Good Organic Gardening Issue#7.4 - 2016

welcome to the issue

Late spring/early summer has to be the best time of year in the garden. For me, anyway. Maybe it’s because I can grow my favourite things, most especially zucchini. You can honestly never have too much because you can use it in so many ways: roasted, in frittatas and fritters, lending lovely moisture to cakes and bread, and — my current favourite — as zoodles. I’m mad for them, especially piled with prawns cooked with chilli, garlic, lemon and parsley. Melissa King has the many faces of zucchini well covered in Family Heirlooms and she also looks at honeydew melon and tamarillo as fruits to plant now. Meanwhile, Jennifer Stackhouse covers celery, scarlet runner bean and taro to plant in the vegie patch, along with parsley for the herb garden. Plus,…

the grapevine

ORGANIC FARMING TAX CREDIT NOW LAW IN HAWAII In a first for the USA, Hawaiian lawmakers have introduced a state-funded tax credit for certified-organic food production designed to complement existing programs by off setting the financial barriers to organic certification. The new tax credit covers a wide range of costs associated with organic farming not covered under existing cost-share programs and will extend to items such as equipment, materials and supplies necessary for organic certification. During the legislative debate, speakers recognised the need to support a new generation of farmers to grow food and jobs into the future. Speakers noted a vibrant organic farming system is a vital component of a healthy, sustainable food future. centerforfoodsafety.org CAN FOOD SAVE THE WORLD? This was the question on everybody’s lips at the EAT Stockholm Food Forum 2016, the…

what’s hot right now

TOMATO ‘GENUWINE’ The plant: Trying a new variety of tomato is always irresistible and this one is jam-packed with flavour. ‘Genuwine’ is the perfect cross between two heirloom favourites: the rich Italian tomato ‘Costoluto Genovese’ and the beautiful pink ‘Brandywine’. The result is a big, pink-hued tomato with fabulous flavour, high yields, fewer fruit blemishes and superb disease resistance. A musthave for the summer vegie patch. Growing: Plant tomato seedlings in spring or summer for a bountiful summer and autumn crop. Plants will perform best in a sunny spot with good drainage, so prepare the soil first with organic matter and liquid feed regularly to promote a bumper crop of fruit. Add dolomite lime to acidic soils before planting. Tomato ‘Genuwine’ grows 152–215cm tall, so stake plants at planting time. Design: Give ‘Genuwine’…

choc imposter

Carob (Ceratonia siliqua) is best known as a chocolate substitute. The 30cm, curved, dark-brown pods have a chocolatey flavour when they are ground into a cocoa-like powder. The seeds are removed from the pod before it’s ground up. Carob pods can also be eaten fresh (but don’t eat the seeds). Just because this tree is a substitute for something as universally loved as chocolate doesn’t mean it isn’t a first-class tree with lots to off er. Carobs grow into large, spreading shade trees that can reach 8m across. The trees are long-lived and drought-tolerant. They are useful in large gardens, paddocks or as street trees, especially in dry or arid areas. The leathery foliage is also useful for fodder when other feed is scarce. The pods, too, can be given to stock as…

oh my gourd

Gourds are squash-like vegetables but they’re not grown to be eaten. Although you can eat them when they’re small, as they grow and mature, they become bitter. Rather than being grown as an edible vegetable, the long, hard fruit is grown to be used. Gourds are fashioned into utensils such as bowls, decorated or carved as ornaments, and even turned into musical instruments such as drums, maracas and rattles. Gourds are native to Asia and Africa and have been used as objects for more than 10,000 years. The gourd also spread to America where it has been grown and used for millennia. PROPAGATION AND GROWING Gourds are started from seed planted during spring and grown through summer and autumn. The vine grows quickly and uses its green tendrils to climb onto a trellis…

the sweeter pepper

The history of the capsicum — that summer garden star of salads and ratatouille, second only to the tomato — is one of confusion, not least because, like its nightshade cousin tomato, the capsicum is botanically a fruit but in the kitchen is regarded as a vegetable. Capsicum annuum, known down under and on the Indian subcontinent by its botanical name (from the Latin capsa or box, in reference to its shape), is called a pepper almost everywhere else — and therein lies even more confusion. When Christopher Columbus introduced this New World delight to Europe in 1493, any pungent condiment was called “pepper”, including of course Piper nigrum, also known as the peppercorn, which had already found its way west via the Spice Routes. Here’s where it gets interesting. Columbus’s original intention…