Intro | Wombat news | Wallaby News | Latest Awards | Latest Book News
The September Garden: Weeds, frosts and slugging it out with snails…
A Few Recipes… Election Night Almond and Lime Tarts with hassle Free Lime or Lemon butter.
(There should be a pun here about media tarts, but I’m not going to make it).
Intro
Just call us ‘Brigadoon’. (or those who never saw the movie, brigadoon was a Scottish village that only appeared every 100 years, cut off from the chaos of the world outside.)
As I write this 150kph winds are bashing the tablelands above us. I can hear the scream of the wind, and every now and then a gust wriggles down the gorge and jumps out at us. But mostly here deep in the valley the last of the autumn leaves are floating from the trees, in no particular hurry to find the ground. The first of the plum and peach flowers are blooming, the wombats nosing under the budding rose bushes for neglected tufts of grass, the avocados fat on the trees.
It is, as it’s been called in various languages for thousands of years, the valley of peace.
Peace is precious, just now. It’s been one of those months when so much has happened that I need another six months to remember all the good bits and taste them again. And they have been very very good bits…just a few too many in too few weeks.
It began with the launch of Monkey Baa’s new production of Hitler’s Daughter, with a different cast from last time. I had only seen the play a week before, at Whitsunday Youth Literature Festival, and it had moved me to tears too – a cast from Whitsunday Anglican School playing with passion and enormous depth. I still shiver remembering the child’s arms dancing behind a lit screen, slowly moving to form a swastika.
It seemed impossible that students could perform with that level of depth and integrity. And then adult actors played children in Monkey Baa’s production and, once again, the impossible happened: adults showing the bewilderment and ideals of children, the stark, semi-abstract trees becoming either the Australian bush or a Bavarian forest or the ruins of Berlin as the Russians advanced. There is no possible way to say ‘thank you’ for a gift like that – to see one’s story taken, the format changed, but everything that matters given depth and light and brilliance.
The next day (okay, early morning, not quite awake and still half back in the ruins of Berlin) I flew to Perth for a week at the Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre – another place where adults gave from the depths of their hearts for young people (and with every possible skerrick of energy – everyone there does the work of five people).
The days were filled with workshops for gifted teenage writers. I wished every day could have been a week: there were so many of you with so much brilliance and insight. Spent the nights at the Centre too – which as it’s in the hospital wing of the Old Gaol means that it’s about as quiet, private and secure as any city location can be. And if there were any ghosts, they were happy ones – hard not to be, with so many thousand enthusiastic kids through the place every year.
The Abbbotsleigh Literary Festival after that, and a talk at Ashfield Primary School, both with others schools attending. Ashfield’s hall looked stunning- the most brilliant book week banner right across the stage, and the most magnificent questions both days. A talk at Ashfiled library after that- and a visit to one of the world’s great chocolate shops. (For which Bryan is truly grateful.)
Last week it was the long drive to Merimbula. I always forget how stunning the southern coast country is. We launched the Wires 2011 calendar – a way to raise funds for the massive food bills for orphaned wombats, wallabies and other injured wildlife – and fell in love with Merimbula and its people. Am trying to persuade Bryan we need to go back – soon.
Had a short detour to Moruya Hospital on the way back, as my voice had vanished and I felt lousy while also feeling happy, if that’s possible… it had been too happy a day to feel 100% rotten. The hospital staff was great, efficient and caring – a true small community hospital that treats people as, well, people and not numbers.
This week was the Melbourne Writer’s Festival- wonderful as ever, as I discovered I actually love Melbourne, with it’s hidden lanes and unexpected shops run by obsessives who love what they make and sell.
It came as a bit of a shock to find I love Melbourne. For years it was just another bewilderingly complex city, and then a place where good things happened. But this time, finally, it was straight out love.
Tomorrow I head off for a day in Wollongong- if the roads are clear enough to travel by then. Will take a chain saw in the back of the car- and the week after that the Eyre Peninsula… after which I will stay home and talk to the wombats and the long-suffering husband who is tired of his meals in small containers marked ‘Tuesday’s dinner’. No, he doesn’t cook. I like cooking. He likes eating… it works well.
