We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land - the Awabakal, Worimi, Wonnarua, Darkinjung and Gaewegal people - who have been caring for this Country for thousands of years. |
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May Newsletter 2024
Bumper Soil Edition May Field Day: Warners Bay Community Garden June Field Day: Adagio on Darkinjung Country Calendar Healthy Soil and Soil Testing Infographic Companion Planting for Healthy Soil Building Soil using Permaculture Principles Composting Week - All About Compost May Grower's Guide Pest Spotlight: Gall Wasp Seed Saving: Radishes
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A gardening message for all the mother figures out there - mothers, aunties, grandmothers, stepmothers, other wonderful people and to those mother figures who are no longer with us:
Happy Mother’s Day to the mothers who have the true ‘thyme’ management skills. Your love is like compost for our souls—it makes everything grow better, even if it’s a little messy sometimes. Thanks for helping us ‘weed’ out the unimportant things in life and for ‘planting’ the seeds of laughter and joy. May your day be as amazing as the mystery behind where all the missing garden gloves go!” ================= With all this rain around hopefully you have some gumboots or plenty of seed catalogues to enjoy. NOTE: We are having a couple of issues with our website automations at the moment, so if you receive a message and are unsure how to proceed, feel to email us. Melissa Fogarty
Newsletter editor |
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Saturday 18 May - Warners Bay Community Gardens Saturday 1 June - Meg McGowan's Property July - HOGS 45th Birthday Celebration, AGM, Purple Pear Farm August - Dianella Animal Sanctuary with LETS Saturday 21 September - Living Smart Festival We are continuing to firm up dates for the following months' field days. |
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Saturday 18 May 2024 Warners Bay Community Garden
10:00 Morning tea 10:30-12:00pm Tour of Garden and Q&A/talk on wicking beds, other features of garden 12:00-1:00pm Shared lunch 1:00pm - 2:00pm More time in the garden. Warners Bay Community Garden is a thriving, community led garden. There’ll be a tour of the garden on the day, and we’ll also have a wicking bed expert on site to answer all of your questions. As our climate warms, wicking beds will be an increasingly important tool to help us grow vegetables. There will also be other community garden volunteers there to show us how they manage the gardens and to share their knowledge! There’ll be a BYO shared lunch and a swap and share table. | | |
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Saturday 1 June 2024 Adagio with Meg McGowan and Graham King, Darkinjung country 10:00 Morning tea and start For this tour, Meg will provide a walk-through of the garden that includes an overview of the permaculture design system. She will explain how the regenerated bushland is critical to the health of their system, and how the natural pattern of a forest provides the template for every other part of the garden. Meg will also be demonstrating some practical propagation techniques that she uses to economically manage the garden and you will have the opportunity to pot up a cutting and take it home. | | |
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HEALTHY SOIL AND COMPANION PLANTING By Di Powell (HOGS Member) |
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Healthy soil is essential for healthy plants. A healthy, well-balanced soil increases plant resistance to disease for the plants grown in it. A good garden loam is one that comprises approximately equal parts clay and sand, and which has a high proportion of humus and organic matter distributed throughout. Compost combined with well-rotted bird and animal manure will adequately supply the organic matter and humus needs of most soils. Adding organic matter to soils as fertilisers, composts and mulches encourages microbes that attack plant pathogens and supplies nutrients to plants, keeping them vigorous and healthy. Many vegetables grow well with other plants in the garden and, using a few basic principles, organic gardeners can really have nature on their side in the biological control of pests. The most commonly documented companion plants repel pests when planted alongside vegetables. Other plants attract pest predators to the vegetable patch. Some plant roots secrete substances that repel pests or provide nutrients to the plants around them. These plant interactions can work in specific ways between two or three types of plant species. |
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Peas and beans add nitrogen to the soil. They trap nitrogen from the air with nodules on their roots. When these crops have finished producing you can dig them into the soil so that the nitrogen is available to the next crop. Being leafy vegetables, the brassica family (cabbages, broccoli, etc) require a lot of nitrogen to grow, so it makes sense to follow summer pea crops with winter cabbages that can use this free nitrogen source. The ecosystem approach. Using a wide variety of herbs and ornamental plants alongside the edible crops planted in the vegetable patch. |
