My Amazing Garden

I love gardening. My garden is a small plot and I grow lots of food in this small space. At the moment I am harvesting lots of Snake beans and acid free German Cucumber. The Snake gourds, Pawpaw, and Winged beans are all growing well, and in a week or so I can start harvesting. The Arrow root, Lemongrass, Cranberry hibiscus, Spinach, Ibeka and several tomato varieties are happy all year round enjoying the company of my many herbs. The Ice cream bean tree will soon flower. 

Ice Cream beans

I use the young leaves and flowers of Cranberry hibiscus in my salads. The older leaves I use for a herbal infusion/tea. Snake gourd came into my life about 5 years ago and I am very intrigued by this vegetable. First of all, it has a peculiar shape and does look like a snake hanging on for life. Secondly, it changes colours from green to yellow, orange and black as it is maturing. When mature it is very soft and fragile. When you open the gourd the seeds are covered in a red gel. I use the gel in a sauce. It is absolutely yummy. The seeds are cleaned of the gel and ready for drying up for a week or so before being packed, and labelled with name and harvest date. I also harvest the young gourd and treat it as you would a zucchini.

Snake gourds, green, yellow/orange, and seeds in flesh.

The Broad leaf plantain (Plantago major) grows prolifically, and this plant can easily take over. However, I am happy to have the plant as it is one of the many medicinal plants that are very handy to have. I used it to heal an old sore. Chew a leaf, place it in a fine gauze bandage, and apply to the sore or wound. Wrap to hold it in place. Change when needed.

The Pigeon Pea bush is nitrogen fixing and good for mulch. The pea is edible, green or dried and you can make a flour as well. It contains a high level of protein.

Seeds and pods of Pigeon pea

The Red Winged parrots love the pods and peas as well, so I bagged a few pods to make sure I have seeds for the future. We share and enjoy each other’s company and I love the call of the Red Winged parrots. One year these parrots stripped a whole bush, and the bush eventually died. I quick smart learned from this experience. When you think about it, it is amazing what we can learn from nature. Harvest the seeds for seed saving when the pods are dried, brown and just before they open up.

I spotted the Bean pod sucking bug (scientific name: Riptortus species. There are two species: Riptortus serripes and Riptortus linearis) in the Pigeon pea bush. That’s bad news. I usually find them on my beans. They feed on the juice in the seeds and therefore the bean fails to mature. The seed pod shrivels and dies when attacked by Riptortus. I go in the garden in the morning and give the Riptortus a shake up and tell them to go elsewhere. Now my neighbour has an influx of these little creatures, and I have to remember to be specific about their destination next time I tell them to go elsewhere. It is about manifesting your goals. Be careful what you wish for as you are communicating with the Universal forces. You are manifesting your intent.

Marigold is one of my favourite plants. It is great as a companion plant. Marigold attracts lots of different pollinating and beneficial insects. Mine has been flowering for months, and I harvested lots of seeds last month to share with my community. The seed pods must be completely dry, and you harvest the seeds on a dry, sunny day around noon.

Over the years I have compiled a list of companion plants. This list is available at Seed Saving.

When you practise companion planting you are creating a friendship among the plants and they produce happy seeds for the future. Plant seeds of kindness, and friendship will grow.

Red leaf Amaranth has been very productive in my garden. I use the leaves in salad when very young. The leaves are a great source of antioxidants. Older leaves go in the soup or stir-fry. Cooked leaves are a rich source of vitamins A and C, and calcium. The birds love them too, so keep an eye out for when the seeds are ready for harvesting as the birds and Mickey Mouse will nip off the flowers. The seeds can be added to any bread making.

Red leaf Amaranth

I do a lot of seed saving. Actually, I love seed saving. Seed saving goes back to the dawn of agriculture, so we are looking at some very ancient traditions. Seeds were carried by nomads, and planted where they stopped for spring, summer and autumn. Many of their seeds were sacred to them and very important for their ritual life.

Saving the seeds from our gardens and farms and sharing them with our friends and local network and community means that we build bio-diversity, which is essential to our survival. This way we can control what we eat and what we are, and not have to put up with what the multinationals wants us to eat. If you eat rubbish you will think rubbish.

