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NEWSLETTER
OCTOBER 2007
In this month's newsletter:
Introduction
Wombat Wars
Awards
Book News: Introducing the Shaggy Gully Times!
Timetable for the Next Few Months
The October Garden
Focus on: weeds - learning to love them, how to control them and how to exterminate them
Recipe: a great crumble
Introduction
5.37am: Woken by strange screech from up on the roof.
5.38: Realise it's not a nightmare from too many mangoes after dinner. Sit up in panic.
5.39: Screeching noise comes again, this time accompanied by huge black claw scrabbling at the window.
5.40: Sound of claws slowly slipping down the tin roof.
5.41: Realise we're not in a horror movie, it's just Pea Brain the lyrebird attacking his refection in the window above the bed.
5.42: Try to go back to sleep.
5.43: Pea Brain makes it back onto the roof. Sound of his claws slipping and sliding as he tries to attack again...
We are under siege! In the last two months Pea Brain has attacked the bathroom window, the spare room window, the dining room windows and the kitchen window (balancing on the mop bucket to reach it). He's clawed a doormat to shreds, dug up all my primulas, ripped up a giant zucchini left on the grass since last autumn, and left white streaks on windows, car, washing, gum boots and all the outdoor furniture.
But it was the bedroom incident that convinced Bryan that Pea Brain had to go. Lyrebird claws on a tin roof sound worse than chalk squeals on a blackboard.
We didn't want to hurt Pea Brain. He may be, well, demented, but we are fond of him. So Bryan invented a lyrebird trap. It's a wire cage with a mirror at one end and a door with a rope attached at the other. And when Pea Brain pranced inside to attack his reflection in the mirror Bryan pulled the door shut and raced the cage - and the captive Pea Brain - to the gully further up the gorge on the other side of our place.
There are no windows in the gully. But there's lots of nice deep litter to scratch up ... and Pea Brain must be reasonably happy, because the last three mornings have been blessedly lyrebird-free. Well, except for the other five lyrebirds who live in the garden. But they're all nice, respectable lyrebirds, who spend their time singing and scratching up the mulch - and the seedling carrots, but hey, scratching is what a lyrebird is all about.
Wombat Wars
There's been a battle going on under the house, too. Mothball discovered that newcomer wombat Feisty had taken up residence in her old hole under our bedroom. And he was getting room service, too!
Mothball, it seemed, was happy for him to have the hole, but determined that if there were any rolled oats and carrots going, they belonged to her. The result? Every night for a week there were shrieks and snarls and gnashing of long wombat teeth. Finally we decided that:
a)
There was no point feeding Feisty if the tucker is going to be guzzled by Mothball.
b) If Feisty was big enough to defend his dinner, then he was certainly old enough to feed himself.
So we stopped feeding Feisty. Mothball, who likes a room with a view, retreated back to her new hole further up the hill. Feisty didn't even seem to notice the lack of humans scurrying to bring him dinner. For about a week he concentrated on renovations - digging out at least a wheelbarrow load of dirt from his hole every night. And every day Bryan wheeled the dirt away so it didn't block the drains.
I think the loss of all that soil annoyed Feisty. He'd probably planned to compact it into a 'wombat patio'- the hard packed dirt outside their hole where a wombat can doze for an hour or so at dusk before waking up properly and going to have a drink and a feed.
So, for whatever reason, he's moved down the orchard to an old hole that's been abandoned for about ten years and has set about renovating that instead. It now has the most magnificent patio I've ever seen (supported by a very sagging fence) with a view over the garden, and lots of good stuff to munch around the avocado trees. I see him most evenings when I go down to pick asparagus - one small, very round, very brown wombat chomping happily.
Awards
Two wonderful awards this month! The kids of WA have voted for They Came on Viking Ships as their favourite 'younger readers' book for 2007. I collected the WAYBRA award while I was in Fremantle at the enduringly wonderful Fremantle Children's Literature Centre (which should become the Australian centre for Children's Literature, Fremantle, as they have pioneered exactly the sort of programmes for kids, teachers and those who love kids' books that the rest of the country desperately needs).
But back to awards... Awards voted on by kids are special, and this WAYBRA Award is even more special, because They Came on Viking Ships is a big, complex book - but kids still voted for it instead of much shorter, funnier snappier books.
We so often underestimate kids. When did you last see a kid turn the TV off because a show was too long or complex? If a book is good enough, kids will devour it, even if it uses long words or has six subplots, In fact, given the choice, many kids prefer big books they can dive into, which of course is why the great kids' lit success of the decade is Harry Potter. Big, complex ... and a whole new universe to explore.
The other award this month was won by the Monkey Baa Theatre for Young People for their stunning production of Hitler's Daughter last year. It's the Drover's Award for the best Touring Production. (They already won the Helpman Award a couple of months ago.)
