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 :)

Summer Gardening

Well finally it seems summer has arrived, albeit probably a month late.

Here is the latest Summer Gardening Blog addition from "The Veggie Lady" Toni Salter.

Summer is a really busy time of the year in the productive garden for temperate regions. Not only are you harvesting your first fruits of the season, but you’re also looking ahead to sowing some cool season crops (yes already!).  This is the time of year that pests and disease are at their worst, so keeping on top of this as well as maintaining consistent watering during hot weather can all get a bit heavy going.  This is the time to be most alert but in reality, the opposite generally happens for most of us especially when we decide to take some holidays.  Here’s a few tips to keep it all together.

What to sow

Start sowing your winter crops this month in temperate and cold regions. This includes all of your cabbage family plants like cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and Chinese vegetables. By the time they’re a reasonable size for planting out, the weather should be starting to cool down. Carrots, beetroot, parsley, celery, leek and silverbeet are all winter crops so they can be sown now too. Special care of seedlings needs to happen over the next few months to make sure they survive the heat. Be vigilant with daily watering in really hot weather. I plant my seedlings out with cardboard milk cartons around them. This gives them a bit more protection from critters and gives a bit of extra shade. 

Using whats around you.

New Raised Garden Planters

Concrete Stormwater pipe offcuts

The First of our raised planter chambers arrived last week, thanks to BMD group and Dart West we were able to save these from their ultimate fate whatever it may have been (recycler or crusher i guess), i also have to add thanks to Funnells Electical for helping with the unloading process as these are as heavy as they look. Measuring between 400mm and 600mm in diameter these pipes will be the perfect containment system for some of our more aggressive herbs, in particular the Mint family, these will also feature as part of our accessible garden, the Gardens are extremely thankful for these, several more will arrive over coming weeks with different uses planned as well, so watch this space for updates.


Homemade exculsion bags, compostible as well



Exclusion bags for Tomatoes

Forever on the look out to find ways to save money and beat the bugs, i thought i would try these, now after 2 seasons of growing tomatoes with zero fruit fly control i am sold, there are certainly a few commercial options out there, but they say the simple things often work the best and for me it was the kids sandwich bags and our clothes pegs, once the tomatoes have started to develop i cover the truss with a brown paper bag and peg the top, rainwater doesnt have a massive effect on the bags and they seem to last long enough, guaging when to put the bags on can be a bit tricky as you want to know roughly how big the tomatoes will grow, i have used this method successfully with Siberia toms, Tigerellas, and Green Zebras, although the latter are certainly larger and can only fit 4 or 5 toms in a bags so a truss may need 2 bags. When it comes to Oxeheart, you can allways put extra bags on if they split the bags on you.