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Some of those companionable plants are: Basil: helps repel flies and mosquitoes Borage: in the strawberry patch will increase the yield. Catnip: repels fleas, ants and rodents. Caraway: helps breakdown heavy soils. Chamomile: Gives strength to any plant growing nearby Chives: grown beneath apple trees will help prevent apple scab; beneath roses will keep away aphids and black spot. Elderberry: A general insecticide, the leaves encourage compost fermentation French Marigold: root secretions kill nematodes in the soil. Will repel white fly amongst tomatoes. Hyssop: attracts cabbage white moths, keeping brassicas free. Mint also repels white moth also Sage. Nasturtium: secrete a mustard oil which many insects find attractive and will seek out, esp. cabbage white moths. The flowers repel aphids and the cucumber beetle. The climbing type grown up apple trees will repel codling moth. Pyrethrum: Good bug repellent in the vegie garden. Rosemary: Repels carrot fly. |
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Rue: Plant around garden borders, keeps cats and dogs off, as does Wormwood. Tansy: Repels moths, flies and ants. Plant beneath peach trees, harmful to flying insects. The leaves help with compost fermentation. Compatible vegetables are: Beetroot: Onions, Lettuce, Cabbage, Silverbeet. Cabbage: Beans, Celery, Beetroot, Onions, Potatoes. Cauliflower: Celery Celery and Celeriac: Chives, Leeks, Tomatoes, Dwarf beans. Carrots: Lettuce, Peas, Leeks, Chives, Onions, Cucumbers, Beans Broadbeans: Potatoes, Peas, Beans Tomatoes: Asparagus, Parsley, Broccoli, Sweet Basil Sweet corn: Potatoes, Peas, Beans. Note: The top poster is a free download from Free Download: A Printable Companion Planting Chart - Food Gardening Network (mequoda.com) and the bottom poster comes from a collection of resources made by Afristar. This one is for purchase from their website: Educational Resources | Afristar Foundation |
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BUILDING SOIL WITH PERMACULTURE PRINCIPLES By Jesse Kelso (HOGS Social Media Coordinator) |
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On our recent field day to Limestone Permaculture, Brett gave us many ideas on how to keep our soils healthy. Below are some ideas on how to keep your soil healthy, from Limestone and beyond. Biological activity You’ll see the words ‘biologically active soil’ a few times here. What this means is organic matter. A soil that has enough organic matter has more microbes, more fungi, and more soil critters like earth worms. This plays an important role in plant health, as healthy soil has a symbiotic relationship with plants - the life in the soil will provide the nutrients the plants need while the plants will excrete sugars that feeds the soil life. This soil life can help make nutrients more available to plants. Raised bed levels dropping Many of us grow in raised beds for drainage, mobility reasons, or heavy metals in our soil. A constant battle is maintaining the soil level, as it inevitably drops over time. Brett showed us his method of ensuring the soil level stays high. It’s an in-situ composting method, where you dig into the outer third of your bed and place the soil onto the middle two thirds. You will then add biomass material into the trench you have dug, and then cover that biomass with soil and mulch. Importantly, you don’t plant into the outer third, although Brett did say you can plant lettuce on the very edge. The benefits of in-situ composting is that you can ensure there is biological activity in your beds all the time. Some may say you could compost the biomass and then place it on top, but the trouble with that is your beds could potentially lose that biological activity while waiting for the composting process to finish. It’s also easier than traditional composting. Remember, the biological activity is the number of microbes, fungi, etc. in your soil and these keep your plants healthy. I won’t go further into this, however, if you’re interested in learning more Matthew Evan’s book ‘Soil’ is a must read. The other factor to consider is the requirement of biomass. Brett grows Bana grass and comfrey across the property, which could be used for this in-situ composting. You could grow these too, or alternatively you could use garden waste and potentially even kitchen scraps (although that could attract vermin depending on how deep you buried it). Built in worm farms Brett has series of wicking beds across the property. Any wicking bed will be separated from the ground, so there’s no opportunity for worms or other important decomposers to enter the soil. To maintain soil life Brett puts a black plastic nursery pot into the middle of the bed and covers it with an upside down smaller nursery pot. In that pot he’ll place some half-decomposed compost. If you’re worried about there being no worms in your garden bed, you can add some worms from your worm farm. He showed that after a while the half decomposed compost is turned into vermicast, and the soil maintains that a high level of biological activity. Comfrey edges - a way of reducing