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Homes & Gardens

May 3, 2013 5 Comments

behind the scenes of a permaculture home garden

The sky turned from white to crystal blue as a hot air balloon gently rose to greet the day. Creeping slowly above the treetops and up, up and away. Surely such clear skies and glorious golden rays of light would be a film makers dream! But not so, they piled through our door at 8:30am one by one horrified at the hot spots and wishing for overcast skies, a mini crew from Better Homes and Gardens…it was no ordinary day.

Here at The Desert Echo Permaculture Design HQ we are exicted to have our flemington permaculture garden feature as part of the Community Gardening segment on BH&G on 31st May this month! A great big shout out to the Permablitz team for suggesting us for the show.

Dylan did his very best to avoid camera time by acquiring a black eye two days before filming at Jujitsu practice (Accident or intentional? we’ll never know!) Which removed my fear of being relegated a mute nodding head in the back of every frame, to a new and far more terrifying prospect of being the main talking head! The English language (my native tongue) leaves me at the best of times, but in front of a camera! Eek! Luckily Jason Hodges, the host, and his crew were so lovely and down to earth, chatting so warmly with us between takes, it was actually an amazingly fun experience. It didn’t stop me from making some clangers, (my attempt at saying “reciprocity” a highlight), but it really was so so cool seeing how a show is made.

I hope you all tune in 4 weeks from now to show how popular Permaculture is, it would be so great for BH&G to pick it up in a big way! I might even gift you with some unintentionally terrible soundbites, hopefully some good ones to, but definitely a great close-up shot of me picking an eggplant! Hand modelling, with my gardener’s hands?…. probably not.

Garden

tomato experiment.

April 23, 2013 3 Comments

is there really a right time and a right place?

Seasons accelerate by and before we know it, summer’s ripening fruit is just a memory. If we don’t take the time to consciously observe our actions in the garden and learn from them we can end up in a rut. Year after year speeding by with the same failures and our successes remaining a mysterious shrugs of fate. Books and charts can be useful, but if we blindly follow what works for that person in that location we might never find that a banana plant can flourish in that sunny corner of our Mebournian garden.

Little experiments can be fun (if not entirely scientific) ways of discovering what works for you.

My first garden experiment was in year 8 when I tried growing silverbeet with different levels of fertiliser for science class, are the foolishness of youth. As I remember I wasn’t really keen on eating the silverbeet either. This Tomato Experiment on the other hand involves no pesticides or chemical fertilisers. It’s a step-by-step way to test when to sow and plant out tomatoes in your local area for optimum results.

Won’t you join me in a little investigating? What experiments have you tried in your garden?

THE QUESTION?

If my little daliance in silverbeet trials taught me anything, it’s that the first step is working out what you want to find out.

When should I plant my tomatoes for optimum yields and minimum fuss?

This is my main burning question, staring daggers at a miserable winter’s day I looked to my sow what when chart. I was desperate to start planting the warm weather beauties and it suggested as early as August. But the gardening gurus (Jackie French and Co.) shook their heads sagely from the gardening pages, they warned with furrowed brows: don’t get too hasty child! Don’t sow seeds too early at the first whiff of spring, you’ll end up with inferior plants, more susceptible to disease and pests, weak and sappy with lower yields and lesser fruit. Bah hum bug I replied, I’ll see it when I believe it! So the experiment was born.

I would also like to know:
Does sowing seeds early equal earlier fruit or do later sowing catch up?
When is too late to plant out?
Do tomatoes sown in my Plastic Juice Bottle Greenhouses grow better than those planted in pots/trays?
Can polystyrene wicking beds work for tomatoes or are raised no dig beds better?

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Thinning the tomato seedlings and mulching around them with coco coir.

Burying stems to encourage roots
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THE TOMATO

I’d like to tell you that I chose the Periforme tomato because it is the most delicious cooked tomato I have ever had and that it was to challenge myself as I find larger tomatoes more difficult to grow than cherry tomatoes. But the truth… I accidentally ordered two packets of these and wanted an excuse to use them. The above are a happy coincidence. This is a late season tomato and ideally I would have preferred to try a mid season variety, but when the internet shopping gods send you a sign, you have to go with it.

