Growing potatoes in the Redlands can be tricky, as potatoes are a cool climate crop. This means they grow well in Australia’s the southern states, but don’t like our coastal humidity!

Potatoes starting to grow

In southern states potatoes are a summer crop because they are frost tender. If you want to grow potatoes in the Redlands, you need to plant them in autumn so that they grow through our winter. Any time from April to June is best as they take around 90 plus days to grow, multiply and produce a crop.

Which Variety?

First you have to decide which variety of potato that you want to grow. And this is where it starts to get interesting.

The great thing about growing your own potatoes is that you get to choose different varieties from those you buy in the supermarket. There are actually hundreds of different varieties of potatoes you can grow, providing you can get the seed potatoes!

I didn’t realise potatoes had suffered a similar fate to tomatoes. As you know, there is a huge difference in taste between the tomatoes you buy in the supermarket and the tomatoes you grow at home. Well the same thing can be said of potatoes and it kinda makes sense, if you think about it!

Potatoes we buy in the supermarket are chosen because they travel well, have thicker skin and can last a long time on the supermarket shelf while they are waiting to be bought! This can mean they are not the best from a flavour perspective, or even from a eating perspective.

While we get to choose between washed potatoes and brushed potatoes and maybe a few named varieties like Desiree or Kipfler, in the UK they have around 20 different named varieties available in their supermarkets!

And these varieties differ considerably in taste, colour and thickness of skin. They also suggest what recipes they enhance the most.

How do you want to use them?

You should choose your potato variety by what you want to do with them. For example if you want to make a great potato salad then you want a waxy potato like Bintje, Kipfler or Nicola. These potatoes hold their shape when they’re cooked, so they don’t crumble and become a watery mess!

If you want to make mashed spuds then you should choose a variety like Yukon gold, red rascal, Dutch cream or golden delight. These are “floury” and easily fall apart, making for a great mash. For a real difference why not try purple Congo, which gives you purple coloured mash. It’s great for an unusual coloured gnocchi.

Floury potatoes also make great baked spuds and potato chips, because they crisp up nicely on the outside but are soft and fluffy when you bite into them.

Seed potatoes

When you start learning about growing your own spuds, you will find a lot of advice about not using supermarket potatoes and how you need to use “seed” potatoes.

You can’t actually grow potatoes from a traditional seed, like carrots or beetroot and other root crops. Seed potatoes look just like little potatoes and that’s what they are! You can eat seed potatoes just like you eat normal potatoes. However, they are a bit more expensive at between $6 to $8 per kilo.

The big selling point for seed potatoes is they are guaranteed to be free of disease. Potatoes can suffer from a number of diseases which you don’t want to introduce into the soil in your garden. As I grow my potatoes in large buckets this is not a major concern. The only other benefit from using seed potatoes seems to be the different and more unusual varieties.

A big downside is that although we can buy more than 20 different varieties of potato to grow in our veggie patch, the potato growing industry is customized to the southern market. When I went online to find what potatoes I wanted to experiment with, all the seed companies say the seed potatoes aren’t available until the end of July!

There were some really interesting varieties, but planting them in August means you are looking at late November for harvesting and that’s really too late. If we get spring rains or a heat wave in August as happened in 2019 and 2020, there goes your crop!

Supermarket potatoes

You can also try growing potatoes from those that you buy in the supermarket or at the fruit and vegetable store.

When we get away from producers and supermarkets not wanting us to grow our own veggies, the main downside of using supermarket potatoes seems to be the potential disease.

Lots of websites claim that store-bought potatoes are sprayed with a chemical to deter sprouting. However I found very few references to this spraying happening in Australia, so I’m not sure how widespread this practice is. I’ve certainly had my share of potatoes sprout in the cupboard!

The general advice seems to be that if you can get it to sprout, then try growing it! The main problem to me is the lack of different varieties.

Buying seed potatoes

As I said, the seed potato business in geared toward the southern market and they don’t plant their potatoes until spring.

I was really looking forward to trying purple congo or royal blue or even Japanese sweet but these aren’t available until late July.

Growing Potatoes – the How?

The good news is that you don’t actually need a huge amount of space!

You can grow potatoes in pots, old garbage bins, plastic paint buckets with drainage holes added or specific grow-bags. I’m growing mine in some recycled paint buckets.