And a few wonderful long months to write…
Wombat news
Mothball is old now. She’s spent much of the last month sleeping in the sun, wedged next to two warm pieces of garden wall. Old wombats around here tend to sleep in the sun in the winter, maybe easing the aches of arthritis in old bones.
She’s still stroppy. But these days she sits on the doormat for two minutes before she bashes at the door, giving me a chance to feed her before she becomes annoyed. And this morning she had two small bites on her forehead.
No wombat has ever dared challenge Mothball before. She only had to let out one of her ‘I am boss around here’ smells for every animal in the vicinity to scurry off. But now, I think, there is a challenger, perhaps the wombat we call Long Black, a young strong female with a baby in her pouch. Mother wombats can be aggressive when they have babies in their pouches and Long Black doesn’t like to share.
It’s hard to see Mothball facing challenges, but there’s nothing we can do, except jump and do her bidding as soon as she sits on the doormat. At least that makes her still Queen of the Orchard.
For a while.
Wallaby News
Emily’s joey has poked its head out of the pouch- the first time I’ve seen it, except as a bulge in the pouch. It’s eating grass now, leaning out of the pouch to nibble while Emily eats too. This afternoon Emily pulled down a branch of avocado leaves for them to share. Usually the wallabies don’t like avocado. But in late winter the rest of the browsing has been eaten – the chilli leaves, the chicory, all the rose petals they can reach. But the trees are beginning to bud, and the roses too. In another month Emily’s baby will probably have her first feast of roses. But we’ve accepted that we’ll never get any rose from low down on the bushes. Our roses mostly wander through the trees. The wallabies get the low ones; we get the high ones. Or the possums, though while they have loquats to eat they’ll ignore the roses.
Again, for a while.
Latest Awards
Baby Wombat’s Week (with thanks again to Mothball) won the 2010 Australian Book Industry Awards Younger Readers Award last week and so many thanks not just to those who voted for it, but to the booksellers who have always been part of the partnership of the ‘wombat books’.
New Books
Queen Victoria’s Underpants has sold out in its first print run – to quote the publisher: ‘It’s just too damn popular’ – and is being reprinted as I write this. Apologies to anyone who can’t find a copy – they’ll be back in the bookshops soon.
The last in the Animal Stars is The Horse That Bit a Bushranger – the true as I can make it account of a few of my ancestors and bushranger Ben Hall, the story of a young convict who rode a giant brumby stallion no one else could tame; who won a race, a farm and a wife… and of what happened next.
Oracle is out, too. It’s the most exciting of all of my books so far; set in ancient Greek, at the court of Mycenae, where Niko and his sister Thetis are acclaimed as the greatest acrobats in Greece, so valued by the High King that they are even sent on embassies to other kingdoms. But Thetis has both a curse and a gift – if she speaks at all, she must tell the truth. And when the walls of Mycenae fall in an earthquake Niko and the wild horse dancer Euridice must follow Thetis as she finds her true place – as the first of the oracles of Delphi.
Coming soon: A Waltz for Matilda.
This is, perhaps, the best book I have written. It wasn’t quite the book I thought I was going to write, either. Other voices kept intruding, more whispers from the past. Finally the book was twice as long as I had expected, more saga than story.
In 1894, twelve-year-old Matilda flees the city slums to find her unknown father and his farm. But drought grips the land, and the shearers are on strike. Her father has turned swaggie and he’s wanted by the troopers. In front of his terrified daughter, he makes a stand against them, defiant to the last. ‘You'll never take me alive, said he... ’
Despite the setbacks she encounters along the way, Matilda is determined to make her father’s farm the best in the district. With the help of Aboriginal elder Auntie Love, the ladies of the Women’s Temperance and Suffrage League and many others, she confronts the unrelenting harshness of life on the land, and the long-standing hostility of local squatter, Mr. Drinkwater. She also discovers that enduring friendship can be the strongest kind of love.
Set against a backdrop of bushfire, flood, war and jubilation, this is the story of one girl’s journey towards independence. It is also the story of others who had no vote and very little but their dreams.
Drawing on the well-known poem by A.B. Paterson and from events rooted in actual history, this saga tells the story of how Australia became a nation. It is also a love story – about a girl, and about the land.
