By Gail Thomas
Stephanie Alexander in a kitchen garden
Founder Stephanie Alexander wants to spread the word that applications to join the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden National Program are now open.
”We are actively looking for more schools and want them to know how flexible the program has become,” enthuses Stephanie.
“The program is affordable and flexible and you don’t have to start with a fully productive garden or a state-of-the-art kitchen. I think many principals get overloaded with information and it all seems too hard, and yet there is not a single teacher I can think of who is not blown away by the reality when they visit a school that is participating.”
The program has been embraced all around the country with 297 schools Australia-wide and around 35,000 children already enthusiastically getting their hands dirty and learning how to grow, harvest, prepare and share fresh, seasonal food.
For further information go to the Kitchen Garden Foundation
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By Gail Thomas
Medlars ready to pick in autumn
Medlars (Mespilus germanica) have been cultivated for centuries and are an extremely ornamental and useful hardy tree native to the south-east Europe and the eastern part of Turkey.
Single white, sometimes pink flushed unscented flowers in late spring and vibrant russet reddish-brown foliage in late autumn add to the eye appeal of the round flattened tan fruit with its indented calyx and crown of pointed sepal remnants. Fruit matures to a dark brown in late autumn to early winter. Continue Reading
Wes Fleming and Phillip Johnson with the Best in Show Trophy
The Queen in the award winning garden.
The team hears the news
They did it! For the first time in 100 years Australians have won best in show at the Chelsea Flower Show. I am so thrilled that Wes Fleming and his team have finally achieved the “Impossible Dream” and done so well. And I love the garden with which they won it. Phillip Johnson’s designs have been inspiring me for years, exuberant and original and even from a distance it was clear that these values shone through to the judges.
I have been lucky to have been kept up to date with emails on a mailing list from Wes’s mum, Dawn and she beautifully described their reaction to the win. Continue Reading
Article and photo by Gail Thomas, reproduced with permission from Good Fruit and Vegetable Magazine May 2013
Leonie Mills with her fruit art, carved for children
Along with mentoring secondary students looking at a future in hospitality, chef and owner of Jack & Jill restaurant in Geelong Vic. Leonie Mills was eager to inspire and educate even younger palates to the delights of fresh fruit and vegetables. “I wanted something that was fun for primary groups so I’ve developed a program ‘Leonie’s Fruit Art for Kids’,” enthuses Leonie who generously gives of her time taking the program into local schools. With local fruiterer Harvey’s of Highton supplying the ingredients, Leonie’s buffet of imaginatively carved produce including watermelon sharks, fruit salad trains, rabbits, ducks and floral arrangements immediately grabs the youngsters’ attention and in no time they are excited to try the array of new taste sensations.
By Penny Woodward
With great excitement I’ve been following the construction of the Phillip Johnson garden at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show. Once again (and apparently for the last time) Wes Fleming and Flemings Nursery is sponsoring and building a show garden at Chelsea. It is wonderful looking at some of the slide shows and video clips and seeing the passion and dedication of the whole crew, but of Wes Fleming and Phillip Johnson in particular.
Philip Johnson's plan for the Chelsea Flower show (from Fleming's website)
Phillip Johnson of Phillip Johnson Landscapes, has designed a garden that is a showcase of Australia’s natural beauty. It is crafted to demonstrate the seamless transition between house and garden, and aims to challenge conventional garden design while incorporating best environmental practice in urban surrounds. Key features of the garden include a substantial billabong fed by a series of waterfalls, cascading over a huge stone gorge, which forms a breathtaking foundation for an architecturally designed studio.
I’ve never been any good at growing sweet peas, so I asked my friend to write about them for me.
Article by Anne-Marie Strickland and photos kindly supplied by Dr Keith Hammett
Keith Hammett's Chelsea Centenary sweet pea
RELAX. You don’t have to do what the Vatican says, therefore St Patrick can safely be ignored on the matter of when to plant your sweet peas. And 2013 is definitely the year of the sweet pea, according to NZ breeder Dr Keith Hammett, who recently visited Melbourne.
Never mind that 17 March has come and gone. It’s a brave new world for lovers of the sweet pea’s inimitable scent, beauty and profusion. And much of that is due to a century-old misunderstanding that had we Aussies rushing to plant our sweet peas by Saint Patrick’s Day. You can sow them in Spring for a Summer display, and according to Diggers’ field trials they will stand up to our hot summers. Tim Sansom, the company’s CEO (Horticulture) says that with good planning, you can have sweet peas flowering for nine months of the year. To achieve this, you’ll need to sow short-day varieties in March, May, September and December; and sow long-day varieties in March, September and November. Continue Reading
by Penny Woodward
Rhys Benbow with his truck and sheep manure
The Gift of the Wooly Beast
In searching for the best manure to use in my garden I drew up a list of requirements. I needed to be sure that:
1.It was not full of chemicals like pesticides and worming agents.
2. It was easy to handle.
3. It hadn’t travelled too far to get to me.
4. It wasn’t full of weed seed.
5. It wasn’t too fresh.
6. It wasn’t too expensive.
The best result would be a nearby organic farm that was happy for me to collect the manure for free. Unfortunately that doesn’t exist in my area and organic farmers these days realise the value of their manure and either use it themselves or charge well (quite legitimately) for it to be removed. Local chook farms are not organic as the manure is full of the pesticides used to keep pests at bay, a definite no! I have used local horse manure, but always compost it first as I never know whether the horses have been recently wormed. Although horse manure has weeds, if I collect it locally, they will be local weeds so chances are I already have them in the garden. But last year I found an alternative solution. I discovered The Gift of the Wooly Beast (lovely name) and since then this product has been the only manure I have used in the garden. Continue Reading
By Penny Woodward
The striking blue flower of love-in-a-mist
A beautiful delicate-looking annual with feathery blue-green leaves, love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena) reaches about 40cm in height and despite it’s looks is surprisingly tough and easy to grow. It can be grown from the tropics (in winter) to cold temperate regions thriving in most soils as long as they are well-drained. Continue Reading
Article and photo by Gail Thomas
It looks as exotic and decorative as its name, is a hugely popular fruit in Vietnam and is now a familiar sight on greengrocers’ shelves in Australia.
Dragon fruit’s origins are in tropical central and South America, it’s a member of the cactus family and while there are red and yellow fleshed varieties of Pitaya, as it is also known, it is the white-fleshed Dragon Pearl fruit (Hylocereus undatus) also known as Thanh Long which is the most common variety available commercially. Continue Reading
By Penny Woodward
Diggers' pumpkins, gourds and chillis
We are so lucky to have such a good garden show in Melbourne, and an unsurpassed site in the Carlton Gardens and the Exhibition Building. I was there for four of the five days and don’t think I have seen so many people in previous years. There were some wonderful display gardens, fabulous floral displays and interesting gardening related commercial stands. Continue Reading
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