Paint bucket repurposed for growing potatoes

One thing that’s not recommended is to grow them in old tyres. This used to be quite trendy. However, research has shown heavy metals such as lead and zinc can leach out of the tyres into your potatoes.

The actual growing is quite easy although there is some preparation.

Chitting

It is recommended that you do a process called “chitting” for your spuds. All this means is to start the potato sprouting before you plant it. This makes sense to me as then you know that they are viable and going to grow!

To chit potatoes, place them in a warm, moist location for a couple of weeks and they should start to sprout. The sprouts grow from the “eyes” of the potato. You only need a few eyes on each potato to sprout, so remove the others and keep only the strong sprouts.

Chitted Golden Dream potatoes

Keep the potatoes separated while they are sprouting. An old egg container is great for this as you can use the lid to keep the potatoes warm and dark.

While your potatoes are Chitting, choose your container.

Also, at this point, choose your location. Potatoes like full sun in our winter.

Planting

When your potatoes have started to sprout (sprout formation can take 2 – 3 weeks). Grab your container or grow bag and put a several centimetres of compost in the bottom. If you don’t have home-made compost, you can use a premium potting mix. Want to know how to make your own compost? Check this link Compost Bins: Composting Tips for your garden

Place two to three of the sprouted potatoes on top of the compost. You need to take care when handling the potatoes, being careful not to damage the sprouts.

Place the potatoes so the sprout is pointing upward. If you have several sprouts that have grown either carefully remove the excess or else carefully cut the potato into pieces and plant each piece. Plant the cut side down and it should heal and not rot out.

Carefully cover the potato and sprout with around 10 centimetres of compost or potting mix.

As the potato shoots grow, you keep adding compost until the container is full. It’s this continual heaping up that encourages the plant to grow more potatoes. You should get around 10 potatoes for each sprouted potato you plant.

Make sure that you only use really well composted compost or potting mix. Potatoes hate coming into contact with green manures as this can encourage disease.

Water and fertilising potatoes

Potatoes require quite a lot of water to grow big, juicy spuds, so remember to water regularly. For the first week or so go a bit light in the watering, but as the plants grow they need a fair amount of water.

If you want to fertilise, use composted chook poo as this has all the nutrients your growing potatoes will need.

Pests

Potatoes can attract pests so keep an eye out for any leaf damage.

You need to check your potatoes for any of these pests regularly, as they can do significant damage almost overnight. This will seriously impact how many potatoes you get to harvest. The main pests to look out for are the black beetle, potato/peach aphid, potato tuber moth, cluster caterpillar and nematodes.

The best method of treatment is to remove any beetles or caterpillars you find and spray the plants with eco pest oil. Even better, encourage beneficial insects to do the work for you. Want to know more? Good Bugs for the Vegetable Garden

There is also a new pest called the tomato/potato psyllids. These are sap sucking insects and you need to control these using eco pest oil.

Harvesting potatoes

After about 3 months the leaves of your potato plant will go yellow and start to die back. At this point your potatoes are ready to harvest.

By growing them in a bucket or grow bag you can harvest them just by tipping the container on its side and dumping out the contents.

Store in a cool dark place. If potatoes are exposed to sunlight they will develop green patches under the skin. This is caused by a glycoalkaloid called Solanine which can make you sick in large doses.

Potatoes just harvested

Sweet potatoes

You can grow sweet potatoes, particularly the orange kumara using a similar technique, except you don’t need to heap up the compost. I would recommend confining them to a bucket or large bin though as they can become quite invasive.

The post The How-to of Growing Potatoes appeared first on Delectable Garden.

I had a query recently asking what a white powdery substance was on a grape leaf? They actually said “it looks like powdery mildew, but it’s not on zucchini”! It looked like powdery mildew because it was powdery mildew.

It got me wondering “how many other gardeners consider powdery mildew a disease restricted to plants of the cucurbit family?”

Most gardeners will have struck powdery mildew on their cucurbits (i.e. cucumbers, cantaloupes, pumpkins etc). It shows up as a white or grey powder on the leaves. While it generally doesn’t kill your plant, it can significantly impact your crop as the plant can’t produce lots of fruit while its energy is being drained off and the plant is trying to fight the disease.

