- Place tubs or large
buckets here and there in your garden. Half fill them with seaweed and
fill to the top with water. Cover if you like. Keep a ladle nearby.
Whenever you see some plants looking a bit weak or off-colour give them a
tonic of 1 part seaweed water to 9 parts water, in a watering can. Pour
over the leaves.
- Completely cover your
asparagus patch with a thick layer of seaweed during winter. Leave the
rain and the worms to do the work.
- Seaweed is a wonderful
addition to mulch under fruit trees.
Late autumn is my favourite time of year in the kitchen
garden. The harvesting and preserving pressures are finished, seeds have been
collected and stored and the sowing and planting pressures of spring are months
away. Now is the time to work on the soil, to reshape beds, to make compost, to
prune, to make hugels, to protect tender plants and to sit on the verandah in
the sun and watch the light as it changes day by day. Brassicas will be
flourishing, Chilean guavas and cape gooseberries can be picked by the handful
as you pass by, grape leaves are turning and apples arriving. Life is good.
Energy
Energy is everywhere and now is the time to think about how to
make your life attuned to capturing and storing it. In a handful of seeds is
the energy to start a whole season’s food. In a bale of hay is the energy from
a year’s pasture growth, ready to decompose and feed the microbes in your soil,
which in turn feed your food garden. In a jar of fermented pickles are the
fruits of a plant’s labour and millions of bacteria all working to provide your
gut with life and energy. In a brick fireplace is stored the energy from the
heat of firewood; trees that have grown for many years, capturing energy enough
to warm us all winter. In water is the energy of life, without which nothing on
earth can live.
Which is the opposite of
wasting energy - by driving cars out of your zone to get food, by draining your
land instead of harnessing the water, by burning piles of prunings instead of
making hugels, by throwing away your food scraps instead of making compost, by
buying food brought from other lands, by using up oil reserves (eg in cling
film, disposable bags, foam trays) we should be saving for important uses like
saving lives.
We are all worried about
climate change. We are all the reason it exists. Therefore, only we can be the
solution. By turning our thinking around we can all do it; by catching and
storing energy instead of wasting it. Refuse packaged fruit and vegetables.
Shop locally, really locally, starting in your backyard and those of your
neighbours and friends. Then into your most local market and small, ethical
shops. Eat what is there! Read books like The Food Clock by Fast Ed Halmagyi to
help bring the joy of the seasons into your kitchen, your life and the future
of humanity! It is not an exaggeration, dear reader. No excuse is good enough
not to start today. It also brings such a joy of living and relieves so much
stress just by changing one’s mindset.
Pumpkins
I think pumpkins must be the most celebrated vegetables in
the world because everywhere you travel, there seems to be an autumn pumpkin
festival. The shapes, sizes, colours and textures make us laugh with delight
and the flavours can vary enormously from the French chestnut flavoured
‘potimarron’ to the sweetest ‘futsu’ and the crazy, knobbly ‘Galeaux
d’Eysines’. Competitions for the heaviest pumpkin have brought fame to growers
far and wide. I saw some of the most beautiful craft, using pumpkins, in a
French pumpkin festival. Check out Victoria’s annual festival at a tiny place
with the incredible name of Collector.
And so I hope to encourage you to plan your pumpkin growing
area now, browse seed catalogues, buy seed early and prepare yourselves for
entering the fun of next autumn’s Cygnet Pumpkin Festival. Schools, clubs,
families, individuals one and all, are invited. Details will emerge and grow,
now that the seed of the idea has germinated!
Weeds and more
Many people in Europe still forage, not just for mushrooms,
but for winter herbs and greens and roots which are native to their lands. Many
of them grow wild in our gardens but we silly Australians pull them out,
calling them weeds and give them to the chooks, who happily devour them because
they are not so prejudiced! There is an excellent Australian book called The
Weed Foragers’ Handbook, which I highly recommend. Soon, you will be eating
from the garden without planting anything at all!
Luckily, the cooler weather also heralds the end of the
cabbage moth laying eggs on our brassicas. If you have not planted brassicas
yet, it is now too late as the plants will not have big enough leaves to grow
through winter. When spring comes, they will bolt to seed and you won’t get a
crop.
Autumn is a wonderful time for harvesting mushrooms, kale,
French sorrel, salad leaves, early broccoli, rainbow chard, the last of our
summer vegetables, the first of the winter weeds and a myriad of fabulous
apples, pears and quinces. Many kitchen pantries are now bulging at the seams
with preserves. Bring on winter and cosy nights by the fire with some home-made
cassis and quince paste served with a delicious, local cheese!
Seaweeds
Tasmania is surrounded by sea and yet we tend not to forage
the shores and shallows for food. That is a topic I wrote about in May 2016.
Seaweed is wonderful for our food gardens too.
As autumn and winter storms in the roaring 40’s send high
seas crashing onto the shores of Tasmania, kelp and other sea plants are strewn
on the beaches. I heard on the radio that we are allowed to collect seaweed
from most beaches at the rate of 100kg / day in Tasmania. Seaweed is heavy, so
that is not as much as it sounds. I have some great ideas for using it! Seaweed
contains trace elements which we often neglect to think about in our food
gardens (and our stomachs).
Sow in the garden now
|
Plant Now
|
Broad
beans
Bok
Choy
Mustard
greens esp. frilly
Miners’
lettuce
Corn
salad (mache)
Shungiku
(edible, Japanese Chrysanthemum)
Radishes
Salad
and spring onions
Coriander
Chervil
|
Leek
bulbils
Garlic
cloves
Large
seedlings of Asian veg.
Flower
bulbs
Sow in the
hothouse to plant out:
Lettuces
Kales
Broccoli
raab
Sow to stay in
the hothouse or frost-free area:
Sugar
snap peas
|
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