Saving seeds from organically grown, open-pollinated vegetables, grains, herbs and flowers enables us to maintain the traditional way of growing food. Plants that reproduce through natural means tend to adapt to local conditions over time and evolve as reliable performers. Saving seeds from your organically grown garden for replanting increases ecological biodiversity and strengthens local seed availability. It keeps our genetic food heritage alive.

To me, saving our organically grown, open pollinated seeds is all about securing a healthy future for us, our kids and their kids to come. To know that real food, high in quality and nutrition will be available makes me sleep well at night and think clearly during the day. Life becomes a pleasure and health well-maintained. We can live a balanced life and be happy souls with busy green fingers and seeds coming out of our ears.

Seed Saving with friends and community is a mighty wonderful passion to have. Being a part of providing organically grown, open pollinated food for generations to come is a great habit.  Collecting open pollinated seeds from your garden or farm is such a pleasure and action full of joy. And while harvesting, we do this with intent and for the highest good of all involved. It is the joy of connecting with nature.

Gardening is very much about looking after our pollinators and our beneficial friends of the garden. We have lots of beneficial friends roaming our garden day and night. I love to see Ladybird, beetles, dragonflies, earwigs and Praying Mantis sitting under the shady leaf of my purple snake bean communicating with butterflies, bees, wasps and ants. Observing how earth worms wiggle and have a good laugh when spiders, lizards and frogs join the party is absolutely magical. All these beautiful creatures are great helpers forming a healthy Eco-system. If you don’t have any of these helpers in your garden there is definitely something wrong.

We can do lots to attract our garden friends by way of growing plants and trees that will attract them.  Over the years and in different gardens I have successfully grown Coriander, Coreopsis, Cosmos, Dill, Fennel, Gerbera, Borage, Marigold, Oregano, Parsley, Sunflower, Mint, Nasturtium and Zinnia. Lots of other plants will do the same. Do some research. Work out what works best in your garden. Each garden is unique and so are you.

Sunflowers at different stages.

Flowering native shrub species such as Grevilleas and Melaleucas are very popular amongst our garden friends and the birds love them too.

We also have pests visiting our garden such as Mealybugs, Aphids, Scale, Cicadas, Treehoppers, Spittlebugs and Lantan flies, True Bugs, some Beetles, Crickets, Grasshoppers, Katydids, and Locusts, Snails and Slugs. Even though we call these creatures pests they are still a very important part of the Eco system. We all have a role to play.

Tiny girl swinging in Snake gourd.

If your garden is well-balanced your beneficial garden friends should keep the pests under control. You can help this balance by growing some pest-repellent plants. Catmint, Chamomile, Chillies, Chives, Citronella, Coriander, Fennel, Feverfew, Garlic chives, Marigolds, Marjoram, Oregano, Melaleucas, Mint, Mugwort, Mustard, Nasturtium, Neem tree, Nettle, Onion, Pelagonia, Pyrethrum, daisy, Rosemary, Sage, Tansy, Thyme and Wormwood to name but a few.

I just want to mention that some vegetables are self-pollinating: Bean, Cape Gooseberry, Capsicum and Chilli, Dandelion, Eggplant, Pea, Peanut, Tomato, Watercress and Yam Bean.

See if you can get your hands on this fabulous book, “The Garden Guardians”. Identifying good bugs and attracting them to your garden! By Jane Davenport.

Another great book to have handy is “Pest-repellent Plants”. Organic solution to garden and household pest by Penny Woodward.

I am going to get my magnifying glass and have a look to see what is happening in my garden.

You never know when you are in for a surprise. I found a tomato plant in my garden with some small tomatoes. They had an unusual pattern and some parts of the tomato were black. I have never seen them before. I did not plant them, so I thought maybe a bird brought them in a dropping! They tasted really nice, so I went surfing the net and found out that they are Black Cherry Tomato.

Black Cherry tomatoes.

I saved some seeds. This is what I did: To get rid of unwanted seed-borne diseases I ferment the seeds. Remove the seeds and pulp. Put in glass jar with some water. Leave for a few days. A foam or crust will form on the surface, indicating that the fermentation has occurred and the surrounding pulp has dissolved. Rinse seeds. Get rid of debris and empty seeds. (Empty seeds float). Spread the wet seeds out on a non-stick paper to dry. Leave to dry for a week or so in a shady spot indoor. Don’t dry in the sun.

