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leafrootfruit

🐔 When it comes to my chickens, the grass is al

🐔 When it comes to my chickens, the grass is always greener. Well today, they found that out. I moved them into my orchard.

🚜 My chickens have a tractor. This is a mobile coop and combined with an electric fence netting system, means that I can rotate them around to different parts of the garden. Chickens are great at helping with pest control (no codling moth larvae or mouse is safe) and they leave behind their nutrient rich manure.

🌱 The recent move into the orchard is to reduce the amount of understory plants. The self-sown silverbeet, lettuce and beetroot are getting a bit out of hand. Grasses, cleavers, chickweed and other volunteer plants also provide plenty of fodder for them to pick at.

⏩ In three weeks, I’ll move the chickens on to the second half of the orchard. Normally I move them after only two weeks. But the flush of spring growth at this time of the year means they need a bit longer to keep up with it all.

🎃 Once the volume of vegetation has been reduced then I’ll plant my crop of pumpkins in between the rows of fruit trees. The pumpkin vines will sprawl as a living ground cover underneath the fruit trees and act as a mulch to help retain soil moisture.

🐤 Integrating chickens into your garden can be tricky to get right. You can have too much of a good thing. In my recent post on this topic, I outlined some of the methods I use to ensure that I get maximum benefit from my chickens with minimal negative consequences.

📖 Read it here
➡ https://leafrootfruit.substack.com/p/integrating-chickens-into-backyard-orchards

🥚 For now, most of the chickens will decide they would rather lay their eggs in the jungle of long grass than in the nesting box. The kids and I will be entertained with a daily egg hunt!

#chickentractor #backyardorchard #egghunt #kyneton

🥕🌱 I’m noticing self-sown carrots popping

🥕🌱 I’m noticing self-sown carrots popping up all over the garden. That tells me that right now, conditions are perfect for sowing carrots.

☀🌧 The soil is warm enough to stimulate germination, but also there’s also enough rain fall to keep the soil moist.

Germination of carrot seed can take three to four weeks in cool soil. It needs to be kept moist during that whole time. If the seed bed surface dries out even for just a few hours, then much of the seed is likely to fail. Keeping it moist may require you to water several times per day in warm weather. I prefer to sow my carrot seed in spring, it’s easier to keep the seed bed moist at this time of the year.

It can be tricky to get carrot seeds to germinate, but don’t be tempted to skip this bit and go straight for purchased seedlings. Transplanting carrot seedlings usually results in damage to their tap root, and this leads to forked or twisted carrots. It’s a waste of time. Selling carrot seedlings should be illegal.

If you get cracking and sow your carrot seed now, you’ll likely to be able to start harvesting carrots around Christmas time, or just after.

📖 Want to know more about growing carrots? Check out my How to Grow guide
➡ head to my Substack to read it

#howtogrow #homegrowncarrots #selfsown #phenology

🤡 A fool’s paradise? 🔎 You might be notic

🤡 A fool’s paradise?

🔎 You might be noticing tomato seedlings in your local plant nursery or discount hardware chain. It’s mighty tempting to think that because they are stocked in the nursery that it must be the right time to plant them.

📅 In previous years, I’ve noticed that tomato seedlings hit the shelves as early as August.

🏉 For warm temperate areas, like Melbourne, I’d wait until AFL Grand Final weekend (end of September) at the earliest to plant my tomatoes into the garden, but mid-October is best.

🏇 Cool temperate growers, like myself and everyone else in Central Victoria. You’ll need to wait until at least early November to plant (after Cup Day). But mid-November is better again.

📈 The benefit of delaying planting is highlighted by my Fool’s Garden experiment that I ran last year. Early planting of tomatoes leaves them to stagnate. They’ll soon be overtaken by later planted tomatoes which go on to be far more productive.

👀 Check out my Fool’s Garden experiment here and understand why it is important to hold your horses, for now.
➡ https://www.leafrootfruit.com.au/early-spring-planting-fools-garden/

❓ When do you plant your tomatoes? (Please include your location in the comment)

#foolsgarden #tooearly #tomatoseedlings #holdyourhorses

Wood chip mulch, spring bulbs, grass, edible fores

Wood chip mulch, spring bulbs, grass, edible forest gardens, wormwood, rambling pumpkins… the list of potential options for what to plant or place underneath your fruit trees is almost endless.

I use different options in different areas of my garden. Get the lowdown of the pros and cons for each in my recent post.

➡ Head to my Substack to read it

❓ What do you put or plant under your fruit trees?

