December 2011 Newsletter

GREENS~LEAVES

The newsletter of the Dunedin Veggie Growers Club; issued monthly. Vol: 4.12 December 2011

Meetings are held on the second Monday each month at St Patrick’s Parish Centre, MacAndrew Rd, Sth. Dunedin starting at 7.00pm sharp (we ask you to arrive at 6.45pm to avoid a bottleneck )

Our next meeting is December 12th and the Main Event will be Unearthing the Potatoes in buckets.

President: Margaret Scott (489 2030) msscott@xtra.co.nz Treasurer: Lynne McCrone (4781195)

Secretary: Carol Henderson (454 4625) hendersonic@xtra.co.nz

Last Call!

We would love to have more company for our Xmas Dinner so here are the details again :)

The venue is “Nelly’s” at Hotel Taieri, 6 Gordon Rd in Mosgiel and the date is Dec. 10^th.The time is 6.30pm for 7pm and the cost is $40 for a sumptuous buffet meal and apparently dancing later!!. The committee has decided that we can afford to subsidise each paid up member to make it $32.50 each. Could you please let us (Margaret or Carol) know the numbers as soon as possible!

November meeting

It was refreshing to hear of the power of growing plants from Russell Dickson of Youthgrow. A big thankyou to Russell for agreeing to talk at such short notice and for speaking so well.

I hope you all received your magnetic calendar card with all of the meeting dates and vegetable competitions on it!

Change of format in December

The December meeting is always a bit different and this year you, the members, will be playing a bigger part than usual!!!

Apart from us all bringing our competition Potato in a bucket/container along for unveiling ,we have decided to forgo the usual Veg of the night talk and replace it with a Top Crop/Flop Crop session. This was requested by a member some time ago and this seems to be an ideal time for it. All that is required is for you to have thought about what vegetable has grown best for you in 2011 and which has been the least successful with maybe a few ideas on why!! Then come along prepared to tell us all about it in the same style as the Open Forum :)

The other difference is that it would be lovely if everyone could bring a plate of supper to celebrate Xmas and the end of another year!

December 12^th Meeting;

BrainsTrust/Open Forum – hosted by Dennis and Margaret

Club talk – Top Crop/Flop Crop

Potato in a bucket competition.

Announcements, seed sharing/swapping

Supper- Members please bring a plate

December Open Garden

Sunday Dec. 18^th 2pm at the Higham residence at 1 Newbury St in Company Bay, then on to the garden Shemansky’s at 1 Castlewood Rd. Parking is difficult, especially at Shemansky’s but it is close enough to walk from the first to the second….which is what I plan to do! Newbury St runs off Raynbird Rd and it will be necessary to park there and walk down to the house. I will endeavour to produce some maps :)

Car pooling advised from town.

Moon Planting times…

December starts with a sowing and watering period from 1^st to the 7^th followed by two days where it is best to apply liquid feed. Weeding and watering are the tasks until the 14^th/15^th when it is time to sow root crops then again on 21^st/22nd…plenty of chances left if your carrots have refused to come up!! Rest is advised from the 23^rd until 28^th

(excellent timing :) ) ….then another sowing period from the 29^th until the New Year.

There goes 2011 !

Library

Please bring back your library books so that others can have a turn. It seems to be sensible to limit the lending time to one month, or two if you forget! A reminder will be put in the newsletter each month to jog memories.

Internet Interests

Margaret shared this link from a fellow Vimby

( vegetables in my own back yard ) member :)

www.easy-veg.co.nz

…and I saw this on Facebook and was amazed!!!

www.ted.com/talks/britta_riley_a_garden_in_my_apartment.html?mid=541

Sales/Trading table

Just a reminder that produce can be sold at the sales table but the money does not have to go to the Club.

Lynne’s Talk Part Two

“My lightbulb moment arrived in the mail in the form of a magazine called “Growing Today” in which the write claimed she could grow all the vegetables for her family in a relatively small plot by companion planting – not just herbs and flowers but compatible vegetables., successional planting plus no spraying or artificial fertiliser. The theory being that everyone can achieve a permanently productive garden by having half producing and half ready to plant.

I tried her theory but it didn’t fit in with the Dunedin climate so I had to adapt and came up with the following system which works for me!

