Hand-Pollinating Zucchini Flowers
Hand-pollinating zucchini flowers helps to ensure the maximum possible harvest – this photo tutorial shows you how to do it.
Hand-pollinating zucchini flowers helps to ensure the maximum possible harvest – this photo tutorial shows you how to do it.
Don’t spend hundreds of dollars on a store-bought tumbling compost bin – you can make one yourself for !
In our never-ending quest for more gardening space, I’m thinking of building some raised beds on top of the concrete in our backyard. A 2-foot-deep bed around the edge of the area wouldn’t impact our usable space much (we already have pots etc all around the edges), but would give us a fair bit of … [Read more…]
Back in late January, I planted potatoes across the front of our yard. We had recently built the terraced garden beds and filled them with dirt (clay lumps) and stable sweepings. Potatoes are a great way to break up lumpy dirt, rot down manures, and generally improve the soil. Last Friday, Megan and I dug … [Read more…]
60 Minutes recently ran a story titled Backyard Revolution, about the growing (pardon the pun!) movement towards backyard vegie patches. Finally TV stations are joining us in the 21st century, so if you missed it you can watch the story [here](http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=797223). The story featured one of Australia’s most-loved TV gardening presenters, Peter Cundall, talking about … [Read more…]
A tour of John Burgess’s backyard aquaponics setup, where he grows fish and yabbies in tanks, supplying nutrient-rich water to organic fruit and vegetables.
To celebrate its reprinting, Lyn Bagnall is [giving away](http://aussieorganicgardening.com/blog/?p=213) one free copy of her book __Easy Organic Gardening and Moon Planting__, along with 10 vouchers for $5 off the purchase price. All you have to do is email her and give your reason why, in 25 words or less, organic gardening/farming is best. You’ve got … [Read more…]
A green manure crop is really just anything you grow for a short while and then slash or dig into your soil before it gets a chance to set seed or fruit. Why would you do that? Lots of reasons! It helps by: – increasing organic matter in your soil (increasing nutrient content, aeration and … [Read more…]
Sometimes, it’s interesting to do a bit of background research on some of the plants and trees you grow. When choosing our mandarin variety, I did exactly that and found something with a little bit of Australian history to it. The mandarin I [planted a couple of days ago](http://green-change.com/2009/01/22/planting-out-fruit-trees/) is an Ellendale mandarin. It is … [Read more…]
On Sunday I drove up to the Wollongong Wholesale Nursery at Albion Park Rail to buy some fruit trees with my Sustainable Illawarra Super Challenge vouchers. The staff there were really helpful, and gave me some good ideas for the types of trees that would suit our needs for the front yard. I pretty much … [Read more…]