What: Tomato Periforme Abruzzo
Why: Good slicing or cooking tomato
Where: Diggers Club Heirloom Seeds
When: Each month 3 seeds per container, 12 total (germination rate 86%). Once the first set of mature leaves appear I can then choose the strongest from each container thinning out the straglers. I then mulch around the remaining seedlings with coconut coir to retain moisture.
How: 4 Plastic Juice Bottle Greenhouses, placed in polystyrene boxes on north facing verandah. The polystyrene box helps insulate the seedlings against weather extremes. The mini juice bottle greenhouse provides enough room for the seedlings to grow until they are ready to plant out without requiring transplanting, which tomatoes really don’t enjoy.

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When they reach 20cm they are ready to plant out, but as I started sowing early it will still be too cold so I add another juice bottle layer and fill it with homemade potting mix up the first set of mature leaves, burying the baby leaves. Roots will form along the the buried stem.

TRUE SPRING RESULTS

Bottle greenhouse Germination:
August Periforme – 14-17 days
September Periforme – 12 days
October Periforme – 11 days

As the days got warmer the Periforme tomatoes germinated much faster.

Comparison Germination:
August Purple Russian – 19 days
September Beam’s Yellow Pear – 13 days
October Valentine – 14 days

These tomatoes were sown in trays then transplanted into newspaper pots/milk cartons 7cm wide and 12cm deep. They were left uncovered on a north facing verandah. The August tomato was much slower to germinate, the others only a day behind.

Although it would have been much more accurate to compare Periforme with Periforme, a girl’s got to have some variety!

End of October
August Periforme already 20cm tall and ready to plant out but the weather is still too cold. Built the soil up around the stem. I wondered if I should have attempted to plant out the August tomatoes now instead of waiting, by next month their stems will be so long it will be difficult to plant them out without damaging them. September Periforme quickly catching up to the height of the Augusts and look like they will be ready to plant out in November as well. I wondered if I should have bothered with the August planting at all. We shall see what the yields reveal.

Garden

SOWING TOMATOES

April 7, 2013 4 Comments

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PERMACULTURE & GARDENING
BY THE DESERT ECHO

The what when and how of planting tomatoes in temperate climates.

The beauty of the crop rotation system is that it really forces you to unlock the secrets of each plant family. A delicious puzzle to solve to attain the next level. The humble tomatoes story unfolds, its original form was tiny golden orbs from Central and South America. Coined solanum lycopersicum “wolf peach” and imported to Europe as ornamental plants that people actually thought were poisonous! What a waste! These tomatoes would have been even more packed full of vitamin C, beta-carotene and antioxidants than their contemporary descendants!

So which tomato seeds should you choose?

HEIRLOOM SEEDS

Anything that begins “Distorted and weird…” is a must have! By now we all know heirloom seeds are best. They are the juiciest, most colourful and delicious – the antithesis of the perfectly round, tastless supermarket variety! And when you read the packet they have the best descriptions and let’s not kid ourselves that the blurb is what gets us everytime.

DETERMINATE OR INDETERMINATE?

Will your tomato live out its days in a 35cm diameter pot or will it free range it in the garden?

If the answer is a pot then a determinate variety is the way to go. They stop growing once they fruit so they are shorter, fruit earlier and are harvested all at once.

If you have the space I’d encourage indeterminate varieties because they have higher yields. They will keep producing for months if the sun doesn’t fry them or frost kill them. These are the older and wilder varieties, they scramble, they climb, but if you train they upwards they won’t take over the whole garden. And if they do, then it’s really not such a bad thing.

EARLY, MID OR LATE?

If you have ever experience the frenzy of bottling that occurs when all your tomatoes fruit at once then you will know the importance of planning. Working out when your tomato varieties are likely to be ready for harvest means you will not become a slave to the tomato sauce production line and suffer the inevitable deflation of tomatoes giving up the ghost in unison. My little collection will keep me in a steady stream of tomatoes from High Summer through Early Winter with a single sowing in True Spring. If things look patchy I will just take some cutting in High Summer, but no more sowing is required.

Days to harvest are taken from time of transplant. If you have only a short growing season where the days are consistently above 10C then consider only plant early-mid varieties. Sow 6-8 weeks before planting out, early planting is essential as later plantings will have less time to bear fruit and can often fry in the hot summer sun. I sow in September to plant out in November.