Have your permanently marked rows 50cm apart

to leave space for plant growth and mounding up.

Plant your seeds, seedlings etc and mulch between the rows with manure, damp sheets of newspaper then compost. An alternative is to grow a catch crop such as spinach to cut down and use as mulch. These methods reduce weed growth, keep moisture loss down and feed the soil at the same time.

When the growing crop has matured , harvest, than plant the next crop in-between the rows (where the mulch was). This can be the same crop, another companion crop or a mixture of vegetables which are then mulched between as before.

Using this system, in a plot 1.5m wide, I can grow 5 rows of Brassicas in one growing year (from Sept.2011 until Aug. 2012 for example) where traditionally only 3 rows would have been grown.

Plant 3 rows in Sept. for summer harvesting followed by 2 rows in January using the mulched spaces between the original 3 rows. If you choose to grow another crop in the rows where the brassicas were some compost and/or manure will have to be added.

It is quite hard to explain but successional planting works best with rotational cropping and companion planting…..for example;

A bed where peas or beans have been grown becomes a brassica bed next, nitrogen being available from the roots of the peas/beans you have left in the soil.

Adopting this system takes time and good record keeping. Every area of Dunedin has different temperature variations and every year different growing conditions so, if you record when the rain was too much or not enough and how it affected the crops, you will build up a bank of information on how to manage your garden. This will help you to plan ahead as you will know approximate maturity times (a bit longer than most seed packets suggest!!) and if you keep planting each month there will always be something to eat.

I plant a few new potatoes each month and have them to eat from Sept. through to March/April.

My best vegetable varieties are;

Carrots- Yates “Express Hybrid”, thinnings from Dec. and crop lasts until Sept.

Red Barn “Autumn Carrots” to harvest in Spring when brushed carrots are expensive.

Brocolli- “Legacy” in punnets. These produce one big head and then side shoots for months.

Cauliflower- Nichols Winter Cauli, sold in punnets of 4 but numbered 1-7 as they mature successionally. Best to share with friends.

-Chaser is good too.

Potatoes- Jersey Benne, Swift and Karaka.

The Tuck Open Garden

Around 10 of us had a warm and generous visit to Wayne Tuck’s very productive garden despite the rain and a brief struggle to find the correct house!

Wayne has spent a lot of time and energy improving the soil and you can see that it has paid off! His large green house was full of tomatoes and 3 grape vines which he tends carefully to achieve the best crop.

We were also treated rather well with a wonderful afternoon tea and photocopied moon planting wheels to put together ourselves so Mr and Mrs Tuck deserved, and got, a big thankyou from all who attended :)

Wishing you all a Fruitful Festive Season and looking forward to some great gardening in 2012!

Carol Henderson

Newsletter Editor

October Newsletter

GREENS~LEAVES

The newsletter of the Dunedin Veggie Growers Club; issued monthly. Vol: 4.10 October 2011

Meetings are held on the second Monday each month at St Patrick’s Parish Centre, MacAndrew Rd, Sth. Dunedin starting at 7.00pm sharp (we ask you to arrive at 6.45pm to avoid a bottleneck )

Our next meeting is October 10th and the invited speaker is Dick Turvey.

President: Margaret Scott (489 2030) msscott@xtra.co.nz Treasurer: Lynne McCrone (4781195)

Secretary: Carol Henderson (454 4625) hendersonic@xtra.co.nz

Action!

It is all go in the garden and the weather has been co-operating nicely….so far!

The September meeting was an enjoyable one with Bruce Bernasconi adopting a novel approach to his talk on Asparagus as had decided to use the “True or False” question with a number of statements. This proved very entertaining and well done for a nervous first time Club talk :)

Our invited speaker Bart Acres has spoken to us before so was a little less nervous and gave us a good grounding on what Otepoti Urban Organics is all about and the history of the seed saving operation to date. He had brought along copies of his brand new seedlist so that we could be the first to see it and explained the Adopt-A-Crop campaign which had worked well as it is easier to concentrate on one type of seed saving. I did this with Quinoa last season and enjoyed the challenge...especially since it turned out easy to grow and cropped well :)

Sadly the whole seed saving process has proved more difficult than first thought..... the main problem being contaminated seed or seed collected from just one plant. The contamination can occur when flowers of the same family of plants are flowering, whether it is in your own or a neighbours garden, as the bees do such a good job of visiting every plant and sharing the pollen around. Brassicas are very prone to this and Bart had gone to extreme measures to ensure his seeds were pure by growing them in isolation somewhere out in the bush!! He has since decided that providing a barrier of some kind around his flowering plants would actually be easier !

