After the storms that hit Brisbane yesterday you might expect that I could give watering a rest for a while. Continue Reading →
Tag Archives: Queensland
In Flower Today
Brisbane‘s subtropical winter comes to a happy, floriferous end in mid-August. Today there’s around a hundred different plants flowering, two weeks before Australia’s official first day of spring.
A Magical Day in Brisbane
There wasn’t a dry eye in Customs House last Saturday when Professor Alan McKee and Anthony Spinaze were married. Following four years of courtship, the couple declared their love and commitment to a hall packed with close friends, relatives and chosen family. Continue Reading →
Scrub Turkey Trouble
Question
Hi Jerry,
I have just moved to Byron Bay and have a bush turkey problem. Do you have any clues as to what I should do to get my veggie garden going?
Me and my veggie-head friend in Sydney love your work,
Vicki Continue Reading →
Marigold Magic
Question
I love the smell of Stinking Roger, but my neighbour says it’s a weed to get rid of. Please do tell me what use I can make of it.
Kelly, Facebook
In Production Today – June 2012
There’s just 112 different types of edible available right now, less than in late winter, since many crops sown are still juvenile.
Winter in Brisbane is perfect for mushroom growing on the cheap. In cool conditions, mushroom fly (Lycoriella sp.) ceases egg laying, so its maggots don’t riddle mushrooms with holes.
Green Potatoes: Are They Dangerous?
Question
“My question is about eating potatoes that have gone green.
I have cautioned at least 3 times over the past 18 months my local supermarkets who mark down the bags of green potatoes to sell. I am fearful the very people who would go for such a bargain are the poor & uneducated who do not realise the harm these could do to an unborn baby.
I checked out my concerns via the CSIRO site & they seem to back up what I say. But even so everyone else thinks I’m crazy. I won’t buy green potatoes myself; my concern is for other who unwittingly does so not knowing they can be harmful.
Am I right to go on complaining at the point of sale?”
Christine
Adelaide, South Australia
In Production Today
Red mizuna, Brassica juncea var. japonica
After a dry April in Bayside Brisbane, 152 mm rain fell during the 28th April. A good gentle drop with no gales, it filled the rainwater tank and the stormwater soakaway pit. Not a drop was wasted : the compost-rich soil lapped it all up. A banana burst into bloom and my winter greens are growing strongly.
Crop diversity is rising once more with 120 edibles available right now…
So You Want To Create A Community Garden?
A gardening friend is getting ready to breathe life into a neglected communal food garden, so I’ve sent him these notes I prepared for Gardening Australia.
In 2007 – 2008, there was a spike in oil prices. Since the bulk of food is produced using petrol-dependant technology (oil-based fertilisers and pesticides, petrol powered irrigation, harvesting, packing and transportation, etc) this price spike caused the cost of food to rise significantly. Suddenly the media discussed ‘food inflation’. Many conventional farmers started looking at fuel efficiency: ceasing the use of expensive oil-based products and oil consuming tasks.
In Production Today – March 2012
The ‘Jap’ pumpkin leaves are excellent for making a richly-flavoured curry…
March is generally when summer productivity slows and diversity decreases in my garden. But pawpaw have surged ahead, jute and all the basils are brilliant, and I’m picking the last plump figs. Rats beat me to my first two autumn pineapples…
Rather like my strawberries, I’m waiting for the nights to become a bit cooler before my next move. Probably next month I’ll be sowing quick growers, like Asian greens, to pick in late autumn. It’s far too warm, wet and humid to risk sowing early winter crops, like tomato, even though seedlings are on sale everywhere.
