the other end! ?

Another thing that horrified me was the change, or should I say lack of change, that happened when single use plastic bags were banned in Queensland. ? It seems to me that this was just an excuse for the supermarkets to charge for the single use bags and put their logos on them! This just replaced the previously freely supplied ubiquitous grey or white plastic bags.

And the final reason was when I realised that every piece of plastic that has ever been made is still with us on our beautiful planet Earth! ?

I think I knew that subliminally, but I had never really thought it through.

Plastic doesn’t degrade! If it was made, then it is still made.

It’s in our landfill, in our oceans, in our back yards and in our homes! And at the rate we are producing and using plastic, soon there won’t be enough land for us to fill with plastic waste! ?

Anyway, these are some of my reasons. I’m sure if I thought about it I could come up with a lot more. However, my aim is not to preach at people but to give you some ideas and suggestions about how we can all make a difference, one piece of plastic at a time!

I hope you will join me and the millions of others signed up to Plastic Free July. For further information visit www.plasticfreejuly.org.

Here’s to living more sustainably.

Your Edible Gardening Guru.

The post Plastic Free Living: My Journey appeared first on Delectable Garden.

Here are five new year resolutions that have been tweeted as popular this year. And how your garden can help you to keep to achieve these resolutions in the next the 365 days.

Resolution 1: Exercise more

Exercise more

A lot of people start the New Year with a resolution to exercise more. This may be because they want to get fitter or because they want to lose weight.

You may already be getting some exercise. But most of the time you just sit around at home and at work, and this can have a negative effect on your health and your posture. In fact, sitting has been called “the new smoking” because of the negative effects on our health.

The garden can help you keep this resolution! You could actually grow some things that you can eat.

Gardening is a great activity for increasing your health and fitness.

Don’t have much space? It’s amazing how much you can grow in a pot or a vertical garden.

A patch of greenery can be a great positive influence for you in the concrete jungle we live in!

Resolution 2: Engage more with people and less with Social Media

Engage with more people

It’s even more fun if you share your gardening activities with friends and family.

Invite them over to help you set up your garden. Even better, invite them for a meal, where you can serve them something you have grown! Another way you can meet people and connect is to attend gardening clubs or join gardening groups on Meet-Up or Facebook.

Resolution 3: Eat Healthier Food

Vibrant veggies

There is soo much fast food around today that it sometimes seems harder to actually make healthier choices. Again, your garden can help.

When you get to eat something that you have grown and nurtured, it brings a whole new meaning and flavour to your food. Growing your own lettuce is easy. And the bonus is that you only pick what you need for your meal and leave the rest still growing in the garden, instead of getting slimy in the bottom of your fridge!

Try growing herbs such as Basil, Thyme, Sage or Mint and add them to your salads. It will add a huge flavour boost and the added bonus of knowing you grew them. Therefore they haven’t been treated with nasty chemicals that aren’t good for the bad bugs, but they aren’t good for you either!

Resolution 4: Reduce Stress

Even if you don’t have a green thumb, digging in the dirt, planting and nurturing plant life can be very therapeutic and stress relieving. Gardening has been proven to reduce stress.

Doctors have been able to test levels of the stress hormone cortisol. These tests show that cortisol levels decrease massively after we have been gardening and playing in the dirt.

I know that life can get busy and it can be hard to find time to do some gardening, but even a few indoor or outdoor potted plants have been shown to have these stress-reducing benefits.

Resolution 5: Start saving money.

There are lots of ways that your garden can help you save money.

By making healthy lifestyle changes, like cutting back on fast food and eating fresh salads from your garden. Gardening can also be a physical activity, which helps burn calories. So why not trade in your gym membership which costs both money and time and trade it for exercising at home in your garden?

The benefits are that you actually get an end product that you can use in your kitchen!

Don’t know where to start? Contact us at The Delectable Garden. We’d love to help you.

Happy gardening 

Rohanne, your Personal Garden Expert

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Water lotus rhizome

Growing Water Lotus

The Water Lotus is a beautiful flowering plant that grows totally submerged in water. The flowers come in a range of colours from pure white, through to yellows, pinks and reds. And I warn you, they are addictive!

I have a beautiful lotus, that has apricot coloured buds and opens to a soft creamy yellow with apricot tips.

However, I recently acquired another Water Lotus rhizome for my garden (see photo). The new plant has a deep pink bud and opens to a fabulous vivid pink flower.

Water lotus flower

Aside from its beautiful flowers, the lotus has great plate sized green leaves. These help give the garden a lush tropical feel (see photo below).

So why grow water lotus?

Aside from being a beautiful plant, most people don’t realise that the Lotus flowers, seeds, young leaves and rhizomes are all edible!

So it is a great addition to the Edible Garden.

The flowers are so beautiful that I am loathe to harvest them for food. However, I do harvest the seed pod and the seeds. You can roast the seeds and they taste a bit like macadamia nuts. The seed pods and the roots are great in stir-fries and the leaves can be used like grape leaves, to wrap foods.