DAYS TO HARVEST

Early: 45-65 days
galapagos, gold dust, kotlas, stupice, swift, whipper snapper
Early-Mid: 45-85 days
anna russian, break o day, eva purple ball, golden dust, gregon’s altai, indian river, jaune flamme, snow white, thai pink egg, tigerella, tiny tim, wild sweetie
Mid: 65-85 days
beam’s yellow pear, black cherry, broad ripple currant, brown berry, burley gem, camp joy, campbell, cherry roma, costoluto de marmarle, earl of edgecombe, earl’s faux, golden gourmet, golden sunrise, green zebra, harbringer, kellogg’s breakfast, livingston’s golden ball, manapal, mary italian, nebraska wedding, new big dwarf, olomovic, perron, pineapple, pink ping pong, principe borghese, purple russian, red pear, riesentraube, rose quartz multiflora, schimmeig creg, soldaki, stor gul, sutton white, taxi, tommy toe, tropic, valentine, wapsipinicon peach, white beauty, wonderlight, yellow perfection
Mid-Late: 65-105 days
amish paste, arkansas traveller, black krim, black russian, bull’s heart, cherokee purple, druzba, german johnson, green grape, grosse lisse, lemon drop, mortgage lifter, oxheart red, oxheart yellow, pink brandywine, ponderosa pink, red cloud, red russian, reisetomate, rouge de marmande, san marzano, verna orange
Late: 85-105 days
beefsteak, blue ridge mountain, debarao, german gold, granny’s throwing tomato, hillbilly, periforme, tasmanian yellow

plastic-juice-bottle-greenhouse-propagation

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When seedlings grow their first set of true leaves it’s time to thin out the weaklings!

SAUCE, SALAD, SLICING OR STUFFED?

This is the final consideration and perhaps the most important. Choose a diverse selection of tomatoes so that you won’t get bored. I grew way too many stuffing tomatoes one year and just ended up using them in salads and whilst they had lovely robust skins to be filled full of delights they really didn’t stand up on the taste front.

Cherry
Wild Sweetie, Beam’s Yellow Pear, Riesentraube, Red Fig, Christmas Grapes, Brown Berry, Broad Ripple Yellow, Mexico Midet, Gold Rush, Sweet Pea, Sugarlump, Tiny Tommy, Yellow Pygmy, Lemon Drop, Cherry Roma
Salad
Tommy Toe, Tigerella, Black Russian, Wapsipinicon Peach, Purple Russian, Green Zebra, Speckled Roman, Jaune Flamme
Slicing
Black Krim, Grosse Lisse, Mortgage Lifter, Big Rainbow, Brandywine Pink, Costoluto Genovese, Periforme Abruzzese, Hungarian Heart
Sauces & Pastes
Amish Paste, San Marzano
Stuffing
Schimmeig Creg
Dwarf Tomatoes (Determinate)
Principe Borghese

Finally time to get dirty. We’ve chosen a selection of early, mid and late tomato seeds and worked out how many we need to plan, but how many do we need to sow? Formula for success:
Number Plants Required x (3 seeds x 2 milk cartons)

THE NURSERY

Tomatoes don’t like transplanting, moving house too many times is jut too stressful! Milk cartons allow enough room for them to grow until they are ready for the garden bed and then all you have to do is pop out the bottom and plant. This saves you the hassle of pricking out delicate seedlings as well. You know I am all for minimising work and maximising dozing in the sun! You have provided them with food, water and warmth now it’ just about maintaining the balance.

Place them in a spot that gets direct early morning sun, but as the days get hotter protect from midday and afternoon sun. You may need to move them into a sheltered spot if days are climbing towards 30C. Somewhere near a high thermal mass wall that gets morning to noon sun and then is sheltered is ideal as tomatoes need heat more than direct sunlight.

SOWING STEPS

1. Calculate number of pots/milk cartons required
2. Fill the folded cartons up to the top with homemade potting mix
3. Use a small square bottomed pot to firm it down to prevent sinking
4. Fill the space left with Seed Raising mix and firm this down too
5. Place 3 tomato seeds per carton in a triangle shape 30mm apart for ease of thinning later
6. Cover with seed raising mix to a depth of no more than 2 x seed size.
7. Firm this down gently
8. Water with cold chamomile tea to encourage germination and prevent dampening-off, gently sprinkle or mist to avoid washing seeds to corners of cartons
9. Place in a container filled with 20mm of water. This will wick up through the soil and keep seeds moist, no need for top watering
10. Place Plastic juice bottle with bottom cut off over the carton to keep heat and moisture constant

NOW UNTIL PLANTING OUT:

1. Keep water in container topped up
2. Adjust position for optimum warmth/minimum frying
3. Once they have germinated add a little mulch such as coconut coir around them to stop the soil drying out.

Now’s your chance to indulge in some ruthless destruction!