I am so incredibly glad for them. It was a brilliant production.
When Eva, Sandy and Tim from Monkey Baa approached me to put Hitler's Daughter on the stage, I didn't think it could be done. How can you put modern kids in a flooded country valley as well as war ravaged Berlin on stage? It's easy in a novel ... tell people it's the Berlin of 1945, or that the floodwaters are brown and frothy, and there you are.
How can you put a man with a small moustache and long leather boots on stage and call him Hitler without someone giggling?
And then I saw a dress rehearsal. I heard the rain and saw the bombs, felt the shadow of Hitler not just looming over the theatre but present wherever people still want to blindly follow leaders that offer them hope and excitement.
It was exactly the world I had written about, and suddenly I was there and so was everyone else in the theatre. Even knowing exactly how they did it still doesn't quite explain the magic.
The play isn't the book, just as the book isn't the play: each will give you something different. But their essential heart is the same. And there is no way I can thank the team at Monkey Baa for the extraordinary gift of seeing the world in my mind's eye upon the stage, for producing a play that left audiences silent in shock and wonder for twenty seconds before they began to applaud. Simply and utterly brilliant.
Somehow this book seems to have wide and enduring appeal, in Australia and further afield; here are the awards it has won up to June 2007...
2007
- Short listed for the KOALA Award (voted by children)
2006
- Short listed for the KOALAs and YABBA awards (voted by children)
- Added to YABBA Hall of Fame
2005
- Short listed for the KOALAs and YABBA awards(voted by children)
- The Japanese version received the semi-grand prix of the Sankei Children's Book Awards in June.
2004
- Short listed for the COOL and YABBA awards((voted by children))
2003
- The USA edition was named a "Blue Ribbon" book by the Bulletin for the Center of Children's Books in the USA.
- Short listed for the KOALA, COOL and YABBA awards (voted by children)
- Short listed in the Older Readers' category of the Children's Choice Book
- Awards
2002
- Short listed for the KOALA and COOL awards (voted by children)
- Short listed in the Older Readers' category of the YABBAs (voted by children)
- The UK edition won the UK National Literacy Association WOW! Award, as the book most likely to encourage reluctant readers to love books.
2001
- Short listed in the Older Readers' category of the Bilby (Books I Love Best Yearly) Awards
- Short listed in the Older Readers' category of the YABBAs (voted by children)
- Short listed in the Younger Reader's category of the WAYRBAs (voted by children)
2000
- Winner, Children's Book Council - Book of the Year: Younger Readers
- Short listed for the Sanderson Young Adult Audio Book of the Year Awards: Vision Australia Library
Book News
 Introducing the Shaggy Gully Times!
STOP PRESS!
Our favourites Mothball, Pete the Sheep and Josephine are on the front page of The Shaggy Gully Times!
Be the first to read the breaking news as it happens in the small bush town of Shaggy Gully, home to many animals such as celebrity ballerina Josephine, Pete the Sheep, who runs Shaun's Sheep Salon, and Mothball Wombat, the editor of the weekly newspaper, who has a bit of trouble with her spilling, oops! spelling.
Just some of this week's breaking news... The Shaggy Gully Bushfire Brigade and the rest of the community are determined to rescue the miserable inhabitants of Mr Nasty's Goo! (I mean, zoo).
Police report that Gunna the Graffiti Goanna has struck again! And who is the mysterious blonde up the three bears' gum tree?
Can poor Bluey Spider ever find true love? Will the visiting Kiwis thrash the Wallabies in the Match of the year?
Quite simply, it's the punniest news you'll ever read. Get your specially bound edition today! At all good newsagents/booksellers.
Timetable for the Next Few Months
2007
Oct 18: Workshop at the Early Childhood Development Conference, Canberra
Oct 19: Talks at schools in Brisbane. Sorry, the schedule is now full!
Oct 24: Children's Day Award ceremony, Canberra
Oct 24: Workshop for carers at the Marymead centre: Six Great Reading Myths and finding the perfect book for every child.
Nov 4: Open Garden Workshops at our place... rain, hail or drought these will go ahead, even if someone has to wheelchair me around the garden with a broken leg! Bookings essential as numbers limited.
Contact Canberra Office: act@opengarden.org.au for all details, costs and bookings. (The Open Garden Scheme handles everything, including hiring a bus to get everyone here, and uses the money for their charities... I just give the workshop.)
Nov 11: Talk on gardening at the Bungendore Primary School Spring fair, plus signings of Shaggy Gully Times.
Nov 17: Sydney
Dymocks/Four Seasons Storytelling party ... and introducing The Shaggy Gully Times! Contact Dymocks Sydney or the Four Seasons Hotel for details.
