Good Organic Gardening

As we head into summer, it’s hard not to feel apprehensive about what will confront us. The winter just past, I wore my Ugg boots only a handful of times. Most winters I live in them, at least for a few months. July this year, in New South Wales, was

Swift Grow is a fertiliser that’s purified and sold in concentrated liquid form. As outlined so far, Swift Grow’s benefits include its ability to: • Restore dead soil • Increase crop yields • Restore colour, scent and flavour to food • Increase farm

Jo is an environmental scientist, photographer and writer. She has worked in the environment movement for decades and is co-ordinator of the National Toxics Network, an organisation dedicated to creating a toxic-free future. She has written many arti

Birch isn’t just a slender, attractive tree for gardens and street plantings in cool climates; it also has medicinal benefits thanks to methyl salicylate, an anti-inflammatory and analgesic found in the bark and wood and other parts of the tree. Leav

Looking for a way to give your summer salads a kick? Add the vibrant leaves of red mountain spinach, also known as orache. As well as adding the colourful leaves to salads you can cook them like spinach. The purple-red leaves taste like spinach, are

I ndigenous Australians call Davidson’s plum ooray — and three cheers for that. I absolutely love them. I love the zing of Davos, as they’re called in my neck of the woods. I love their scintillating taste and their versatility: they can be dried, ma

The Mediterranean diet is rated as one of the best in the world, thanks largely to its high vegetable and good fats content. Edible weeds and leafy greens are the hero ingredients in many Mediterranean dishes, from Turkish börek and Greek spanakopita

My name is Karen and Jack is my partner. We live in a lovely part of the world, in the coastal temperate climate of Sydney’s northern beaches. I have been interested in gardening since a child — my great grandfather grew food and kept chickens in the

Horticulturist Mike Wells loves gardening so much that he became a TAFE educator and made a career of teaching folks all about it. Now retired, he finally has more time to practise what he’s preached for so long. He and wife Mary live on an 850m2 blo

Historic and picturesque Bridgetown, the self-styled winter capital of Western Australia, is sometimes called “Fridgetown” because it can get pretty cold in the winter months. It never quite snows but the climate is almost European, which may be what

The calendar says it’s still spring but it feels more like summer in many parts of Australia. Staggered planting from now on will extend the summer harvest. It’s the end of another year but a good time to plant those salad vegies that love the heat,

Embarking on the journey to create extraordinary garden plants requires a lot of time, patience and unwavering dedication. For plant breeders, it often entails a decade-long pursuit, constantly refining and striving for continuous improvement. Amid t

The turnip may be a humble vegetable but it comes in a surprising array of flavours and has many uses. With their earthy taste and versatility, turnips have become a favourite addition to many cuisines around the world. More recently, they’ve even st

Beans are one of the easiest and most rewarding summer vegetables to grow. They really are a bountiful crop and come in many different shapes and sizes. They are also a great crop to share. One local gardening friend swears by a climbing bean variety

Though beans are easy to grow and bountiful, they can have problems. One pest that turns up in the bean patch is the green vegetable bug, a shield-shaped green stink bug that feeds on developing beans and can cause dry or misshapen beans. The best or

Zucchinis should come with a warning: don’t plant too many! That’s because they are highly productive. One or two plants provide a bounty; three or four may leave you slightly overwhelmed. But, unless you have a large family, more than four plants ca

Name Description 1 ‘Black Beauty’ Narrow dark-green lightly ribbed fruit; highly productive; one of the most popular varieties 2 ‘Black Jack’ Narrow dark-green ribbed fruit 3 ‘Cocozelle’ Long striped pale-and dark-green ribbed fruit; Italian heritage

With its scaly, spiked skin atop a prickly cactus, it’s easy to see how this wondrous fruit gets its name — it does everything but breathe fire. Dragon fruit comes in white-, pink-or yellow-fleshed varieties speckled with tiny black edible seeds and