Once the first set of mature leaves appears thin each carton to the strongest plant, if you have ever saved tomato seeds you stop feeling so sentimental, one tomato will give you seeds enough for years to come. Simply pinch the tops off the lesser seedlings (no need to pull them out and disrupt the soil) Grow these on until they are ready to plant out (8-12 weeks) and choose the best specimen and give the lesser back-up away (shh..don’t tell they’re getting the runt of the litter).

PESTS

If snails are a problem drill small holes in the top bottle and put its screw top lid back on, but otherwise that’s most of the hard work done.

I needed 9 tomatoes for my raised garden bed. (2×9=18 cartons)
Galapagos – 45-50 – Cherry
Valentine – 70 – Cherry
Wild Sweetie – 70 – Cherry
Beam’s Yellow Pear – 70-80 – Cherry
Purple Russian – 70-80 – Salad
Schimmeig Creg – 70-85 – Stuffing
Amish Paste – 70-90 – Sauce
Mortgage Lifter – 80-90 – Slicing
Granny’s Throwing Tomato – 90-100 – Salad

THE OTHER SOLANACEAE

And what of the other solanaceae? They seem to be getting ignored.

The key to crop rotation is that plants that share the same family often have very similar requirements. The tips for sowing tomatoes can be followed for both eggplants and capsicums. Chillies are perennial plants in our garden so left out of the crop rotation. Potatoes exudate something from their roots that stunts tomatoes growth and they in turn make potatoes more suseptible to blight so potatoes have been banished from the bed.

I sowed 4 cartons of mini sweet capsicums for 2 plants and 2 cartons of little finger eggplants and 2 of florida market for 2 plants.

Happy growing!

Garden

BASIL & AMARANTH

March 20, 2013 7 Comments

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PERMACULTURE & GARDENING
BY THE DESERT ECHO

True Spring Tomato (Solanaceae) Companions
Why do tomatoes and basil make the perfect pair?

When I think of summer it’s the smell of tomato leaves as you brush them aside to pluck their fruit paired with the heady scent of basil. Once, starring at the perfection of aged purple gum leaves on parched red earth I wondered if colour harmony must be some instinctive response derived from the natural world around us: pale green saltbush against golden sand, pink blossoms waving in a clear spring sky. If this were true, perhaps taste harmony is also based on what natural grows well together in the garden. Just as the colours of a butterfly delight, think of how basil is simply perfection on a tomato pizza or on top of a pasta sauce!

Some things are made for one another – tranquility triumphs within a balanced garden.

BASIL

My favourite basil for colour is the purple ornamental, but sweet basil is the tastiest. This grows up to 45cm towering over the 15cm compact bush basils. It has been reported that basil helps tomatoes resist disease and actually improves the flavour of tomatoes it grows near, I can’t confirm this, but it certainly does attract bees if you let it flower. Be warned though, once your basil flowers it is the end, pinch those blossoms off as soon as they appear to extend the life and taste of your plants. A pesto of old basil tends to taste like grass and if you’re wondering that is as ghastly as it sounds. It repels aphids, white-fly and fruit-fly; if you leave it on a windowsill it can help yours well as the tomatoes warding off houseflies and mosquitoes.

AMARANTH

Amaranth rises through a sea of green with crimson, purple splashed or yellow foliage, rising up to 60cm. Leafy amaranth is eaten like spinach and grain amaranth dazzles with sculptural plumes. Fast growing, drought tolerant with few disease problems itself it is said to be a good companion for eggplants as it repels insects. Tomatoes become more resistant to harmful insects and potatoes have greater yields. It also loosens the soil for plants that come after the solanace rotation such as beetroot, carrots and radishes.

Berry punnets reused for seedling propagation
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lime-basil-germinated-seedlings-baby-leaves

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Simple cut and fold the cartons for a sustainable, free draining, biodegradable seed raising pot.

PROPAGATION

Both these plants like the tomatoes they assist require warm weather to flourish and shouldn’t be planted out until the maximum daily temperature is reliable over 10C (November in Melbourne). In True Spring, I plant them in discarded berry punnets to keep them warm, with a tray of water underneath to keep them moist.

When they show their first true leaves I gently move them into a milk carton. Many people transplant their seedlings into milk cartons with both the top and bottom cut off, but after too many seedlings falling out the bottom before their time, I decided to fold the bottom in.

Then I place the folded carton this inside a bottle greenhouse with water in the bottom half allows them to thrive despite the cold. When the temperature is right simply unfold the bottom and plant directly in the ground without disturbing the roots.

This year the warm weather seemed to come late so I sowed a second batch of basil and amaranth in High Summer as a backup.

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