I’ve just finished my stock lists of seed and plants that will be available to visitors to my Brisbane garden’s Open Day this Mother’s Day weekend! SURPLUS PACKET SEED SALE: $2 per packet: https://jerrycolebywilliams.files.wordpress.com/2024/05/packet-seed-2024-for-website.pdf SURPLUS STOCK PLANT SALE: as priced: https://jerrycolebywilliams.files.wordpress.com/2024/05/surplus-plants-sale-may-2024-copy.pdf See you there!
Category: Bellis
Bellis Open Day 2024
The annual Open Day at Bellis in subtropical Brisbane will be held this Mother’s Day Weekend, 11-12th May 2024. Bellis is now twenty years old! Over 500 different climate-appropriate plants grow at Bellis for food, medicine, pesticides, to support biodiversity, including climate change-ready ornamentals.
Jerry’s Jaboticaba Jam Recipe
When jaboticaba (Plinia cauliflora) fruit, they do it abundantly. I enjoy eating fresh fruit whole, which takes a little practise. Jam is a great way to preserve your bounty.
Arrowroot vs Comfrey Trial – Which Is Better For Growing Biomass In A Warm Climate?
In a trial in subtropical Brisbane, I found that Queensland arrowroot (Canna edulis) requires 1/5th of the water to produce twice the biomass of comfrey (Symphytum x uplandicum).
Brisbane Skips Winter. Again. What To Sow Now In The Subtropics?
In the last week of July, my garden was behaving as if it was already spring. Five weeks early. Four chilly blasts, each lasting for two or three days, seems to be all we need to anticipate in a 21st century Brisbane subtropical winter. Of course, there are winners and losers. Fruit fly is a winner; my first tomato to be damaged by their maggots was on 1.8.20, almost eight weeks earlier than anticipated. Alleged subtropical apples are losers; while these cultivars may tolerate less winter chilling than other apple cultivars, their needs are not being met and the return is poor. But corn is a different story – it is a climate change winner.
First Flowering Of The Mount Delaikoro Hibiscus, Hibiscus bennettii, In My Garden.
It’s always a special moment when something new flowers for the first time and it’s something every gardener should enjoy. I’m quite chuffed to produce a flowering specimen of the Mount Delaikoro hibiscus, Hibiscus bennettii, from a cutting in under ten months and to have it first flower in a Brisbane winter.
Bellis Website To Become Part of Australian National Archive
The State Library of Queensland and the National Library of Australia to copy, retain and provide public online access to the Bellis website the online publication of Bellis, Brisbane’s award-winning sustainable house and garden under the Copyright Act 1968 in the PANDORA Archive. The public will have online access to this website through the Australian Web Archive at the National Library of Australia which shall preserve it and make it available to the public in perpetuity.
Sixty Things To Sow Or Plant In The Coastal Subtropics In Mid-Winter? I’d Like To See That…
Now the mid-winter solstice is behind us, days are cool but lengthening, ideal for sowing watercress, dwarf beans and snow peas. The best news is there’s a long list of delicious food plants that can be sown now for your spring menu. Here’s sixty to get you started. Just think of all those recipes you can use them in!
FAQ: To Buy Or Make Compost?
Anyone can buy compost in bulk. But these products are often highly variable and sometimes even unsuitable. The traditional alternative is to sow green manures and to make your own compost. If you need bulk compost, consider the sandwich mulching technique. You’ll need a soil pH Test kit and, ideally, get your soil laboratory tested to check for nutrient deficiencies and contaminants.
Gardening Together As A Family: People, Plants, Place, Community.
In recent years, families who garden together have become the most prominent visitors to my annual Open Day. It’s delightful seeing these gardening families, because that was how I started life: in an English family that gardened and holidayed together. Planning, harvesting, saving seed, cooking, bottling, gathering materials for gardening were activities we did together.
Fast Food: Self-Sown Vegetables Are The Quickest Meal You’ll Grow
Fast food: By learning how to recognise self-sown edible plants in the garden, you’re on the way to the quickest free meal you’ll grow.
Sweetpotato: Combat The GM Yellow Rice Scare Campaign While Feeding The Poor
You may be aware that Gene Technology multinationals are on the media warpath claiming that communities are wrong to oppose their new GM yellow rice, an artificial plant invented with higher amounts of Vitamin A than normal rice as their contribution to help combat malnutrition of the world’s poorest people. Think again.
Between 2013 and 2019, UK Aid funding allowed the International Potato Centre and partners to deliver pro-vitamin A-rich, sweetpotato cultivars to more than 2.3 million families in five African countries and Bangladesh.
Jerry Coleby-Williams 