Nov 23: Launceston
Morning: Launch of Tasmanian Early Years Foundation, at the State Library of Tasmania, Launceston. I'll be talking to mostly young kids (who'll also get the chance to make kangaroo ears and whiskers) about how to Hop Into a Book. It's open to the public, and there'll be morning tea, too, as part of the fun!
Afternoon: 1.30-2.30 pm. Launch of The Shaggy Gully Times at Stories Bookshop, Launceston. Everyone welcome! (But if you are going to be part of a large group, contact the bookshop first!)
2008
Feb 23/24: International SCBWI and ASA Conference at The Hughenden, Sydney. Bruce Whatley and I will talk about the process of creating Diary of a Wombat and other picture books set in Shaggy Gully, and our wonderful editor Lisa Berryman (who is as much part of the books as Bruce and I) will chair the session.
May: Children's Book Council of Australia Conference Melbourne
July 22-27: Byron Bay Writer's Festival
Aug 17-19: 2008 Book Week talks Adelaide
Once again, I'm sorry that I can't do much more than one trip away from home each month these days. It costs me in time, travel and airfares ... But please do log on to my website: www.jackiefrench.com to get all your answers to questions about wombats, gardening, recipes, whatever!
The October Garden
October is exciting: vegetables are growing, trees have set fruit, and the world is a carpet of flowers. October has all of spring's growth without summer's heat to knock it back. The weather is excellent for being in the garden, which is good, because it is also an excellent time to plant things.
These days I mostly stick to veg that will survive long, hot dry summers. Luckily a surprising number of veg will last even through six months of blazing heat when it doesn't rain at all ... Lots of broad leafed Italian parsley, Freckles' lettuce, red stemmed Italian chicory, mizuna and mitsuba that go to seed if they get hot and dry but set so much seed that you have dozens of tiny plants springing up after the smallest rain shower, perfect for salads. What else? Corn, planted more deeply than usual so by the time the shoots reach the surface there's plenty of root to hunt for moisture in the sub soil. Beans and tomatoes and chilli, mulched right up to the top leaves - and potatoes too. The more you mulch spuds, tomatoes and beans the more roots grow - and the more roots, the better they survive the heat and drought. Jerusalem artichokes, artichokes, Chinese artichokes, Warrigal spinach (don't forget to cook in two changes of water before eating - it's high in oxalic acid) asparagus, garlic chives, chokos, yacon, because perennial veg have a nice fat root system that help plants survive. Speaking of perennials, bung in lots of perennial leeks as well as beans. The flowers are stunning - bright red-pink, rose and white, depending on variety. And as long as you pick them small and tender they're great.
And don't forget to mulch! Now the weather has warmed up mulch everything (with the possible exception of the cat, the wombats etc.).
What to plant: Vegetables
Cool areas: Start spring planting now.
Food plants: Choko, lemon grass, sweet potato and passionfruit vines, Jerusalem artichokes, paw paw and Cape gooseberry seeds. Also the seeds of artichokes, basil, beans, beetroot, capsicum, carrots, celery, celtuce, chicory, cucumbers, eggplant, endive, fennel, tropical lettuce, melons, okra, parsley, peas, peanuts, pumpkin (not in humid areas), radish, rosellas, sweet corn, tomatoes and salad greens like mizuna and mitsuba.
Flowers: Seeds or seedlings of ageratum, alyssum, amaranthus, carnations, celosia, coleus, cosmos, dichondra, echinops, erigeron, gaillardia, gazania, gloxinia, gourds, hymenosporum, impatiens, nasturtiums, phlox and salvia.
Cold and Temperate:
Food plants: Seed potatoes, sweet potatoes, choko, strawberries; seeds of artichokes, asparagus, basil, beans, beetroot, broccoli, burdock, cabbage, capsicum, carrots, cauliflower, celery, celtuce, chicory, collards, coriander, corn salad, cress, cucumbers, eggplant, endive, fennel, kale, kohl rabi, leeks, lettuce, melons, okra, parsley, peanuts, pumpkin, radish, rosellas, salsify, scorzonera, sweet corn, tomatoes, turnips, salad greens like mizuna and mitsuba, and zucchini.
Flower garden: Achillea, ageratum. alstromeria, alyssum amaranthus, aster, balsam, bellis perennis, bells of Ireland, brachycome, calendula, candytuft, Canterbury bells, carnation, celosia, clarkia, cleome, coleus, coreopsis, columbines, cosmos, delphinium, dichondra, echinacea, echinops, erigeron, euphorbia, foxglove, gaillardia, gazania, globe amaranth, gloxinia, godetia, gypsophila, helichrysum, heliotrope, hellebores, honesty, lavender, marigolds, nasturtium, petunia, phlox, Flanders poppy, portulaca, rudbeckia, salpiglossis, salvia, scabious, sweet william, viola, zinnia and snapdragons.
