Gardening Australia episode 37 2022: Josh is keen to put his tools down over the summer holidays, so he shares his tips to keep the garden ticking over while he spends this time with family – and the cricket!
Sophie shows a creative way to light up your life and bring garden flowers and colourful leaves inside by creating pressed flower lanterns made of simple papier-mâché. Millie makes panettone; Jane tours two teachers’ garden; and we meet a glass artist, Clarence puts his spin on a Christmas song.
Gardening Australia is a popular Australian television program that focuses on gardening and gardening advice. It is broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and has been airing since 1990. The show is presented by a team of expert gardeners and horticulturalists, who provide tips and advice on a wide range of gardening topics, from choosing the right plants for your garden to dealing with pests and diseases. Each episode also features segments on different gardens and gardening projects around Australia, showcasing the diverse and beautiful gardens found in the country.
Australia is a diverse country with a wide range of climatic conditions, which can make gardening challenging in some areas. However, with the right knowledge and techniques, it is possible to create a beautiful garden in Australia. Overall, gardening in Australia can be rewarding and enjoyable, as long as you choose the right plants and use good gardening techniques. 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 37 2022
Set for Summer
Josh shares his tips to set up the garden to thrive over summer, so you can kick back and relax, knowing that it is growing fine without you. ‘As much as I love gardening, when it comes time to take a break at home—like over Christmas—it’s tools down. Even gardening takes a backseat to family, friends, and of course—test cricket!’
Water is the lifeblood of the garden, and irrigation through driplines and sprinklers can help keep it pumping particularly in Perth’s hot, dry, summer. To keep water up to all your plants without hand watering, it is crucial to ensure that your irrigation is working at all points in the garden. Josh is going to check the efficacy of his drip lines and give them a flush to remove any blockages that might be impacting it.
Apply organic wetting agent to soil to reduce chance of moisture stress, allowing the water from the dripline to soak in where it is needed. A layer of mulch over the top keeps the root zone nice and moist.
Josh also has pot sprinklers in most of the containers and pots on his deck and around the garden, as they can be tedious to remember to hand water and are very reliant on watering as they cannot reach the water table and can dry out quickly. Other pots on the deck and throughout the garden that aren’t covered by drippers can be watered in well and placed in dishes of water to prevent drying out.
Sprinklers are set up to water the lawn, which is prone to drying out in Perth’s hot summers. Josh hasn’t checked these in a while! Water is a precious resource, so it is important to ensure each drop is hitting the plants desired, and not the pavement.
Small holes and slumps in the lawn can be fixed at this time of year by topdressing with soil. Lawn grows super quick in summer so this will be covered up soon. Use an organic lawn fertiliser to feed your lawn as it grows quickly at this time of year, making sure to only use just enough to reduce nutrient run-off.
Christmas Lights
Being surrounded by plants doesn’t have to stop when you go indoors. Why not bring some of your garden inside with a pressed flower lantern. Sophie shows us how easy and fun they are to make.
Pressed flower lanterns are made of papier-mache and decorated with pressed flowers and leaves. They provide a soft light and cast interesting shadows on the walls of a loungeroom, bedroom or anywhere you want to create a cosy floral mood.
Vegie Variety – Gardening Australia episode 37 2022
Early spring, particularly in cool climates, is often seen as a gap in vegie productivity – winter brassicas are finished, and summer fruits are a while off. However, growers Grace and Dylan, aim to produce delicious and nutritious food all year round, so their customers, their time and their income aren’t reliant on a few months of glut each year.
“We propagate all of our seedlings here on site and we propagate nearly every single week of the year, which is kind of unusual. We don’t stop seeding in winter.” All the plants are grown from seed which have been carefully selected for their suitability to the site and high success rate. They continually “edit what we’re planting, different varieties that we’re selecting, based on all the different trials we’ve done” to find the most productive outcomes.
They now operate a CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture, model of food production and distribution that directly connects farmers and eaters. They have a set number of subscribed customers that receive a weekly vegie box with whatever is in season. Dylan says, “We were really looking for something really different to grow for our CSA members and for it not just to be salad and spinach and carrots every week. But really to kind of share with them some of things we were both really passionate about as well, being kind of unusual vegetables that maybe in another part of the world aren’t really unusual at all and are a huge part of daily eating.”
The Gift of Panettone – Gardening Australia episode 37 2022
Millie visits cooking and garden educator, Mara Ripani, on her home farm in Blampied, Village Dreaming. Mara is keen to share one of the most special traditions from her Italian heritage—the baking and sharing of Panettone, which is Italian for ‘big bread.’ This is a great recipe to preserve the spring glut of eggs into a delicious baked good that will keep for months and is perfect to share with loved ones around the holiday time. Thanks to Mara for sharing her recipe for sourdough Panettone!