Saving the seed from only one or two plants reduces the genetic diversity.

Bart also explained some of the positive outcomes of his venture such as a noticeable difference/improvement in the 3rd to 4th season crops grown in Dunedin, that more people were growing veges sucessfuly and lots more learning and sharing of knowledge going on .

He gave us some important tips;

Freeze the dried out seed to be saved to kill any insects.

Partially ripe seeds can be ripened by pulling up the whole plant and hanging upside down under cover if the weather is going to ruin them.

October 10^th Meeting;

Club talk – Lynne McCrone will explain her crop succession method J

BrainsTrust/Open Forum – hosted by Dennis and Andrew

Invited speaker – Dick Turvey

Competition – Any Brassica

Announcements, seed sharing/swapping and Supper

Open Garden

I received two accounts of the recent open garden as I didn’t go so thankyou Dennis and Margaret :)

Despite the RWC causing havoc in the city (and competition as well) 14 club members attended the open garden, hosted by Dr John Bulow at Osborne. Considering it was a long drive and a non-members garden, this was a good turn out.
A lot of effort has been put into creating a garden, where the topsoil is very thin and then gives way to heavy clay. Top priority has been to use as much mulch as possible piled high, all except some pea straw being produced on site. A second priority is irrigation. Two reservoirs have been excavated on the fairly steep slopes and water is gravity fed slowly into the mulch beds. The available garden area is quite large and the plan seems to be to pile mulch high rather than scatter wide, so that the garden spreads slowly as the mulch matures. Pukekos have been a problem.
Regards,
Dennis

Garden visit. The garden was a no dig and John said heading towards a forest garden with all the food trees already planted and those waiting to go in I can see what he means. I liked the no dig aspect and all the straw was the only thing added to the garden other than the compost they made themselves. The potato patch and garlic planting I never got to see as I did not realise until later it was further up the hill. I enjoyed how the next generation were experimenting with the way they were planting things to see which way of growing worked better. A whole garlic bulb planted and then split, and planted separately after sprouting as well as a whole bulb left all sprouting together, and then the traditional individual cloves planted in the 300 lot. A lot of self seeding and I loved the pond watering system. Just not enough room at my house for all that!. Marg

Club members enjoying Dr Bulow’s open garden.

October Open Garden

Dennis is giving this another go at 14 Panmure Avenue, Calton Hill on Sunday 16^th Oct. at 2.00 pm and I’m sure he would like to see you all there!

“Easy to find; Parking on street; steep steps down to house and garden but alternative back access through grounds of Calton Hill Primary School; Main interest large green house, tyre garden; bees and more….”

Moon Planting times…

According to the NZ Gardener magazine the

most prolific for sowing seeds is up until the 8^th Oct. then the 9^th and 10^th are best for applying liquid manure. Dig over the compost between the 11^th and the 14^th. Root crops are best sown on the 16^th and 17^th then carrots/root crops from the 22^nd until the 23^rd.. A return to sowing all seeds from the 29^th to the 31^st finishes off the month :)

Library

Please bring back your library books so that others can have a turn. It seems to be sensible to limit the lending time to one month, or two if you forget! A reminder will be put in the newsletter each month to jog memories.

If anyone is interested in being the “librarian” please let any of the committee know :)

Kindred Day

An invitation has been extended to 4 members of the DVGC to attend the next Kindred Day which is being hosted by the Otago Herb Society at Dunedin North Intermediate on Saturday 5^th November. A clipboard will be available at the meeting with more information and a chance to put your name forward if interested :)

The Kindred Group encompasses all of the gardening clubs in the area and meets twice a year when one of the clubs hosts a “Day” either in the Spring or the Autumn.