Other new-ish books
A Year in the Valley
This is a reissue of Seasons of Content, with a new introduction, as well as a new ‘What Happened Next’ section about our lives in the Valley since I wrote the book – more than twenty years ago now. I wrote it mostly for my own pleasure then and only hauled it into publishing shape on an impulse many years later and sent it to HarperCollins. It is about the Valley – the wombats, our lives, and the dances of the lyrebirds. It is also very much about food: the growing of it, the cooking, the sharing with friends, human and otherwise.
The Tomorrow Book
Illustrated by Sue de Gennaro… a look at the paradise we could create, maybe just tomorrow.
This is a special book. It’s closer to my heart than anything I’ve written before and Sue’s work is inspired: funny, whimsical and extraordinarily beautiful. It’s what happens when the King and Queen retire and go off in their campervan, leaving the kids in charge, and they find the solution to each of the world’s major problems in their library and create… tomorrow.
Every one of the solutions really does exist – and the possible tomorrows are very, very good indeed.
P.S. Sue created the extraordinary artwork in collage, using materials she found in her kitchen, from tea bags to labels. It is too magic to even have words to describe it.
Dance of the Deadly Dinosaurs
The sequel to Lessons for a Werewolf Warrior continues the crazy adventures of Boo, werewolf and hero-in-the-making!
 Boo’s back… in another crazy adventure of Heroes, dinosaurs and the most fearsome weapon in the universes… the zombie sausage!
Boojum Bark, werewolf puppy and student Hero, is about to do what no Hero has done before – go into the scariest universe of them all, the Ghastly Otherwhen, rescue his mum and come back alive.
And he’ll need help from his friends: mysterious Yesterday, gorgeous Princess Princess Sunbeam Caresse of Pewké, Mugg, the down-to-earth Zombie, and Squeak, the warrior mouse.
But the Ghastly Otherwhen isn’t what Boo expects! And his friends start acting strangely, too…
What is the bond between Yesterday and her dinosaurs? Why won’t she let Boo rescue her from slavery? Can Mugg really be as dumb as he looks or are Zombies smart in Zombie ways? And could Princess Princess be an actual Hero underneath her cowardly exterior?
The bogeys are scarier – and the food is grosser than ever!
And illustrator Andrea Potter’s dinosaurs are the best in the universes.
The Night They Stormed Eureka
A fresh look at the history we thought we knew.
Are the history books wrong? Could the rebels have succeeded? Could we too have seceded from Britain, like the USA?
This is the story of Sam, a modern teenager, thrust into the world of the Ballarat goldfields, with the Puddlehams, who run the best cook shop on the diggings and dream of a hotel with velvet seats, ten thousand miners who dream of gold and rebellion, and Professor Shamus O’Blivion, who tries not to dream at all. But there is a happy ending for Sam, who discovers that when you stand together, you really can change the world – and your own life, too.
Schedule for the Next Few Months
I’m sorry I can’t accept every invitation – there are often two or three invitations to talk somewhere each day and, much as I’d love to, there is no way I can do them all, or even most of them. Basically, I can only do one trip away from home a month, and that includes trips to Canberra, so I mostly only speak to groups of more than 200 and when it will take no more than six hours travel each way (except Western Australia). I’ve also stopped doing early morning and after-dinner talks.
But as I have family in Brisbane and Perth I always love an excuse to travel there... or anywhere that might involve a stopover in Perth, too.
New South Wales bookings are done by Lateral Learningbookings@laterallearning.com.au,Queensland bookings by Helen Bain at Speaker’s Inc, Victoria by Booked Out, simon@bookedout.com.au, SA bookings by Carol Carralloe (c.carroll@internode.on.net), WA bookings by the Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre, and for other bookings contact me at jackiefrench72@gmail.com.
But please don’t use any of these addresses for help with school projects; help in getting a book published, or just to have a chat – again much as I’d love that, too, I can’t manage to answer more or, truthfully, even the number I get now. I already spend half my day answering queries and, despite having help in the office, am not quite sure how to cope, as questions come from overseas as well as Australia these days.
There are answers to nearly all your project questions as well as queries on how to get books published on the website, and answers to every gardening question so far received are in my gardening books, which should be in most libraries.
