Weird things in a winter garden

Winter is upon us in southern Australia, yet there is no let-up in the effort required in the garden. If anything, pressures are building back up again as I try to make space for onions, beetroot and spring flowers (still in the seed trays) while trying to keep the rain-fed chaos of self-seeded pathways under control.

I’ve given up even pretending to be on top of things. But I’ve found a few odd moments to catalogue some of the winter wonders springing up all over the place…

 

 

Adding some winter colour to the verdant green of the overflowing beds, my chilli collection is starting to ripen and will be used to refresh my seed collection as they mature.

 

 

And what are the names of all these chillies? Sadly, I forget. Some are spherical, some are small pointy multi-coloured ones with an upright characteristic, others are deep purple and some are the regular long skinny droopy ones alongside a different variety having a bell-lantern shape.

There is beauty in vegetable gardens if one looks closely.

Among the rogue salad collection are the Italian bitter lettuces that I know I grew on purpose, didn’t eat much of, but then let the plants go naturally to seed because of their pretty blue flowers, so unlike the thistle-type flowers of all other lettuces.

Now they are all over the dirt pathways, and we find ourselves making long detours to allow them their own space rather than treading them underfoot.

 

 

In the orchard, one of the peach trees is still suffering from the after-effects of the massive 2013 peach harvest and is now under attack from bracket fungi where limbs had to be removed and the bark on the main trunk started to split.

 

 

 

 

The tomato crops and their bamboo frames have had to be pulled out to make way for the onions. All the old mulch and new weeds have had to be hoed out and thrown onto the pathways for natural composting. This soil and weed mix will soon be covered with new barley straw to over-winter and break down under the scratching of the hens and the softening effects of the winter rains. This ‘path composting’ process will deliver soft mulch and fresh organic matter to garden soil as it accumulates year after year.

All the necessary hoeing turns up plenty of earthworms; the chooks follow my work closely and enjoy the fresh protein. Every meter or so I turn up some soil-borne grubs that I believe (without any evidence) to be ‘mole cricket larvae’; these are a special delicacy to the hens. I pick them out of the trenches and throw them in front of the flock where they are snatched up.

Ah well, that’s my fun for the day. Now its back to planting out all those onions…

Saving sunflower seeds

Autumn once again, and various seed heads are air-drying slowly in the back shed. Among these, and the largest by volume, are the tubs of dried sunflower heads of three different varieties. Separating the seeds from the heads and storing them was the task for the Anzac Day public holiday on the 25th April.

The trick with this abundance of seed will be to filter out the biggest and best seeds to carry on the line, so I am expecting a significant amount of wastage.

Wastage? Another advantage of owning chickens is that very little is wasted; the gleanings from this process will be spilled onto the ground as I winnow the seed outside in the wind and where the chooks will snap it up; sunflower seeds are rich in oils and energy. Normally we would purchase in a fair amount of this seed from the local grain store, but this year the sunflower harvest has picked up as the result of more prodigious sowing of garden beds to ‘clucker tucker’.

The sunflowers are left on the plant until they have filled in their seed head completely and dried off. This is a dangerous time for the crop as birds will alight on any upturned heads and pick out the seeds. Fortunately, nature has found a trick to prevent this; the sunflower heads turn over and face the ground as they dry off. So the real danger is that I fail to harvest these heads (by snipping them off with secateurs) before the seeds start to fall out onto the soil and become lost to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A month later and all the colour has disappeared from the seed heads. The seeds can be seen clearly once the last of the flower parts are rubbed away from their face.

 

The simplest and gentlest way to release the sunflower seeds from their casing is to don a pair of heavy leather cloves and rub the heads over a tub placed to catch the seed that is dislodged. I started this way as usual, but after the first boxful decided that some innovation was needed for the remaining four cartons of seed heads. So I turned on the shredder and dumped them though that.

Separating the seeds from the debris is the hardest bit of the operation and about the point where I wish I had a wider range of sieves to help me. But the job gets done using a simple plastic sieve purchased from the local hardware store; this has a 6mm square hole pattern in a sturdy circular shape. If I can, I’ll stand outside at the corner of the shed where the slightest breeze is amplified and helps blow off some of the finer bits of stalk and dried petals. If I keep the whole arrangement over the wheelbarrow I find I can move the operation around to best suit the process step while catching any spillage prior to the final filtering.

Sunflower seeds are largest at the periphery of the seed head and get smaller as they spiral their way inwards to the centre of the bloom. Panning the whole mix with the sieve at a small slope stratifies the heavier seed from the lighter debris, allowing me to pick off the latter by hand and toss it onto the compost heap. The heavier seed is sieved further – this time where the hens will find it – so that the smaller seed falls to the ground and only the biggest and plumpest seeds remain to go into the seed collection tins.

Because I’ll be the customer for these tinned seeds next Spring I don’t get too fussy about picking out any remaining litter; this will get thrown into the seed trench anyway and do no harm. And because this debris has been thoroughly air-died it should not go mouldy in the storage tins where it would wreck my seed harvesting efforts.

‘Clucker Tucker’ seed mix

Free-range chickens scratch and forage, eating a surprising amounts of green plant food in among the protein they find in the form of worms, earwigs and other insects.

With the ‘break of the season’ rains during the final weeks of summer came the chance to get an early start on sowing winter ‘green manure’ crops; these will chase down any moisture that has escaped below the rooting zone of the vegetables, form mulch next Spring and add nitrogen to the soil from the air through the symbiotic relationships the legumes have with rhizobium soil bacteria that form nodules on their root systems.

Well, that’s what most folk do – around here I plant a somewhat different mix of green manure plants called ‘clucker tucker’ – this mix serves chickens and soil equally.

I buy this ‘clucker tucker’ seed mix in bulk packs of 250g at a time from Green Harvest seeds in Queensland (Australia). Here’s what it says on the packet: -

“Clucker Tucker™ is a hardy mix of all-important greens to keep your chooks healthy. Includes barrel medic, bok choy, buckwheat, forage chicory, clover, cocksfoot, linseed, lucerne, millet, forage plantain, silverbeet, sub-clover and sunflower. Most have vigorous root systems that will quickly regrow leaves that are cut or eaten. Clucker Tucker™ is a blend of annual and perennial plants, many of which will self-sow. In a forage area, seed can be broadcast; the chooks will need to be kept off the area for the plants to establish. After they have grazed it down, the chooks should be taken off to allow it to reshoot. Where space is limited, grow it in seedling trays and then place in the chook run or bird cage once grown. In a pasture, used as a 'herbal ley' it is a healthy addition for grazing animals. In temperate areas sow March - May or August - October. In subtropical areas sow August - September or May - July. In tropical areas sow April - August. Broadcast seed 2 - 3g/m² in a forage area. In a seedling tray use 1 - 2g per seedling tray.”

As the production beds are cleared of summer crops coming to the end of their productive life, the chooks (chickens) are turned in to clean up whatever insects they can find under the mulch. Two week later, the chickens are kicked out and the fenced beds shut off to them. Then the mulch is moved sideways around those plants - such as zucchinis and capsicums (‘peppers’) - still actively producing. The bare soil along the drip lines is now hoed and ‘clucker tucker’ seed mix just hand-strewn into the furrows, then covered and packed back down. A good soaking with rainwater through the drip lines and the job is done.