Water lotus leaves

Lotus plants are actually quite easy to grow. All you need to do is to plant the rhizome in mud and ensure that its rhizomes are always completely submerged in water. It also needs to get lots of sun and the occasional feed.

This is one plant that won’t do well in potting mix. I had to go and find a building site so I could get some lovely red “Redlands clay”.

It is now happily in its new home beside the recently installed Bali Hut, which somehow seemed a fitting new home.

I can’t wait for it to flower so I can share more photos of the beautiful perfumed blooms!

Happy gardening

from Rohanne, your Personal Garden Expert

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I have recently pondered the question of whether people realise how important soil preparation is?

What raised this question is that I have been watching a new garden being established in the neighbourhood. And it made me realise that a lot of people don’t understand the need for good soil preparation before transplanting their plants.

The small amount of mulch!

The garden in question sits in full sun, and I have watched a number of rose bushes struggle and eventually die in the garden. So I was interested to see it cleared and weeded recently.

As part of the soil preparation, the soil was broken up and a fine layer of sugar cane mulch was added over the top. But this seemed to be only about a centimetre deep. I’m hoping that some fertiliser was added. No other organic matter seems to have been added to prepare the soil apart from the sugar cane mulch (see photo).

The garden was then planted with several tomatoes bushes. Chances are not great for the tomato plants to provide a bountiful crop!

The soil looks pretty dry and compacted. It will probably be lacking both oxygen and worms, not to mention water!

What you need to grow things successfully is healthy, friable (i.e. non-compacted) soil. Generally if your soil is healthy, your plants will be healthy too.

To get healthy soil, you need good soil preparation. This means plenty of organic matter in the soil. Organic matter is a nice way of saying you need dead and decaying plant materials, as these provide the necessary nutrients to the plants.

The more organic matter you can add to your soil the better! Without organic material, your soil won’t have worms or

Planted tomato seedlings

beneficial bacteria and it will be depleted of vital nutrients. Organic matter also helps your soil retain water to help your plants grow.

You can add good organic matter to your soil by adding some home-made or commercial compost, mushroom compost or even manure to your soil. This needs to be topped with organic mulches like sugar cane mulch.

You can also put layers of lawn clippings directly on your garden. However, you need to be careful where you put these grass clippings as they can create quite a lot of heat as they decompose and break down. And they can cook any plants that they may be too near.

You may wonder why I haven’t passed this information on to the neighbour in question? However previous attempts at conversation have not been successful. (I tried to offer some advice for the poor roses, which could have thrived in that position with a little TLC). Aren’t you happy that I don’t live too close!

Happy gardening 🙂

from Rohanne, your Personal Garden Expert

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Winter Gardening Tips for Australia

Did you know that winter doesn’t really start on the first of June?

It actually starts around the winter solstice nearer to 22 June, if you look at sun and moon cycles.

When I raised this with my sister, she didn’t really agree that winter didn’t start on the First of June. And yes, you can have quite a chilly start, and winter can feel like it has started, even in late May!

So, does it matter whether its winter or still autumn?

Well in many ways it doesn’t. As we all know, in winter the days are shorter and the Sun is not so intense so the days are cooler.

This change is caused by the earth shifting on its axis, so that we are further away from the sun than we are in summer.

Why is this important?

Well it can alter which parts of your garden get sun and which parts of your garden are in shade.

I noticed a few years ago that several of my roses didn’t get enough sun in winter and they really struggled. Luckily I have planted a lot of my roses in pots. As a result, I can move them around the garden so that they get the maximum sunlight they can regardless of the time of year.

And, just because its winter doesn’t mean there isn’t anything to do in your garden.

Some winter vegetables

You can still have a thriving vegetable garden. It just means that you grow different vegetables. You can plant all those vegetables that really don’t like our summer weather. This includes cauliflower, cabbage, peas and even broad beans.

I have just finished mulching mine with some mushroom compost straight from a mushroom farm. If I’m lucky I might even get a crop of mushrooms!

It’s also a good time to keep turning over the compost pile, so that all that leaf matter you put in there in autumn gets to break down in time for spring.

I have also renewed the fruit fly traps, as my tropical nectarine is already flowering and I want to be ready for when it sets a crop.

Finally, although plant growth has slowed down, don’t stop feeding your plants, unless they have gone into total hibernation. They will still need food. I find an organic liquid feed, diluted to half strength really good at this time of year.

My roses are still flowering merrily and the tomatoes are looking bountiful. Many of your herbs will also continue to flourish, though this will depend on where you live. In the sub-tropics I can grow Basil and Coriander. But don’t try this in a cold climate zone, as the frost will kill off your precious herbs!

Self-sown lettuce

And I have a great crop of self-sown lettuce growing. In winter I revert to the french method of sauteeing lettuce in butter, adding fresh peas and then a little chicken stock (yummy) as the weather isn’t really conducive to a cold salad.