Bank Account details…

For those who would like to pay their subs via internet banking the Club bank account number is;

Westpac 030905 0515906 00

Internet Interests

After getting excited about worms last month due to the Hort Talk, this article piqued my interest ;

http://milkwood.net/2010/10/12/how-to-make-a-worm-tower/

and back to England to see what the rugby players are missing….

http://www.mytinyplot.co.uk/

…and finally just to show that Bart thinks about more than seeds!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbzRdhi81MM

School Vegetable Garden Grants

It was very pleasurable to visit the schools to present them with the cheques from the DVGC. Several lovely photos were taken but I have not received permission to publish photos of the children yet. However, this photo was taken at St Brigid’s and shows their fantastic greenhouse….it even had an automatic window opener!!

Happy gardening!

Carol Henderson

Newsletter Editor

September Newsletter

GREENS~LEAVES

The newsletter of the Dunedin Veggie Growers Club; issued monthly. Vol: 4.9.September 2011

Meetings are held on the second Monday each month at St Patrick’s Parish Centre, MacAndrew Rd, Sth. Dunedin starting at 7.00pm sharp (we ask you to arrive at 6.45pm to avoid a bottleneck )

Our next meeting is September 12th and the invited speaker is Bart Acres “Building a tasty future: Seed saving, urban organics and resilient food systems in Dunedin”

President: Margaret Scott (489 2030) msscott@xtra.co.nz Treasurer: Lynne McCrone (4781195)

Secretary: Carol Henderson (454 4625) hendersonic@xtra.co.nz

Springing Up!

Yes, the weeds are coming up along with my (late) broad beans, peas and even some carrots I optimistically sowed about 6 or 7 weeks ago. It was an experiment to compare the sunny front garden and the darker back garden....you can guess what happened....yes, the sunny front garden ones came up at least ten days before the ones in the “dark”! It will be interesting to see if there is a big difference further on in the season.

If any of you would like to write a few lines on what you are up to in the garden; successes , failures , problems solved etc. please send it to me by e-mail or write it out and give it to me at the next meeting so I can include it in the newsletter :)

The August meeting went well although we were down to half the committee once Margaret had to go! A big thanks to all who helped out , especially the seat shifters who separated out the extra seats :)

Andrew Trotman did a very good job of informing and entertaining us in regards to Parsnips and was a good sport in agreeing to help Dennis with the Open Forum....they made a good team!

Our invited speaker, Steve McArthur, showed us the difference in colour of the old (grey) and new

(reddish brown) raspberry canes. The old ones are cut off at ground level as are any suckers or small shoots leaving the new canes which are then tied up and the top quarter removed. He recommended the old “Taylor” variety for jam.

Steve also gave us lots of information on (and showed us photographs of) black and red currants , boysenberries and strawberries. Some of the fertilising requirements and pest control methods were commercial ones not suitable for us home gardeners but the overall message seemed to be that regular feeding would give you a better crop :)

Planting…..

Looking at my two main planting guides, one by Jason Ross (of Sutherland nurseries) and the other from The Star, it seems that the only vegetables one shouldn’t plant yet are ; Spring onions, Leeks and Florence fennel. Last chance this month for Garlic, early Potatoes and Jerusalem Artichokes

September 12^th Meeting;

This is our seed share/swap meeting so please bring all your extra seeds! There will be envelopes and pens available :)

Veg. of the month talk – Asparagus by Bruce Bernasconi

BrainsTrust/Open Forum – hosted by Margaret and Dennis

Invited speaker – Bart Acres on “Building a tasty future: Seed saving, urban organics and resilient food systems in Dunedin”

Competition – 1 x Leek

Announcements, seed sharing/swapping and Supper

Open Garden

Dennis sadly had no visitors for his open garden due to inclement weather but is still willing to try again in the future!

However Margaret has kindly organised for her doctor, John Bulow, to open his garden for us on Sunday the 18^th at 2pm. The address is 23 Osborne Rd and can be reached by driving towards Purakaunui then turning left at Purakaunui school. There is a causeway after this and the first driveway just after the causeway is the one we are aiming for :) This is a large garden so should be well worth the trip. A car pool has been suggested and will meet at the railway station carpark next to the Saturday market site at around 1.30pm.