April onwards: Sue de Gennaro’s artwork for The Tomorrow Book will be at the Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre. Contact the Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre for more details.
September 7: Talk with Bruce Whatley at Wollongong for the Children’s Book Council at TIGS (The Illawarra Grammar School senior assembly hall) from 9:30am – 11.30am. Cost is $4 a child. Payment can be made on the day, cash or cheque (cheque payable to CBCA, Illawarra-South Coast. No GST). Any further queries, please contact Di Bates ph 42 84 3020 or dibates@enterprisingwords.com
September 18: Talk to Friends of the Botanic Gardens, Canberra, 12.30 in the auditorium. All welcome, adults and kids.
October Sunday 17: Old Bus Depot markets, Canberra. Free talks at a special markey day for Green Savvy Sunday.
October 2, 3, 4: Talks each day at Floriade, Canberra.
October 10: Talks at Floriade, Canberra.
October 27: International Children’s Day. I’ll be speaking at the awards in Canberra in my capacity as ACT Children’s Ambassador, and probably giving a talk or two somewhere else in Canberra that day too, if previous years are anything to go by.
November 6 and 7: Open Garden workshops at our place. Contact the Open Garden organisers for bookings, act@opengarden.org.au. If you want to make a weekend of it, there are lots of places to stay, from cheap pubs to luxury B&Bs close by. Look at the Braidwood website.
November 20: Eurobodalla Slow Food Festival at Moruya, NSW. I’ll be giving a series of talks during the day, on everything from fruit trees to wombats, and launching the festival once again as its patron.
March 19, 20, 21, 2011: Keynote address at Wombat Conference, Albury. (And if any schools or libraries nearby want talks while I’m there, this is the time to book)
March 31, April 1 2011: Newington Literary Festival, Sydeny
May 18, 19, 2011: Talks at QLD Schools. Contact Helen Bain, helen@speakers-ink.com.au
July 18, 19, 2011: Talks at Brisbane schools. Contact Helen Bain, helen@speakers-ink.com.au
July 20, 21, 2011 Cairns: Cairns Writer’s Festival.
The September Garden
If there is one month of the year when you’re going to be tempted to plant, it will be now… or next month, or just possibly November if it looks like being lush.
Spring wakens deep farming instincts – get that seed into the ground and watch it grow. Except it may be eaten by snails. Or cut by frost. Or smothered in weeds.
Slugs and snails.
Symptoms: Seedlings that disappear overnight, silvery slime trails.
Solution: Fence them out with a snail fence – a piece of metal pressed around the garden with the top bent outwards – snails can't climb over it. Put snail bait in old margarine containers with a small 'door' cut out so the baits can't be taken by pets or children. Tape the lids on too for extra safety. There are dozens of others ways to deter snails, from surrounding plants with used coffee grounds, to making them less palatable by spraying with a cup of coffee, or using old flower pots as traps – the snails will hide there during the day, so you can squish them. Or make snail soup – cover snails with water, let them ferment, then spray – it’ll both deter snails and kill some of them – a form of snail bacterialogcal warfare,
Using Cunning and Righteousness to keep the Weeds Away
Weeds are tough. That's why they're weeds. Weeds grow faster than vegies, shooting up to heaven when flowers wilt in the sun or your onions are still shivering in spring.
Sure-Fire Ways to Keep The Weeds Away
1. Don't mow lawns too close – bare patches invite weeds. Keep your mower set on a medium to high setting. You'll have fewer weeds and your grass won't grow as fast with a haircut instead of a close shave either.
Kill lawn weeds like bindiis by pouring on boiling water or driving a stake down the centre of deep-rooted weeds like dandelions and pouring water down the hole.
2. Don't try to grow grass under trees. Many grasses don't do well in the shade and tree roots compete for food and moisture. Bare patches under trees just invite weeds. Grow shade-loving groundcovers like native ginger instead.
3. Look after the edges of your garden! Grass is one of the worst weeds, always growing where you don't want it. Stop it invading your garden beds by edging them with bricks or sleepers or by digging a small sloping trench between garden and lawn or by creating an above-ground garden.