Happy gardening 🙂

Rohanne, Your Personal Garden Expert

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The post Winter Gardening Tips for Australia appeared first on Delectable Garden.

Happy Mothers Day

If you, or someone you love was lucky enough to receive a Moth Orchid (Phalaenopsis) as a gift for Mothers day, then Now is the time to repot that orchid!

These tips will help ensure that you maximise its chance of living and reflowering for you!

Phalaenopsis or Moth orchid

Moth orchids, correct name Phalaenopsis Orchid (try saying that when you’ve had a few drinks) are a beautiful orchid that has gained an unfair reputation for being difficult to grow.

But if you follow my tips you should be successful!

When you are given a Moth Orchid they will invariably be potted up in sphagnum moss.

The growers wrap them tightly in sphagnum moss to minimise plant shock during transportation to the store.

And because they want to ensure the plant is well watered while they are in store before purchase.

Cutting away inside cage from roots

They do not mean them to live in this sphagnum moss permanently!

This sphagnum moss will kill them unless you re-pot them into another type of orchid mix.

The moss holds too much water around the roots and leads to the plant being drowned and the roots rotting.

How To Repot Your Phalaenopsis Orchid

Phalaenopsis orchids are one of the only orchids you can safely re-pot while it is in flower.

The first thing to do is remove them from the pot and remove all sphagnum moss from around their roots (see photo).

With this particular Phalaenopsis, I found the roots tightly crammed into an even smaller pot when I removed the outer wrapping of sphagnum moss. You may find a similar problem.

This plastic cage has to be cut away carefully with minimal if any damage to the root system.

Roots completely clean of sphagnum moss

Luckily it was easy to cut with normal kitchen scissors.

You then need to find a suitable-sized plastic pot, generally smaller than the outer one they came in, or at best the same size, as all orchids like to be pot-bound.

Plastic pot for orchid

I tend to use clear plastic pots as they have better drainage and are lighter weight.

And, as the orchids breathe and photosynthesise through their roots, it helps the plant to breathe and therefore stay healthy.

Also you can them place these inside whatever decorative pot you want to use. Just make sure that the outer pot has enough drainage.

The orchid can still drown, even if it is potted up in orchid bark, if there is not enough drainage and the roots sit for too long in water.

Place orchid plant roots in the pot then fill all around with a fairly coarse bark orchid potting mix and water well.

Repotted orchid

The orchids need bright diffuse light, but no direct sunlight and will grow and flower well on a brightly lit windowsill.

The Moth Orchid pictured is in almost constant flower and receives very little care.

Phalaenopsis flower stalk

Happy Gardening

The post Tips for growing a Phalaenopsis Orchid appeared first on Delectable Garden.

Maidenhair fern growing in between the cracks

Is growing Maidenhair Ferns easy?

I was speaking with a client this week who was lamenting the fact that another maidenhair fern had died.

He wasn’t really happy when I said that he had probably killed the fern with kindness!

Whenever ferns come up as a gardening topic, I am amazed at how many people think that, because they look fragile they must be difficult to grow. It is a myth that is perpetuated on several blogs and websites.

This really couldn’t be further from the truth. Providing you give them the conditions they need to grow, Maidenhair ferns are easy to grow.

Mind you it’s easy to say that now, but there was a time when I had maidenhair ferns die on me too. That was in the days when I used to pamper them before I learnt the “treat them mean” philosophy!

They like light. Don’t try and grow them in too dark an area!

Holly fern growing in mop head

Many people try and grow Maidenhair ferns, and other ferns, in situations where they don’t get enough light.

Maidenhair ferns generally don’t do well in direct sunlight, but give them enough diffuse light and keep them barely moist, they will generally be pretty happy.

Depending on your location, Maidenhair ferns will grow outside in semi-shade, providing they are protected from the summer heat. In fact, they grow quite well in shady spots in normal garden soil in Brisbane.

Don’t overfeed or overwater

Many gardeners also tend to provide the ferns with too much water and too much fertiliser!

As I said, there was a time when I had maidenhair ferns die on me too. Now, instead of killing them, I have almost the opposite problem. If they weren’t so attractive they could almost be considered a weed at my place. They self-seed everywhere, turning up in a lot of pots and they just grow!

The only thing that saves them is that they don’t need much food and they don’t seem to compete with the host plants!

Self-sown maidenhair and holly ferns

They also grow in between cracks in the cement, along with Holly ferns and painted lady ferns.

In fact, one Holly fern has planted itself in a mop head from a squeegee mop that I left in water for too long while I was trying to clean it. My cleaning lady finds this fascinating, and it probably explains why I need a cleaning lady in the first place

So, if you are thinking of giving Mum a potted plant for Mother’s Day, don’t ignore the beautiful Maidenhair ferns. Just be sure and point Mum to this Blog for advice on How to Keep them Alive.

Happy Gardening.

Rohanne, your Personal Gardening Expert

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