Fruit: Evergreen fruit trees can still be planted now, except where it's getting too hot - though, if necessary, trees can be sheltered in hessian shelters for a few weeks. Don't be tempted by leftover bare-rooted trees in nurseries, even if they are cheap - they may not shoot, or their new roots will break off when you plant them. Trees which are badly set back when young don't recover for years.
What to harvest:
Vegetables: Asparagus and early artichokes will be yielding now. In warm areas, lettuce, Chinese spinach, corn salad and peas may be starting to yield if planted in August.
Fruit: We're picking the first loquats and the last of the navel oranges, plus lemons, limes, tangelos, mandarins, avocadoes, early strawberries, very early raspberries, rhubarb, banana passionfruit and tamarillos (ripening from last season), macadamias, blood oranges, grapefruit and just a few Ellendale mandarins. Oh, and yesterday's gale blew down the last of the pecans and chestnuts from last season, too, but the bush rats found them before I did.
Flowers: Early roses, late camellias, azaleas, rhododendrons, magnolias, primulas, rock roses, lavender, daisies, ranunculi, late daffodils, grevilleas, early sweet peas, irises, lawn daisies and freesias - I could keep going for paragraphs. Sometimes it seems as though the whole world is flowering now.
Pests
No matter what pests are bugging you, try not to do anything about it for at least another two weeks - see if natural predators will start doing the job for you.
- Put out codling moth lures now to see if you need to start spraying. Put out fruit fly traps if you have any fruit, or fruit-like vegetables, near ripening.
- Look for snails. Snails love spring - the lizards that keep them in check are still sleepy. (Frogs do a good job at snail killing too.) Place snail bait in an old margarine container with a gate cut out of it, so that rain won't wash the bait away.
Other jobs
- Stake tall, flowering perennials
- Chop up vegies that have gone-to-seed and stew them into a rich vegetable stock - either have it for lunch or freeze it. A friend of mine grates them up, adds wheat germ and bakes them into crisp dog biscuits. (Many vegetables like carrots and celery which have gone to seed, can be eaten simply by peeling away the tough outer membrane - the centres will be soft and sweet.)
- Plant green-manure crops that can be slashed and ready for January plantings of winter vegetables - broad beans (cut them when they're flowering, don't wait for pods to set) or sunflowers, buckwheat or even radish if you pull them out before the bulbs form.
- Plant passionfruit vines and chokos now, before it gets too hot - though they can be planted at any time as long as they are well established by winter, and kept mulched and watered.
- Mulch strawberries and rhubarb now, and cut off any rhubarb heads going to seed. Mulching now prevents leaf disease later.
- Buy young chooks now – they'll lay through till next spring. If you don't raise your own chickens, try buying alternately black, white or red ones, to 'colour code' each year - or leave different colour roosters with the females each season.
- Don't rush out and buy pesticides for every bug you see. Most pest outbreaks will be controlled naturally as the season warms up.
Focus on: WEEDS
Let me go out on a limb, so to speak: Well-planted gardens don't get weeds.
Weeds are a problem because we leave lots of bare space in the garden that just fills up with weeds. They're also a problem because we don't know what to do with them!
Think of your weeds as a crop, not a problem. They can give you free fertiliser and free mulch, bring up leached nutrients, and shelter tender plants. The flowering ones attract predators to clean up your pests. You can eat weeds, or use them as the basis for your medicine chest. Think of weeds as a bandaid, correcting some of the damage that people have done to the soil.
Our attitude to weeds is a hangover from last-century Europe, when labour was cheap and the thirteenth gardener at the manor house could weed the flower bed. After World War II labour became scarcer and chemicals (often war research by-products) became the answer to our prayers: 'dig them out' was replaced by 'poison them'. Until recently very little work had been done on evolving strategies to cope with weeds instead of wiping them out.
I love most weeds. This is a good thing, as there's not much chance for a gardener to avoid weeds entirely. Weeds have an essential role, both in natural and in gardening systems. Weeds stabilise the soil. If it's dug by a spade or left bare when a tree's blown down by the wind, the weeds move in to maintain the structure of the soil. Their deep roots bring up nutrients and when their leaves decay the nutrients are there near the surface: ready to feed the young tree seedlings that will colonise in their turn.
Gardeners have a habit of digging up soil so that it forms a hard pan or horrible clumps; leaving it bare so it's eroded by wind and rain, and baked in the sun. Thank heavens for weeds. At least they correct some of the problems that over-enthusiastic gardeners create.