🤩 Jeepers… some of the asparagus spears that

🤩 Jeepers… some of the asparagus spears that are coming up at the moment are absolutely huge. If you’ve read my post on growing asparagus then you’ll know that I have a few different beds planted as experimental strategies for growing fantastic asparagus. All of the big, fat and tender spears in this image came from one bed in particular.

❓ What’s the secret?

🧬 Genetics.

👑 These plants were planted as crowns from feral asparagus plants that had self sown as weeds (Listed as Bed 1 in my blog post). There have been hardly any spears from Bed 2. The few spears that I have harvested have been short and spindly.

🫘 As with most vegetables, choice of variety is the most critical aspect for success. The seeds that you sow, or the cultivars that you grow matter. More than anything else.

📖 Read more about my experimentation with asparagus in my How to Grow Guide:

➡ head to my Substack to read it.

#homegrownasparagus #gardenexperiment #edibleweeds #seedselection

Long time followers may remember my trials and tri

Long time followers may remember my trials and tribulations with Spike the Echidna. Last spring and summer the juvenile echidna kept getting itself into all sorts of trouble. It tunnelled its way into the chicken coop. It kept digging in the garden chasing ants. But the most frustrating moment was when Spike tunnelled into my potting mix.

When I conducted my potting mix trial, many years ago now, I found that Nature’s Soil was a great product that performed really well. I use it in various practical activities during my workshops, and my workshop participants find out how amazing it is. They want to use it too. It’s hard to track down (this product is mainly used by the horticulture industry but not widely available via retail). So I try to have a pallet or two of the potting mix available for workshop participants to purchase.

Earlier in the year, Spike decided that it would go looking for ants or termites in my potting mix. At the time, I thought it had only damaged two or three bags towards the bottom of the stack. However, as investigated further, I realised that Spike has tunnelled right through the pile of potting mix, completed a U-turn and come back out a via a different route. Over a dozen bags of potting mix were ripped open in the process.

So I began putting this spilt potting mix to good use when propagating seedlings for spring planting. But now another creature has decided that it really likes my potting mix.

Spotted Pardalotes create nests by excavating tunnels into earth. Dam banks and piles of soil are usually fair game. Well, now a pair are trying to nest in a bag of potting mix. There’s only about a quarter of the bag left. After I last used the bag, I wrapped it up to prevent wind blown weed seeds from finding their way in. but somehow the pardalotes have found a way to gain entry and are busy building their nest. Ironically this is one of the bags that Spike has already tunnelled through.

The pardalotes can have it for now. There’s plenty more of Spike’s damaged goods to use in the meantime.

🌸 Longtime readers may remember that last sprin

🌸 Longtime readers may remember that last spring my apricots had hardly any blossom on them. It led to a citizen science project via social media and it turned out that my trees weren’t the only ones taking a year off.

🥳 Well, the good news is that the apricot trees are more than making up for it this year. They are covered in blossom.

🐔 However, this is no time to be counting chickens. There’s still a long way to go before I can enjoy apricot abundance. Apricot trees are not overly resilient (apples, pears and nashis are far more reliable in cool temperate climates). So much could go wrong with my apricots between now and January, when the fruit should ripen:
🐝 Poor pollination
💮 Blossom rot
💔 Snapped branches
🧟‍♀️ Gummosis
🟫 Brown rot
🐀 Rats
🐛 QLD Fruit Fly

⛈ So, compared with growing say apples, it’s a bit more challenging to ripen and harvest apricots in this part of the world. The weather plays such a large role in apricot success. The past few years have been less than ideal and I’ve hardly picked any fruit since the trees were planted. I’ll be crossing my fingers that the rain will fall at just the right time and in just the right amount to enable a bumper harvest of delicious fruit from my apricot trees this summer.

❓ How's your apricot trees looking this year? Have they covered in blossom?

📖 Read more about my apricot issues in my September planting guide and garden update

➡ Link in bio

#apricotblossom #backyardorchard #springblossom #beesknees

⏳ Is spring early this year? 🌸 As of the fir

⏳ Is spring early this year?

🌸 As of the first of September, in Australia it’s now officially spring. And spring has certainly spung. Many of my stone fruit trees are blossoming. The nashis are also about to bloom. Every year I see social media posts of stone fruit blossom accompanied by claims that spring is early this year and it’s no different this spring. However, my data shows that some of my fruit trees are flowering earlier than other years, and a few are flowering a bit later. I’ve been reviewing blossom dates for six of my stone fruit trees for which I have the best long-term data records.

