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Duncan in the vegetable patch with a seedling

Published September 18, 2023 at dimensions 1024 × 732 in Five Habits of Good Gardeners.

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Snake or lizard? Who wants to pull its tail to fi

Snake or lizard?

Who wants to pull its tail to find out?

There was a great article in the @@guardianaustralia newspaper this week about snakes. The author, Calla Wahlquist is a Macedon Range local and I really appreciated her method for telling the difference between a brown snake and a copperhead: "...nearly step on it. If it strikes, it’s an eastern brown. If it stays still as you jump back, it’s a copperhead." We have mostly copperheads on the property and they are indeed so docile compared to the browns.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/dec/08/australia-snake-season-protection-how-to-prepare

I agree with the premise of the article, that there are far more snakes about this year than usual. Each day I come across several in the garden. But I don’t just think it is the warm spring behind the “snake plague”. The last few years have seen a rising abundance of frogs on our property and right across the area. Copperheads apparently eat (almost) exclusively frogs. More frogs = more snakes. Interestingly, the frog numbers seem lower this year. So I expect the snake population to drop again in another year or so.

What’s your take on it? Are you seeing more snakes than usual this year?

#snakeorlizard #macedonranges #watchyourstep #snakeseason

This is exciting. I’m often told that you can’

This is exciting. I’m often told that you can’t grow passionfruit in Kyneton, but this summer, I am one step closer.

There are dozens of flowers open on the passionfruit vine and some have already set fruit. Many more flower buds are developing and the foliage growth is explosive.
With a bit of luck, I will harvest our first homegrown passionfruit this summer. Here are a few tips if you’re wanting to grow them in a cool temperate climate like mine:

❄️ Choose a cold tolerant variety. I’ve gone with Nelly Kelly Black. It’s grafted, which means the plants sucker like crazy. However, I initially planted non-grafted ones and they died. Hopefully the abundance of fruit will offset the pain that is pulling all the suckers out.

⏰ Timing of planting is critical. I’ve found that planting in late spring allows the plants to establish before the onset of summer. The vines can grow all summer and harden off before the onset of winter. The frost still knocks them back severely, but at least they’ve put on enough foliage in the first summer of establishment to cope with frost and recover in the second spring. I initially killed quite a few plants planting at the wrong time of the year. Plant passionfruit at the same time you would normally plant tomatoes.

🌡 Select the best microclimate you can find. Mine are growing in my citrus grove against a water tank which provides thermal mass. The vines are protected by a tall

❓ Do you grow passionfruit? How is it looking this year?

🐞 Are you noticing heaps of ladybirds in the ga

🐞 Are you noticing heaps of ladybirds in the garden? They seem to be everywhere in my garden and everywhere else that I visit. I'm finding them crawling on me. They're everywhere in the house, usually carried inside on freshly picked leafy greens or other produce. The kids are enjoying collecting them to study, draw and create little homes for them.

I’m observing quite a few different species about, but mostly they are Spotted Amber Ladybird (Hippodamia variegata). This species has a black head, and orange body and a white collar in between. The Spotted Amber Ladybird is not native to Australia. It’s a European ladybird that was only introduced in 2000. It has spread widely over the last 24 years and is now dominating the ecosystem, at least in my garden anyway.

I’m not particularly fussed whether it is native or not. It’s here to stay. Each ladybird larvae can eat up to 60 aphids or whitefly a day. That’s a lot of great pest control that they can offer (it’s the only form of pest control in my garden). It’s likely that the mild spring allowed large numbers of aphids and other small invertebrates to breed up, this in turn has fuelled a big spike in ladybird numbers.

Check out my free, three part series on this topic for more information about pest and predator interactions. Learn how you can enhance your garden, so you don’t need to use sprays.

📈 Part 1: Pest predator dynamics and balance
https://www.leafrootfruit.com.au/garden-ecosystems-pest-predator-balance/

🐞 Part 2: Attracting beneficial insects into the garden
https://www.leafrootfruit.com.au/garden-ecosystems-attracting-beneficial-insects/

🌼 Part 3: How to turn your garden into a resilient ecosystem
https://www.leafrootfruit.com.au/garden-ecosystems-designing-resilient-gardens/

My to-do list this December: 🌱 It’s sucker s

My to-do list this December:

🌱 It’s sucker season. Citrus, passionfruit, fruit trees, hazelnuts and roses – I’m noticing suckers emerging from the rootstock of all of them. Keep an eye on the suckers and remove them before they take over.

🍎 Fruit thinning continues. I’ve done a first pass on my stone fruit, but I’ll keep thinning any damaged fruit, plus a few extras as they develop, with another two or three passes. I’ll be making my first thinning pass on the apples and pears this week.

🕸 I need to net the fruit trees outside of my netted enclosure. I’ve found that the first week of December is the last chance to net fruit trees. After that you can expect the cockatoos to descend with vigour.

