Down to Earth

by Rhonda Hetzel

  Fertilising your seedlings

  When the seedlings emerge they’ll need some food. We only ever use organic fertilisers – either bought or homemade. Generally, as soon as we see the seedlings emerge and put on leaves, either in the garden or in a seedling tray, we fertilise them with weak fish emulsion, weak liquid blood and bone or weak homemade comfrey or worm liquid. Not all of them – just choose one. Comfrey is an excellent homemade fertiliser for both leafy green vegies and for fruiting ones, like tomatoes, chillies, potatoes, cucumbers and capsicums, because it contains calcium, potassium and phosphorus. Use worm liquid, fish emulsion or liquid blood and bone for your non-fruiting leafy vegetables like lettuce, cabbages, spinach, silverbeet and kale. I never go by the recommendations given on the fertiliser container; I find I get better results making a weaker brew and doing it more frequently. I make up a 50 per cent solution and apply it twice as often. For instance, if your fertiliser instructions recommend making up a 10-litre watering can with two caps of fertiliser concentrate and applying it fortnightly, I would make up a watering can with one capful of concentrate and apply it weekly.

  Planting tomatoes

  Tomatoes are Australia’s most popular backyard crop, so I want to spend a bit more time talking about them. You can plant tomatoes according to the directions on the packet but I do it a little differently. I plant the seeds in punnets or a seed tray as normal and wait for germination. When the plant has grown to be about two inches above the top of the soil, I transplant it to a slightly bigger pot, fertilising with comfrey and a pinch of sulphate of potash (it’s organic). Each time I transplant, I water the plants with seaweed tea – this helps to avoid transplant shock. Concentrated seaweed solution can be bought at any gardening store and made up according to the instructions on the bottle.

  I wait again until it grows another inch or two, then I transplant it to a slightly larger pot. Each time, I remove the bottom leaves, plant it deep, and water with seaweed tea. This would kill most plants, but tomatoes have the ability to produce more roots along their main stem and the more roots you have on a tomato plant (if it’s healthy), the more fruit it will produce. Make sure your tomato seedlings have good light during this period or they will grow long and lanky and that will weaken them.

  Keep your tomato seedlings going like this until they’re strong and healthy and when you see the first flower, plant them in the garden – again, deep, in soil that has been enriched with compost and to which a teaspoon of sulphate of potash has been added. You might even bury half the stem and have the top half of the tomatoes above the soil. Put the stakes in before you plant the seedlings so you don’t damage the roots by doing it later. If the plant is big enough, tie it to the stake straight away; if not, as soon as the tomato grows enough, tie it up before the wind has a chance to snap or damage the stem.

  You’ll sometimes see new shoots growing at an angle between the main stem and a large side branch. Remove these because if you allow them to grow, they’ll make a very bushy plant and you’ll get fewer tomatoes. When you cut them off you can make new plants with them. Plant them in a pot to develop roots and grow a bit, then plant out in the garden.

  Once you’ve planted the tomatoes and tied them to their stakes, mulch heavily with straw, packing it in around the stem and up about three inches. Again, most plants would hate this but tomatoes thrive with this treatment. Water the mulch well without watering the tomato leaves. Always water tomatoes from below the plant, never over the top, as splashing mud onto the leaves with the hose will encourage disease. If you mulch well, the tomatoes will send more roots out into the mulch. Do not over-fertilise tomatoes with nitrogen, as it will make the bush grow like mad but you’ll get almost no tomatoes.

  Make sure you keep staking, and keep the branches off the ground. When the tomatoes are big enough, pick them while they’re still green and ripen them in the house, out of the sun. They will develop their full flavour that way and be out of harm’s way.

  Tomatoes suffer from a disease called blossom-end rot. This lack of calcium in the plants is caused by inconsistent watering. You’ll see a big circle that runs around the blossom-end of the fruit. To avoid this, set up a watering schedule so your plants get consistent watering and don’t suffer dry periods.