Weeds as ground cover
If weeds are covering a bit of ground which you don't plan to use – just leave them there. We have hectares of blackberries here, glades of bracken, clumps of briars. We're gradually getting rid of them, but only as fast as we need the ground. Weeds look after the soil. So leave them where they are until you need the soil.
Weeds as fertiliser
Harvest the weeds and cover them with water and use the liquid after a week as liquid manure. Slash the weeds and use their leaves as mulch - even dock is fine as long as there are no seed heads, and so are thistles as long as their prickles are covered by something else.
Don't use weeds with seeds or roots (or stems that will put out roots, like kikuyu grass or jasmine) as mulch. They should be added to the compost so they won't grow again - or stick them in water for liquid manure. The residue can be used as mulch after a month, when the seeds and roots have turned to mush.
How to control and co-exist with weeds
In conventional practice there are two things you can do to eliminate weeds:
- dig them out, a back breaking exercise; or
- use herbicides, which may not be healthy either, and is only a short-term solution.
The best weed control is knowledge: knowing your weeds and knowing your garden, and keeping it growing strongly. Learn to co-exist with weeds - if they become a problem, find out why you can correct it. Unless you understand your weed problems they’ll keep on coming back.
Bare ground (including grass cut too low under trees) invites weeds. Deep-dug neat garden beds with everything planted in rows are paradise for weeds.
How to fill bare spaces
Plant creeping shrubs like prostrate grevilleas or rosemary under trees - weeds like oxalis love lawn that's been impoverished by roots underneath. Don't bother to dig out the oxalis - plant a daisy bush over it. In two or three years' time you can dig up the daisy bush and plant woodruff, pennyroyal or lawn chamomile instead: something that likes shade more than grass.
I plant alyssum or radishes in between flower or vegie seedlings. As they grow, the new plants overpower the alyssum, and we pull out the young radishes and eat them. I've also used pansies to good effect. Other flowers can be used too, but make sure they are shallow rooted and good survivors. (I once tried marigolds to fill up the bare spots between my onions - marigolds are great growth inhibitors and I thought they'd keep the weeds down. They did - but they kept the onions down too. We never did get an onion crop that year.)
Mulch between flowers and vegetables
Plant them closer together. Fill up spaces in your garden with undemanding plants like white alyssum or strawberries - we let strawberries ramble through our vegie beds.
Keep grass out of your garden with deep-rooted plants like comfrey (will spread) thickly planted garlic chives, or lemon grass in hotter areas. Chop the leaves for mulch. These days I use a thick row of garlic chives to keep out grass and weeds. Looks great. Also tastes good.
Try a 'grass barrier': a piece of metal bent over at the edges and pushed into the soil round your garden. This will also keep out snails.
Try a 'moving rubbish heap'
Start weeding at one end of the garden. Toss the weeds on top of other weeds further down. They'll kill them, gradually breaking down and adding to the garden's fertility. (Weeds that have gone to seed need to be composted or made into green manure. Weeds that may re-root should be placed on paper.)
Plant thickly
Plant seedlings much more densely than the recommended rates on seed packets. Thicker planting means no bare ground for weeds to colonise. Excess seedlings can be pulled out. Tiny carrots are sweeter than big ones, young beetroot leaves can be cooked like spinach, tiny lettuce leaves can be tossed in salads. I find, with cauliflowers, red mignonette lettuce, carrots, beetroot, leeks and many other vegetables, that the smaller plants will stay dormant till I harvest the more vigorous. Then they start growing and cropping in their turn - an easy way to stagger your cropping.
How to prevent weeds from spreading
Some weeds like couch, kikuyu, etc won't co-exist with vegies. Pull out perennials before they seed. Slash annuals - cover them with mulch or use any of the weed control measures described before. Try not to introduce new weeds, whether in mulch or on your clothes. Grass seeds, bindii eyes, cobblers pegs, etc stick to your clothes - that is their way of expanding their territory.
Other ways of getting rid of weeds
Choke them out
I cleared a garden bed last year by planting gladioli bulbs thickly in the lawn. (I used a spoon to scoop them into the soil, not a spade.) The stored nutrients in the bulbs let the flowers compete against the grass. The bulbs won. This year I pulled out the bulbs and had a ready dug, weed-free bed to plant in. Plants that grow from roots or bulbs are excellent weed clearers – try dahlias or rhubarb.
Choke weeds out with banana passionfruit. This grows well even in frost, and the fruit are good too. Plant a hop vine and let it sprawl over convolvulus or wandering Jew or oxalis; even pumpkins can be trained over a weedy patch. I grow pumpkins round our corn and other tall growers to keep down weeds.