🌽 Most of my vegetable crops are planted, but I’ll be sowing my final crop of sweet corn (my fifth successive crop) just before the red-suited man descends the chimney. There’s also a crop of snow peas to go in and perhaps a few back-up cucumbers, in case the dreaded mildew descends.

🥦 Melbourne folks and those gardening in warmer climates than mine don’t need to worry about winter crops for months yet. But this month I’ll be prepping beds for winter brassicas and will sow my first of three crops just before the end of 2024.

🌿 I expect the downpours of last week will encourage rampant germination of black nightshade and other annual summer weeds. Later in the month I’ll be busy weeding. Good airflow will be essential this summer to reduce fungal disease outbreaks. The last thing that I want is an avalanche of weeds swamping my precious vegetable seedlings.

🍓 Picking. Picking. Picking. Huge quantities of berries, handfuls of cherries, ripening tomatoes and possibly, maybe, if I’m lucky, the until now elusive apricots. Fingers crossed that the rain and humidity don’t affect them (or the cherries).

✂ I’ll be pruning my espaliered fruit trees. These need a light haircut to curb any vigorous watershoots and help establish the framework on young trees.

For more hints and tips, as well as an update on my garden, check out my FREE December newsletter (link in bio)

#plantingguide #gardenupdate #melbournegarden #kyneton

Wow, that was a lot of rain. Our tin roof was roar

Wow, that was a lot of rain. Our tin roof was roaring through the wee hours of the morning. It made it impossible to sleep. I gave up on trying and headed out into the garden to experience the downpour in all its glory.

At 7:15 this morning it finally eased and I tipped 58mm from the rain gauge. There’s water everywhere, which is incredible because we are on a slope, with very free draining sandy soil. We hardly ever have puddles. The tanks are close to full. Unfortunately some of the rain fell so hard and fast that it completely overwhelmed the catchment system and a lot of it ended up spilling over onto the ground.

We really needed that rain, after that last heatwave, the garden was looking rather crispy. This downpour has been a great reset. Although I'll be watching closely to see what fungal diseases arise from it.

My system of anti-swales worked well. The mulched has been washed out in one section, but it will only take a few barrow loads of mulch to fix it up again.

How much rain did you have in your part of the world?

If you are a pear grower, then this slimy little c

If you are a pear grower, then this slimy little critter is known as a cherry slug. If you are a cherry grower, then you’d call it a pear slug.

I get asked about managing this orchard pest all the time, mainly because it does make the trees look so incredibly unsightly. Gardeners can’t help but notice them and want to do something. But I'm not sure that they are such a big problem.

This week I'm noticing cherry/pear slug on my cherries, pears and quince trees. It seems ridiculously early for them to be about. They're not in huge numbers, and the damage is minimal thus far.

Are you finding cherry or pear slug on your fruit tree too?

Read my blog post for some ideas on what to do about them. Head to the Leaf, Root & Fruit Website to read it.

#cherryslug #gardenpest #backyardorchard #kynetongardens

🍅 Yee Ha! 🥇 The first ripe tomato of the se

🍅 Yee Ha!

🥇 The first ripe tomato of the season.

🎅 It’s from a greenhouse raised plant, not my Christmas Tomato Experiment plants. It’s also “only” a cherry tomato, not a slicer. But I’ll take it.

🐎 Broad Ripple Currant wins the race this year. My earliest ever ripe tomato grown in Kyneton.

❓ How are you tomato plants coming along?

➡ https://www.leafrootfruit.com.au/how-to-grow-a-christmas-tomato-without-a-greenhouse/

🍅 43 x Saucing tomatoes planted this morning by

🍅 43 x Saucing tomatoes planted this morning by 8am (I’m an early bird, and the trellis structure was installed earlier in the week). The insect netting provides a protected microclimate, so the plants came straight from the greenhouse and were planted without hardening off.

I use horizontal layers of sheep fencing mesh to support the plants as the grow. No need to stake or continually tie them up. This keeps them off the ground and makes it less inviting for the snakes to move in.

I’ve used this set up for several years now with great success. By April I will be picking many crates of tomatoes to turn into a year’s supply of passata.

❓ How are you tomato plants coming along this year?

🎡 It was Kyneton Show Day (@kynetonshow) on Sat

🎡 It was Kyneton Show Day (@kynetonshow) on Saturday. It's a big deal in the community and creates a buzz between locals as we vie to see who bakes the best chocolate cake or grows the best rhubarb.

🫛 Angus entered his home grown peas again this year. He grew them from seeds that he had saved from last year's first prize crop. Angus was determined to defend his title this year. He sowed the seeds back in the July school holidays and has tended a fantastic crop again this spring. He picked the pods himself and selected his best six to enter.

🏆Alas, first prize was elusive this time around, but second prize was still a good result. I'm really proud of his efforts to take full responsibility for a crop in our vegetable patch. This week we've been enjoying tasty peas in some of our meals. I think Angus is more proud to contribute to the dinner table than his prize at the show. Congratulations to @crjenniferanderson , who took out first prize.

