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…
Category: Food Security
23rd Bee Species Found At Bellis Identified
When I started my garden at Bellis in 2003, it consisted of Queensland Blue couch, fences and a house. Starting a garden completely from scratch is a rare opportunity for many gardeners. This was my first chance. I wanted to record the transformational effect of gardening sustainably. One way to record progress was a species…
Queensland Cucumber Mosaic Virus Alert
Cucumber mosaic virus is a threat to food security. Last year this highly destructive disease was identified on a farm near Bundaberg, and now it has been found on a Charters Towers watermelon farm. As a student at Kew Gardens, this was a case study, and we were drilled about implementing ‘on site’ quarantine procedures to…
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.
Cyclone Near Miss And Food Production, February 2015
As Cyclone Marcia gets downgraded to a Tropical Low weather system, my soil and crops have had a good soaking: 236mm in the past 48 hours. No crop losses so far – 106 different edibles available. Lucky conditions for my ‘Red Aztec’ corn and Jerusalem artichoke ‘Dwarf Sunray’, they’re just days from harvest.
Bunya: Prehistoric Plant, Ancient Australian Food Tradition
“Young Australians need to be educated about what a Bunya tree looks like, what the sound of snapping cones and breaking branches sound like, and to avoid lingering underneath them in high summer. When I was at primary school, we had a Bunya in the schoolyard. We knew what to do, how to harvest them, and no one was ever hurt.”
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.
Mangelwurzel Harvest
I imagine everyone is outdoors, harvesting their mangelwurzels (Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima) today like me. A friend is thinking about brewing mangelwurzel beer, they’re supposed to make a potent drop. Alcohol is not my strong point. Would a beetroot or turnip recipe work as a substitute? Can anyone point me to a recipe?
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…
In Production Today: November 2014
I am so glad I decided to use the heat, winds and drought of Brisbane’s spring and sprummer to my advantage: it’s ideal for producing a seed crop! As my Queen of the Night buds, 2014 is firming up to be the world’s hottest ever year on record. Brisbane’s fifth season, ‘sprummer’, has intensified into…
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…
Organic Win: Nematodes Defeated In Wynnum
Root knot nematodes can be a curse in warm, moist garden soils. Feeding by these minuscule, transparent, work-like creatures inside the root tissue of many crops causes the roots to develop tumour-like growths which retard the flow of water and nutrients through conducting vessels, weakening crops. What to do?
Jerry Coleby-Williams 