Next on: Tonight 7.30pm, Rpt Sunday 1.30pm on ABC + iview | | | | | |
| | | | | Jane explores the plants behind our favourite Easter treats; Costa meets a chook expert to find out the best breeds for every situation; Tino starts preparing to plant a market garden and Millie learns all about making apple cider using a range of apple varieties. | | | | | | | | |
 | | | | | | | | Tonight 7.30pm on ABC + iview | | | | Tino and his family are hard at work laying the foundations of on their biggest patch yet - a large-scale market garden at his home | | | | | | | | | |  | | | | | | | | Fact Sheet | | | | Millie drops in on a family cider distillery growing 40 different traditional apple varieties | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | |  | | Gardening Australia Weekly QuizRoughly, how many trees are there on earth? A) 3 trillion
B) 600 million
C) 8 trillion See next week's newsletter for the answer!
Answer to last week's quiz question:
Q) How many flowers do you need to harvest to get one kilo of saffron?
A) c - Around 220,000 | | | | | | | |
| | | | | Tropical Climate Zone - Broccoli
- Cauliflower
- Garlic
- Water Chestnut
Subtropical Climate Zone - Beetroot
- Carrots
- Kale/Collards
- Spinac
Arid Climate Zone - Cabbage
- Chives
- Lettuce
- Onion
Warm Temperate Climate Zone - Broad beans
- Endive
- Leeks
- Oregano
Cool Temperature Climate Zone - Chicory
- Florence fennel
- Mustard greens
- Turnips/Swedes
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| | | | | COOL - As our thoughts turn to eggs, make sure you save those eggshells! Grind them up for compost or place them around your brassicas to deter cabbage white butterfly.
- Perennial sages and salvias will benefit from a haircut this weekend. Give them a good chop, almost to the ground – you’ll see new growth coming away from the centre of the plants in no time
- With Autumn leaves falling, get out the rake and tidy these guys up. Running a mower over the top of raked leaves chops them up nice and fine – perfect to plump up your compost!
TEMPERATE - Don’t be a bunny! Get a cracking crop of carrots sown this weekend in the garden. Sow seed into soft, fluffy soil in a nice sunny spot, and keep them moist while they germinate
- Divide clumping native plants like kangaroo paws, dianellas and lomandras by cutting into sections with a sharp spade, leaving around 5 shoots per cutting. Pot up in a protected spot.
- Start harvesting autumn raspberries, which should keep cropping right through until winter. If other critters are getting to the fruit before you are, some taut, well-installed netting should keep your crop safe.
SUBTROPICAL - Share some succulent cuttings with friends! Take a small stem cutting or leaf, allow to dry for a couple of days and pop into free-draining potting mix – it’s that easy!
- If you’re planting on some sensational spring colour, it’s time to get your cold-loving bulbs into the fridge! Hyacinths, tulips and daffodils should be chilled now until planting time in winter
- Flowering now are the Easter Daisies, tough perennials that will provide colour for months. Whites, blues, pinks and purples, these old-fashioned Asters are stunners, and the bees love them!
TROPICAL - If you’ve got a sweet tooth, try growing Stevia. Known as the sugar herb, this tropical perennial is perfect for pots, and the leaves used as a sugar substitute.
- Improve a tired vegie bed with a DIY green manure mix using old, out of date seeds sown thickly. You’ll be surprised what grows – just make sure you till them into the ground before they flower.
- Indoors or out, Hoyas are a tropical must have. These wonderful waxflowers are tough, attractive, evergreen climbers, and put on bunches of beaut blooms from spring through autumn.
ARID - Get stuck into Autumn fertilising. Give trees, shrubs and lawns some organic pelletised fertiliser, and feed the last of the summer vegies with a lovely liquid potash.
- A favoured food of bilbies are the bulbs of the bush onion (Cyperus bulbosus). A great addition to gardens, these attractive perennial native grasses are fab in a sandy soil and produce showy seed heads.
- If you’ve got spare space in your patch, sow some mustard seeds. These fast-growing foliage plants will reward you with lovely leaves in as little as three weeks. Go on, spice up your life!
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