Moon Planting times…

According to the NZ Gardener magazine the

most prolific for sowing seeds is up until the 8^th Sept. then the 9^th and 10^th are best for applying liquid manure. Carrots are best sown on the 16^th and 17^th then potatoes from the 23^rd until the 25^th.

However, the moon calendar in the Organic NZ magazine only recommended sowing seeds up until the 4^th and again on the 14^th with root crops on the 29^th….it’s nice to have a choice ;)

Actually the moon calendar in Organic NZ is very detailed…have a look at it in the magazines in the library!

Hort Talks

I don’t know if all of you know about the gardening talks hosted by the Botanic gardens and held up at the Lovelock Avenue rooms at 12 noon on the first Friday of each month. I went to the last one entitled “Worms at Work-vermiculture unearthed” and wished you all could have been there too :)

Robbie Dick from Cromwell explained how he acquires thousands of tonnes of waste and converts it into high quality soil conditioner which improves the quality, yield and vibrancy of plants.

He uses sludge (dried) from the animal trucks, lawn clippings, leaves, fruit waste from the orchards, pulp from the juicing operation and fruit and vegetable waste from the supermarkets to feed his tiger worms. He has them in 60 metre long windrows ……16 of them covered with black polythene (white on one side to keep the temp. down in summer!) Each row gets “fed” 2 tonnes of food at a time and the only things that survive the worms are the stickers from the apples and the pumpkin seeds! One slide showed an absolute sea of pumpkin plants which came up so he let them grow and got hundreds of pumpkins from them….which he promptly sold back to the supermarket!

The next Hort talk is on “Green Ways to Eradicate Invasive Weeds” 12 noon , 7^th October.

Library

Please bring back your library books so that others can have a turn. It seems to be sensible to limit the lending time to one month, or two if you forget! A reminder will be put in the newsletter each month to jog memories.

If anyone is interested in being the “librarian” please let any of the committee know :)

Internet Interests

I quite like keeping an eye on what is happening in gardens in the Northern hemisphere…

http://allotment65.blogspot.com/

http://vegplotting.blogspot.com/

....and even Australia!

http://hillsandplainsseedsavers.blogspot.com/

but we have our local favourites too J

http://www.urbanorganics.org.nz/

Bank Account details…

For those who would like to pay their subs via internet banking the Club bank account number is;

Westpac 030905 0515906 00

Kindred Day

An invitation has been extended to 4 members of the DVGC to attend the next Kindred Day which is being hosted by the Otago Herb Society at Dunedin North Intermediate on Saturday 5^th November. A clipboard will be available at our next meeting with more information and a chance to put your name forward if interested :)

The Kindred Group encompasses all of the gardening clubs in the area and meets twice a year when one of the clubs hosts a “Day” either in the Spring or the Autumn.

School Vegetable Garden Grants

The process of getting schools to apply for a $100 grant from the Dunedin Vegetable Growers Club has come to an end with the result that 3 schools will be presented with their cheques in the near future. The schools are ; St Brigid’s, East Taieri and Waitati Primary schools

Mystery garden?

Dennis’s garden without the snow…

Happy gardening!

Carol Henderson

Newsletter Editor

July 2011 Newsletter

GREENS~LEAVES

The newsletter of the Dunedin Veggie Growers Club; issued monthly. Vol: 4.7.July 2011

Meetings are held on the second Monday each month at St Patrick’s Parish Centre, MacAndrew Rd, Sth. Dunedin starting at 7.00pm sharp (we ask you to arrive at 6.45pm to avoid a bottleneck )

Our next meeting is August 8^th and the invited speaker is Steve McArthur on “Growing berries “

President: Margaret Scott (489 2030) msscott@xtra.co.nz Treasurer: Lynne McCrone (4781195)

Secretary: Carol Henderson (454 4625) hendersonic@xtra.co.nz

Winter finally arrives!

Waking up to snow this morning I was almost relieved to be experiencing some real winter weather but my chickens are not happy with it :(

Hopefully you are all keeping warm, enjoying the time to study the seed catalogues, gardening magazines and books, while thinking about what you will grow this coming season.

