December is for...seeking out the mistletoe

It's New Year's Eve, and I've been lurking around at the local pigeon club. Not because I'm into pigeons, they're not really my thing. More because they have the biggest Silky Oak in the street, and it's host to a number of big, healthy mistletoes. And I've struck gold...

But I've already missed Christmas, you say. No, I'm not collecting mistletoe in order to get extra kisses, although it might be a tradition worth encouraging in Australia. From what I can tell, the Europeans are winning in the mistletoe respect stakes, but I've become quite intrigued by it in the last few years. My inner ecologist is delighted, my inner horticulturist is horrified. Horticulture training recommends the removal of mistletoe from trees and shrubs as quickly as possible, as they can cause water loss and death in some cases. These clever plants are considered parasites, but I prefer to think of them as piggy-backers. When a seed germinates on a branch, the root grows into the host plant and proceeds to live off its water and nutrient supplies instead of growing its own root system and getting these from the ground the old fashioned way. The downside for the generous host is that in general, mistletoe is greedy and wasteful, allowing water to escape from the leaves that is normally trapped carefully by waxy cuticles and closed pores.

But it's not all bad news... mistletoe berries are an important food source for Mistletoe Birds and  the nectar is a nutritious food for Painted Honeyeaters, among others. I wouldn't mind having some of these sweet birds visit my backyard, and so I decided to try and infect (or introduce) some mistletoe into my plants. Until today, that wasn't as easy as it seemed. You can't simply transplant it, as it's anchored into another plant... so the only option is to plant a seed. Again, not so easy, as the berries are eaten by well-meaning birds and spread all over the place. I've been watching the whole process, as the flowers opened a few weeks ago, and the berries have now followed. Imagine my excitement in finding some berries on the ground under a bottlebrush tree in my street! But if I'm realistic, I know the seeds will germinate much better if they have been pre-digested by a helpful feathered friend.

Hence the visit to the large Silky Oak tree. There are so many mistletoes here that the birds hang around for ages, depositing their packages of seedy goodness as they feed and play.

I graduated from my horticulture degree this month, and 6 years ago I'm sure I wasn't imagining collecting bird poo from the ground when I enrolled. But what I also didn't anticipate was how exciting I would find it. I've waited patiently for months for these sticky little deposits, and I'm rapt to be attaching them to my own bottlebrush tree so that I can have the wonderful mistletoe birds to watch on a regular basis. I can't wait to see if they grow! 

I'm even planning to try some seeds on my lovely big gardenia, as it's right next to our birdbath and might be extra encouragement for shy birds. Some mistletoe were growing on the Crepe Myrtles in the street, so I know they're not too strict about who they piggyback onto.

If anyone is interested in Australian mistletoe and its importance to the environment, this short radio interview is worth listening to. It was extra inspiration for me to get out there and find some seeds!


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-20/native-mistletoe-good-for-the-environment/5170040

 

Photo of the week - swimming in squash!

Summer has certainly arrived, and we're harvesting yellow squash, mixed zucchini and mini golden nugget pumpkins for our dinners! Yummo!

Photo of the week - banksia men

Ok I'll admit it, I've had to sneak more than one photo in, but that's because I just couldn't choose a favourite! And also I haven't posted a photo EVERY week, so I'm making up for lost time really! Here is a celebration of Banksia flowers and cones, they are looking so stunning at the moment and the textures are just divine. There is a mixture here of Banksia blechnifolia, ericifolia, integrifolia, serrata and spinulosa, as well as a few hybrids/cultivars I wasn't sure of. Go on, choose a favourite, I challenge you!

 

 

 

 

November is for... weeding and feeding

Yesterday I spent the afternoon taking photos of my weeds. Not because I want to show off my neglected areas, but because I'm making dinner. I've recently been reacquainted with my local library, and on the top of my book pile is The Weed Forager's Handbook by Adam Grubb and Annie Raser-Rowland.

I've been inspired to take a second look at the plants I usually pull up and throw out. There are a few reasons for this.
1. I've just finished my university module on weed science, and the first lesson is that a weed is simply a plant growing where you don't want it; the definition is centred on people and their ideas of plants. When you can use something, it stops being a weed.
2. I'm big on reducing my waste around the house, and recycle as much as possible. Weeds usually shouldn't go in the compost, otherwise you end up spreading their seeds back on the garden, and so they are put in my rubbish bin and carted away for landfill. That seems a bit silly to me.
3.  Some of these plants are highly nutritious and even better for you than many of the other greens we pay good dollars for, or make space for in the veggie patch.
4. They grow, well, like weeds! this means food for very little effort.