4. Plant your flowers close together – and feed them well – so they totally fill your garden area. Many flower gardens are planted too far sparsely – and the weeds colonise the empty soil.
5. Don't waste your autumn leaves. Autumn leaves are a perfect source of mulch to keep down weeds. Mow over the leaves before you rake them up to break up their perfect aerodynamic shapes, so they don't blow away – then use them lavishly on the garden.
6. Curved edges on garden beds mean that the lawn mower can sweep close around them. It's hard to mow close to right-angled garden beds – and tall straggly weeds get left in the corners.
7. Grow plants suited to your area. Healthy plants will outgrow weeds – but if the flowers are sick and stunted or need more watering than you can give them the hardier weeds will overcome them.
8. Smother weeds with mulch! A thick layer of mulch keeps these garden beds weed free or at least if the weeds do still germinate and grow they are so much easier to pull out when they have had to emerge through a thick layer of mulch – and it also helps keep the tall flowers upright. Mulch will also feed your garden as it breaks down and gradually enriches the soil and your garden will need less watering.
9. Don't struggle with too many garden beds – you'll break your back trying to keep them weed free – and the weeds will probably still take over. Choose colourful foliaged trees or shrubs instead, for minimum effort – beauty, colour and productivity without having to weed. Closely planted trees and shrubs create deep shade below – and weeds don't have a chance to germinate or at least they have to work much harder and are that much less vigorous.
10. Don't fuss about the odd bit of clover in the lawn or oxalis under the shrubs. Weeds can be lovely too. Try to see them as an unexpected gift from nature – instead of invaders trying to dominate the garden. If your garden is growing well the weeds won't take over.
Concentrate on growing plants, not killing weeds – and you'll find that your garden happily outgrows invaders.
How to Kill Weeds
Three Ways to kill any weed
1. Mulch. Mulch. Mulch. Mulch. (Yes, I know I've already said this elsewhere – but I can't say it too often!!!! A mulched weed dies and mulch on bare soil stops weeds taking over.)
2. The vampire method of weed control.
Pour boiling water on weeds – they shrivel up and die at once. If they have deep roots, like dandelions, thrust a stake into their hearts – just like you're killing a vampire (I’m sure you are completely familiar with this activity) – and then pour the boiling water down the hole.
3. The Guinea Pig or Chook Method of Weed Control
Don't laugh. This works. I discovered the guinea pig method of weed control accidentally when we left our resident guinea pigs in the one spot while we went away for the weekend. When we came back EVERYTHING underneath the cage had been eaten – roots and all.
All you need to do to get your guinea pigs to eat your weeds is to place the guinea pig cage over the weeds – with guinea pigs inside – and wait. The weeds will be nibbled to death. (I class couch and kikuyu grass as weeds when they're in my vegie garden.)
Chooks are more efficient than guinea pigs. Make a ‘cage’ of bales of hay. Insert chooks and water and shade. Throw in pellets or grain and let the chooks scratch for it – and dig, fertilise and weed your garden while they’re at it.
Herbicides
Count your pennies. For the same price as a herbicide you could hire someone to dig out your weeds or buy a bale of lucerne hay to cover them up and feed and condition your garden at the same time.
There are SOME times, however, when a herbicide is valuable, such as dabbing on stubborn suckers from chopped down trees.
If you MUST use a herbicide:
. Follow all protective instructions on the container.
. Dispose of the residue as suggested on the container.
. Use a 'wick' applicator – one that you dab on, not spray. (Spray ALWAYS travels much further than you want it to, even on the calmest day.)
. most herbicides are most effective when the weed is growing strongly ie in most of Australia, spring.
Tackling Tough weeds
Sprawling weeds like vinca and convolvulus and Wandering Jew
Cover weedy sprawlers with weed mat – a woven fibre mat (NOT black plastic – they'll just peep out the edges). Once the weeds are covered jump on the weed mat a few times to flatten it then weigh it down with a few rocks. Now thrust some tough cuttings through the weed mat – woody bits of lavender or wormwood or lad's love or daisies. They'll grow and flourish as the weeds break down and their nutrients return to the soil – and quickly cover up the ugly weed mat.
