Recycling is good, except when it is car tyres being up-cycled in food gardens. Permaculturists often misguidedly include tyres in ‘earth ship’ designs. What could possibly go wrong?
Category: Uncategorized
Saying farewell to organic seed imports and goodbye to Australian food sovereignty?
I’ve signed a petition to the Federal Minister for Agriculture and Water because Australia is a party to the UN’s International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. I oppose government quarantine cost cutting because it directly restricts access by growers to the genetic diversity of crops, and denies business and consumers the…
My avocado fruit look sick. What to do?
It’s avocado season in Australia and Vietnam. Anthracnose disease can significantly affect the yield and quality of avocado fruit. It’s worst in warm, wet, humid, calm weather. Irritatingly, the symptoms of disease become evident when it’s too late to protect your current crop, but once the fruit are harvested, you should begin a disease control…
Tour Choice South Island Gardens of New Zealand with Jerry Coleby-Williams, Oct – Nov 2017
Grab your camera and join gardener and conservationist Jerry Coleby-Williams on an eleven day tour of choice gardens of the South Island of New Zealand while Middle Earth is looking its best this spring.
Wallum And Kwongan: A Very Australian Paradise
Heathland is a general term for a gardenesque plant community found in parts of Australia where conditions are too tough for forest. In NSW, heathland is associated with sandstone, while Queensland’s Wallum heath (named after the Wallum Banksia, Banksia aemula) occurs on coastal sand. Kwongan is Western Australia’s version of heathland. Kwongan also occurs on various…
Picnic On Lion Rock: Sigiriya, Sri Lanka’s Ancient Garden Palace
“Come as tourists, return as friends” said Sujee, our guide. The summit of Sigiriya was a 1,000 step climb in the western sun, but the reward was stunning views of one of Asia’s oldest landscapes. Also known as Lion Rock, Sigiriya is a fortified palace-garden-complex similar to South America’s 15th century Machu Picchu, only the…
In Production Today: Subtropical Winter
In June I was on a gardeners’ tour of Vietnam, great fun, but I returned to a lot of weeding! This winter has been mild and damp with just two cold snaps so far. Ideal conditions for weeds and watercress are not ideal conditions for snow peas, which prefer it cooler. Drizzle and humidity haven’t…
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.
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?
Community Rose Garden Brightens North Burnett
Just under 700 people call Biggenden home. In 1954 this country town, in Queensland’s North Burnett region, 339 km north of Brisbane, established a community rose garden along its main street. It became a symbol of civic pride. Roses do not live forever, and eventually the rose garden needed refurbishing. I was contacted by Council, and…
In Production Today, September 2014
Spring is over in my garden. Winter crops are flowering – my garden is transitioning into its seed saving phase.