Tag Archives: Gardening

Bees in the Backyard

Posted on July 29, 2012 by | 1 comment

The next Kitchen Gardeners’ Society meet is coming up and it’s all about bees.

Once again it’s at Steve and Elizabeth’s house, Marmalade Cottage (RSVP for address).

Sunday 5 August
1.30 – 4pm

Bees are an essential part of the productive garden – they pollinate for fruit production, and if you have a hive, give you honey.  Without them, life on earth starves.

As well as learning about bees and keeping them, we’ll have the sharing table – if you have something from your garden or kitchen you’d like to share, please bring it along, and take home something from someone else’s garden.

After the bee presentation, we’ll have afternoon tea.  If you’d like to bring something along yummy, please do.  Perhaps with a honey theme?

There isn’t a great deal of shelter in the backyard, so if it’s wet, bring your umbrella.  It isn’t a terribly kid-friendly place (there’s poo and rusty metal) so you’ll need to keep a close eye on any little ones.

Please email guildfordkitchengardeners@gmail.com to RSVP.

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Plant your Garlic!

Posted on April 12, 2012 by | 8 comments

Ever been frustrated that all the garlic in the shops seems to come from China and Argentina?! Well, it’s the time of year to plant, and it’s super easy, here’s how I do it….

Get some garlic (preferably local)

Prepare a veggie bed, loosen the soil, and mix in some compost or manure if handy

Push the cloves into the ground so the top of the clove is below the soil (2-5 cm)

Repeat with ~10-15 cm between cloves and ~15-30 cm between rows

Water well

Care instructions:

Keep weeds under control, garlic don’t like competition

Winter rain does much of the watering, but they will need watering during dry periods

Harvesting:

As summer approaches, the garlic leaves will begin to brown off

Pull up the garlic when a few green leaves are still left (these create the tissue cover for the bulb)

Hang up in a shed to dry, then store in a cool, dry, dark place and enjoy 🙂

Other tips:

I heard Sabrina Hahn on the radio say that putting the garlic in the fridge for a week helps it to germinate.

You don’t need veggie beds, just plant some garlic between the roses or around the garden

Reduce and stop watering the week before harvesting to avoid mould

Try to avoid the super white garlic in the shops from China, it’s usually bleached

Garlic grows well with many other plants, but may inhibit peas, beans and parsley, so grow separately from these

Garlic can deter ants, aphids, caterpillars, slugs and other soft-bodied pests

Got more tips on growing garlic, please post!

Addition – See photos of one of my crops here

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