In a year or two you can cut away the weed mat (leave as much intact as possible so you can reuse it.)
Weeds in Paving
Weeds between the paving stones look messy. Cheat – fill the cracks with hardy alyssum plants instead or even creeping lawn thyme in hot sunny spots or tiny leafed Corsican mint in moist shady areas.
If you prefer a bare earth policy, you've got lots of options:
. Water thoroughly and pull them out.
. Chip them out with a spade (as fast as using herbicides).
. Spray soft weeds with cloudy ammonia. (Warning: keep clear of eyes.)
Blackberry and lantana and other ghastly clumps
These look intimidating because they form such massive clumps. Don't let them scare you. Remember that humans are tougher – and more intelligent – than any weed.
Go for the heart and cut out the central stem. Haul away what you can and jump on the rest to collapse the bushes. (If they're dry enough you can burn them instead.) Then just pretend they are grass. Mow every few weeks – and in a year or so you'll have lawn instead of weeds.
I've used goats to clear blackberry too. A neighbouring farmer used to use pigs. He'd surround the weeds with an electric fence then throw in six pigs and a bag of pignuts. The pigs would root through the bushes – and he'd end up with dug (and manured) soil – and no weeds.
Suckers
See 'Sprawling weeds' above. Cut suckers back, cover with weed mat so they can't push through and don't get any sunlight – then fill up the weed mat with lavender cuttings so it doesn't look so ugly.
They can also be zapped with herbicide – one time when herbicides are actually useful. Ask for the most appropriate one for your problem at the Garden Centre.
If bamboo is invading from next door you need a bamboo fence – dig down at least 30 cms and place a barrier of stone or concrete or even a piece of corrugated iron in the hole, then fill it up again. Even bamboo can't penetrate corrugated iron.
Couch and other grasses invading your garden beds
Keep them out with bricks or thick rows of lemon grass, red-hot pokers, dahlias or even rows of daffodils.
PS Actually weeds aren't bad guys – they're nature's way of stabilising disturbed soil. We dig and ruin the world – and nature sends weeds to fix it up again. Weeds are nature's band-aids... but then who wants bandaids all over their garden?
Coping with late frosts
There are two things to remember about frost. Firstly, it isn’t the freezing that kills, it’s the thawing. Secondly, the main problem with cold stress is dehydration. If you can’t avoid frost you can minimise its effects.
Avoiding frost
Look for frost-free sites
Learn to judge the frost potential of your garden. Even in a small area frost damage can vary enormously. Imagine frost as a body of cold air flowing like water. It will settle in hollows, flow down drains and air channels, be easily blocked by fences, hedges and other plants. If frost can drain away it may leave the higher spots in your garden clear – especially if they are north facing and thus warmer.
Frost also settles on mulch and bare soil. Mulch may stop plant roots from freezing – but it will increase the frost damage to leaves.
My garden is on a slight slope with a ridge behind. There are enough differences in microclimate for me to grow raspberries and sugar maples in one part, where the sun is blocked till late morning and the frost stays till midday, yet have avocados ripening metres away where the frost drains down a sunnier slope.
Watch how the frost settles in your garden before you do major plantings. Work out if your intended garden design will change the frost pattern – a new fence, for example, might block the frost and burn off plants previously untouched, while clearing a hedge could let frost drain away, or the slow growth of a large tree may gradually protect the plants beneath it.
You can create your own frost-free sites by planting shelter trees. Go out in the garden on a frosty morning and peer under low, spreading trees. Unless the frost is extremely severe these areas will be frost-free. Use them for frost-sensitive plants like passionfruit (the leaves will twine up through the tree to find the light) or early strawberries – or as a place to keep your early seedlings safe.
Increase your frost-free area
Clear away any blockages if you can – weed piles, fences or at least long grass or bracken round the fences – so that frost can drain away. If you don’t want to remove your hedge or other shrubbery, try cutting low drainage holes in it.
Predicting frost
Some gardeners swear they can smell a frost – a clear, sharp smell. It is the smell of cold, dry air. Frost is less likely when the sky is cloudy, when there is fog or other moisture around. Frosts can often be predicted by gazing at the sky at night. If the stars are particularly bright and twinkling there will probably be a frost.
