In Praise of Feral Plums

In Melbourne there are many 'plum trees' that come up in gardens, along train tracks and in parks and creeks. My own garden is part of a property that has always been rented. In that way that tenants rarely get to make big changes to a backyard, nature often takes up the slack and I have eight plum trees, most of them self-sown over the 90 year life of this house. The trees are largely a kind of generic green, in foliage and plum colour although the fruit does get a flush of red as they ripen. One small tree has apricot flavoured plums while another with exactly the same habit and form and plum shape was entirely flavourless - I have since removed it. The best specimen is the classic purple leaved Prunus cerasifera with dark red fruit which is just beginning to ripen. (The late winter blossoms are beautiful too.) The fruit bats and lorikeets are already into them, not in a feeding frenzy yet, but with enough enthusiasm that as soon as the plums are ready for humans I will pick as many as I can for stewing.

We've had good winter and spring rain this year and there is a large crop but even last year with drier conditions there were more than enough plums to go round for humans and wildlife alike. So I rate these tough old trees that can survive and thrive with zero inputs. No extra irrigation, no fertilising and no pruning...perfect!

Growing Sweet Potatoes in Melbourne

It's been a long, hot summer and there's lots to tell about my garden and how lots of different plants survived and thrived or otherwise. Let's start with Sweet Potatoes. The truth is that I picked up two small seedlings at Bunnings and planted them around October, almost as an afterthought. Here is the harvest from one of those plants, gently dug up over the weekend on April 13...I was rapt to say the least, especially considering that I had already bandicooted one large tuber in January.  I had already taken a lot of comfort from the following blog - http://suburbantomato.com/2012/05/growing-sweet-potatoes-in-melbourne-part-2/ - where a local grower had proved you could grow sweet potatoes in Melbourne. But still!










I have friends from the tropics who regard sweet potatoes as so easy to grow they're almost boring, but I'm still in the first flush of total joy that the harvest was so good. It's always like that when a food plant is regarded as marginal for your city or region and then, exceptionally hot summer aside, you show that it works as a fantastic crop.

And of course what's so great about sweet potatoes is that they're perennial plants, easy to strike from cuttings or via layering (which the species does itself naturally) and the young shoots are edible - I've been cooking with all summer. It's time to make sweet potatoes "mainstream" in Melbourne and perhaps, one day, boring... 

My True Yams (Dioscorea alata)

Just for now some images of my Yams, and I don't mean Sweet Potatoes or Oca or Taro but big, gnarly Dioscorea Yams with their beautiful foliage and colourful or enormous tubers dug during winter. I'll write more fully about them soon because I think they have great potential down here in Melbourne (at latitude 38 degrees south) as an ornamental plant and as a bonus source of carbs when the weather goes grim...

Images of Oca or New Zealand Yams

So I finally learned some degree of patience and stopped "bandicooting" the Oca. As a result I can finally show images of fully grown Oca. They really are delicious and as they harvested during the late autumn and early winter gloom of May-June, ferreting out these pinky-purple grubs on a chilly afternoon was a seasonal highlight. I am on a mission now to increase my own production of Oca but to convert all of Melbourne to these tuberous wonders!

Cooking with Jerusalem Artichokes

The trouble with some crops is that they are too abundant and you face the issue of what to do with a gigantic harvest. The problem is compounded when you admit to yourself that you not quite sure where they fit it into your everyday meals (read: I don't really like the taste or smell etc). I have always felt this way about Jerusalem Artichokes. They are easy to grow, have attractive small sunflowers in autumn and produce unbelievable quantities of gnarly cream-coloured edible rhizomes. No matter how thorough your harvest of these rhizomes even the tiniest fragment left in the soil will re-sprout next spring making Jerusalem Artichokes an indestructible perennial vegetable and weedy to boot.

A gnarly pot-grown Jerusalem Artichoke

This year I grew Jerusalem Artichokes in two large pots. I pretty much neglected them and on hot days they wilted and looked awful. In fact by the end of summer the plants were not especially robust looking and I didn't expect much of a harvest. Yesterday I tipped them out of their pots and what emerged was a decent crop after all - around 30 medium sized rhizomes. Now although I don't mind baked artichoke roots and I have used them sliced raw in salads they generally don't inspire me. (And this lack of inspiration isn't because of the "gas" they cause, you know "Fartichokes"...).

