Grant Douglas's Garden Diary

Week 15: third week of April

This beautiful, autumnal weather seems to go on and on. At this time of year those few Tomatoes you have left in the garden or greenhouse become rather precious, because you know how much you'll miss them when they are finished. I spent part of today removing leaves and unwanted growth from the Tomato Plants in my greenhouse, making sure that the Tomatoes left get the maximum warmth and light to ripen them.

I also rolled over my yam plants which are starting to form tubers. If you don't keep the stems off the ground, they will produce lots of little tubers along the stems. Also because of the thick cover the stems make over the ground, they tend to keep the moisture out, so now is the time to be giving the yams plenty of water to make sure the tubers size up.

Very few white butterflys around at the moment, because of the cooler nights, but don't be fooled, the last generation laid plenty of eggs and so there will still be caterpillars on your brassicas, so keep up the control a bit longer.

Last week I said that this week I was going to write about 2 Bin Foodscrap and Garden Waste Composting, but I'm going to leave this for one more week so that I can write briefly about a pet hobby horse of mine and a major ingredient in this composting system - grass clippings.

Many books and spokespeople rubbish the idea of having a lawn and say it should be in food production. I don't agree with this at all. Your lawn is a huge resource. Harvesting the grass from your lawn is the cheapest way you can sustainably improve the organic level, and thus the fertility, of your food production areas. Most lawns do not require the inputs of artificial fertilisers, weed killers, irrigation, to produce a regular crop of material. This material is extremely high in nitrogen and thus will help you break down other materials with lesser nitrogen value e.g. sawdust (untreated), hay, straw.

If you don't have much lawn, what does your neighbour do with their clippings - do they dump them, do they pay to have them taken to the dump? Ask them if you can have them. I am fortunate in that I do some mowing for other people and so get a reasonable amount of clippings, and so I know how beneficial they are. Do not use clippings from lawns which have been sprayed for broadleaf weeds, as this can persist in the compost.

We'll talk about how to use the grass clippings in your compost next week, but the head change that is needed is to see your lawn as a huge resource, and not just a waste of space.

Sowing or Planting this week:
Brassicas - Cauli, Cabbage, Broccoli, Broccoflower, Brocoflower (remember to choose Spring varieties of these brassicas eg Wintercross or Flower of Spring Cabbage, Snowmarch Cauliflower
Garlic
Lettuce
Parsley
Perpetual Spinach (Plants only)
Silverbeet (Plants only)
Spinach (winter varieties eg. Hybrid No.7)
Spring Onions

Sow Direct:
Carrots (If you can get hold of seed of a carrot variety called Vita Longa - they can be sown now for spring production - they are not a particularly good colour, but are very slow bolting - just about at the end of time for sowing)
Chinese Cabbage and other Chinese Greens
Corn Salad
Mescalin Mix
Radish
Rocket

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