If your idea of a mango tree is a broad, spreading, evergreen growing beside an old house in the tropics or subtropics, think again — the mango has had a makeover. Though mature trees can reach 10–15m tall and may be even wider, there are smaller opt

Fungi are fascinating organisms — but misunderstood. They don’t belong to the plant kingdom and don’t require light to grow. They function in a totally different way. The vegetative body of fungi consists of many long, thin, thread-like filaments kno

The gardenia is a shrub that everyone wants to grow. It’s hard not to fall in love with its cream-coloured perfumed flowers, enjoy that scent in your garden or pick a posy to spread the fragrance indoors. Even in late autumn to early spring when thes

The name tea tree is familiar to most Australian gardeners, conjuring images of masses of star-like flowers in spring, and it’s one of those reliable shrubs that can cope with both wet and dry conditions. Belonging to the genus Leptospermum and a mem

I recently started to grow my own sprouts and it’s amazing how easy it is to do and how little equipment you need! No soil, fertiliser or even garden required — you can do it in your kitchen and it only takes a few days. You can sprout almost any see

“There’s a 98 per cent chance of the hottest year on record coming in the next five years and a 66 per cent chance of exceeding the critical 1.5°C warming This chilling forecast was made by the World Meteorological Organization and published in The C

• Even at this late stage of spring, it’s not too late to start planting some of summer’s big guns. If frosts are still likely, consider getting your Solanaceae (capsicums, chillies, eggplant, spuds, tomatoes) going under cover. • Cucurbits (cucumber

Bright fluffy chicks are so gorgeous, it’s such a pity they have to grow up and become adults. Such littlies don’t just appear by magic: the chook keeper as well as the breeding flock contribute to the chickens’ vitality and hearty health. Raising ch

• Seedlings planted in November as well as ripening salad crops could use a feed around about now — a seaweed tea or low-environmental-impact liquid fertiliser — plus shade and regular water. Plant dwarf beans from seed for a quick crop. • Until the

The World Health Organization estimates that around 6.7 million deaths per year result from poor indoor air quality. Offices and apartment buildings often connect directly to parking garages, either via doorways or lift shafts, allowing harmful petro

Hawthorn, the common name of the genus Crataegus, is a thorny shrub with bright-green leaves, white flowers and bright-red berries each containing one to three or five seeds. Crataegus is from the rose family, Rosaceae, which includes more than 280 s

As consumer costs rise, growing what you can at home makes good financial sense. Food remains one of our biggest ongoing expenses. The 2020 national Pandemic Gardening Survey found edible gardening was particularly important to people on low incomes

In the 1988 Talking Heads song Nothing But Flowers, David Byrne envisaged a world in which civilisation had decayed and was replaced by luxuriant vegetation. Today, nature is increasingly a part of inner cities — only to complement modern buildings r

Apples (Lady Williams), avocados, bananas, blueberries, cherries, grapefruit, loquats, lychees, mangoes, melons, mulberries, nectarines, oranges (Valencia), papaya, passionfruit, pawpaw, peaches, pineapples, starfruit (carambola), strawberries, young

Of course, seeds aren’t just for planting. Nuts and seeds are highly nutritious little parcels of fat, protein and minerals. Try this for a delicious breakfast. Add berries if you like a little pop of moisture. • ½ cup pumpkin seeds• ¼ cup sunflower

Common names: Motorbike frog, Moore’s frog, western green tree frog Scientific name: Ranoidea moorei The motorbike frog is born to be wild. The populous species gets its common name from the male’s mating call, which sounds a lot like that of a human

By Georgia Angus, Hardie Grant, $26.99 Who doesn’t love birds? Though none of them is short on charisma, artist Georgia Angus has shortlisted 50 species from all over the world that not only possess unique characteristics but illustrate how these anc

Introducing Wobble-Tee’s newest Sprinkler, the RolaRain. We have been asked why would you make a newer model when the Wobble-Tee has been so popular and successful? Well, the Wobble-Tee Sprinkler was designed as a domestic sprinkler to be used on the