So I embarked on an adventure yesterday- making my favourite fetta and silverbeet quiche supplemented with as many edible weeds as I could find in my garden. And there were more than I expected! The book outlines top 20 useful weeds, their benefits and any notes of caution. As a trained horticulturist, I sure know my weeds! But if you are unsure of any identification, it's best to leave them. Following the first rule of weed foraging, I picked some greens thinking they were probably Fat Hen, but didn't use them because I just couldn't be sure. If anyone can confirm for me, I will include them next time.

Beside this, I found dandelions, milk thistle, oxalis, purslane, angled onion, and amaranthus.

 

 

 

I cooked these up with a few good handfuls of silverbeet from the garden, mixed them with eggs, fetta and a bit of sour cream, filled a half baked shortcrust pastry shell and popped it all in the oven.

The onion weed was a great onion substitute, and the other greens added a nice depth of flavour to the silverbeet.

If you are interested in eating some of the weeds near your place, I do recommend the book as a great place to start. Nutritional and identification information is very helpful, and handy tips for which parts are the tastiest, and how to best use them. I don't use many chemicals in my garden, but also be aware of any pesticides etc. your weeds may have been exposed to.

I have purposely held off posting for 24 hours to ensure there were no ill effects, and I'm happy to report that I'm still alive and well! Next time I reckon I'll try a weed salad, maybe with some edible flowers for decoration... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Photo of the week - spring cleaning

 

Isn't that beautiful? I found this mandarin in my kitchen, mouldering away in the fruit bowl. I can't help but admire the colours, and the soft powdery patterns of the mould growing on the fruit. Not too inspiring for some, but it reminds me of the first penicillin made from mould growing on oranges, and I wonder how many things we overlook (or throw away) that might be useful or world-changing... or at least lovely to look at, if we take the time.

Photo of the week- collecting treasures

I mentioned in May that I'm awed by seeds and their ability to transform from a small, hard and seemingly lifeless object into a growing, living plant. I also mentioned in August that I'd been collecting flowers from Acacias along the roadside on the way to work, and identifying them. It's a good thing I did, because now it's wattle seed season! My eye keeps catching them as I go whizzing by, and I can't resist collecting them to turn them into hundreds of baby plants! Of course I leave plenty behind to germinate naturally, and I am getting used to the strange looks from the other commuters.This week's collection includes Acacia amblygona, Acacia spectabilis, Hakea salicifolia and Senna artemesioides ssp filifolia. There is also a bag of Acacia decora pods to empty, so I better get to it!

October is for...taking it easy

I can never resist trying something new and exotic in my garden, so there's a lot of trial and error happening at our place. The real benefit of that is that I can share some of what does or doesn't work for me! For anyone just starting out growing veggies or whose choice is limited by space, here are my picks for the easiest veg to grow, so that you can make the most of your patch of earth with little effort.

Peas & beans  

If you have a little piece of ground and something to climb up, these are hands down the easiest veg to grow, and super productive too. Best grown from seed, just poke them a centimetre or 2 under the ground, water and wait. They say if you soak the seeds in water overnight before planting you will get better germination, but I'm not one to plan far enough ahead to manage it, and the little fellas always come up! Snow peas especially cost a fortune to buy fresh, but they are so easy I can't believe everyone doesn't grow them. PS. Grow peas in cold months, beans in hot ones. PPS. These don't even need much fertiliser- they are legumes and take Nitrogen from the air and put it in the soil. Very clever.

Silverbeet
A great option for spinach lovers that live in warm or dry areas, as English spinach needs cool moist areas to grow nicely. Silverbeet has loads of flavour and is incredibly good for you, I tend to chop it up and add it to just about anything I'm cooking. These days you can find varieties that have different coloured stems, in white, yellow, orange, pink and red, and some of the leaves colour up as well. I find the rainbow mixes just gorgeous in the garden, as well as delicious. The plants are quite long lasting- I grow a new row every 6 months but they can last a year or more if you water them every now and then, and cut the leaves from the outside as you need them.

 Cherry tomatoes
Most tomatoes are easy to grow and the flavour is well worth the effort, but the smaller fruiting ones are so hardy they often pop up on their own. Easy to eat too, you can just munch on them while watering the garden, throw them in a salad or roast them whole. Because the fruit is smaller, they don't need staking and often escape the dreaded fruit fly. Kids love to collect and eat them too, so try enticing a fussy eater into the garden with you and see what happens! 

