Category: How-To
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Composting
There is so much information already online regarding composting. The basic concept is to layer carbon rich material (i.e. cardboard, forest mulch and small sticks for example) alternatively with nitrogen rich material (such as manure, green cuttings, coffee grounds). The layer of carbon should be about 3 times as thick as the layer of nitrogen…
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Frugal ‘Lasagna’ Edible Garden
For those keen to try your hand at growing your own food, it can be tempting to rush out to the hardware store and load up on retail garden products. Using bags of premium soil, bagged mulches, soil amendments, slow-release fertilizer, the cost can quickly add up. Gardening this way quickly adds up. At minimum…
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Large Wicking Beds
For those who love water thirsty crops such as cucumbers but who only have the time to water once a week, try some wicking beds. It doesn’t really matter what you use, be it IBCs cut in half, an old bathtub or any other food grade container. The basic principle is to establish the base…
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Courtyard Food Production
For those living on small blocks or even balconies, there are still heaps of edible plants you can grow year-round. Courtyard gardens are especially wonderful during cold winter days when we want to hang out in sheltered sunny spots in the garden. The courtyard garden below is filled with perennial edible plants, most of which…
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Fruit Fly Control
by Jason Hauser You can generally expect fruit fly (FF) activity to begin slowly increasing from early August, with their numbers rapidly climbing into late Spring through Summer, before starting to ease around mid-to-late Autumn. Alarmingly, there are now many areas around South East Queensland where FF activity persists to some level all year round…
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Bananas
There are so many great varieties of banana to grow in Queensland. W currently grow Pisang Ceylon, Blue Java (ice-cream banana), Ducasse, Dwarf Ducasse, Red Dacca, Pisang mas (monkey banana), Lady finger and Cavendish. We have a real preference for the Pisang mas, it is more of a tropical variety of sugar banana, thin skin…
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Companion Flowers
Diversity is a key component of our edible garden. This goes far beyond the hundreds of edible species of plants we grow and extends into a wide range of beautiful flowering plants. While the majority of these aren’t edible, they support our native bees and other pollinators while also making the garden beautiful (especially during…
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Pond
Ponds are a wonderful addition to any garden. They are beautiful, encourage wildlife and improve your microclimate. Pond habitats are also a source of nesting materials for birdlife, seeds as food and leaf stems for some frogs to lay their eggs. Construction If you have the room, bathtubs and IBCs cut in half make excellent…
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Ornamentals or Edibles, do I have to choose? By Jason Hauser
For the suburban gardener the ornamental nature of their garden holds a great deal of importance. Aside from personal satisfaction, many suburban gardeners also hope to delight, or draw the attention of, passers-by or visiting relatives with their eye-catching plantings. Increasingly, suburban gardeners are also wanting to growing edible plants. Sadly, many believe that planting…
Brisbane Edible Gardening 