Weeding with radishes
Many plants suppress the growth or germination of other plants when they go to seed, especially cabbages, cauliflowers and radishes. I plant radish and parsnip in autumn, and let them go to seed in spring. Then I water them well and pull them out. The ground below is almost weed-free and deeply dug by the radish roots: perfect for planting carrots or spring seedlings.
Weeding with chooks
Make a temporary pen with bales of hay around the weeds. Add chooks. Throw in laying pellets. Let them scratch (and go back to their roosts at night.)
After a week you should have nicely dug up, weed free and fertilised soil. Move chooks to a new patch of weeds. Plant.
Weeding with Pigs
As above, but substitute pigs for chooks, and electric fence for the bales of hay. A neighbour used to get rid of high blackberry bushes this way- surround the bushes with electric fence, throw in pigs and pig nuts and add a water trough... a week later he had no blackberries and a lot of manure rich mud.
Green manures
Green manures are plants grown especially as fertiliser. Plant peas or broad beans or lupins thickly then slash them just before they flower. They'll add nitrogen and organic matter to the soil. Don't dig them in - just part the debris and plant your crops. Some green manures like oats produce root secretions that suppress weed growth and germination. Sunflowers are a cheap, fast-growing green manure which suppresses weed growth. Sow cockie seed thickly.
Drip irrigation
This waters only the valuable plants, not the weeds. Once your crops have a well-watered head start, they should be able to out-grow the weeds.
Above all ... Keep plants growing strongly
This is the most important strategy of all. Once a plant is about a third grown it can out-compete a weed. Feed and water your plants and they'll be the best weed protection you can have.
Actively killing weeds
If weeds need to be killed try the following extermination methods;
Solarisation
Cover weeds with clear plastic. Don't use black plastic: vigorous weeds just grow out the edges. The ground under clear plastic will be warm and moist, and the weeds grow soft and sappy, and die of rots and mould. This can take three to eight weeks, depending on the temperature. Solarisation also kills weed seeds and pathogens like Fusarium wilt.
Mulch
Cover your weeds with more weeds, old newspaper and hay - as thickly as you can. Even if they poke through the mulch they'll be weakened and easy to pull out.
I have tried nut tree leaf, oak leaf, cypress leaf, pumpkin leaf, mugwort and bracken mulches. They do inhibit the weeds - but may not be worth the work. A lawn clipping mulch is easier, though any mulch will help keep down weeds, if not as well as the weed-suppressing ones. You also have to be careful with weed-suppressing mulches not to suppress the growth of useful plants. Most weeds can be killed by covering them with newspaper for a few weeks.
Natural herbicides
- Some plants produce phytotoxic substances - either from their roots or washed down from their leaves - which inhibit plant growth. Use thickly grown poppies, oats, cabbages or mugwort to clean a weedy area.
- Try a barley, oat or other grain 'green manure' to clear a patch of weeds. Slash it and let it decompose on top of the soil. All grains suppress weed germination. Oats works particularly well, but wheat, buckwheat and rye will also help 'clean' an extremely weedy paddock or garden bed.
- Potatoes suppress the germination of many weeds around them. Many of the 'stately home' lawns were first planted with potatoes by gardeners who knew their value in 'cleaning' weedy ground.
- Brassicas (cabagge, cauliflowers, broccoli) gone to seed: This is the most effective natural herbicide I know. As the brassica goes to seed it will suppress the germination all other plants around it - and the growth of those already growing. When you need the space, pull the brassica out. The roots will 'dig' the soil for you, and you will have a relatively weed-free spot to plant carrots, onions etc. But be warned - after a crop of gone-to-seed brassicas, seedling growth can be slow till the residues in the soil break down.
- Gladioli: I use gladioli to clean up grass and weed infested areas before I plant them out. I roughly lay gladdie corms on top of the weeds thickly, then rake. Most of the gladdies grow, though a good few die: but I buy them by the thousand as small bulbs so they are VERY cheap. The gladdies multiply over the next two or three years - and at the end of that time I have a bed of flowers that can be easily pulled out after they turn brown, leaving bare soil behind. Or I can leave the gladdies in place, thinning slightly so I have new gladdies to clean up other spots, till I need the land.
- Dahlias: Dahlias are thick and tough growing - and not really so ugly if they are growing in masses of other plants. I grow them at the edge of the garden to keep out weeds or plant thickly as above to clear up grassy or weedy patches. Like gladdies they multiply fast, and sprawl so well that there is a good bare patch around each clump in winter.
- Kiwi fruit: If you have problems with briars or other woody weeds and a lot of time, try poking two kiwi fruit cuttings either side. Let them grow - and sprawl - and eventually cover the weed and kill it. You then have to get rid of the kiwi fruit...