Keep frost records from year to year. The dates of the first and last frost each year should be fairly consistent. It’s helpful to know, for example, that last year your first frost came in late April and your last at the end of September.
(Snow will act as an insulator, and do less harm than the frost. Don’t clear it away from your garden – heap it up instead.)
I mostly use ‘frost netting’ these days – I drape it over veg or young trees for protection against about 3-4 degrees of frost. This is enough in most areas, but if you get -9 ºC then you’re in trouble – unless you have placed your plants near a heat retaining wall, dam, house, paving, or use water-filled bags that also retain heat – just enough for the plants to survive overnight.
A weekly spray of seaweed or nettle tea is said to increase plants’ resistance to frost and to help fruit set in cold areas. Either can be easily made: just cover seaweed or nettles with water, leave for a few weeks and dilute to the colour of weak tea.
Overhead irrigation releases the latent heat of the water during spraying. For this to be effective and help your crops you must start spraying when the temperature is still at least 2 °C or more. You don’t necessarily need large-scale commercial equipment for this – a garden spray or even micro-jets can also work well.
Wind machines are used commercially to mix cold air with the warmer air above it. These are available commercially or can be made at home. A ten-horsepower motor driving a propeller on a ten metre tower is claimed to raise the temperature over a hectare by 2 °C in a few minutes, but a small wind-driven tower is as effective. On the other hand, the worst ‘frost nights’ are usually still ones with not enough wind to drive them.
Some frost prevention gardens
A LOW mulch around your plants will INCREASE the frost damage – but if you mulch very deeply, and very loosely so that most of the greenery is covered, you’ll insulate the leaves from cold.
A high-mulched garden
The moveable green house
Polypipe bent over as support, covered with plastic, tied on so it doesn’t blow away, is a quickly installed and moveable hot-house if you only need it for a few cold months. We don’t use them, but if civilisation ever falls and I have a craving for sweet mid-winter tomatoes and enough plastic in the shed – I’ll use them.
Surround your garden with wire mesh or tomato stakes with string around them. Fill this circle with dry leaves or lightly packed hay so only the tops of the plants show through. The mesh should stop the leaves blowing away. Harvest crops through the mulch. Plants can dry out under this mulch, and can eventually rot.
Only leave the garden covered for the most dangerously frosty times, about six weeks in late autumn or in early spring for late harvesting or hardening off early plants.
Bodies of water
A pond in the middle of your garden will keep the area around it slightly warmer through the night. Keep your swimming pool full in winter and use it as heat storage for frost sensitive plants around it. Anyone who has watched steam rising from a lake or river in the early morning sees how a body of water can act as a heat sink.
The sheltered garden
Our garden gets down to -9 ºC in winter- but we still grow avocados, bananas and custard apples. This is because we grow them as an ‘understorey’ in groves. For more on how to plant groves, go to http://www.jackiefrench.com/groves.html
Once you have groves established your plants will be sheltered from at least six degrees of frost, and in deep groves, nine degrees… or possibly more. As we haven’t yet gone below -9 ºC – or not when I’ve measured it – I don’t know.
See the web site or The Wilderness Garden book for details on how to turn your garden into relatively self maintaining groves.
The manure-heated pit garden
Dig a hole about 60 cm deep, pile in leaves or decomposing manure. Cover with sandy soil. Plant your vegetables. Now lay a few stakes over the pit and balance old windows or clear plastic on a few bricks so that they are oriented to the morning sun.
These beds can also be used to help strike cuttings needing bottom heat or to get early seedlings for spring planting. The heat generated by the decomposing material should mean that this pit cold frame is relatively frost-free.
Heated frost frame
Make a manure or compost pile about 60 cm high. Lightly cover it with soil. Carefully fit a cold frame over the top of it, so the top is level with the top of the pile and the main slope is orientated to the morning sun. A good mix for the compost pile is equal parts of coarse leaves (not gum leaves) and fresh cow or horse manure. This mixture produces a good, long-lasting heat, but do experiment with any suitable compostable material on hand.
Wait about a week before planting out, so the soil inside can warm up.