Powdery mildew actually affects a wide range of plants, not just zucchini, pumpkins and squash. It can affect both edible and ornamental plants. Edibles that can be affected include carrots, apples, grapes, tomatoes, eggplants, peas and beans and capsicum to name a few. Ornamentals can include chrysanthemums, gerberas, dahlias and roses. In fact it’s probably quicker to write a list of plants that aren’t affected!

So what is powdery mildew? Powdery mildew is a fungal infection. The fungal spores attach to the leaves of the plant where they drive filaments or threads into the leaf structure to draw the nutrients away from the plant. The fungi then develop fruiting spores which can be transmitted by wind or water splashes. The fungus thrives in warm, dry conditions and warm, humid conditions.

Powdery mildew is actually caused by a range of different fungi, some of which are specific to a species of plant while others can affect a whole host of plant species.

Prevention

There are several things the organic gardener can do to prevent powdery mildew in their garden:

• Grow the plants in the conditions they need to thrive. With veggies this means plenty of sunlight. Struggling and weak plants are more susceptible to attack.
• Don’t crowd your plants. Allow plenty of room for air circulation.
• Encourage beneficial insects. The orange/yellow lady beetle actually eats the fungus!
• Good hygiene is essential, as it is with all gardening tasks.
• Clean tools with a weak bleach or hydrogen peroxide solution between tasks,
• Remove infected plant material and put it in the bin.
• Do not compost as the spores will hibernate and can then infect other plants.
• Crop rotation assists by removing susceptible plants from the soil for several seasons.
• Don’t over-fertilise as lush new growth is more susceptible to the fungi
• Morning watering is best. Some say to not wet the leaves, although scientific evidence shows that water can interrupt the sporing cycle.

If you find that you continually battle with powdery mildew then you may need to investigate the range of crops that have been developed to be resistant to the fungus.

Lady beetle feasting on powdery mildew

Treatment

If you find that you have an attack of powdery mildew, there are several organic treatments. These include:

• Spraying with milk. This is the number one organic solution and, surprisingly, it works better than many commercial treatments. The standard spray is 1 part milk full-cream milk to 10 parts water, but I find a 25 percent solution works better. For severe infections you may need a 50 percent solution. Milk can also help to prevent infections if you spray your plants weekly;
• Spray with a sodium or potassium bicarbonate solution. I find you need to add a soap to help the bicarb adhere to the leaves;
• Spray with Neem oil. Again a small amount of soap or white oil will assist it to stick to the leaves;
• Dust with wettable sulphur or spray with lime sulphur;
• Use a commercial biofungicide.

The post Powdery Mildew appeared first on Delectable Garden.

This week I have been asked if I could talk a bit about composting on my BayFM radio program.

We have mentioned compost a few times. However, it seems its one of those things that people are a bit hesitant about.

I can understand this as it took me a while to really get into composting. Once you get started, and see the benefits, you will wonder why it took you soo long to discover this magic!

Composting in action

Why should I compost?

One of the first questions I get asked is “why should I compost”?

And there are soo many reasons!! Getting free soil. Improving the biology of your soil. Growing fantastic veggies without additional fertiliser! And helping to reduce carbon emissions and lower your impact on the environment.

So let’s look at these in a little more detail.

When you first start gardening, it’s hard to imagine all your garden pruning’s and grass clippings could actually be of benefit to your garden.

They just look like waste right? But put that waste in the right environment and it can quickly change into what gardeners refer to as “black gold”!

That’s because worms and microbes break down this waste material. They return it to the vitamins and minerals that it started out as.

So you get the carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, magnesium and all those other minerals in a form that can be easily absorbed by your plants!

And this is why you can grow fabulous, healthy veggies using just compost as the fertiliser.

Believe it or not, what you buy as potting mix or compost from your local nursery or big green shed is just fancy (or not so fancy!) compost, with a high price tag!

Reducing carbon emissions

So, how can it reduce your carbon emissions?

By stopping all the green waste and kitchen scraps from going to landfill! This is the most important reason to compost in my opinion!

It’s estimated that between 30-50 percent of the contents of our rubbish bins is organic matter that can be repurposed as compost.

A lot of people don’t realise that when organic matter goes into normal rubbish bins it gets buried along with all the plastics, tissues and other rubbish.

And when it hits landfill it doesn’t have the air and microbes to help it break down naturally.

