Gardening Australia episode 35 2021: Costa Georgiadis and junior guest presenter Caylee plant herbs; Millie Ross sows native seed; Clarence Slockee meets a couple who have created a market garden at home; Guest presenter Palisa Anderson visits a citrus nursery.
Inspiring, entertaining and full of practical advice, join Costa Georgiadis and the team as they unearth gardening ideas, meet avid gardeners and look at some of the most inspiring gardens from across the country.
Gardening Australia episode 35 2021
Productive Illawarra
Clarence meets a couple who have created a market garden in their backyard to grow food for the local community. In the temperate subtropics of the Illawarra, less extreme weather than many parts of Australia can make it the ideal situation for growing food all year round. And growing, sharing, and of course eating food is always an important part of bringing a small community closer together.
Sarah and Ben Anderson’s “backyard wonderland” behind an unsuspecting brick house on the edge of the escarpment, is doing just that. Rows and rows of crops interspersed with fruit trees and an artistic wooden shed with a green roof fill the backyard. They conserve the natural ferny creekway.
When they bought the “old school block in suburbia Woonona” in 2011, the yard was an “overgrown jungle” that had been in one family for a century with a history of market gardening and historic farming over their 4000m2 site. After removing tonnes of grass “we put in 35-40 fruit trees when we first moved in” including bananas, finger limes, Brazilian cherries, and figs, and “it’s evolved over the last few years” with the help from neighbours and friends all chipping in ideas, materials, and time.
The well-mulched crop beds use drip-line irrigation and are full of herbs, lettuce, silverbeet, edible flowers, onions, pumpkins, potatoes… currently pumping out up to 7kg of salad leaves a week! Sarah supplies local cafes with same-day produce and creates beautiful fabric-wrapped seasonal bunches of for a growing number of household customers each week.
Vegie Garden Sink – Gardening Australia episode 35 2021
Tino Carnevale upcycles a sink to wash vegies. Many gardeners will harvest their crops, then take them into the kitchen to wash – sending all their hard-earned soil down the sink, potentially clogging pipes too. Tino has a solution; a re-purposed laundry tub!
Tino’s laundry tub is in his patch. He uses his hose to wash the dirt off his freshly harvested vegies and the water and soil go down the drain, into a bucket he has placed in the cupboard below. Once the vegies are clean and ready to be taken to the kitchen, he simply removes the bucket from underneath and uses it on the garden. The water isn’t wasted, and neither is his precious garden soil!
Native Seeds Unlocked
Millie demonstrates some tricks to successfully growing a range of native plants from seed.
There are a huge range of plants that you can grow yourself from seed including lots of Australian species. From ephemeral wildflowers to towering eucalypts, most of them start in the same place – from a seed. There are so many good reasons to grow from seed – it can be a low-cost way to produce lots of plants to fill out a large space or to share plants with others. Growing from seed also increases genetic diversity in the garden and can result in variation in colour and form.
Insect Damage ID – Gardening Australia episode 35 2021
Jerry Coleby-Williams explains how to identify insect damage. It’s always worthwhile identifying the invertebrates in your garden. Not all of them will leave obvious clues, but if you use the time while you’re out in the garden observing what your creatures scuttle, creep, crawl and fly through your garden it can really pay off.
Jerry keeps a list and has found more than 500 animals visit his garden – most of which don’t need any control at all!
Planting Memories
Josh visits a couple moving from their garden after 40 years to learn about their love of their garden and each other. Gwenda and Ray Kensitt’s current home is surrounded by immaculately tended gardens – layered, dense, tropical, calming, peaceful and productive. The garden has been an integral part of the couple’s home as Ray describes. “The garden is our favourite room in the house, it means the world to us’. Gwenda agrees, adding that “this garden has been built with passion, with care and, most of all, love, over decades”.
Splashes of colour are provided by flowering plants including hibiscus, gingers and cannas, while frangipanis and bromeliads light up the brighter areas. Shape, form and interest is provided by the gnarled, deeply furrowed trunks of some WA Peppermint Trees (Agonis flexuosa), but the focal point of this area of the garden would have to be a spectacular Dragon Tree (Dracaena draco).