Tag: Queensland

Freedom 2014

To me, freedom is access to water – clean rainwater, harvested from my roof, and recycled water generated by my sewage system which I use to grow organic food.

Thrifty, Fertile and Illicit: 4BC Horticultural Intervention

So there I was with Noel Burdette, in the pre-dawn darkness of Brisbane’s Cannon Hill. Groggy but organised, and with only a smartly dressed security guard as a witness, we got stuck in. Long ago we’d decided that the front garden at 4BC Radio, home to the voice of Brisbane’s gardeners, needed a little buffing up….

Read More

In Production Today, March 2014

The most widespread recorded drought in Queensland’s history has meant most of my gardening effort continues to be spent on watering and soil improvement. At least I’m able to keep fruit trees productive and perennials alive. Beds which would normally be filled with seasonal annuals can remain dug, mulched and bare until useful rain arrives. But…

Read More

Favourite Flying Fox Food Trees: What To Plant

  Flying-foxes are flying gardeners, they sustain forests along eastern and northern Australia, pollinating native trees in national parks and reserves that have become separated or isolated by settlement. Flying foxes also spread tree seed, helping to landscape vast areas of Australia. Many forest-dwelling threatened species depend on these ‘batty’ forests to provide them with food…

Read More

Give a Tree Frog a home

We ran out of time on 4BC Radio’s talkback gardening programme this morning, and I was unable to answer this question. Q: when should I shorten my pawpaw and ‘cap’ the pruning wound?

Dry soil after the storm

After the storms that hit Brisbane yesterday you might expect that I could give watering a rest for a while.

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.

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…

Read More