The Midwinter Potluck Dinner was a great success with nearly 30 of us enjoying the company and a wide range of delicious food !

The seed-identifying quiz was a bit more difficult but we did have a winning table who all got to pick a prize from the basket. Carolyne Smith won the secret seat prize and yet another table won the most “gardening years” competition.The vege-table decorations made by a friend of Margaret Scott’s were fabulous and I am sorry to say I forgot my camera so there are no photos from me. If anyone does have some photos of them or the potluck please send them in and I can include them in the next newsletter.

The between courses entertainment of an excerpt from Michael Pollan’s “Botany of Desire” dealing with apples was just the right length to give us room for dessert....a big thankyou to all who came for making it a success and I look forward to the next one!! :)

August 8^th Meeting;

The August meeting will follow our usual format but we may have the sales table out in the foyer to free up more room for seating.

Veg. of the month talk – Parsnip by ….Unconfirmed

BrainsTrust/Open Forum – hosted by Margaret and Dennis

Invited speaker - Steve McArthur on “Growing berries”

Competition – 1 x Parsnip

Announcements and Supper

Open Garden

Dennis has kindly offered to show us around his garden and greenhouse on the 14^th August at 2pm. The address is 14 Panmure Ave., Calton Hill. Phone -4876043.

Omission

I forgot to mention in the last newsletter that John Streekstra had given me Superior Minerals in Mosgiel as the name of the supplier he gets his garden minerals from. This is to be found on Factory Rd, Mosgiel and the phone number is 4047721.

Planting…..August is it!

The official time to start planting seeds is here :)

Of course this is not an exact science and some allowances have to be made for the individual conditions in your garden. My own garden is still mostly in shade at his time of year but I do plant seeds in trays and have them in the sheltered area out the front until the back has warmed up a bit.

In trays; Cabbage, Asian greens, Chicory, Kale, Lettuce, Spinach, Peas, Celery, Celeriac, Onion.

In the ground; Asparagus crowns, Broad beans, Carrot, Garlic, Early Potatoes, Shallots, Onion sets, Jerusalem Artichoke, Rhubarb and, in the last two weeks of August, Radish and Turnip.

In the greenhouse; Corn, Cucumber, Pumpkin, Tomato, Zucchini which all need a bit of TLC and guaranteed warmth.

Two planting guides, one by Jason Ross (of Sutherland nurseries) and the other from The Star, will be at the meeting for you to have a look at. The differences between them are quite interesting

Moon Planting times…

Most prolific for sowing and planting all that produce above ground is August 4^th to 12^th.

Good for all root crops , especially carrots, onions, potatoes etc. is 18^th and 19^th, followed by 25^th and 26^th when swedes can also be planted.

(These dates from Organic NZ magazine)

Library

Please bring back your library books so that others can have a turn. It seems to be sensible to limit the lending time to one month, or two if you forget! A reminder will be put in the newsletter each month to jog memories.

If anyone is interested in being the “librarian” please let any of the committee know :)

Jerusalem Artichoke and Silverbeet Tart

(Recipe from Wed. 27^th July ODT by Alison Lambert)

Serves 4-6

500g shortcrust pastry

Filling

600g Jerusalem artichokes , peeled and cut in

½ cm rounds.

250g silverbeet, washed and drained.

4 Tbsp olive oil

½ tsp fresh rosemary leaves finely chopped

Juice of ½ a lemon

1 garlic clove, crushed

175ml cream

70g crème fraiche or sour cream

2 medium eggs

150g cheese( feta , cheddar or gruyere), broken into pieces

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Lightly oil a 23cm loose-bottomed tin

Line the tine with the pastry without stretching and allowing an overhang to be trimmed later.

Prick the base with a fork and rest in the fridge for at least 30 mins.

Preheat oven to 170degC

Bake the pastry case blind by lining it with greaseproof paper and filling with rice or dried beans. Bake for 35 mins, remove the paper and bake for another 5 mins.

Make filling while case is baking by putting the prepared artichokes into a pot of cold, slightly salted water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10-15 mins until tender. Drain and leave to cool.

Separate the silverbeet leave from the stalks. Roughly cut both but keep separate as they take different times to cook. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry for 2 mins, add the leaves and rosemary and continue to cook for 6-8 mins. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice seasoning and garlic.