Only once have I really enjoyed JAs and this was when a friend cooked up a French soup recipe using blended JAs with lots of cream. It was delicious and there was a distinctive artichoke flavour that made them seem like a worthwhile crop to have on hand. So yesterday I searched for JA recipe on the internet and found a recipe at http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/2009/10/jerusalem_artichoke_soup_with_bacon.php...this is apparently a well-know cooking blog and had a great discussion on the use of JAs in French cooking, especially for survival cooking during the First World War.  I used Canna tubers and one potato along with the artichokes but otherwise I followed the recipe quite closely. The resulting soup was nourishing and tasty. For this recipe alone I will grow Jerusalem Artichokes with a little more effort next year.

Success with Oca/New Zealand Yam in Melbourne?

New Zealand Yam (Oxalis tuberosa) is neither a yam nor from New Zealand; in fact it's from the Andes and a member of the Oxalis family. It's called Oca in South America (one of several local names). The 'yam' part of the plant is a small pink, yellow or white roundish or finger-like stem tuber which can be eaten raw, steamed or baked. They are definitely popular in New Zealand because although I have never been across the Tasman I keep meeting New Zealanders who are intensely nostalgic about missing a "feed of yams" now that they live in Australia. I became interested in Oca when it was recommended in various sources as a delicious, perennial vegetable that is second only to potatoes for cropping in the Andes. Now "perennial" made me think "relatively easy to grow" but this is not necessarily the case. Producing plenty of tubers requires some basic cultivation knowledge and tricks; Oca is not set and forget as is the case for many annual and perennial vegetables alike.

Before I explain what you need to know to grow plenty of Oca tubers, I will confirm that this is an attractive plant with green clover leaves growing off pinky-red stems. In early spring and then into autumn in Melbourne's temperate climate it looks lush and has quite a compact habit. It's when summer comes that things get tricky. Oca doesn't like hot days and on really hot days (more than say 32 degrees celsius) it wilts badly. In summer it tends to sprawl and in hot humid weather often rots at the base of the stems or just below the soil level. It is one of the worst performing plants in poorly drained soil that I have ever experimented with. When they say it likes well drained soil they really mean it.

Here's the problem. Oca's summer flopping wouldn't be so bad if it was producing tubers during this time but it doesn't. Like a lot of tropical plants Oca is a short day plant, meaning that it won't start producing tubers until the amount of day light is around 12 hours (or less) which for Melbourne, after summer, occurs at the autumn equinox on or around March 21. Having grown Oca for three years now it is extraordinary how tuber formation begins at this time like clockwork. The stems begin to produce stolons or subsidiary stems and then swell into tubers. Now as autumn nights get colder and longer this tuber production will continue until late May and even into June as long as you are in a frost free area.

So Oca growing means growing "useless" plants for around six months until late autumn when you have to start fussing over them to some degree. But here's the good news - Oca is extremely easy to grow from cuttings. So this year I took cuttings throughout spring and summer from plants in the ground that were waxing and waning in health depending on the weather. I sold quite a few at Sophia's Food Garden Open Day and the rest I put into makeshift raised beds before March 21. This was because there is no doubt that "hilling up" Oca plants (as you do for potatoes) really works. Unlike potatoes (which seem to produce plenty of tubers even if you don't hill them up) Oca seems to need its stems to be covered to help stimulate tuber production because they stay on or near the surface of the soil.

Now here's a confession, my first two years of growing Oca were disappointing precisely because I didn't keep piling up the free-draining soil or compost up and around the Oca stems as they grew. And last year my efforts were thwarted by Sophia's chooks which went mad for the sweet/sour Oxalis foliage and literally pecked them to death. Anyway, I'm writing this on April 28 and the tubers are forming nicely and very close to the surface of my various Oca stations. I have two lots in the ground around which I have pushed up lots of compost. I also have two lots of plants in a styrofoam raised beds; I just keep pouring more soil and compost over the top of them to cover the stems, effectively super-mulching them.

