Generosity: The other part of the how much to plant equation

I always hear about people so sick of zucchini at that certain time of year.  Stories about sneaking it into muffins and scrambling to find as many uses as possible until they’re thoroughly sick of the sight of it. Then they do the same thing later with something else – silverbeet for example. Sound familiar?

What I can’t work out is why they simply don’t give it away. Or at least trade it for something else. 90% of New Zealand’s vegetables get bought at supermarkets – they can’t tell me everyone they know has a glut of zucchinis. If that’s the truth, they need to get out and meet more people.

So my big piece of advice is grow what you can. If it’s more than you can eat then give it away. Be generous – people will love you for it. Leave big bouquets of salad leaves on people’s doorsteps. Send herb clippings to your neighbour. Take your broccoli seedlings to work. Give your left over lemons to the food bank. Take your spare beans to Seedy Sunday. Trade some of those zucchinis for some new potatoes with the gardener down the road.

I do all these things regularly and I want to do them more. I love it. It makes me feel great. It makes me feel part of my community and it stops me from feeling isolated or sad. People love it and I feel like a better person. It’s a win win win situation.

Don’t be scared of planting too much – just don’t let your extras go to waste.

The 30% rule: How much should I plant?

Rachel asked me how I knew how much of anything to plant. We were talking about how all the published advice we had both seen on the topic was, work out what you eat each week and start from there ie 2 lettuce per week, plant 2 every week.

But neither of us plan our meals with that much detail. I plan mine around what I have available or how I feel at a particular time. I’m a big foodie, I love food and working around these things is just the way I like to do it. Can’t think of anything worse than coming up with weekly meal plans. Screw it, I’m just not that organised, nor want to be.

My rule of thumb for planting amounts was taught to me by my parents and applies to any farming – plan for 30% stock loss.

30% has served me well. Punnet of 6 seedlings, I’m likely to lose a plant or two and/or have them some under-perform – be it by pestilence, disease, weather or forgetting about them (yeah, it does happen). If I plant just one bean seedling, chances are I won’t see anything off it. So, I plant 3 instead.

For seed sowing I add another 30%. I plant 30% more seed then I expect to grow. Some won’t germinate, some will be pricked out and some I will lose by natural attrition.

This isn’t a scientific formula but it has done me well over the years. How do you plan how much to grow in your garden? Do you plan everything in detail? Do you do complex maths equations based on dietary requirements? Let us know in the comments.

It should be renamed Hard Labour Weekend

I ache. My hands, my arms, my legs, my torso, my ass, my toenails  – they all hurt. I have so much dirt encrusted in my hands and face,  it may be mistaken for a tan when I return to work tomorrow. If I make it that far. I’ve fallen asleep on the couch the last two nights and been put to bed by 9.30pm.  But I’ve managed to get a heap done.

Everything is looking amazing. The raised beds are teeming with plantlife.  Seeds, seedlings and sprouts adorn nearly every surface of the house. And best of all we have a new forest garden…but more on that when I get my strength back. Roast chicken dinner with friends should help. And tomorrow it’s back to work, slowly.

Cavolo nero, lettuce and purple sage all getting along really well

Globe artichokes mixed with verbenas, heliotrope & pretty blue flowers

A couple of square metres of barley growing in an old vegetable bed

Chives, rocket, marigolds, alyssum and carrots are living it up in the raised beds

Separate mesclun bed is about to give us the first crop - 2 more coming

I finally got the strawberries into their proper bed with some pyrethrum daisies

A lot of green leafy things are coming out of the main vege bed with garlic at the end

Nuts

Yesterday, we lost a dear friend. Today, we adopted a macadamia. A hard old nut with soft and buttery centre that has a bit of a gammy ankle.

We’ve called him Alphonse and he lives at the bottom of our garden.

RIP AK Goss xx

We will miss you terribly.

Am I just providing safe-harbour to an enemy?

I couldn’t help but bring it home. It’s just so pretty!

Cytisus ‘Lilac time’ (Cytisus scoparius) is an evergreen shrub with very small leaves. Lilac-pink pea flowers adorn the bush in spring. I bought it in full-flower. It dazzled me with its charms. I failed to notice that it was in fact, a broom.