Instead it breaks down very slowly! And, along the way, it releases methane and other gases associated with climate change.

It has been measured that a normal lettuce when broken down in this manner can take 20 years to decompose.

In a compost bin it takes around 3 months and releases little to no methane gas. This goes for any organic matter.

I think some people get confused about the difference between green waste bins and normal waste bins because they think they all go to the same place i.e. the tip right.

However, when they get to the tip they get treated differently. The contents of the green waste goes off to be composted while the contents of the red bins gets buried.

How do you start composting?

It’s pretty easy, but there are a few simple rules.

Before we start, there are two main types of composting: Hot composting and cold composting.

With hot composting you build a compost heap all at once and leave it to brew. Cold composting you add to the compost heap slowly.

As hot composting takes up quite a lot more space, I am going to focus on cold composting. That’s what most people in the Redlands will be doing.

Composting involves pretty basic chemistry. The kind of stuff you learnt in primary school!

Basically you have some organic material that is rich in carbon, and some that is rich in nitrogen.

Your carbon materials are often called brown material. This includes things like paper, cardboard, branches and twigs, straw and sawdust and dried autumn leaves.

Your nitrogen rich materials (often called green material) are your grass clippings, green leaves and kitchen scraps.

Manures like chook poo and horse poo are also included in the nitrogen pile, even though they are brown in colour, as they are very nutrient dense.

To compost successfully you need a good mix of carbon and nitrogen materials.

You don’t want to aim for a 50:50 mix because the nitrogen materials are a lot more nutrient rich than the carbon materials. A ratio of around 30:70 or 20:80 is a good mix to aim for.

So where are you going to put all this material?

Ideally your compost bin should be located in part shade. You can compost in the sun, but you’ll need to ensure you keep the moisture up to your compost heap.

I recommend you buy or make a compost bin. There are all sorts of commercially available bins including tumbler bins and beehive bins made out of plastic.

Or, even better if you have the space, build compost bays out of recycled timber. You need at least two bays so that one can be brewing while you are building the other compost pile.

You can also create a compost heap using chicken wire or similar to contain the heap.

Of course you could just dig a hole in the ground and bury your waste. However, this can take longer to break down and may attract rodents like rats and mice if you bury food scraps.

I know some people who have a compost bin in each veggie patch. This way they don’t have to move their pruning, or the finished compost far!

What’s the process for composting?

Once you have located your compost bin it really is just a matter of starting to put your kitchen scraps, grass clippings, leaves etc in the bin.

I recommend that you have the bin on the ground. The worms and bacteria from the soil will travel up and start the composting process. It really is that simple.

If you want, you can buy some composting worms. This will help speed up the process.

Every time you add a layer of green material, especially kitchen scraps then you need to cover it with a layer of brown material like cardboard, paper, straw etc. Otherwise it can attract flies and rodents or start to smell.

A good compost heap honestly should not smell. If it smells then something is going wrong.

You need to keep your compost heap moist. You need to give it a sprinkling of water every couple of days.

If your compost gets too dry it will stop working! And the leaves and scraps just won’t break down.

I recommend you get a compost aerator from the big green shed or nursery. This is like a giant corkscrew or bottle opener. It really helps introduce air into your compost heap and speed up the process.

Follow these steps and in about 4 months your compost should be ready to spread on your garden!

This compost will add lots of nutrients to your plants. It will also add all those beneficial microbes into your soil. And the more beneficial bacteria in your soil, the bigger, stronger and healthier your veggies will be.

Is there anything that you can’t add to your compost?

There are a few things you shouldn’t add to your compost heap.

This includes any meat or fish products, dairy or cheese. The average home compost system can’t cope with these products and they will start to smell off!! Also, they can attract vermin like rats and mice or even snakes.

Another thing that you shouldn’t put in your compost heap is any plants or cuttings that are diseased or infested with pests.

This is because an average compost heap doesn’t generate enough heat to kill these diseases. So you will just be spreading them to other, non-diseased areas of your garden.

Also if you have sprayed your grass with weed killers then you can’t add this to your compost heap. The same goes for any pesticides. These don’t break down and will kill all your worms and microbes.

You also can’t compost bio-plastics. Even though a lot of take-away containers, including coffee cups, say they are compostable. Your average home compost heap won’t break them down. They actually need a special system to compost them.

