Real World Gardener Podcasts

 THE KITCHEN GARDEN SUCCESS WITH CORIANDER Scientific name: Coriandrum sativum I mentioned before that certain herbs that look alike and again I find myself talking about another herb that confuses people.   Australians refer to the seeds and leaf as coriander but in the northern hemisphere, the leaf is sometimes known as 'cilantro.' Coriander is one of those herbs that people either love it or hate it. Do you love it?   Coriander leaves Coriander is easy enough to grow but being in the carrot family,(Apiaceae) its green leafy tops can look not only like other herbs, but other vegetables! My guest, Toni Salter in the podcast, calls it the 'primadonna' of herbs.  There are many things it doesn't like and without a second glance, coriander will bolt to seed giving you not much leaf at all. What causes it to bolt to seed? Soil is too dry Too little water at the right time. Poor or impoverished soil. Poor drainage in your herb garden. Temperatures too warm for it's liking. Temperatures too cold for

 SPICE IT UP     SAVORY VS THYME Often there’s a couple of herbs that look alike and even have similar flavour profiles. If you had them growing together in the herb garden, you may even confuse the two because of how closely they look to each other. Thyme is the better known herb in Australia, which from the 1950's was commonly used in soups, stews, scones and casseroles. For some reason, savory is not very well known in Australia, but it’s commonly used America and England. In England, and America, it's quite popular and in the US, winter savory is a key ingredient in the stuffing for the 'Thanksgiving Turkey.' If you rubbed both herbs without knowing which was which, you would most likely think they both were the same herb. Winter savory, unlike thyme, is not sold as a cut herb in the produce aisle of your supermarket. Confusingly there is a 'summer savory' which tends to die off in winter and usually not come back. Looking after both herbs With their tiny leaves, both herbs are adapted to the dry

PLANT DOCTOR FUNGUS GNATS These tiny flying things can swarm around your indoor plants but other than annoyance, are they killing your plants? Those tiny little flies that hang around your fruit bowl or indoor plants aren’t always that same thing.  Sometimes they’re confused with fruit flies, or even ordinary house flies, but none of those two are correct. Inevitably they’re up to no good but how to tell them apart? There are fungus gnats and fermentation flies.they are attracted to different things. Fermentation or vinegar flies tend to hang around the fruit bowl, especially if you've got overripe fruit because vinegar flies are attracted to sugars. Fungus gnats are smaller, flitting around erratically: the adults of which are attracted to moisture.the adults are doing much if anything to your plants other than laying lots of eggs, although there is evidence that they can transmit plant diseases. The larvae can be the problem because the feed on the roots of your plants. Fungus gnats -magnifi

PLANT DEFICIENCIES: Imagine this scenario, you’ve fertilised your garden with all the right stuff, having followed the manufacturer’s instructions to a ‘t.’ But still the plants look sickly, or perhaps a bit yellow, or they’re just not putting on any growth. Does that sound familiar? So what’s the problem? The first thing you need to do is a pH test on your soil-there's no escaping it. Why? The soil pH will determine the availability pf different nutrients to your plants.   Let's look at an example Looking at the chart on the right, it's immediately apparent that if your pH is higher than say pH7.5, then nutrients like iron start to taper off in their availability to the plant.   Then means your plant may start to show symptoms of iron deficiency. In fact, after pH 7.5, other nutrients taper off in their availability, such as manganese, boron, and more importantly, one of the macro nutrients being potassium.     Basic pH test kit   Ideally the ideal pH range that gardeners should strive for is pH 6

 PLANT NUTRITION UNPACKED Major Nutrients Have you ever asked yourself "how do plants take up nutrients when you spread fertiliser around them on the ground or dilute it into liquid ?" It's something that we gardeners do quite a lot of,  spreading fertiliser around that is, and probably don't give it a second thought until plants don't respond to all this nutrient load. What went wrong?  Firstly, the nutrients that you spread around are not directly taken up by the plants. Nutrients have to be what's called 'made available' to the plants and to do this, the soil biota or the microorganisms have to do some work. Water, soil and microbes are the three things that the plants need before plants can take these nutrients. So What Are These Nutrients? Macro Nutrients:   these are the highest rated nutrients that plants can’t do without. Nitrogen:Phosphorus:Potassium or NPK:  A selection of fertilisers Kylie's main mantra is NPK refers to shoots:roots;fruit The N component relates as Nitrogen, giving yo