There are some good things to say about broom. They’re drought-tolerant and colonise disturbed and poorer soils, improving the soil; broom is leguminous, part of the Fabaceae family, and nitrogen-fixing. Broom stops erosion on hillsides. It’s a great food source for butterfly larvae. The flowers can be eaten in a salad. Don’t forget the prettiness!

On the very big downside, New Zealand has major problems with broom and its close cousin gorse (Ulex). Stock won’t eat it and it shades out pasture. It produces up to 30,000 seeds per square metre, every year. It outgrows saplings, effectively destroying crops of plantation trees and therefore is a major burden to the forestry industry. Apparently, only Pinus radiata can grow fast enough to compete with broom and tolerate the harsh herbicide treatments needed to treat sites infested with it. (I have major issues with Pinus radiata…but that’s a whole other post). So yeah, major problem for New Zealand. We’ve even started bringing in biological control agents to try to counter the spread.

So despite the fact that my pretty little shrub’s cousins are terrorising the country, I’ve provided a safe and loving home for this little one. He’ll only last for about 5 years. I will be watching it carefully though and chopping it back regularly to stop it seeding. I’ve planted it next to an outdoor seat framed by pittoporums, at the front of the house. Having it where I can see it every day, I’ll remember to keep it inline and not allow it to open up another invasion-front.

A note on New Zealand broom

New Zealand has a genus of its own broom called Carmichaelia. They are in the same Fabaceae family as the European species, but far-distant cousins.  There are about 20 varieties.

Am I just providing safe-harbour to an enemy? Pretty vs Plague – let me know your thoughts…

Kapiti Community Food Forest

Inspired by Geoff Lawton’s Establishing a Food Forest, a group has got together to explore the potential of food forest gardening on the Kapiti Coast. Our vision is to build a community food forest garden for Kapiti.

Planned, planted and maintained by the community, the forest garden will serve as an education resource, plant nursery, seed bank, outdoor community centre, meeting point and food bank. Accessible to all, the area will become an edible landscape with walkways and glades, natural in look but designed with our needs for sustenance and play. A living repository for the future, in the heart of our community.

We’ve been doing a lot of talking, thinking, researching and come up with a document that we think encompasses the project’s heart. Now, we need some input and some support from you.

Have a read of the Kapiti Community Food Forest Proposal
Please do send us an email answering the following questions:

1. Do you support in principle the establishment of a community food forest in Kapiti?

2. Would you be willing to be part of a group of volunteers that is responsible for the establishment and maintenance of a Kapiti community food forest ?

3. Do you have any resources (land or money) you would be willing to donate to help to establish the Kapiti community food forest?

Food Forest Gardening Intro

First in a series looking at wonderful world of food forests, or forest gardening.

A food forest, also called a forest garden, is a productive and organic garden modeled on the ecosystem of a forest. Species are selected to create a stable, functioning environment that fulfill the needs of the gardeners by producing fruits, berries, vegetables, herbs, seeds and other useful plant material.

Each plant performs many multiple roles within the system – promoting growth of other plants, inhibiting weeds, shelter, mulch, pest control, bird food, cross-pollination, attracting beneficial insects and of course providing food, medicine and utility plants for community use.

Food forests are:
- consciously designed using permaculture principles which mimic natural systems;
- multi-layered – trees and shrubs grow surrounded by a herbaceous layer, root crops, vines;
- perennial – plants grow every year without replanting;
- highly productive;
- biodiverse;
- beautiful;
- self-renewing;
- self-fertilising;
- once established, can be low-maintenance.

Permaculture Design Certificate with Bill Mollison & Geoff Lawton

September 21 is my birthday. It’s also the start of a 2 week PDC course with two of the godfathers of permaculture – Bill Mollison & Geoff Lawton. Which would mean 2 weeks in Melbourne around my birthday. Can I combine all these elements? It would be dreamy. But then so would this one in Jordan…  Oh decisions I wish I could make if only I had some extra coin. Dear Universe, please provide – I promise I shall do good with it!

It’s Seed Catalogue Day!!!