And hopefully it goes without saying but normal plastics, glass and big planks of wood also won’t break down.

Most people wouldn’t normally add these to the compost bin, but I did find a kitchen bowl and a fork in one of my compost bins when I emptied it! Obviously, they had fallen in when I was emptying kitchen scraps and I hadn’t noticed!

Also, you shouldn’t add any dog poo or cat poo! This is because these animals primarily eat a meat diet. So you might be introducing pathogens into your garden.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t compost pet poo! You just need a separate system. I use a worm tube.

This brings me to other ways of dealing with kitchen scraps, if you don’t have enough space to have a compost bin.

What if I don’t have any garden? Can I still compost?

If you don’t have any garden space, because you live in a unit or townhouse, then try a kitchen top composting bin. All you need is a bucket with a lid, food waste and Bokashi composting mix.

You add your scraps to the bin and at the end of each day you cover it with the composting mix. This is rich in all the microorganisms that break down the food waste.

The compost made in these bins is very rich so it can’t be added directly to your potted plants. You will need to find someone who has a garden where the composted material can be buried.

I have a few people who gift me their compost! They don’t have space for it themselves, but have been encouraged to start composting after listening to me!

If you have a little more space, another option is to invest in a worm farm. This is a container system where you use compost worms to break down your food scraps.

They produce a worm tea that you can dilute and use on all your potted plants. Eventually this will also fill up, so you will need to get rid of the compost. However, it will take a fair bit longer than the bokashi bin.

Hopefully this will encourage you to try composting, if you aren’t doing it already.

And a final WHY?

You hear in the news about the need for carbon sequestering to remove carbon from the atmosphere. By composting you are doing your own little bit of carbon sequestering!

The post COMPOSTING appeared first on Delectable Garden.

In Brisbane we grow a fabulous range of vegetables throughout winter. These include lettuce, bok choy, eggplants, tomatoes, kale and most leafy green vegetables.

I was planting up my vegetable garden the other day in time for winter and was planting some more red veined sorrel. It’s really attractive, and adds colour to the garden. As I was removing the seedling from its pot I noticed the label described red veined sorrel as a “Superfood”.

Now I must admit that I have been noticing quite a few vegetables labelled as Superfood in the nursery lately. So I decided to find out what exactly what this constituted a superfood.

You probably won’t be surprised to know that there are lots of conflicting opinions of what exactly constituted a superfood.

General consensus was that superfood is a marketing term to describe a food that is nutrient dense. This means that they contain lots of vitamins and minerals. They also contain lots of micronutrients such as anthocyanins and lycopenes. Researchers are discovering that many micronutrients are instrumental in helping to protect us from cancer. They also work at protecting us from many age-related illnesses.

Most green leafy vegetables are considered a superfood, as are many herbs and fruits.

In fact I would go as far as to say, if you can grow it and eat it, it is a superfood! Many processed foods have empty nutrient foods like sugar added to them. This dilutes the nutrient value of the food.

Processing, especially with lots of heat destroys nutrients. Also, removing layers such as peeling vegetables, removes a lot of nutirents which are then discarded. Food manufacturers add back many synthetic vitamins and minerals to replace those remove during processing. But what about the nutrients we have yet to discover are in the raw foods that may be good for our health?

I think it’s a sad indictment on our lifestyles and current way of life that we have to relabel foods fresh from nature as superfoods!

Let us know what you think in the comments area below.

The post Superfoods – Eating foods as nature intended? appeared first on Delectable Garden.

I was reading a blog the other day that said that companion planting was a gardening concept that worked a treat in the northern hemisphere, but not so well down here in Australia.

This made me wonder what was meant by this statement. Do we grow smarter bugs down here? Or maybe we think that companion planting is a panacea for all our gardening problems, helping to deal with any and all pests or diseases that can beset our garden.

Sadly companion planting can’t stop pests and diseases from entering our gardens and wreaking havoc. Nor is it a cure-all for everything that can go wrong in your garden. But it can help!

Calendula are great companion plants

For those of you who don’t know, companion planting is the practice of growing plants together for the mutual benefit of both plants. Companion planting is not an exact science.