  That’s one of many ways of growing tomatoes. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed if you try it. Just think of all those delicious tomato sandwiches and jars of tomato relish standing like jewels in your cupboard. If you’re growing heirlooms this year, don’t forget to save seeds from your very best tomatoes in the middle of the season. Yes, I know it’s a huge sacrifice to save the best tomatoes, but you want to pass on the best seeds.

  If you’re going to save vegetable seeds, you’ll need to know how they’re pollinated and if the vegetable is annual, biennial or perennial. (Technically, some common things like tomatoes, squash and cucumbers are fruit, but for the purposes of this section, I’m referring to everything as ‘vegetable’.) Annuals will produce viable seed in the first year, biennials take two years to mature and produce seed, and perennials produce viable seed in the second year and from then on until the plant dies. Most of the common vegetables we grow in our gardens are annuals.

  Points to remember:

  Seeds need to be dry before you store them, both inside and out. Initially, you can dry seeds on a clean rag or newspaper, but when they look dry, transfer them to a china or glass plate for a number of days or weeks to dry out completely. Leaving them on the rag or paper will allow them to stick and you might damage the seeds when you move them.

  Always pick the best examples of your vegetables when you collect seeds. You provide a stronger gene pool if you have seeds from more than one plant, so look for two or three to collect seeds from.

  The biggest threat to your seeds is mould. Make sure they’re completely dry and then stored in dry conditions. A fridge is ideal for most seeds. Pack them in a little packet labelled with the name and date of collection, and place that, along with all the other packets or little jars, into a larger sealed plastic box and keep it in the fridge until needed. If you live in very humid conditions and this way of storing doesn’t work for you, add a little diatomaceous earth to the seeds, shake off most of it, and store them like that. If you want to be an organic grower, don’t use seed fungicides.

  Types of seed

  For the purpose of seed saving, I categorise vegetables into three groups: wet seeds, dry seeds and legumes.

  Wet seeds

  Vegetables like tomatoes and cucumbers have wet seeds, with thick flesh around the seed that needs to be removed and, in the case of tomatoes, fermented. Fermentation will happen when you add the seeds to a jar of water and leave it for two to four days. The fermentation process kills viruses that might be present on the seed while separating the viable seed from the bad seed and the pulp. When fermentation is complete, the good seeds will sink to the bottom of the container and the rubbish will float. Scoop the rubbish from the top and pour the rest of the jar’s contents into a sieve under running water. Whatever is left of the flesh will come off. Then tip all the clean seeds onto newspaper or a clean rag. When they’re dry transfer them to a plate to dry out completely.

  Melons and cucumbers don’t have to be fermented but can be if you’re having problems with plant viruses. If not, watermelon, honeydew melon and cucumber seeds just need to be dried. Scoop the seeds out and put them in a sieve under running water until all the flesh is removed. Then dry them in the same way as the tomato seeds.

  Dry seeds

  Vegetables like pumpkin, squash and corn have dry seeds. These are the easiest seeds to harvest. Let pumpkin and squash mature for a few days after you pick them. Then cut them open, scoop out the seeds and dry them. To harvest corn seeds, pick all the corn you will eat, leaving behind the best cobs. Let them sit on the plant for another month and when they look dry, pick them, peel back the husks and let them dry out more. Tie the cobs together by the husks, and hang them up to fi
nish drying, then pick the kernels off or rub two corn cobs together and they will fall off. The kernels are the seeds.

  Loofahs have wet seeds but can be dried on the vine and treated as dry seeds. They don’t have to be fermented. Leave the loofah on the vine until it’s brown, then crack it open and pour out the seeds. If you’re in a cooler climate, you can pick the loofahs green and store them in a dry place until they turn brown and crackly.

  Lettuce, carrots, celery and parsley all form dry seeds in flower heads. You have to wait for the flowers to turn to seed, but if you can’t do that for reasons of weather, wait until the flower head is almost ready to seed, then cut the whole flower off and store it in a paper bag in the house. After a couple of weeks you will hear the seeds rattling around in the bag when you shake it. All you have to do then is clean the dried old bits of flower away from the seeds and store them.