Beetroot
A very under-rated vegetable, beetroots are a staple in the garden at our place, and grow almost year-round. I just put them in the ground, and 2 or 3 months later their round tops are bursting out of the soil, asking to be eaten.The beets themselves are wonderful pickled or roasted, and the leaves can be cooked up like spinach when you pull up the roots. There are a few different colours of these available too, and I think the white ones are the sweetest.

  Corn
Sweetness and flavour are great incentives to grow your own, as the sugar starts to turn into starch straight after picking. Corn is wind pollinated, so it's best to grow it in blocks rather than rows, to make sure you get full cobs. Other than that, just poke the seed into the ground and watch it grow. They are ready when the cobs feel full and the kernels are yellow if you peek under the husk.


   Cucumber

In summer we go through so many cucumbers in salads, wraps and sandwiches. I like to grow the Lebanese cucumbers because the size is convenient, but there are all sorts of shapes and sizes around if you look. They can be a bit rampant if grown on the ground, so they are best given a strong trellis to climb. If you are in a cool moist area they can be a bit prone to mildew, but it's not usually a problem here. You can spray the vine with a milk mixture to keep mildew at bay if you need a safe remedy. If you don't have something for them to climb, zucchini grow on the ground and are just as simple. Just make sure you pick them while they are small, otherwise you will find zucchinis as big as your arm hiding in your veggie patch!

If you don't have much time to devote to your garden or don't know where to start, try some of these. There are so many options available and I can't help wanting to try them all, but in my experience they are the easiest to grow and the most rewarding with plenty of produce. I'm still trying some new plants this summer, and have some chickpeas and mini pumpkins growing, plus some unusual varieties of the old favourite tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini and squash. I will let you know how they go!

Photo of the week - Friend or foe?

Put on your detective hats people, I need help identifying this!

 

 

They were here when we moved in, and have little spotty lily-like leaves. The flowers are only recent, and they remind me somewhat of Muscari or Lachenalia, with a bulb like a bluebell. So I'm pretty sure it's from the Asparagus family, but I can't get any further than that! It's not in my weed book, which makes me happy, but did survive when we sprayed the couch there with roundup, which makes me nervous! I'd like to leave them there because they are so sweet, the little flowers are less than 10cm tall and have a perfect spiral pattern that has me in mind of Fibonacci and my maths days.

 

 

If you can solve my mystery, do let me know! If they are weeds I'll have to get rid of them, perfectly patterned flowers or not! If not, they can continue to grow happily under the rosemary.

Nerd alert: Friends in the garden

Now that I do an extra 2 hours of travelling to work and back every day, I'm getting home after dark, which leaves me no time to do my usual garden scouting (watering, checking for pests and diseases, looking for new fruit/flowers, and seeing what's ready to eat). The upside of this is that I get up excited on the weekend to see the changes in the garden over the week. One Saturday this month I was picking the caterpillars off my Tuscan kale (as you do...) when I noticed that one looked a bit suspicious! He wasn't moving, had some yucky black spots on him, and was laying on a pile of yellow cushions. There was also a little black insect sitting nearby.

Apanteles glomerata adult and pupae

I'm quite familiar with these caterpillars, they are the larvae of the white cabbage butterfly (Pieris rapae) and they eat big holes in the leaves of brassicas. I've seen the butterflies flitting about my broccoli and kale, laying tiny little yellow eggs, and I've washed them off when cleaning the leaves to eat. So I know they are as small as a pinprick, not big and fluffy like these things.
I've also studied some entomology as part of my horticulture degree, enough to recognise the little black critter as a tiny wasp. They are closely related to ants, and have a similar body shape with 3 distinct segments.
After a bit of research, I've discovered the wasp is a parasite called Apanteles glomerata, who lays her eggs inside caterpillars. After hatching, the baby wasps eat their way out of the offending caterpillar, and spin little yellow cocoons. When they come out of the cocoons, they are fully developed wasps (albeit very small) who will find a mate, and then an unlucky caterpillar. Although it's a grisly way to feed your children, it's quite handy for me, as wasps like these control the numbers of caterpillars in my veggies so that there are more for me to eat.
For me, the moral of the story is this- not using pesticides in my garden means safety for the insects that are actually helping me out. I hope the wasps that come out of these cocoons hang around my garden and find every one of those pesky caterpillars! It's a beautiful system (in a disgusting way) and I'd hate to interfere.

September is for... celebrating in style!

Guess what?! This month we celebrated our home-owner-versary! I'm so excited about this little milestone, and thought it must be time to recap and take stock of some improvements we've made to the house and garden. I'd also like to take the opportunity to start posting a 'photo of the week' because sometimes I just can't wait to show you what's happening, and they will be short and 'snappy' I promise! There will still be a monthly update for those who love a good story.