I divide the combinations of companion planting into ten main types or benefits. These include:

1. attracting beneficial insects to your garden by providing them with food and nectar;
2. keeping away the bad bugs and diseases, either by emitting a strong smell that swamps the smell of tempting fresh vegetables or by fumigating the soil to disrupt pests like nematodes;
3. visually confusing pests by disguising the shape of desirable vegetables. Many bugs actually search for their preferred crops based on what they look like;
4. acting as a sacrificial plant that gets eaten instead of your prized plants;
5. increasing plant growth by improving access to nutrients;
6. reducing water requirements and water consumption;
7. helping control weeds by providing a green mulch that smothers out weeds;
8. enhancing the flavours of each crop;
9. stunting the growth of other plants;
10. providing shade and staking.

I use companion planting a lot in my garden.

Ever since I realised that the concept of growing veggies in rows was so against the natural order, not to mention that it provided the veritable smorgasbord for the bugs! Once you realise that bugs can search out your tender vegetables by both sight and smell you start to get a greater appreciation for mixing things up a bit!

Basil is great planted alongside tomatoes

I love growing sweet basil alongside my tomatoes to increase the crop and use Landcress as a great sacrificial plant to protect my green leafy crops against cabbage white butterfly.

Another legendary combination is planting garlic underneath you roses to deter aphids. My dad was a big fan of this combination and his roses never suffered from aphid attack. We always had a good supply of home-grown garlic as dad really loved his roses ?

There are also some legendary combinations to avoid as they can either stunt each other’s grow or actually attract more pests to your crop. Corn and tomatoes are one of these combinations.

One of the underlying concepts of companion planting is to work with nature and to plant as nature would have done so. So now I have veggies growing all through the garden and flowers growing in my veggie patch alongside the veggies.

If you use companion planting in your garden let us know some of your favourite combinations and their impacts.

Happy gardening

Rohanne, Your Personal Garden Expert

The post Companion Planting in Australia appeared first on Delectable Garden.

I was recently asked this question by a gardener.

Celery is an attractive, easy to grow plant that makes a great filler plant in any vegetable or herb garden.

Celery

However if you want to grow great celery, that you can eat, there are a few things you need to know!

These include:

1. Celery needs a lot of water. If you don’t give your celery enough water you will end up with stringy celery and that is not nice to eat.
2. Celery doesn’t like getting too much sun. This is why commercial growers mound up the soil around the celery bunches or wrap the celery in cardboard tubes. This helps to “blanch” the celery, which keeps it pale in colour, but also stops the celery tasting bitter.
3. Celery needs lots of fertiliser and compost otherwise you will end up with thin wiry stalks that can be tough to eat.
4. Celery is an annual and it will grow bitter towards the end of the plant’s life when the stalks are more mature.

Therefore, it is worth following these simple rules when growing your own celery.

Celery

Not just because your celery will taste better. Because celery is REALLY good for you!

It contains lots of vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin K which is essential for blood clotting.

Celery is also full of antioxidants. And it contains so few calories that you probably use up more energy digesting celery than you take in in calories.

Happy gardening from Rohanne, Your Personal Garden Expert 🙂

The post What makes celery bitter tasting? appeared first on Delectable Garden.

Visitors to my garden are often surprised to see my lettuce, mizuna and other veggies flowering and going to seed at the end of the season.

Why don’t you just rip them out they ask?

Lettuce in flower

Well, one of the reasons is that vegetables flower and provide a great food source for my native bees and other beneficial insects! They actually help to attract these beneficial insects into my garden!

Beneficial insects are great because they will attack and eat the bad bugs likely to be feasting on your veggies.

Besides, as a bonus, I get new seeds that are totally adapted to their environment. This means that they grow quicker, are more resistant to pests and diseases and taste better!

Lettuce seeds on the plant

Most importantly, I know that the vegetable seeds haven’t been coated in any fungicides or pesticides. This means they are organic and just as nature intended!

At the moment I am on my sixth generation of mignonette lettuces. The lettuces continue to happily self-seed in the vegetable garden and adjacent path. Therefore all I have to do is give them the occasional water, some organic fertiliser and then I get to pick the leaves as I need them!

Mignonette lettuce seedlings

The mignonette lettuces seem to be almost totally immune to any pests or diseases. And they taste so much better than anything you can buy in the shops!

So, why don’t you experiment on letting some of your vegetables flower and develop seeds for your garden?

You too can benefit from growing your own seeds and vegetables that have become conditioned to your natural environment!