Repairing frost damage
The worst frost damage occurs when plants thaw rapidly. It isn’t the freezing that injures the plants as much as the thawing, as the frozen cells expand and burst. If you are an early riser give your plants a thorough gentle watering before the sun hits them. This way the plant cells gradually relax instead of bursting. Even totally frozen plants can be restored.
Also try covering your plants – either the night before or race out and do it as soon as you see frost on the ground, to increase the thawing time. Use blankets, old newspaper – just get your plants covered. Often this may save them.
As a last resort rely on frost-hardy plants and ones that have been hardened to your area. Any plant you buy from an area hotter than yours, or from an indoor area in a nursery, may well tolerate less frost than a local plant. You can harden plants gradually by leaving them outside for longer and longer periods each day. Better still, raise your own from cuttings or seed you have saved yourself from plants growing happily in your area.
A Few Recipes
I made almond and lime tarts for the election night party, on the theory that nothing is too bad if you have good food and friends around.
And it wasn’t. It was a good night, of friends and food and laughter. It was a ‘bring a plate night’ and while the guests all had their own slightly different dreams of what the election result should be (and none of us got what we hoped for, either) it was all great food. I’m not sure what that says about the hosts circle of friends…maybe just that we have reached an age where we can all cook at least a few dishes incredibly well, and care enough about living well- and sharing with friends- to do it.
Back to the almond and lime tarts. The almond pastry isn’t as fatty as ordinary pastry; it’s moist and rich and tends to be softer too. It also tastes wonderful.
I play around with the recipe a bit. I added sugar this time, as the lime butter is fairly tart, but if the tarts are to be filled with a layer of jam and a fresh strawberry or a few raspberries in King Island cream- also excellent- I leave the sugar out.
Almond Pastry
½ cup plain flour
1 cup ground almonds: I use ground raw almonds, still with their skins on, so the pastry is rich brown
2 eggs
2 tbsp butter
Optional: 4 tbsp caster sugar
Mix gently with your fingers till it’s crumb like.
Add enough COLD water to mix into a ball.
Chill in the fridge for an hour.
Sprinkle a board with plain flour, and use a rolling pin or a sturdy glass or tin to roll out the pastry.
Cut out rounds with a glass.
Scrape together the remnants and re-roll before cutting out more rounds..
It will be too moist and sticky to pick up.
Wriggle a spatula or knife under it, then flick it into the tin.
Bake at 200 ºC for 5-10 minutes, or until it no longer looks moist, but not browned except at a few edges.
To prepare the tin:
(Even if the tin is a ‘non-stick one.)
Take a muffin pan.
Cut two strips of baking paper for every ‘hole’.
Lie them crosswise over the hole.
When the pastry is cooked, let it cool in the tin, then pull on the edges of the paper. The small ‘cup’ will come up unbroken.
Gluten-Free tarts
2 egg whites
2 dessertspoons of caster sugar
1 cup ground almonds, as above
Beat egg whites till they form peaks.
Beat in the sugar till dissolved.
Gently mix in ground almonds.
Line a tray with baking paper.
Dab dessertspoons of the mix on the paper.
Now use a teaspoon to form a hole in the middle – as big as you can make them, as the mixture will expand to make the edges wider.
Bake for 10 minutes at 200 ºC or till firm but not brown.
Cool on tray.
Fill just before you are going to eat them.
Hassle-Free Lemon, Lime or Grapefruit Butter
Place in a saucepan:
1 cup juice
6 eggs
250 gm caster sugar
Beat well.
Add 250 gm of butter.
Place on low heat; stir till butter dissolves and the mixture boils.
Turn off heat. Quickly mix in 1 dessertspoon of cornflour mixed with a spoonful cold water. Place back on heat. Bring to a simmer again, stirring all the time. Take off heat. Bottle in clean jars and put the lids on while the mix is still very hot.
Don’t worry if it seems a bit runny – it will thicken as it cools.
Keep in the fridge for up to a month. Throw out if it grows mould or looks liquid or changes in any other way.
This is good in a tart; superb on toast or pikelets or scones, or in a sponge roll, or make a thin butter cake and spoon on a thick layer of lime butter. Serve as dessert with cream or ice cream, or for afternoon tea with damp napkins or finger bowls for sticky fingers.
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