📊 This table shows some of my fruit tree flowering dates for the past five years. The last column shows how this year’s blossom relates to the average of the previous four years. A negative figure indicates early flowering, a positive figure indicates later than average flowering.

📉 The overall trend for 2024 is that the stone fruit trees are blossoming a bit on the early side, but not by much. I’m surprised at how averaging the flowering date for multiple trees like this makes the pattern overall so consistent year after year. That is, when you look at a bigger data set, flowering seems to occur at around the same time.

🍎 I’ll look forward to crunching the numbers for the apple blossom later on in October as I have a bigger data set for apples.

❓ Has spring sprung in your garden?

#phenology #earlyspring #gardenrecords #gardentrend

💨The wind. Gosh I hate the wind. I can garden i

💨The wind. Gosh I hate the wind. I can garden in the rain (I’m not a paper bag). I can garden in the heat (the hotter it gets, the more active I become). But the wind drives me bonkers.

🌬 Once the wind starts howling, there’s no escaping it. It smashes me in the face, tears at my clothing, and like a ruthless older sibling poking their finger within an inch of your face, it screams into my ears “I’m not touching you”, but it may as well be. It’s an invisible force that exerts incredible influence. It seems like nothing will sit still in the wind. The branches of big trees are whipped into a frenzy, and being in close proximity to the foliage can feel like being in a washing machine. Small potted plants topple over and roll around. Nothing stays put, blossoms are ripped from trees, leaves swirl and dust gets in my eyes. I hate the wind.

🎣 Of course, the wind is not all bad. Some Indigenous cultures believe that the wind is a cleansing force. (That said, many of those same cultures make an exception for the dreaded east wind, which is considered evil. Many fishermen will agree, saying “Fish bite the least when the wind is from the east.”) Wind is useful for wind-pollinated plants such as sweet corn. It’s also great for reducing humidity and therefore limiting the impact of fungal diseases in the garden.

📅 Regardless of your take on the wind, it’s here to stay for a while. September in southern Australia marks the start of the winds. They’ll continue to blow and howl fiercely and frequently for the next seven months. I hate wishing time away, but I’m already looking forward to autumn and some respite from the wind.

❓ For me, it’s the wind, but what’s most likely to bring a halt to your gardening and send you scampering indoors? The wind? The heat? The rain? All of the above?

https://leafrootfruit.substack.com/p/september-2024-planting-guide-garden-update

#ihatethewind #windyseason #kyneton #weathercalendar

🌸 I love spring. I love watching the garden eco

🌸 I love spring. I love watching the garden ecosystem wake up. First the plants emerge from their winter slumber, followed by a slow but steady increase in insect life. I’m enjoying watching the dragonflies that are currently zipping all around the garden. The birds are getting busy breeding, fuelled by the new flush of protein-rich insect life. The mammals, such as my garden resident Spike the echidna, start becoming active. Finally, the reptiles crawl and slither from their winter hidey holes. It’s almost time to start watching my step in the garden.

🌱 This is an exciting time of year for my fellow southern hemisphere gardeners. It’s a time to start planting the summer vegetable crops. (But hold your horses on those tomatoes for a while longer yet – there’ll be no Fool’s Garden for me this year.) I love the blossoming fruit trees and I have high hopes for a huge harvest from them.

🐝 C’mon bees, get to it please!

📖 Check out my FREE monthly garden update and planting guide:

➡ link in bio

#gardensofkyneton #springhassprung #melbournegardens #gardenupdate

🌸 It’s spring and that means it’s time to g

🌸 It’s spring and that means it’s time to get planting summer vegetables. For Melbourne based folks, it’s still a bit early to start planting tomatoes into the garden. I reckon AFL Grand Final weekend is the best time to plant out tomatoes in Melbourne.

🌱 In the meantime, there are plenty of other crops you can consider planting. Check out my spring planting guide for more information on what to grow and how:

➡ Head to the Leaf, Root & Fruit website to read it

#springplanting #melbournegarden #whattogrow #vegetablepatch

👋 Well hello there, you’re a bit early.

🍓 I wasn’t even thinking about the prospect of strawberries this early in the season.

🐦This one is growing on a plant outside of my netted enclosure. It doesn’t have any protection from birds, but even they are not watching for ripening fruit. The fact that it was so well hidden probably helped me to beat them to it.

😋 It’s only one fruit, but I’ll gladly take it thanks, before the kids, birds, slugs and other marauders find it.

📖 Read my guide to growing strawberries
➡ Head to the Leaf, Root & Fruit webpage to find it.

#gardentreasure #BeatTheBirds #homegrownstrawberry #backyardberries

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