- Silver poplars:We once had a bank of blackberry and thorn bush. I planted very large silver poplar trees - their heads just topped the blackberry. We now have a bank of silver poplars, though there is still some blackberry at the edges (one day we'll get round to mowing it).
- Hydrangeas, hibiscus, wormwood, ginger lilies: Take a steep, grassy, weedy slope. Depending on the climate and soil type, stick in lots of cuttings from one of these plants. Then wait two or three years.
- Climbing perennial seven year or runner beans: These climb - but they also sprawl. Plant them around weedy areas, in small patches of compost. As they grow they'll suffocate the weeds.
The Vampire Method
The Vampire Method involves pouring water that has just boiled onto weeds - they shrivel up and die at once. If they have deep roots, like dandelions, thrust a wooden stake into their hearts - just like you're killing a vampire - and then pour the boiling water down the hole.
A tomato stake works well on the weeds; it doesn't have to be too sharp.
The Vampire Method is a wonderfully therapeutic activity: just picture your favourite hate object instead of the weed, and cry 'Die vermin, die!' as you pour on the water. Then explain nicely to the neighbours that you were just killing the weeds (you don't have to mention my name) and show them how to do it.
Mow Your Weeds
One mow will not kill weeds, but regular mowing will. Why? Weeds are weeds because animals don't eat them, and unlike grass, which evolved to be eaten. Weeds don't like having their heads cut off regularly.
We have got rid of about 20 hectares of blackberry by mowing it every month or so - just as you might a lawn - for two years. (We knocked the bushes flat first by slashing out the central stem).
- Jackie's Top Sixteen pernicious weeds ... and how to get rid of them!
Bamboo: Dig in a metal 'fence' about half a metre deep around the bamboo to stop it from spreading. Pick the bamboo shoots. Sell them, or boil them for twenty minutes and eat them.
- Bindii eyes: Scatter sulphate of ammonia thickly in winter when they stand out bright green against the grass. Don't water for a week.
- Blackberry: Burn or hack back the clumps. Then scatter grass seed (this is essential) and then either keep mowing or run goats or other stock to eat the soft regrowth. Cover small mounds with choko or banana passionfruit. Build a no-dig garden on top using the blackberry slash as mulch. (For extra assistance, see Weeding with Pigs above).
- Bracken: Offer kids a cent for each bracken fiddle in spring: a cheaper solution than herbicide. Just keep mowing small areas. In large areas pull an old wire mattress base across the bracken in spring, mid-summer and autumn to break the fronds. Repeat every three weeks for two years. Bracken makes good mulch.
- Briars: Graft on another rose, using stock like hybrid teas. Cattle, sheep, horses, goats or wallabies will eat them and kill the bush. Cut down then mow.
- Broom: Broom doesn't like disturbed roots, so ploughing, or even incomplete digging is often successful. Then re-sow with a good mixed pasture selection. Don't burn it: you'll make the problem worse. A good grass or tree cover will keep an area clear of broom. Poor pasture or overworked land is vulnerable.
- Couch grass: Keep it out with a grass barrier, either metal or comfrey. Scatter thickly with sulphate of ammonia, then cover with clear plastic. Leave a week.
- Convolvulus, wandering Jew, and other spreaders: Cover with weed mat, cut tiny holes for seedlings and plant a garden on top. Scatter thickly with sulphate of ammonia, then cover with clear plastic. Leave a week.
- Dock: Use the leaves as mulch till it starts to go to seed. Water very well, then pull it out just before the seed sets - it's easier to pull out then. If dock is slashed for mulch every week it'll die. The Vampire Method (see above) works well.
- Kikuyu: Fence it out with a metal or comfrey barrier. Ploughing or digging must be repeated at weekly intervals, as kikuyu grows fast. A heavy, temporary stocking of chooks or pigs works best.
- Lantana: Slash it, or cover it with weed mat and plant after a few months. Try the 'Weeding with Pigs' method, then plant sweet potatoes. Grow banana passionfruit over it. Slash it and keep mowing it. There are dozens of ways to get rid of it. But don't even try to get rid of it unless you are going to use the area straight away: the bare patch will just fill up with weeds again.
- Lawn daisy: I love lawn daisies. They are one of the earliest spring flowers, and mowing keeps them in check. If you hate them, dig out under the leaves and compost them, but be prepared for a few years of seedlings. Scatter thickly with sulphate of ammonia, then cover with clear plastic. Leave a week. Don't plough with your lawnmower or they will spread.
- Nutgrass: Dig it out in late winter/early spring when the roots and tiny tubers are nearly exhausted. Take as much soil as you can and keep it under water for three weeks to kill the bulblets. Mulch must be at least 40 cm deep and maintained for a year to be effective, as the bulblets provide a good food supply for the plant. Repeated cultivation will get rid of nutgrass. But the best solution is to plant lots of thick shrubs like French lavender over it!