Whisk together the cream, sour cream and eggs with a pinch of salt and pepper. Spread the artichokes over the base of the pastry shell, scatter over the silverbeet and finally place bits of cheese around the tart. Pour the custard over top and bake for 15 mins, cover with foil and bake for a further 30-40 mins or until filling is set. Remove the tart from the oven and allow to cool slightly before breaking or cutting off the overhanging pastry.

Serve warm.

Internet Interests

These videos are very informative and thought provoking….

https://www.youtube.com/user/PermacultureNet

My snowy garden!

…and in contrast a shot of the beautiful display of colourful lettuce in the vegetable garden at Wisley from my holiday last year…just to remind us of how lovely they can look growing fast in the sunshine

Bank Account details…

For those who would like to pay their subs via internet banking the Club bank account number is;

Westpac 030905 0515906 00

Dunedin Horticultural Society

An invitation was extended to all members for the AGM of the Dunedin Horticultural Society to boost their membership and provide a link for kindred gardening groups. Unfortunately this was held in our winter recess and the date has passed. The invitation will be available to view at the meeting and interested members may write their name on the back as we may be able to attend future meetings.

Looking forward to our first meeting of the season and hope to see you all there :)

Carol Henderson

Newsletter Editor

June 2011 Newsletter

GREENS~LEAVES

The newsletter of the Dunedin Veggie Growers Club; issued monthly. Vol: 4.6.June 2011

Meetings are held on the second Monday each month at St Patrick’s Parish Centre, MacAndrew Rd, Sth. Dunedin starting at 7.00pm sharp (we ask you to arrive at 6.45pm to avoid a bottleneck )

Our next meeting is the Midwinter Potluck Dinner June 25^th at the Holy Cross church hall.

The Entertainment will be a short dvd on Apples

President: Margaret Scott (489 2030) msscott@xtra.co.nz Treasurer: Lynne McCrone (4781195)

Secretary: Carol Henderson (454 4625) hendersonic@xtra.co.nz

Welcome to Midwinter .....

The weather has been so good so far that it’s hard to believe that we are nearly at the shortest day on the 21st and our Midwinter dinner on the 25th. I had neglected to remind everyone that

we, as a Club, take a break over winter and there are no meetings in June and July so I apologise for that but there will be another newsletter in July giving details of the August meeting.Hopefully you all got your e-mail invitation to the potluck but here it is again for our postal members!

When ; June 25th..... 6.30pm for 7pm
Where ; Holy Cross church hall on the corner of Richardson and Ajax Streets in South Dunedin.
Bring ; a main course and a dessert as well as anything you would like to drink :)
If your dishes are to be eaten hot please bring them hot and we will do our best to keep them that way until we eat!
Nearly forgot to add that partners are welcome !!!
There will be a vegetable gardening based quiz and a short film between courses as well as some spot prizes to keep you on your toes!!!!
Please let us know if you are coming and how many of you- (so we know how many tables to put out) by calling Dennis - 4876043 or Carol - 4544625 before Thursday 23rd June if possible.

Massive May Meeting !

The May meeting was so well attended that we found ourselves short of seating and, sadly, some members went home rather than squeeze into what space was left. We apologise for this and have decided to put the sales table in the foyer to give us more space for the extra chairs which we will have access to from now on.

We enjoyed the talk on Jerusalem Artichokes by Vanetta, especially the delicious ones she cooked up for us...thanks Vanetta :)

Donna Hancock gave us a very interesting talk on her worm farming techniques and I’m sure we all learned something from it..... I know I did! Congratulations to Margaret Scott for taking both prizes in the Silverbeet in a bucket competition but well done to all other entrants as they all looked gorgeous to me. This year the size seemed more even so we must be getting better!

John Streekstra’s open garden.

We had a beautiful day for our visit to Outram and John Streekstra’s productive garden.

John had improved his clay soil with the help of soil etc from a local cattle farmer and a lot of digging! As you can see in the photograph John likes to let the weather and frost do some of the work for him which results in a lovely friable soil. He had some beautiful Brussels sprouts, leeks, Kale and red cabbage still available with a good crop of tomatoes still in the tunnelhouse ( exactly the type/size I am wanting! ).

