Companion planting in its traditional method is a northern hemisphere concept that works well in the UK and Europe, however, down here in Australia, this traditional method of companion planting does not work. The most famous companion planting dou, basil and tomatoes does not really prevent any attacks either. I like basil as much as the next man, but to make any real protection of your tomatoes you would need a truckload of basil to do so. In return for planting so much basil out next to the tomatoes your basil will probably contract a case of blackspot. The only time these ingredients work well together is in the pot! Read the rest of this entry »

I am learning the hard way with trying to garden with my 3 year old. Noah loves to dig. Whenever he ventures out into the garden the first thing he does is grabs the shovel or fork, run up the back of the garden, usually where I have potatoes growing, and starts digging. Noah has no concept of boundaries, he will often dig up a potato and run indoors shouting “mashed tato”. The connection of where food comes from to his dinner plate has started, and long may it continue!

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There is no time in history that I can think of where food has been so disrepected and taken for granted like the present. The very building blocks of sustaining our existence have been diminished down to whatever source that can provide them the quickest, cheapest and with the least preperation and cooking time required to get something onto a plate.

Supermarkets have taken over our lives. The branded goods that control our weekly shopping trolley groan under the sheer weight of false allegiance. Loyalty counts for very little these days. I know that when I do the shopping I speed around the ailses putting the same goods in my trolley that I did last week. However, the sections I struggle with the most is the meat section and the produce section. Read the rest of this entry »

If you ask my wife, my Father-in-Law and really anyone who knows me if I am practical, they will usually go red with embaressment then laugh very hard and shake their heads from side to side. I am not known for my handy work or finishing a job to perfection. This is why gardening is so good for me, trial and error, learning from mistakes and that many things in the garden are temporary and change with the next season.

I like the rustic look to the garden. I’m all for beautifully mowen lawn, the cottage garden look and creating a garden that takes you beyond the backyard, but what I really love is a garden that gives you more than eye-candy in return for your blood, sweat and tears. Read the rest of this entry »

Did you know carrots originated in Afghanistan and were purple in colour? It was the Europeans that bred the standard orange carrot that we so commonly consume. Carrots grow pretty much all year round, need little fertilizer and come in all shapes and sizes, including miniture, ball-shaped and fat stumpy varieties. The best soil to grow carrots in is a well draining sandy loam, not too much added organic matter and with plenty of sun, in a patch where something different has been grown and harvested. (Crop rotation is very important to keep disease away).

Carrot seeds must be sown where they will eventually mature. My advice would be not to bother with buying carrots in punnets as they do not transport into beds too well and often just turn to seed. Prepare the bed a day before sowing by raking and gently loosening the topsoil and give it a good soaking with water. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in 2006, Peter Andrews’ story was voted by viewers as the most popular episode of ABC’s Australian Story.

It told of the ridicule Andrews’ sometimes faced in explaining his innovative ideas on how to heal the Australian landscape – and the work he did in regenerating his own degraded broadache property. Read the rest of this entry »

You will have gathered by now through reading my blogs that nothing disappoints me like a dead boring garden. When I say dead I don’t a garden where the lawn is brown from lack of rain and the boeders over run with weeds, what I mean is a garden that is not developed, lacking creativity, no sense of life or purpose, I see these gardens all the time. Don’t get me wrong, each to their own, all I think is there could be so much more life in our living space.

One way of bringing a real sense of life into your garden and your family is by getting a couple of chooks. Read the rest of this entry »

The current property where I live we are blessed to have some beautiful fruit trees. These were established before we bought this property and are scattered throughout the lawn. Apple, plum, orange, fig and lemon trees can provide us with a great selection but they are taking a little work to reintroduce them into the world of flowering nicely so we can enjoy their harvests.

When I moved into the property the trees had not been pruned for years, the structure of the branches was thick causing a lack of air fto circulate throught the tree. Many of the branches thinned out as they grew, failing to spout and new flowers or decent growth and the leaves were covered in disease. Read the rest of this entry »

Spring has sprung, the sun is out for longer and the cold dark winter mornings are forgotten. Thoughts turn to the garden and all the plans you had to improve the backyard and “all that extra time you were going to enjoy it while the evenings were light and warm” come flooding back. Every year I find myself making that promise. I don’t just want a summer of mowing the lawn. Backyards are so much more than a perfectly cut piece of grass!

While musing on your grand plans for the summer, thoughts cross your mind about establishing a veggie garden. Its been on the agenda for years but you’re caught as to where to build it or what to grow, or you have flashbacks to when you tried growing some seeds years ago, none of them grew and so you gave up. I would give up to, all that excitement and exprectation of going to the nursery and buying all the right equipment those feelings of pride that you are going to grow, care and nurture something – only to be dashed as nothing happens. (Never set out to grow your own veggies through buying seeds, always buy established seedlings for a nursery, this way all the hard work has been done for you!). Read the rest of this entry »

I’m laying down the gauntlet! Nothing beats the English strawberry…even my wife agrees that while she lived in England (where we met), she had never tasted such beautiful fruit. I have to say that the fruit you buy in the supermarkets over there is the same quality, or lack of as it is over here. Much of the fruit and veg that is packed onto our supermarket shelves is picked before ripe, packaged in a completely different place (sometimes country) and then stored for up to nine months before distributed out to the retailers. Hardly a sustainable method of growing food and yet breaking that routine of being able to buy and expectation to buy our favorite produce all year round, doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon.

Anyway, back to the gauntlet. I have to admit I tried growing strawberries last year….I failed miserably! I got about 6 strawberries from as many plants and they measured about 2cm long and about 1cm fat….hardly a winner. Read the rest of this entry »