I’m waiting for the summer wet season to start. Until the rain arrives, there is little cloud to filter the hot sunlight. Thank goodness for old net curtains and shadecloth! I thought I would check my crops against those commonly grown in Vietnam. Despite the average weather, I have 114 different crops growing in my 300…
Category: Bellis
Footpath Gardening: To Boldly Garden Where No One Has Gardened Before…
Nature strip gardening can beautify streets capes, improving the retail sale prices of real estate. Reseach has proven nature strips provide valuable social and environmental services.
Public safety is vital. Plants in nature strips should not be spiny, caustic, toxic or allowed to overgrow, or cause trip hazards, impede wheelchairs, or block lines of sight. The effect should not be overgrown, full of litter or claustrophobic, it should be park-like.
In Production Today: My Subtropical Harvest Festival, May 2015
With 100 square metres of good soil you can feed a person all year round. That’s what my ‘Dig for Victory’ grandparents taught me when I was a teenager in London. Here in sunny subtropical Brisbane you also need a minimum of 7,000 litres of stored water, ideally 10,000 litres, to sustain that production through…
In Production Today, April 2015
Here’s my subtropical food garden’s current autumn menu. Plants marked with an asterisk are volunteers, that is they are self-sown. Currently I have 38 different volunteer crops.
Living With Mosquitoes In The Subtropics
Question: “Hey Jerry, we’ve found mosquitoes to be a real problem for us on the northside this year. An electronic device has been recommended, do you have any views on it?” Barnaby via Facebook Reply: Hi Barnaby, I had to adapt to living with mosquitoes when I moved to the subtropics from warm temperate Sydney in 2003. I’ve…
In Production Today, January 2015
Here’s my subtropical food garden’s current summer menu of 107 different kinds of root, shoot, leaf, petal, seed and fruit.
Rarity Is Commoner Than You Think
I own a critically endangered plant. It comes from Madagascar, an island degraded by human activity and peppered with endangered species. When I discovered the news that my Gerold’s Thornless Crown of Thorns was on the brink of extinction, I had a flashback to planning the Rare & Endangered Plants Garden for the Royal Botanic…
Thoughtful Gifts Influence Lives
Dear Sister, If you’re with Auntie Sheila when you get this message, remind her that for Xmas 1976 she bought me this book about woodland insects.
Sheila encouraged me to pursue my interest in nature, saying that a knowledge of pollinators is as important as a knowledge of fruit trees, and that knowing both is the perfect marriage.
Elephant Foot Yam: The Gift That Keeps On Giving
Elephant foot yam In 2013, I started growing Elephant Yam, Amorphophallus paeoniifolius. This tropical, forest margin-dwelling, winter herbaceous perennial root crop is native to India, SE Asia, New Guinea and Australia. Not content with being a curiously ornamental flower and a splendid houseplant, this is a pedigree native root crop – nutty-tasting and of high…
Extreme Fire Weather Warnings…And Gardening
The Bureau of Meteorology has just issued a Fire Weather Warning for southern Queensland, and the ABC’s Weather Reporter, Jenny Woodward, advises people to drink plenty of water. What can a gardener do?
Nanny’s Cabbage Companion Confirmed Caterpillar Killer By University Of Queensland
In London in 1975, my maternal grandmother, Dorothy Connor, had her best ever crop of cabbages, despite record-breaking drought. That year, she had grown landcress (Barbarea vulgaris) amongst her brassicas. Decades later, Nan’s recommendation to grow landcress with brassicas has been backed by scientific research at the University of Queensland. She would have been tickled…
In Production Today: October 2014
Brisbane’s warm, dry, breezy inter-season, sprummer, (the period between spring and summer) is intensifying, hastening the production of seed from winter crops. The seed of Ethiopian cabbage (Brassica carinata), Chinese cabbage ‘Tokyo Bekana‘, mizuna, flowering turnip (aka rapini, Brassica rapa var rapa ‘Cima di Rapa Quarantina’) and mustard ‘Osaka Purple’ have already been harvested.
Jerry Coleby-Williams 