John also explained his method of storing carrots using a big blue industrial type barrel by layering them in the barrel with some soil from the garden. This means he can get on with his plans for the next season and not have to wait until he had eaten all the carrots to attend to the soil.

Some of us had decided to have lunch at the No.8 Café in Outram first as it has a lovely herb garden and I would highly recommend it for delicious food and friendly staff

Moon Planting Dates;

Since I am a bit late with the newsletter I have missed telling you that we could have planted seeds (such as broad beans) from the 5^th to the 13^th !

I did sow some Miners’ lettuce on the 6^th but still no sign of it coming up. The best time to plant garlic is on the 21^st or the 26^th and 27^th. Tip; garlic does not like a lot of nitrogen.

Pruning can safely be done from the 21^st until the 25^th.

Competition Calendar

Just a reminder of which vegetable competitions are coming up ….I must try to remember not to eat all of my parsnips!!

August = Parsnip, Sept. = Leek,

Oct. = Any Brassica, Nov. = Spring onion,

Dec. = Potato, Jan. = Broad Bean,

Feb. = Newbie night*, March = Tomatoes,

April = Any Allium, May = Silverbeet

* Newbie night was suggested by Lynne’s husband as a competition for new gardeners to bring in their best vegetable of any kind to show J

What to plant in June/July

Well….garlic, shallots and rhubarb seem to be the only safe bets outside at the moment but I did hear Dick Turvey say recently that he was going to start some tomato seeds inside soon-using a heat pad ;)

Reminder;

Any member who has changed address/e-mail or has not been receiving their newsletter please let Heather (4764607) know.

Request;

Wanted; 1 nanny goat. For section clearing.

Phone John at 4877474 evenings.

Mosaic Workshop

Margaret Scott has kindly offered to host a garden mosaic workshop at her residence on the 16/17^th July starting around 9am and finishing 3/4pm depending on how fast the glue dries!

“Limited numbers so book it in at 4892030 Maximum 8 people. Just a fun day to have a go and learn. I will be making a weekend of it so will be set up for both days so maybe some people could do something on the Sunday if Saturday wasn’t free. Basically it is a whole day as once the mosaic-ing is done the glue has to dry before the grout goes on which can be on the afternoon of the first day or the following day. Bring a small concrete paver and old plates/ tiles if you have any. A donation towards the glue and grout would be great.”

Margaret also shared the following recipe with us J

Cranberry upside-down cake recipe

350-400 gms / 12-14oz/ 3-31/2 cups of fresh cranberries ( NZ cranberries/Chilean guava, used to be Myrtus ugni , now Ugni molinae )

50g/20z/1/4 c butter

150g/5oz/1/4 c caster sugar (superfine)

For the Cake Mix

65g/21/2 oz/9 Tbsp plain all purpose flour

5ml/1 tsp baking powder

3 eggs

115g/4oz/generous1/2 c of sugar

Grated rind of one orange

40g/11/2oz/3Tbsp butter melted

Preheat oven to 180degC/350degF/gas4 and place a baking sheet on the middle shelf of the oven.

Wash and pat dry the cranberries, Thickly smear the butter on the bottom and sides of a 23x5cm/9x2” round cake tin. Add the sugar and swirl the pan to coat evenly

Add the cranberries and spread in an even layer over the bottom of the pan.

For the cake mixture, stir the flour and baking powder twice and set aside

Combine the eggs, sugar, and orange rind in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of hot but not boiling water. With an electric mixer, beat until the eggs leave a ribbon trail when the beaters are lifted.

(You have to beat for a while and the mixture trebles in size. The ribbon is because it is getting thicker)

Add the flour mix in three batches, folding in well after each addition. Gently fold in the melted butter and then pour the mix over the cranberries.

Bake for 40 mins. Leave to cool for 5 minutes, then run a knife around the edge to loosen.

While the cake is still warm, invert a plate on top of the tin. Protecting your hands with oven gloves, hold the plate firmly and tip firmly and turn them both over quickly. Lift the tin off carefully.

Looking forward to seeing you at the midwinter potluck dinner!

Carol Henderson

Newsletter Editor