  Legumes

  Beans and peas have pods that are just broken open and the seeds are there waiting. They need to be dried before storing.

  Choosing the best plant

  In the case of flower-forming vegetables like carrots and lettuce, you only need to put one plant aside to harvest seeds from, but it must be the best plant. Look for vegetables that are healthy and strong and display the qualities you want, such as size, colour and abundance of the harvest. If there is one perfect fruit on the vine, that is not the plant to select. Go instead for a vine or plant that has a good yield of many healthy, good-sized vegetables and pick the best from that plant.

  Choose the plant that looks healthy, is true to type and has had a large number of good-quality fruit.

  If you have a number of the same plants to collect seeds from, choose the plant that looks healthy, is true to type and has had a large number of good-quality fruit. If any of your plants look diseased, don’t collect seeds from them because you’ll probably pass on the disease.

  Pollination

  If you want to save seeds, you’ll need to make sure your plants are being pollinated. While your vegetables are growing, look for bees early in the morning. If there are none around, you’ll have to hand-pollinate. To do that, go into the garden early in the morning and identify the male and female flowers on the plant you want to pollinate. The male flowers usually have a long, straight stem and anthers inside the flower; female flowers have a small round stigma inside the flower. Pick a strong male flower and peel off the petals to expose the inside of the flower. Find a female flower and lightly apply the male flower to the reproductive parts of the female flower (the stigma). You can usually pollinate three female flowers in this way with one male flower.

  CROSS-POLLINATION

  Some vegetables can cross-pollinate. That means that insects or wind – whatever pollinates them – takes pollen from one vegetable, such as a particular variety of tomato, and pollinates a different variety of tomato. The seed of that tomato may not grow true to type and you won’t grow the tomatoes you expect to grow.

  If the vegetables you want seed from are easily cross-pollinated you’ll need to plant those vegetables away from their cross-pollinators. For instance, chillies and capsicums may cross-pollinate, even though they’re different varieties of the same vegetable, so you need to be mindful of the pollination factor and grow the plants you want to sow seeds from at least 15 metres apart.

  If you are serious about your vegetable growing, it’s a good idea to grow a small number of flowers in with your vegetables to attract the pollinators like bees and other insects. These flowers can be things like nasturtiums (which are edible), alyssum, cosmos, daisies, marigolds and sunflowers, or flowering herbs such as tansy, oregano, thyme and borage.

  If you’re going to get involved in saving seeds – and I encourage you to do so – I’d recommend you buy The Seed Savers’ Handbook, available on the Seed Savers website (seedsavers.net), or join an online forum.

  Most plants like to be planted into rich soil, then fertilised at regular periods to grow at their best. It is quite easy to make your own fertiliser if you grow comfrey, keep chickens or worms, or make compost. Homemade fertilisers are very effective and don’t contain any harsh chemicals that might be present in the commercial products. If you can’t make your own, look for a good commercial organic fertiliser to keep your vegetables and garden free of chemicals.

  Homemade fertilisers

  Comfrey liquid fertiliser

  Cut the leaves from the comfrey plant before it flowers and throw the leaves into a bucket that has a lid. Half-fill the bucket with the leaves and put a brick on top of them to stop them floating. Fill the bucket with water and put the lid on. It will smell . . . a lot. Stir it every couple of days and in two or three weeks you’ll have a nice brown nitrogen-rich liquid that is an excellent feed for your plants.

  Strain the leaves out of the mixture and put them in the compost. Comfrey makes an excellent compost activator. To use comfrey fertiliser in the garden, simply add a cup of comfrey concentrate to a watering can full of water and pour on. If you want to use it as a foliar spray – it is easily taken up by plant leaves – add a cup of your comfrey mix to every bucket of water and add a small amount of grated or liquid soap to help it stick to the leaves when you spray it on.

