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 10th 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 16th 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 8th Oct. then the 9th and 10th are best for applying liquid manure. Dig over the compost between the 11th and the 14th. Root crops are best sown on the 16th and 17th then carrots/root crops from the 22nd until the 23rd.. A return to sowing all seeds from the 29th to the 31st 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 5th 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