Happy gardening

Rohanne, your Personal Garden Expert

The post Should I let vegetables flower and set seed? How to save seeds for next year’s garden appeared first on Delectable Garden.

I was down at my local farmers market on the weekend, and I noticed some Galangal root for sale.

This is great, as it can be hard to find in the shops and local markets at this time of year. I grow my own Galangal and it will soon be in flower and after the leaves die down it is ready to harvest.

Galangal root

If you haven’t tried Galangal, it is a member of the ginger family ginger. And, like ginger, is used extensively in cooking.

Galangal is found primarily in Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian cuisines. It has a hotter, more peppery taste than ginger with under-notes of pine and citrus.

To use it, add it to soups such as Thai Chicken and Coconut soup. Its also an important ingredient in many Thai curry pastes.

Depending which recipes you read, some say if you don’t have Galangal you can substitute ginger. Other recipes say that it is different and that ginger and galangal cannot be used interchangeably. I am in the latter camp as to me they have different flavours to contribute.

Galangal is closely related to Ginger and, as such, has many of the healing and medicinal uses attributed to ginger. It is said that consuming Galangal on a regular basis can help with digestion, reducing bloating, constipation and vomiting.

Like ginger, Galangal helps reduce motion sickness and nausea. It has proven anti-inflammatory properties, which means that it can help treat arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Galangal has been shown to improve blood circulation, improving oxygen supply and nutrient supply to the extremities including the hands and feet. As such it has been credited as assisting with hair growth and to treat baldness, although this is not proven.

It can also help respiratory problems. A mixture of Galangal and lime juice can be used as a tonic for coughs and colds.

As Galangal is high in anti-oxidants it helps to minimise the damage caused by free radicals and other toxins in the body.

Galangal is a tropical plant, although it grows well in Brisbane, and can be grown as far south as Melbourne with a bit of care.

It is an attractive plant, very similar to ginger with quite narrow strappy green leaves. I prefer to grow my Galangal in a pot as it makes it easy to harvest, but this becomes more of a necessity if you are going to grow Galangal further south than the central coast.

This way you can start growing your Galangal under shelter and move it outside as the weather warms up.

Galangal plant

Galangal is really easy to grow and is seldom bothered by insects or disease.

All you need to do is get a piece of Galangal root from your local market and plant it in good quality potting mix. Keep it moist, but not wet in a warm, sheltered location.

I find mine does best with some shelter from the hot afternoon sun. It takes about 8 months to grow a crop. But in this time you will be probably find that it has pretty much filled the pot, depending on how big a pot you started with of course!

Yes, that may seem a while but at between $30 to $50 per kilo it’s worth it! So why not try growing some today?

Happy gardening

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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I was reading a blog on another website the other day about destructive bugs in the garden. Above all, I continue to be amazed at the number of gardeners that reach for Confidor, Bug Killa and other poisons to deal with unwelcome pests in their garden!

White cabbage moth

Being a gardener who is focussed on the Edible garden, I don’t want to spray my plants with anything that I don’t want to be putting into my body!

Even though I know that, Yes, there are “safe” withholding periods, and Yes, you can rinse the stuff off. However, I often eat foods that I pick while I am walking around my garden

Most importantly, the rinse off treatment doesn’t work for systemic poisons that have become part of the plant!

One of my go-to treatments for most bugs is Neem oil!

For those yet to discover this magical solution, Neem oil is created from the oil of Neem trees. I started using Neem oil a couple of years ago and I continue to be happy with how quickly and effectively it deals with many destructive bugs. Because this includes garden bugs such caterpillars, grasshoppers and scale!

Most importantly, this doesn’t negatively impact most of the good bugs in your garden. That is unless you want to attract butterflies into the garden, as its pretty non-selective in taking out all caterpillars! Just be sure that you don’t spray the Neem oil directly on to any of the good bugs like bees or hoverflies!

Chinese cabbage destroyed by caterpillars

As you can see from the photo, the white cabbage butterfly is probably my biggest challenge. And I’m not in a hurry to attract more of these into my garden! The good thing is that Neem oil deals with these critters effectively!

It is also one of the only solutions to the Blue Cycad moth, which can destroy a cycad plant in minutes!

Happy gardening 🙂

Rohanne, Your Personal Garden Expert

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