Jun 102020
 

Thanks to all the people who have contributed to this week’s newsletter: Carrie Newbold, Dan Milne, Evan Gellert, Gillian Manson, Hanh Truong, Karen Ye, Leah Lux Tame, Megan Goodman, Peter Bevz and Velyne Moretti.

Which farmer’s markets will be happening this weekend?

On Saturday: Coburg and Collingwood Children’s Farm relocated to Alphington. Not Croydon.

On Sunday: Alphington, Eltham and Whitehorse. Yes, that’s right. Whitehorse Farmers’ Market has re-started!

Community garden news

The Veggie Spot – Lygon Street Community Garden will cease to be a community garden on 15th July, as the site owner is moving forward with their residential development project.

From their Facebook pages, it looks like Bedford Park Community Garden and Edible Hub, Hurstbridge have both begun to re-start their regular get togethers.

Food swap news

From their Facebook pages, it looks like a few (but only a few) food swaps are re-starting, including Bayswater North, Heathmont and Mooroolbark.

Are you a local food producer who also cooks?

PoppySmack have started doing monthly cooking shows on their Facebook page. They would like to collaborate with other local food producers, who would then become part of the show. If interested, email Hanh Truong (hanh.truong@poppysmack.com.au).

Yes, you did know (sort of)

couple of weeks ago, Jan Akeroyd asked what was going on with her grapefruit tree (see right hand picture). We’ve now had three responses:

Peter Bevz: “I’ve seen black cockatoos strip bark off trees” (see left hand picture).

Velyne Moretti: “I think it is because the tree may have been in mild drought and must have received some big, big rain which quickly expanded the trunk, causing it to split. So nothing is wrong with the tree.

Carrie Newbold: “We had a similar occurrence with our kaffir lime tree this year. We blamed rats for eating the bark. The fully ringbarked branches eventually all died. Thankfully the tree is a 3-4m monster, and has seemingly brushed off their alleged poor behaviour.

Do you know?

Velyne Moretti asks: “Can anyone tell me what this is? It looks like a lychee but is mushy orange inside. The birds love them and this tree is next door.

Some recommendations from NERP permaculturalists

From Leah Lux Tame: the American website Free Permaculture is offering free/donation weekly online permaculture classes.

From Dan Milne: the most useful resource he has found in recent years is Dan Palmer’s work at Making Permaculture Stronger.

More on seed saving tomatoes

Evan Gellert writes in: “I just spreading the seedy mush onto a paper towel and dry well. This is much simpler than all the trouble of wet cleaning, fermenting, etc. And I think the germination rate is fine. My rules are as follows. Do it on hot windy days so that the paper and seeds dry quickly, with the paper sheets variety-labelled. Even multiple additions across numerous days. Leave as a sheet, well ventilated, for maybe a further month to fully dry. Then use scissors to separate, with the seeds stuck to the paper. Sow maybe 3-4 on the paper per seedling pot. Don’t separate the seedlings while planting out but rather wait to see which of the 3-4 does best, and snip off the others after 3-4 weeks.

Our photo ‘competitions’

A number of you have made representations about the cessation of the photo competitions announced last week. Rather than cessation, it has been suggested that they should continue but without prizes. A theme should be set each week, with people invited to submit photos on that theme, and for these photos to be published the following week. I have even been given lists of possible themes!

That all seems reasonable to me, so that is what we are going to do.

This week’s photo theme will be ‘meals’. Send me your interesting meal photos, together with a title, and I will publish them next week. If they are also accompanied by a story or recipe, I will publish that as well.

To get you going, here is a photo of some fried eggs that I recently made (recipe: crack two eggs into a pan, fry and serve on toast with salt and pepper to taste).

It has taken some time to distribute the prizes from previous competitions. Here is a photo of Karen Ye, together with friend Gillian Manson, picking up her jar of honey from the bee photo competition.

Guy’s veggie growing tip – vegetable families

Why is it important to know which vegetables are closely related?

First, it helps you work out how to grow them. For example, if you know how to grow pumpkins, and if you know that cucumbers are closely related to pumpkins, then you can guess that cucumbers are prostrate vines, are grown in summer, are heavy feeders and benefit from hand pollination. Of if you know that broccoli is closely related to cabbage, then you can guess that the cabbage moth likes to lay its eggs on broccoli plants and that you need to protect them from this.

Second, if you are following some system of crop rotation (and you should!), it helps you decide where to plant them. (Crop rotation will be the subject of next week’s tip.)

