Gardening Tips

As children we look for the end of the rainbow because we are told about the folkloric pot of gold under it. However, when it comes to the real benefits of rainbows, look no further than your back yard. A garden of rainbow coloured foods not only provides fabulous colour, it also provides many health benefits .

You'll be loving your plants and producing a lot less landfill waste if you follow some of these simple tips for using kitchen waste in your garden.

Now the heat has dissipated and you're ready to start thinking of winter crops, what should you plant?

Read on for my autumn planting suggestions for winter harvest

Do you really have a problem with pests in your garden or is that a beneficial insect? Find out more...

This article was first published in the Courier Mail CM2 on 19 October 2012

Choosing organic-Why would you bother?

This article first appeared in the Courier Mail in October 2012. Its still as relevant now as it was then. Read on for tips and hints on going organic

Home grown health with superfoods

Each time I venture into my local health food store, I’m amazed by the promises of health, vitality and endless energy provided by supplements in powder, capsule and liquid form. I often have a chuckle to myself over the ‘superfood’ supplements. Instead of buying them in tablet form, why not grow your own?

Are you unwittingly applying chemicals to your fruit and vegies that could lead to poisoning? Check out this article then check your garden shed.

This article first appeared in the Courier Mail in September 2012. Try some of these fun outdoor projects for your next holidays with the family.

If you live in the subtropics and find the summer too hot to grow anything, think twice. Here are the seeds and seedlings going into my urban backyard patch now.

That cut out pot protects them from sunburn for a week or so until the seedlings establish.

This article on growing food in shaded spots first appeared in the Courier Mail CM2 on Friday September 7 2012

What is it that makes your plants look white and dusty on the surface? Their leaves, starting with the oldest ones will start to look like someone has upended the Johnsons baby powder on them and they start to lose vigour.

It used to be that I could never grow snow peas successfully and I certainly found zucchinis difficult too. They always ended up with white leaves and would perish before we had a good crop. But things have changed.

If white leaves are blighting your zucchinis and snow peas, then I’d say it’s most likely that your plants have powdery mildew. It’s a fungal disease and the white part you see are the fungal fruiting bodies on the leaves. I like to think of this pesky disease as the plant equivalent of athletes foot. It’s easier to prevent than cure, but catch it early and you’ll clear it up and get a good crop from your plants.

Here’s how to prevent this disease:

For the best vegies herbs and fruit from your garden I recommend regular sprays of fertilisers to the leaves of the plant. These are called foliar fertilisers. We know that foliar fertilisers are taken up so much more quickly than soil applied fertilisers because they are only a few cells distant from the sap flow of the plant, especially if applied under the leaves. So, if your plant is looking pale green and a bit hungry, apply a foliar feed and see the difference.

My vegies get a weekly foliar feed and the seedlings about every couple of days.

Making your own foliar sprays is not hard. Read on for some suggestions

How To Get Rid Of Weeds Organically

Weeds are the bane of an organic gardeners life. We can't use Round up (Glyphosate) or other herbicides as they are not acceptable organic inputs. I’ve written about organic weed control in this section before.  But here I am revisiting with further helpful info for you. Organic methods of weed control include: Click here to read the full article

I am often asked at the workshops 'How do you know when to harvest your carrots?'

Well , I have just pulled out several huge bunches of baby carrots today, so click below to find out about when and how to pick/harvest your carrots.

What does it take to get juicy citrus and lots of olives? Linda’s top tips for growing citrus and olives in the subtropics

We spent part of the northern summer in Portugal and Spain where citrus groves and olive trees are an integral part of country life. The land dried and became more parched in the summer heat as we made our way to the south of Portugal and into the Algarve. Near the pretty town of  Silves, I explored olive and citrus groves, picked late season, warm and fragrant  citrus from the trees,  and as I had the joy of a kitchen, made sauces, juices and richly flavoured dishes that included the fruity flavours of  lemons, oranges and local extra virgin olive oils.

Embedded amongst the olives and citrus, I came to think about the care we should be providing for our citrus trees and the special things olives need here in the subtropics. Read on for my top tips for a good citrus and olive harvest.

I was interviewed for Matt Hayden column in the Sunday Mail recently. The focus was on growing your own berries. There's an in depth article below this one, but here is the article that appeared in the Sunday mail for your reading pleasure.  Remember he means Blueberry 'Biloxi' as my favourites!

Click here for the full article.

When you think that a baby can be completely nourished by his or her mother through breast milk, you begin to think about how a mum can consume enough goodies for two. No, I don’t mean just calories, I mean real food that was growing, swimming or walking around just a few days ago, not stuff that is full of numbers, fat, salt and packaged in a factory somewhere 12 months ago. That is not real food and it's laced with all sorts of things we don't need mums or babies to eat.

Many of the young mums I speak with recognise that organic food is grown clean and free of the harmful toxins found in conventional farming. They also find that it tends to be more expensive and this can strain a single-income budget. I suggest growing some or all of your own so that you know exactly where they came from and what’s been sprayed on them (or not sprayed in the case of organics).  

Read more about what you can grow to meet your daily requirements and those of your growing baby...

You may think I was referring to possums. Oh no. Something much smaller.

Mealy bugs are just the cutest looking, innocent and fluffy looking white  little things.

They are often found in protected spots on indoors plants, in the hidden parts of your palm fronds and on the isolated areas of shrubs, hiding from birds and other parasites.

This insect is closely related to scale insects, but instead of a waxy layer, produces a protective fluffy layer that looks like cotton wool. Remember last ezine I had info on scales on a fruit tree?  You can re-read that article here.

Mealy bugs, like all bugs, suck.  In a way, they are like the mini vampires of the plant world. They suck sweet plant sap from leaves and tender twigs and branches. Sucking the sap means that the plant is weakened by this sucking. Other diseases may also enter through the plant damage caused by the mealy bugs.

The females are prolific mothers, laying up to 100 eggs on your plants at each ‘laying’. The males exist only to fertilise the females and exist on love alone and may never eat a sappy meal at all.

The picture shows mealy bugs on a chilli plant.  While there are many sorts of mealy bugs, they do look pretty much the same.

So, how to control them?

Growing berries at home

Do you just love fresh raspberries, blueberries and blackberries? Mmmm even the thought of blackberries immediately takes me back to my autumn childhood days and going blackberrying with dad. The smell of warm blackberries was so mouth watering. Mum made our bucketloads of berries into jam, turnovers, pies and crumbles. So sad they are considered weeds in Victoria now.

However, you can grow your own berries of all sorts very successfully, even in pots. Here is my checklist:

Have you ever found these in your compost heap? Maybe like me, you have lost a whole batch of precious seedlings overnight in your raised bed?

You may have these delightful little (or big in this case) beetle larvae. They look like witchetty grubs, but are called Curl Grubs and boy, do they have an appetite.

Read on to find out where they are ok and where you definitely DON'T want them, and how to go about getting rid of them.