So here are my top 5 'before and after' transformations, 2 of which are still in progress, and you will be getting an exclusive sneak peek!

1. The hallway/spare bedroom:
A work in progress, but a fantastic result already. Originally the house had 2 living areas, but only 1 decent bedroom (I don't count the 'study' as a bedroom as it wouldn't fit much more than a bed and desk in it!). We decided to put up a wall to separate off the front room and turn it into a usable spare bedroom. This also gives us a nice hallway area to draw people toward the lounge room and kitchen.

 












2.The driveway garden/veggie beds:
Recycling the old fence panels has been great fun, using them as supports for our vegetables along the driveway fence. Tomatoes, eggplants, peas and beans have all grown up them, with room for a row of greens, herbs or root veg in front. We now have these running right from the front fence, with some dwarf citrus and apple trees between each. You will have to use your imagination a bit for the veggie beds, as I've just planted my summer seeds and they haven't done much yet!

 
3. Down with the carport:
Even though we are on a good sized block, much of it is unusable for garden space due to the layout. The garage is at the back, requiring a long driveway, and the pool is directly behind the house. We decided the garage and driveway provide enough parking space, and the carport was just collecting 'stuff' that we didn't need anyway. Full story to come when the project is finished! 

4. The pool area:
Removing the awful old fencing was quite a job, but it made such a massive difference. The yard is now open and full of light, and the garden has made it a lovely place to lounge about or sit and read.

5. The front garden:
The aim here was to dress up the 'face' of the house to increase street appeal, so the big dark fence was first to go. A mixture of softening flowers, native plants and roses make the house feel loved, and 2 deciduous fruit trees where planted in the lawn to shade the western bedroom windows in summer, and let in some sun in winter.

It's been a big year, and hopefully next year will see house and garden get even better. Stay tuned for updates on the carport/new garden and spare room!

August is for... seeing the light at the end of the tunnel

 

Where I live, winter says goodbye in such a spectacular way- the roadsides and bushland are lit up by gorgeous golden wattle flowers. The show starts in July and by the end of winter the glow is a heartwarming promise of spring.



I love native plants, and have been learning more about them over the last 6 years of my environmental horticulture degree. My inner botanist has come out this year, and I've decided I'd like to know which species are lighting up my world. That's right, they're not all the same! I remember the days of thinking a wattle is a wattle, and recently realising there are hundreds of Acacias right under my nose has sparked my curiosity.

The differences between species are usually found in the number, location and shape of features such as flowers, glands and phyllodes (almost leaves but not quite!).The trick with identifying Acacia species is that they can be difficult to tell apart when they're not flowering, so it has to be done while all their fluffy flower heads are on show. But I work full time, and study in my 'free' time, so I know I'm not going to get around to naming them within the next month or so. 

I think it was my older sister who showed me how to press flowers in phone books when I was young, and I found it fascinating to preserve flowers to keep. My botany teacher thought it was a bit unorthodox, but he didn't complain about the pressed specimens I handed in for assignments (real botanists use presses that you can pack with layers and tighten with straps, but I'm still very much an amateur!).

Luckily my new job has a focus on local native plants and a bookcase full of great information (it's plant nerd paradise!) so I have been cutting off pieces along the roadside and taking them in for some help, before bringing them home to find a place in my phone book. Some have been easy, some will have to wait until I have time to have a closer look, but so far I have collected flowers from about 22 species. And there are still more that haven't come into flower yet! And yes, I do get some strange looks from other motorists when stopping suddenly on the highway and jumping out into the bushes, secateurs in hand. I tell myself Joseph Banks would understand.


Now the tricky question is- which ones do I have room for in my little garden?

 My choice would have to be the lovely Acacia decora, a pretty little weepy shrub growing to about 1.5 metres. Or Acacia amblygona... the scrambling wattle, with its prickly little leaves for wrens and finches to hide in. Or maybe both. We will have to see how much room we have... that carport will have to go, sooner or later...

And now for a bit of self-indulgence, a selection of photos from around my garden this month. I've been trying out my new macro lens and it's a joy to work with, especially with all the lovely spring buds just beginning to burst. Enjoy!

                            Native everlasting (probably Helichrysum bracteata, I don't remember!)

Broad bean 'Aquadulce' 

 

Lemonade flowers

Purple sage

Snow peas

Tuscan kale or cavolo nero

                                                       Leptospermum 'Cardwell'

Kangaroo paw Anigozanthos 'Bush diamond'