Many vegetables are in the following 5 groups, where a genus (plural: genera) is a group of very closely related plants and a family is a group of reasonably closely related plants:

  • Alliums (a genus): chives, garlic, leek and onion.
  • Brassicas (a genus): broccoli, brussels sprout, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, mizuna, mustard greens, pak choy and turnip.
  • Cucurbits (a family): cucumber, gourd, pumpkin, rockmelon, watermelon and zucchini.
  • Legumes (a family): bean, broad bean, chickpea, peanut and pea.
  • Solanums (a family): capsicum. chilli, eggplant, potato and tomato.

The following vegetables are in various other families: basil, beetroot, carrot, celery, coriander, fennel, jerusalem artichoke, lettuce, okra, parsley, parsnip, radish, rocket, silverbeet, spinach, sweet potato and sweetcorn.

Here are some characteristics of the 5 groups:

Group Growing season Feeding requirement What you eat
Alliums varies light varies
Brassicas cool season heavy varies
Cucurbits warm season heavy fruit
Legumes varies light fruit
Solanums warm season heavy fruit

 
Read more of Guy’s veggie growing tips.

Meg’s social isolation week

I am happy that it is the slow season in the garden as we begin to return to busy lives and emerge from our homes. Days are short, growth is slow, the trees are bare and the chickens will not lay eggs again until spring.

This week I have the removed the last of the runners from the strawberries and severely cut the remaining leaves right back to ground. It seems harsh, but I have found that I get better growth and fruit by almost ‘mowing’ them.

Planting is now limited to broad beans and I poke a few extra seeds of the Scarlett variety into the flower garden for their flower display.

Harvesting is similarly limited to only a few tired chillies, leafy greens and citrus. How can any home be without a lemon tree? The colour on the citrus trees makes all the difference in the winter light. The only problem is that an abundance of citrus does not equate to the often very small amounts needed for virtually any recipe, including my lemon curd. The food swaps are slowly returning and I am sure that there will be plenty of citrus to share.

Simple lemon curd

60ml lemon juice
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon rind
60g sugar
4 egg yolks
42 grams salted butter

Combine all in double boiler (a metal or glass bowl over a saucepan of water). Heat while whisking constantly until the mixture thickens and coats a spoon.

Pour into sterilised jars. Press a piece of greaseproof paper (or even a beeswax wrap) onto the top of the mixture to prevent a skin forming.

Refrigerate for up to 2 weeks. Freezes well.

Which link was clicked most times in the last newsletter?

Choon Yin Yeok’s photo of her cat Ginger on her roof.

Joke of the week

Did you hear the joke about the fungus? I could tell it to you, but it might need time to grow on you.

Read more jokes.

Upcoming online events

If you know of any events other than those listed below, email me.

Newly announced events

Zero Waste Victoria, together with Save Our Soil Australia and The Compost Depot, are organising an online event entitled Focus on food: reduce waste by re-thinking our food systems on Saturday, 13th June, 2-5.15pm. Free/donation. Read more. Register on Humanitix.

Previously announced events

Open Table are offering a free no waste cooking workshop on making pesto on Wednesday, 17th June, 6.30-7.15pm. Read more and register on EventBrite.

The Jesuit Social Services’ Ecological Justice Hub, together with Moreland City Council and the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, is organising an online event entitled COVID-19 and food systems: impact, response and pathways to transformation on Thursday, 18th June, 6-8pm. $11. Read more and book on EventBrite.

Open Table now offer their weekly no waste cook club workshops free and online on Saturdays. As well as cooking (which is actually optional), you will learn about food waste and composting. Register on EventBrite.

Whitehorse Council are publishing on their Youtube channel a video each Monday at 9am on various aspects of sustainability, including bee hotels (on 15th June) and beeswax wraps (on 22nd June).

CERES have moved some of their classes online.

Newsletter reader Chloe Thomson is doing free, weekly podcasts on gardening for Bunnings.

Pip Magazine (some of whose journalists live in North East Melbourne) are producing a series of videos entitled simple skills for self sufficiency.

Formidable Vegetable are producing a series of videos entitled ‘grow-vid-19’ permaculture pandemic.

Good Life Permaculture are producing a series of videos entitled crisis gardening.

All The Dirt is a weekly podcast about gardening.

Birdlife Australia are giving weekly talks on their Facebook page. The talks can be watched live starting at midday on Thursdays, or as videos afterwards.

 Leave a Reply

(required)

(required)