Possibly the most exciting, empowering, heart-wrenching, drama-filled, comedy-laden (for everyone around me), garden-geekiest day of the year – today I am Empirial Ruler deciding what shall flourish in my domain this coming season. The catalogues have arrived, the paper and coloured pencils are out, the day is cleared and the tea is brewing. Today I choose my seeds.

This year’s Seed Catalogue Day is brought to me by:

Emilia Hazelip’s Synergistic Gardening

I’ve taken procrastination to whole new levels on this one and for that I apologise. We showed the Synergistic Garden video by Emilia Hazelip at the May Seedy Sunday.  Finally, I manage to get the notes up and a couple of links for your edification.

I have to admit, I’ve become a little obsessed by these beautiful beds, all curved and mounded in sweeping lines. I also love the very way they are constructed, in sort of gentle sweeping movements. Due to my terrain I’m not able to do them at my house, so I’ve been eyeing up other people’s gardens to work on.

Anyway, here are notes on the video including links to some other pieces on Emilia…

Wantmonster

I’m deciding on how to spend my garden budget this year. With the amount of seeds I’ve saved, contacts made and plants well established for propagating I’ve got a little more garden moolah to go around.

I’ve done the important stuff like join the Koanga Institute, and ordered my fruit trees. And now I may go squander some cash on this little delight - a timelapse garden video camera!!

“The camera takes a picture at one of six pre-determined intervals (one minute to 24 hours) and combines them into a single 1280 x 1024 resolution AVI movie file for easy playback on a computer. It has a light sensor that turns off the camera at dusk and back on at dawn, allowing for continued video capture each day.”

Flowers make life so much better

Flowers make me very happy and I’m very grateful to my colleagues who are a lovely bunch, for this lovely bunch. LPLL has been a little stagnant lately as I’ve been in recovery. But lying on my back in a hospital bed has started a whole lot of thought processes which will hopefully soon manifest into a whole raft of quality content and real-world planty projects.

I’m starting to come right so you’ll be hearing more and more from me over the next couple of weeks. But it may still take a little time to get fully up to speed – please keep checking your RSS.

x Anna

Link Lovage

One week on the couch recovering from surgery hasn’t allowed me much time in the garden. Whether has been so horrible here it hasn’t really been a problem. Despite my incapacitated state, I haven’t spent much time on the computer either. There are a few things though that have come to my attention that I would like to share.

Blogs I’ve put into my Google Reader to keep an eye on include Punk Rock Permaculture, Earth and Tree,  The Herbalist’s Path, and Dandelion Revolution.

Now on to the really useful stuff I’ve spied:

–  The Huffington Post has a great article/chart A Recipe for Longevity: 33 of the Healthiest Foods on Earth – yep, they’re all plants! I’ll be eating a little more pineapple this week.

–  Uncluttering Your Refrigerator’s Crisper tells you how to best store your fruit and veges.

OooOOOOooo and I’ve been drooling over the books at Chelsea Green. You should too…

May Garden Tip: Plant Lots of Garlic!

Are you planting garlic this year? Every garden should have some. Not only is it fantastic food that keeps you healthy but also makes a potent spray to keep ants, spiders, aphids, caterpillars and other bugs away from your plants.

Those of us in the Southern Hemisphere need to be planning our garlic crops now. It’s super easy to grow but you need to have your beds ready and you need to get your cloves to plant. Don’t plant the stuff from the supermarket, it’s too dry and just won’t sprout. Get in to your garden centres quick! Last year wasn’t a great garlic year so everyone will be racing in to buy bulbs.

Traditionally, garlic bulbs go in on the shortest day but a few weeks early will give them a good boost. Remember, garlic stays in the ground for 6 months so you need to think carefully about where you want it. You can plant into pots if you aren’t sure where you’re going to be that far out.

Prep’d and ready to go

I feel so gosh darn urban homesteady today. It’s been a beautiful day and I’ve spent it pottering around getting stuff done.

Off in search of a new oven this morning – depressing. It seems $2500 seems to be the going rate for a new oven that doesn’t appear to be made out of plastic. Most look like they would melt if we turned them on. I make my own bread and pizza – I need decent, heavy-duty cookware. So we’ll have to come up with plan B on that one.

