New Year Workshops

Mosaics and Gardening for Kids

The following 2 workshops are being run in the New Year,

Kids Gardening Workshop for 6 - 12yrs and a 2 Day  Mosaics Workshop.

Flyer images can be viewed here with all details enclosed.

Places are limited and given the popularity of the previous 2 are sure to fill fast.

These are both free courses hosted by Camden Council on the Camden Town Farm Community Garden site.

Thankyou Mayans

 

This Week

• Potatoes
• Some Christmas Recipes
• Feast or Famine
• Unusual Herbs
• Kids Gardening Workshops

Firstly can i add if you are reading this after 20.12 2012 your not dreaming, the world hasn't ended yet the Mayans may have got it wrong or been out with the dates, lets hope so anyway as there is a time differential between here and there.

On with the show anyway, and its only fitting that we start with a product the Mayans gave us (or the spanish nicked from them) 

The humble spud,

Christmas in the northerrn climes generally means turkey and all the trimmings, roast spuds etc, down under there are few extras, prawns, ham a few more salads typically, but one thing is for sure there are usually potatoes in one form or other.

If you have been watching our blog you will notice we planted some spuds a few months ago, 3 different varieties courtesy of The Big Spud at Robertson (one of our favourite local growers), now the tops have died and its is the perfect time to pull some of them up especially the Norland Reds that have matured first, having a large plot of these, we are in the perfect position to supply some great local people who do a fantastic job out in the community, namely Narellan Congregational Community Services, having planted some of these themselves it was only fair that we had the staff pull them up :) as you will see soon in a pic to be loaded, Heather and Mary donned their finest potato digging gear and pulled a few out this last week for their end of year christmas lunch, thanks ladies, this was accompanied by some zucchinis from the same plot. The gardeners have done a brilliant job of keeping water up to these in the lead up to christmas, so thanks to all concerned, especially Simon and Hazel. Looking for a recipe for roast spuds, try this one including Rosemary, perfect roast potatoes with rosemary, looking for a potato salad recipe, here you go with a whole bunch of them, potato salad recipes.

Tom-ar-to, Tom-ay(as in hay)-to

Yep tomatoes.

The cheapest exclusion bag.

If you got them in early enough and depending where you are by the time you read this you may well be eating them, hopefully you have avoided spraying them with copious amounts of chemicals to keep bugs that love them more than you do from eating them. If they are still green and the birds haven't found them and you are looking at spraying them, well STOP NOW, go down to the shops and buy yourself a packet of brown paper sandwich bags, if you happen to have "Tims Taurus" tomatoes growing your going to have to buy exclusion bags possibly.


Tigerella and Cherry tomatoes.

OK once home open the sandwich bags up and take one out, place it over the fruit (on the vine) or some of them, you may end up with a couple of bags per truss, scrunch up the top of the bag and then grab a clothes peg off the line, or the lawn if its like my place :) and put it over the scrunched up bit closing the bag off, this will stop the fruit fly getting in, the bags wont rot off in a hurry with rain and your fruit will continue to grow and ripen, if you have put them on a bit early you may find them bursting from the bags, in this case just re bag them with more bags, every few days check the bag for its contents. Your tomatoes will taste like they should or like they used too and not like some genetically modified orange or red shape full of mush. If you need exclusion bags, try the likes of Greenharvest, they sell a range and can be mail ordered, alternatively visit your nearest specialist garden supplier and ask for them, if enough people want them they will be sure to get them. The bags will not only keep out bugs but will trick the blackbirds into avoiding them, one thing they won't deter is Cockatoos, so good luck with keeping them out.

The other thing to consider seriously is companion planting with tomatoes, check the following link for a great comprehensive listing Permaculture news, breaking this down even further, some crops will encourage growth, some inhibit some improve flavour check the link Tomato Companions who list specific benefits or pitfalls. As this was typed in the blackbirds discovered my tomatoes that i hadn't quite got too with paper bags, so its blackbirds 2, me 5 :)