👋 Peas are a great crop to introduce children to gardening. My two kids will sit in the vegetable patch for ages, carefully picking the plump pods and extracting the juicy peas to eat right there and then. You can easily save the seeds and replant them to produce the next crop. This allows children to experience the whole life cycle of the plant.

⏰ For both cool-temperate and warm-temperate gardeners, right now is a great time to plant snow peas. Any crops planted now should produce plenty of delicious snow pea pods in late January and through February, perfect for summer salads and back to school lunch box snacks.

📖 Check out my guide on How to Grow Peas for plenty of hints and tips.

➡ head to my Substack to read it.

#kyneton #prouddadmoment #howtogrow #givepeasachance

The last straw? I was recently reminded of the re

The last straw?

I was recently reminded of the reason why I try to close the loop and avoid purchasing materials such as compost and soil for my garden.

I run my composting workshop annually and usually I purchase pea straw, lucerne or vetch hay to bulk up the compost because grass clippings aren’t plentiful in August. I use these leguminous products because they are sensitive to and therefore a lower risk for herbicide contamination. A farmer is unlikely to spray a crop with a herbicide that it is sensitive to.

While collecting the vetch hay for this year’s workshop, I was offered some spoiled barely straw for free. I’m always up for a freebie, so I threw these bales onto the trailer as well.

During the compost workshop we set up a bioassay on the vetch and the freebie straw. This simple DIY test can be conducted at home to check for herbicide contamination and is a very useful skill to learn. The bioassay we set up is now reaching maturity and shows that the free barley straw is heavily contaminated with herbicide. These wriggly, curled broad bean tips are the main indicator.

I’m so glad that I haven't yet used the straw in the garden. That would have been a disaster.

It's not just contaminated straw that can introduce broad leaf herbicide to your garden. Animals can eat contaminated straw, hay or grass and their manure becomes contaminated. Composts and soils containing materials that have been treated with weed-and-feed products (such as lawn clippings or turf removed from sports ovals) can also be a source. The more I test for them, the more I’m finding these chemicals in garden soils, mulches, potting mixes and composts.

Head to my Substack to read how to conduct your own bioassays.

Has your garden been impacted by herbicide contamination?

In October 2023 I wrote about how my apricot trees

In October 2023 I wrote about how my apricot trees had suffered from the sudden flip from wet to dry in spring 2022, and the long term impacts on the trees. The good news is the trees have all overcome this problem and fruit set has been amazing this spring. Too good.

During November I’m going to gradually reduce the amount of fruit that each tree is carrying. I don’t want my apricot trees to become biennial croppers. This is where they produce an overabundance of fruit one year and then need to take the next year off to recover. General wisdom is that prevention is better than cure when it comes to biennial cropping, and fruit thinning is the best way to go about preventing it.

Thinning of fruit is an important task in November. This ensures good size and quality of remaining fruit (and helps to prevent biennial cropping). You are aiming to thin the fruit so that when it reaches full size it is not going to be in contact with another piece of fruit. Thinning should be completed over the next month. I do this in stages because the trees may naturally abort some fruit themselves.

Make sure that each piece of fruit that remains on the tree isn't going to come into contact with any other fruit as they swell to full size. Clusters of ripening fruit create habitat for pests such as earwigs. I've found that it is better to have less fruit on the tree, of better quality, than to have masses of fruit all damaged by pests and disease.

#fruitthinning #backyardorchard #apricottree #kyneton

🌸 An early spring trend? 📅 In September I p

🌸 An early spring trend?

📅 In September I posted some data showing the flowering dates of a selection of my stone fruit trees. The data showed that overall, stone fruit trees blossomed a bit on the early side, but not by much. The data set generated plenty of interest and I promised to share more data as the season progressed. Peak apple blossom has now been and gone in my garden and there are only a few apple trees with blossom left on them. Here are the numbers from a subset of the best apple blossom data, with a few pears thrown in for good measure. I’ve excluded trees with missing data points, trees planted in recent years, and trees with other issues with their data.

Looking at this data, two things become apparent:
🌳 Using an individual tree or event to indicate seasonal timing can provide misleading results. For example, if we took the data for tree #10 or #11 in isolation, then most years we would have a wildly different view of the timing of spring than if we looked at the data for the other trees. Averaging larger data sets provides a clearer picture of what’s going on.
📈 When we do look at a larger data set, we can see that overall, there’s not a lot of fluctuation from year to year but there is some difference (of up to 18 days) between an early and a late spring. This difference could be due to seasonal variation and climate, but also all sorts of other factors, such as me not paying close enough attention to flowering dates or natural causes beyond climate.

🍎🟰🍑 My pome fruit data correlates well with my stone fruit data to show that, yes, spring is slightly earlier this year than previous years. Most of my other observation records for insects, reptiles, and indigenous flowering plants are showing the same thing.

❓ What do you think? Was spring early, late or right on time this year?

Check out this post for more information on how to record your own gardening data
➡ https://leafrootfruit.substack.com/p/recording-garden-observations-garden-diary

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