your whipper snipping Throughout the property comfrey is growing along many of the edges. This acts as an effective weed barrier for grass and reducing the need to whipper snip each edge. I’ve read that lemon grass can play a similar role. If either the comfrey or lemon grass gets too big, you can chop it down and mulch the soil with it. Bana grass - a free mulch Mulch plays an important role in maintaining soil health as it can protect from temperature extremes and conserve soil moisture. It also adds organic matter over time, as worms and other soil life bring the decaying matter down into the soil. Mulch can be expensive and can travel long distances. Sugar cane mulch, a by-product of sugar production, often comes from far North Queensland. So there are financial and environmental costs associated with bringing it in. Bana grass, a common feature at Limestone, is a vigorous grower and if shredded it can provide a free and more environmentally friendly mulch. Chop and drop - free fertiliser Many of us marvel at Matt Lenton’s, aka the fruit tree fella, food forest on the mid-north coast of NSW. Especially so considering he doesn’t use any fertilisers. He feeds his system and his soil with chop and drop mulch. Matt grows crops that create lots of biomass, in particular bananas. This approach can be applied in your own orchard or food forest by growing high biomass plants and using chop and drop mulch. Comfrey, Bana grass, lemon grass, bamboo, Queensland arrow root and bananas come to mind. Follow him on Facebook for his tips and tricks on creating and maintaining a food forest (and check out his great range of fruit trees too).
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Flashback to Autumn 1997 This edition of HOGS' quarterly magazine has some great seed raising ideas, an interesting way to build a wheelbarrow and a lovely article about the Good Samaritan Donkey Sanctuary. | | |
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| | Radish Seed Saving # 1. Choose the plants that have the most desirable characteristics for your needs, eg. the best looking, good sized, not bolting early, etc | | |
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| | Compost Week 2024 Composting can benefit the climate in many ways: • Reduces the amount of organic waste that goes to landfill, which when disposed to landfill breaks down anaerobically and releases methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas with a global warming potential around 28 times that of carbon dioxide over a 100-year period. • Improves drainage and aeration in the soil. • Produces a nutrient-rich soil amendment. • Retains soil moisture and reduces plant diseases/pests. • Reduces heat island effect in urban areas. • Increase resilience to the effects of climate change such as drought and extreme weather | | |
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| | Gall Wasp The citrus gall wasp, is an endemic pest of citrus in Australia. Heavily infested trees are covered with galls of various sizes, from less than 0.5 cm to over 50 cm in length. Severe infestations can result in yield loss and a reduction of fruit size. The adult wasps emerge from galls in the spring. They mate immediately and lay eggs in new spring shoots, fruit stems, and leaf petioles. After hatching, the larvae burrow into the soft bark tissue and feed there in individually constructed cells until pupation. The area of a shoot with a concentration of feeding larvae swells as the season progresses and eventually forms a characteristic gall. The lifecycle is completed in one year. Recommended treatment Adapted from article linked below. Image credit: Love the Garden | | |
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| | Permaculture at the Pub First Thursday of every month Casual dining and chats with other like minded folks Join the Facebook group |
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| | Produce Share - 3 Rivers Hinterland (Lower Hunter NSW) Upcoming dates
10 August Seaham 26 August Medowie
Join the Facebook group |
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| | Click their logo to see their upcoming events |
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| | Click their logo to see their upcoming events |
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| | Click their logo to see their upcoming events |
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| | Click their logo to see their upcoming events |
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| | Blue Boat Farm - Click their logo to see their upcoming events |
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| | Click the logo for upcoming events |
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Current Committee Members President - Steve Griffin Vice President - Mike Lorraine Secretary - Gerda Maeder Treasurer - Tracey Evans Public Officer - Barbara Nudd Membership Officer - Melissa Fogarty Newsletter Editor - Melissa Fogarty Website Manager - Will Power Social Media & Publicity - Jesse Kelso Field Day Committee - Steve Griffin, Tracey Evans, Jesse Kelso, Chiala Hernandez Silva, Mike Lorraine, Helen Reynolds |
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