- Oxalis: Cover with a daisy bush, grevillea, etc. Oxalis grows where grass growth is poor, like under trees. Either re-sow your lawn or grow something that does better there. If you must dig them out, do it in late winter when food reserves are low.
- Paspalum: Cut it with a sharp knife just below the surface. The leftover roots won't regrow. One blow with a mattock should do this.
- Sorrel: Good gardening will gradually get rid of sorrel. If you can't ignore it, mulch it deeply, then pull out the loose rooted re-growth. Chooks love sorrel and will peck at it in preference to most other things. Add dolomite and improve the aeration of the soil with more organic matter.
(More details on weed management techniques can be found in Organic Control of Common Weeds by Jackie French, published by Aird Books).
Recipe: crumble
Recipe: The Great Australian Crumble
The USA has pies, the English have tarts... but in Australia we gently crumble... which cries out for a poem starting: Do not grumble at the crumble... but I don't have time right now to finish it.
Ingredients
Crumble:
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup Self raising flour
2 tbsp butter (more if needed)
Mix flour and sugar. With your fingers rub in small amount of butter, then add more slices of butter till mixture is the consistency of soft breadcrumbs. Don't worry if you add a bit too much or too little - a crumble is very forgiving.
Fruit:
A combination of any or all of the following.
Stewed apple
stewed apple and almost any berry (Don't precook the berries- just add to the stewed apple)
Stewed quinces
Stewed or baked rhubarb
Lightly cooked cherries (I put two layers in the baking dish, bake for ten minutes, then add the crumble topping)
Apricots or sliced peaches cooked in the same manner as the cherries
Easy way: can of fruit or pitted cherries
Note: you don't have to sweeten the fruit much, or at all, as the crumble will add the sweetness.
Method:
Scatter the crumble crumbs onto the fruit. Pop into a moderate oven (about 180 deg. C). Cook about ten minutes till the top is just starting to turn gold. Don't over cook, as it turns into concrete.
It can be eaten hot or cold... probably best temperature is tepid i.e. let it sit out of the oven for twenty minutes or so.
Accompaniments:
The world is divided into those who eat their crumble with thick double cream, custard, single pouring cream, natural yoghurt, or plain for breakfast. I'm an ice-cream girl... there is something fascinating about eating hot crumble and cold ice-cream with just a little melted about the edges. And these days you can eat no fat soy ice-cream, which is almost virtuous...
How to Stew Fruit: A Note for Novices
It's just occurred to me that there may be cooks out there who have never seen anyone stew fruit before.
Any fruit can be stewed. The softer it is, the less time it takes to cook it. If you stew very soft fruit like raspberries too long, you end up with raspberry mush.
Method:
1. Place 3 cups of water and 1 cup of sugar in a pan. Heat till sugar dissolves and add the juice of half a lemon or lime. This gives you the syrup to cook your fruit in. You won't need much syrup though for very soft fruit, or ones with a lot of juice like peaches.
2. Peel fruit if desired. Most fruit can be stewed with the peel left on. An easy way to peel apricots and peaches is to cover the fruit with water from a boiling kettle for a few seconds. The skin will shrivel and can be slipped off easily. I don't bother peeling plums. And don't try boiling banana skin! (You can bake or barbeque bananas in their skins though. Good with caramel sauce or ice-cream)
3. Place fruit and syrup in a pan. Soft fruit only needs about 1 cup of syrup to six cups of fruit. Juicy fruit needs about the same. Fruit that is very hard and will need a lot of boiling, like quinces, needs 4 cups syrup to 4 cups fruit, plus extra water during cooking as the syrup dries up.
4. Do not boil, or the fruit will go mushy. Simmer as slowly as you can - or cook in a casserole in the oven on about 200 C. Stop cooking as soon as the fruit is almost soft. It will keep cooking in the hot syrup.
5. Keep in a covered container in the fridge for up to a fortnight, or freeze in syrup for up to 3 months.
Stewed fruit is great for breakfast with cereal, with lots of natural low fat yoghurt for lunch, as an afternoon snack, or as a base for crumbles or pies or with ice-cream for dessert.
Other ideas: I think the plain taste of sugar, and fruit is unbeatable, but you can add a little lemon or lime peel to the syrup for more bite; add a piece of cinnamon bark to change the flavour.
If you want less sugar in your diet cook fruit in plain water, but use as little as possible.
Try mixes of fruit - apple and rhubarb, or apples and blueberries. You can also mix fresh fruit with frozen berries.
It is almost impossible to make too much stewed fresh fruit! It will all get eaten!
For more information from Jackie, please go to her website: www.jackiefrench.com
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