Scientific name: Leptospermum lanigerum Common Name: Woolly tea tree Family: Myrtaceae Etymology: leptos, meaning slender, and sperma, meaning seed. lanigerum, is named using the Latin word for wool-bearing, describing the silky hairy leaves and hairy buds, shoots and young capsules. Height: 3m by 3m wide   Location: any soil in sun and will tolerate heavy shade. Frost hardy to -7C  Description: Dense shrub to small erect tree with persistent fibrous bark on larger stems, smaller stems shedding in stringy strips. Not all tea trees have green leaves, and this one has pewter grey or silver tiny leaves with typical 5 petalled tea tree flowers. May be limbed into a small tree. Light summer water though very drought adapted. Excellent background shrub or screen or large informal hedge.  Takes well to pruning as the leaves are tiny and the more you prune the bush will become more dense.    Listen to the podcast to find out more I'm talking with Adrian O’Malley, native plant expert and officianado

pt 4  Scientific name Eryngium ovinum Common Name: Blue Devil not the Sea Holly from norther Europe Etymology: Eryngium refers to Sea Holly and ovinum refers to sheep-apparently sheep graze on these plants. Family: Apiaceae-carrot family Height/width: 60cm-1m by 60cm-1m Description: Semi-evergreen perennial with green thistle-like foliage and unique feather-like blue cylindrical flowers during Summer. Dormant from Autumn through to late Winter. Long-lasting cut flower. Grows approx. 70cm tall x 40cm wide. When heavily if flower, the plant, not just the flowers turn blue. "By mid summer the flowering stems extend to 60 cm and a mass of crowded bright blue flowers is produced with long, spiky bracts to 2.5 cm in globular, thistle-like heads on rigid branched stems. " (from anbg.gov.au) In Adrian's temperate garden, the Blue Devil has not died down as it reputedly does in cooler climates. Grows in most soil conditions in full sun.   Listen to the podcast to find out more I'm talking with Adrian O’Malley, n

pt3  Scientific Name: Westringia fruiticosa Common Name: Coastal Rosemary Family: Lamiaceae (mint family) Leaves: green, with a covering of short hairs giving the plant a silvery tint . Leaves are up to 2 centimetres long, narrow and pointed and set closely in whorls around the stem. Westringia 'Grey Box' Flowers: Appear in my garden from September onwards with November seeing a main flush. Typical of flowers in the mint family either in white or pale mauve with a couple of reddish spots near the throat of the flowers. This is a bee guide for Aussie native bees.   Looks like rosemary but it isn't and Adrian regards it as the 'murraya' of the Aussie native plant world. Tough as 'old boots' seen hugging the cliffs and down to beach level, either prostrate or several feet high depending on situation. A useful garden plant that has been hybrised extensively. Westringia "Aussie Box' and 'Grey Box' is a great alternative to box hedging.   TIP:Adrian recommends use mechanical shears instead of electric or battery

pt 2 Silver leafed plants Scientific name:Rhagodia spinescens Common Name: Aussie flat bush; spiny saltbush Family: Chenopodiaceae Height: 0.5-1.5m  tall by 1.5-4metres wide. Flowers:January -April, tiny cream panicles, fairly insignificant.   Conditions: frost and mildly drought tolerant, best suited for temperate and semi-arid regions. Location: tolerant of soil types and will grow in full sun or dry shade. Uses: prune to shape as a hedge or leave to make a groundcover.    Quite a vigorous grower and hugs the ground so makes great habitat for native reptiles and small birds.   Ozbreed has a compact form makes a great ground cover and performs better if it is pruned annually or more often if a manicured look is desired.  30-50cm x 1m wide Listen to the podcast to find out more I'm talking with Adrian O’Malley, native plant expert and officianado  

 PLANT OF THE WEEK All About Australian Native Plants with Silver Leaves. Plants with grey or silver leaves are adapted to a drier environment because the colour of the leaf better reflects the sun than green leaves regardless of the size of the leaf.  This in turn means the plant uses less water for its functions.  There's usually more to the story as is the case with eucalypt trees having a thick waxy coating that makes the leaves look silver or grey in the first place. This waxy coating is added protection from the sun's rays. Eucalyptus perriniana Mature leaves are often different from juvenile leaves not only in shape and size but orientation. Mature eucalypt leaves hang vertically to reduce exposure to high levels of radiation and water loss.  Silver leaves don’t just have to be about small shrubs and ground covers, there’s some beaut examples of silver leafed gums. pt1 A Couple of Eucalypts with Silver Leaves. Two great silver leafed  gums were our picks:Eucalyptus perriniana and Eucalyptus cinerea

Garden Snips vs Secateurs You would think that gardening tools would have all the same name pretty much all around the world. What else would you call a spade ? Perhaps a trowel may have a few different names, but what about secateurs and garden snips? Are they the same thing? Secateurs are sometimes called  pruning shears or hand pruners . My Toolkit: Felco No8 secateurs  Secateurs can be bypass style, where the cutting blade passes a curved non-cutting 'anvil.' Secateurs can also be anvil style where the cutting blade cuts into a 'anvil.' Good quality secateurs will cut easily, feel comfortable to hold and spare parts are able to be purchased. Secateurs are used for the  'green' wood on plants cutting easily up to the diameter of a person's fingers. Garden snips ( bottom of picture) are closer in appearance to scissors, with two cutting blades. Unlike scissors, they have a spring to make repeated cutting of plant material easier. Garden snips are best used for trimming off spent flowers on plan