Have a look at the pictures, I hope it's relatively self-explanatory. I'll blog again about how they're going in about a month when I expect they will be ready to harvest or at least "bandicoot". By the way, Tansy the chef who runs the cafe at Burnley (whose partner John is an Oca-loving Kiwi) let me know that the potato man (Michael J Mow Gourmet Potatoes) at the Prahran market sells Australian grown Oca every year.  This should be very soon I hope (see http://theindolentcook.blogspot.com.au/2010/09/oka-yams-love-at-first-bite.html. for an account of someone getting into Oca for the first time).

Sophia's succulents for sale

Apart from the edible plants that make up most of the back yard there are also many succulents growing in the front garden. These plants have been carefully selected and arranged by Sophia who has now propagated quite a few for sale. In her own words:


"In the front garden and nature strip there is a large array of succulents on display, this garden is now two years old and boosts colour diversity and foliage contrast. Over the weekend of the open garden there will be a sustainable and fun selection of succulents for sale presented by a new concept called 'Little Pots and Plants'. The concept is to support local charity op shops through the purchase of different items such as bags, shoes and kitchenwares (to name a few) and upcycle these into useable, fun and adorable outdoor pots for succulents". 

These succulents look great and I am amazed how well they do in partial shade growing out of shoes or old jugs - you'll see them as you walk down the side of the house upon entering the garden. 

Sophia's Garden open again February 18 and 19

It's nearly been a year since Sophia's garden was open in Armadale for the Australian Open Garden Scheme (now called Open Gardens Australia). Next month it's open again on February 18 and 19 from 10.00am to 4.00pm both days. The entry fee is still $6.00. Proceeds from the gate will go to Open Gardens Australia, SANE and the Prahran Mission.

The photo shows the garden last month in December - it's been growing like crazy since and should still be looking lush in five weeks time. The garden lay-out has changed somewhat from last year mostly for crop rotation reasons. All the perennial species continue to thrive including the beautiful Scared Lotus (pictured). Many of these edible plants will be for sale in the small nursery area at the back of the garden while Sophia and Cassie will have succulents for sale along the cool, protected walk down the side of the house. Please come and visit the garden in February!

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Student horticulture blogs

In January I started lecturing in horticulture at the Burnley Campus of the University of Melbourne. Burnley was originally founded as an independent college for horticulture in 1891. It was formally amalgamated with the University of Melbourne in its centenary year, 1991 and is now a campus of the University, part of the Department of Resource Management and Geography in the School of Land and Environment. I'm teaching students in the Associate Degree in Environmental Horticulture, a two-year course that has its origins as one of the original diplomas of the old Burnley College.

One of the subjects I co-ordinate is Information Literacy for Horticulture which covers academic writing, library searching and communications, amongst other topics. As part of this subject students are required to develop a blog and make at least six posts on various themes that relate to plants and people. They're encouraged to post on their experience of their own street or suburb, the quality of landscapes around them and how they might be improved. They're also asked to reflect on what brought them to being interested in plants in the first place and to post on a few technical issues that they have researched. Above all, my aim in this assignment is to get students to practise writing, and in the shared forum of a blog.

I'm looking forward to reading their work and will link to the most interesting posts via this blog.

Open Garden Scheme: Big Thanks!

Thank you to everyone who visited 'Sophia's Food Garden Sanctuary' this weekend!

I loved sharing the garden with everyone. There were lots of questions I couldn't answer, especially when it comes to possums! But I'm inspired now to post more on this blog with the stuff I do know and that includes information on companion planting, which lots of people asked about. I'll be keeping the blog updated more regularly. I was amazed and delighted by all the passion and interest in urban food gardening; it's the way of the future and it was pleasure talking to all of you.

Thanks so much to all the crew who helped guide people through the garden, helped with plant sales, making coffee and welcoming people at the door: Victoria, Alex, Tricia, Daniela, Nadine and Tano, Cassie, Fox, Rachael, Mum and Dad, Tim and Sandy, thank so much! And to Su from the Australian Open Garden Scheme for being so supportive of our desire to open the garden and helping us all the way. And finally thanks to Sophia who lives with and uses the garden every day and is there keeping an eye on it when I retreat back to my flat in Fitzroy. Thanks Sophia for letting me take over your backyard and for sharing its creation with me. I can't thank you enough. And yes Soph, gherkin cucumbers grow best on the ground!