  Manure tea

  Take two full shovels of manure (either horse, cow, sheep or pig) or one shovel of chook poo, and place it in a hessian bag. Secure the top with string so everything stays in the bag – like a tea bag. Place the bag in a large barrel and fill to the top with water. Put a lid on the barrel and let it sit for two weeks to mature. To use this mixture, first dilute it so it looks like weak tea. It might take one cup of manure concentrate to one bucket of water, or more or less. You can use this on the garden or, if it’s very weak, on young seedlings. Don’t waste what’s left of the manure in the hessian bag – dig it into the compost heap.

  Worm-casting tea

  This is an excellent all-purpose fertiliser. To make some, fill a watering can or bucket with water almost to the top. Add half a cup of worm castings, one tablespoon of molasses, one tablespoon of fish fertiliser, and half a tablespoon of seaweed concentrate. Stir this well for at least five minutes. Pour this on and around your plants first thing in the morning.

  Green manure

  If your garden bed will be standing empty for a while, plant a green manure crop. This can be any legume-type plant like cow peas or broad beans, or you could try a grass like oats or barley. If you have leftover pea or bean seeds, use them, or buy green manure seeds from your heirloom seed supplier. When the crop is about a metre high, cut it off and leave it as mulch or dig it into the soil. When you’re ready to plant again your soil will be alive and healthy and ready for the new crops.

  Whether you live in a colder area and have one harvest a year, or in a warmer place, like I do, and have continuous harvests, picking your fruit and vegetables is when all your hard work pays off. Learn all you can about harvesting and storing your produce because you won’t want to waste one beautiful ripe tomato or one crisp lettuce leaf.

  With vine crops that flower, like peas, beans, cucumbers and zucchini, you get many more vegetables if you pick them continuously. Green leaves also benefit from continuous picking. We pick lettuce, kale, silverbeet and spinach from the outside, just taking the leaves we need for that day. The plant will keep producing leaves and you can keep harvesting them. However, if you want to put some silverbeet, kale or spinach in the freezer, you can harvest the leaves from the entire plant, making sure you leave the centre intact. After harvesting, give the plants a drink of weak fertiliser tea such as comfrey, compost or worm tea and within a few weeks, you’ll have full plants again.

  Tomatoes may be harvested when deep red, pink or green. You can pick them at any size if you need to clear the land or if weather such as hailstorms or extreme heat threatens them, but it’s best to let them develop to a reasonable size. We find that if we leave tomatoes to ripen on the bush, the grubs will get to them before we do. We wait until they’re a decent
size and showing just the first twinges of pink, then we pick them. They ripen inside on the kitchen bench, away from birds and insects. Tomatoes don’t need sunlight to ripen, they just need a warm temperature, so don’t store tomatoes in the fridge. Don’t worry that they’ll go off – the only ones you’ll lose will be those that have a grub in them. The rest will last a few weeks in a bowl on the bench.

  Learn all you can about harvesting and storing your produce because you won’t want to waste one beautiful ripe tomato or one crisp lettuce leaf.

  Some vegetables, like pumpkins, beetroot, turnips, potatoes and onions, can be left growing until they’re ripe and you need them. Naturally, you have to use your common sense when using the garden as a storage area. For instance, if you have continuous rain you’d have to rescue these vegetables or they’d rot in all that water. But if you’re hoping to leave them for a few more weeks or even a month in the garden before harvesting, most of the time with these vegetables, that’s okay. You’ll need to keep your pumpkins in check by waiting until you see the first pumpkins growing and then nipping off the growing stems around it, on the same vine. That will stop the vine rambling all over the garden. Pumpkins are ready to harvest when the vine starts dying and they feel heavy for their size. When you harvest your pumpkins, cut them from the vine, leaving about six inches of vine still attached to the pumpkin. If the vine comes away from the pumpkin, cover the circle at the top of the pumpkin with some melted beeswax to protect it while it’s ripening and drying. Dry the pumpkins in the sun for a couple of weeks before bringing them inside to store in a cool dark place.