Spent the rest of the day kicking it in the sun collecting more marigold seeds and gathering dill to be prepared for drying. Had a meeting to prep for the next Seedy Sunday and then began my kitchen prep for the week. I’ve made yoghurt, started some fenugreek sprouts and a rocket farm on some paper towels and a lid. Even made one for the neighbours – I’ll get them gardening eventually! Finished the day off  by cooking a big casserole in the crockpot.

So the theory is, I should be all ready set go for a busy week ahead – work, Seedy Sunday promotion, blogging and some proofreading -but I can relax knowing my kitchen is in order, even if the oven isn’t.

Permaculture worm tower

I love simple, cheap and appropriate ideas that make gardening easier and fun. At the first Seedy Sunday we showed three videos with this philosophy in mind.

My two previous attempts at worm farming had ended badly with the bins being overrun with nasties that killed off the worms. But I so love the simplicity and ease of this idea I’m going to give it another shot. This is a great way to get nutrients straight into your garden.

Auxins, geotropism & upside down tomatoes

I may be a little obsessive but tomatoes are on my mind again…

Upside-down tomato plant hanging contraptions have been hanging around for years and I’m a bit skeptical. bit skeptical. I’ve heard lots of people marvel over them but I’ve not seen a pic of the plants actually growing in them. The only pics I’ve seen have clearly been taken for advertising purposes when the plants are in full fruit. Do upside down tomato plants work?

My heart always goes “Oooo, that looks nice”. But my head goes, “but what about the auxins?” Auxins are hormones that control aspects of plant growth – things like the flowering, fruiting, bulb formation, dormancy etc.

More on auxins after the jump, along with links to how to test these mad ramblings…

The dark side of fruit & veg

I’m just a little perplexed by this article in the Daily Mail. I can’t figure out if it’s another case of bad journalism, some kids taking the mickey or a tragic indictment of the state of our food supply.

I can maybe see what they’re saying about hayfever. I can also see that in diversifying our diet, we eat new compounds that could cause allergic reaction.

I believe though, it’s more likely that kids are actually allergic to the high levels of pesticides in the fruit and veg. The cited celery and bananas being amongst the most pesticide-laden of products.

But such horrible headlines! ‘The tiniest piece of celery can leave me gasping for breath’: Rising number of children allergic to fruit and veg.

Ridiculous scaremongering for those that only read the sensationalist headlines. All the good work that’s been done on promoting healthy eating in England will have just taken a giant step backward.

Welcome to the weekend

Alright, I’m prep’ed and ready go. The very first Seedy Sunday happens this very weekend. Apart from the horror of having to get up and talk in front of a group of people and the few technical difficulties we are having with the videos, I’m surprisingly calm.

So a quick list of what I’m taking for the swap table: Shoofly seeds (said to scare off white moth), Marigold seeds (the ones best for nematode control), Pumpkin Jack-be-little (they’re so cute!), Jerusalem artichokes for planting, and some organic produce – lettuce, oregano etc.

Nervous but incredibly excited about the possibilities! I’m really hoping this will be a positive step in building a community of people who share, care and promote gardening and healthy eating. If you are near Kapiti drop on by.

Pickled olives

I’ve just tasted some beautiful olives a friend’s mum grew in her back yard and then pickled. Most generously, I was given a recipe to post here. I’ll have to wait to find a tree I can raid. I’ve spotted a few olive trees growing on properties around Kapiti. We’ve certainly have that salt-laden wind of the Mediterranean. Olive trees have incredibly long tap roots so they can survive in very dry coastal situations. There are some commercial growers a bit further north.

Jill, the aforementioned pickler, has two Mission olive trees. Mission is a cultivar that’s been popular in NZ for quite some time, with a reputation as a reliable cropper. Her husband crops the trees every year keeping the fruit within reach. Harvest time is carefully chosen – just before the olives turn black, the birds will swoop in pretty quickly then.

Facts for the homesteaders, a tree producing 30-40 kilos of olives at year nine, with an oil content of 20% yields 8 litres of oil.  Recipe after the jump