Next thing I did was a viability test on these tomato seeds. I planted 10 seeds in a pot. I have learned to always use labels for all the different seeds I sow no matter if it is in pots or directly in the garden.  Then I wait. If it is very sunny and windy I water the pot every day. Then the seeds start to germinate, and in this case all 10 seeds germinated. So the viability is 100%. If you sow 10 seeds and 2 germinate your viability is 20%. However, seeds will not germinate if they are sown at the wrong time of the season.  Some plants are definitely winter crops and some are definitely summer crops. Some grow all year round. The seed has a memory and knows when the conditions are right for germination. One winter I sowed a row of Rocket. For three weeks nothing happened. I thought I might have sown at the wrong time, so I sowed a second row of Rocket next to the first row. Another three weeks passed and nothing happened. Then I thought that my seeds were too old. I decided to have one last go and sowed a third row. Two days later the first row of Rocket started to germinate. In the end all three rows germinated. Tell yourself to be patient.

It is magic to hold a small seed in your hand knowing that this seed has a memory and knows exactly when to germinate once planted. It also knows exactly what it is going to be. A carrot seed will turn into a carrot as long as it is not genetically manipulated. Not like us humans. We have a dream as a child about what we would like to do in life. I wanted to marry a Garbo man because I saw what people put in their garbage bins. (I am a bit of a Bower Bird, collecting lots of stuff which I then recycle or up cycle or “re purpose”). Growing up, I changed my mind to become a furniture maker. Then I worked out it was more fun to be a social worker, and I ended up a textile artist, writing books on different subjects but nowhere near textiles. A most wonderful journey it is!

People ask me lots of questions about how to select the right seeds. First of all from a holistic point of view we should be culling = rouging = taking out any plants with undesirable characteristics before flowering time. This is what I look for when choosing seeds for saving: plants that survived an extended period of bad weather conditions. Plants that are slow to bolt (a crop that sends up a seed stalk at the end of their edible stage) such as lettuce, cabbage, rocket and mustard green.  Lettuce that can resist going to head for as long as possible to provide lettuce leaf over an extended period.

Leave the very best bushes of, for instance, beans until seed harvest time. Don’t wait to save seeds out of the last beans on bush as they may not have the qualities you are looking for. This actually goes for all plants. Root crop: choose the largest, smoothest, healthiest and most representative. Look at texture of fruit, for instance, tomato: its earliness, health, vigour of the whole plant. Overall leaf density. The flavour: sweet/bitter/sour. Quite often smaller but more numerous fruit are better than few but large. Big is not always better. Hardy, pest resistant/immunity/drought-hardy. Select only seeds from plants that show no insect damage and plants that resist disease. Plants that show a natural ease of growth. Please also use your intuition, and dowsing by pendulum is another way of deciding what seed to save.

Luffa (also spelled loofah or less frequently loofa) hanging in trellis.

Once I have made my observations and selected the plants, I tie a pink ribbon on them. It is easy to forget what plant to harvest seeds from as the harvest time could be weeks away. It is so easy to be in the garden spotting this beautiful tomato and before you know it is in your mouth but meant for seeds.

Heirloom seeds have a rich history and importance that span hundreds of years. It is estimated that over 94% of all vegetable varieties from before the 20^th century have gone extinct! This is why preserving heirloom seeds has become so important to food security and diversity in recent decades.

Seed saving is part of the human culture. It is the practices and culture of selecting, harvesting, cleaning and storing seeds for planting in future seasons. It is an old partnership between people and plants which is an essential part of agriculture.

The seed pods of Guinea chestnut, also called Malabar chestnut, Water chestnut, Guinea nut, Provision tree, French peanut, Malabar chestnut, Mexican fortune tree, Dollar plant and Saba nut are ripe. The seed pods are dropping to the ground. Pods split open, nuts are exposed and you have to be quick picking up the nuts before they sprout if you want to eat the nuts. The nuts are yummy to eat fresh and raw as well as fried on the pan. I don’t save the seeds/nuts for later planting but plant in a pot straight away. They are fast to germinate. Give it a go it is great fun.

Sprouting nuts.

Seed pods of Pink Euodia, (melicope elleryanes) often referred to as the Pink Flowered Doughwood are opening. Pick the pods and save the seeds. I thought it would be easy to cut the pot in half to remove the seeds. It turned out to be much easier to put pods in a paper bag and give it a good shake. The seeds then released themselves. Several species of butterflies are attracted to both flowers and leaves, amongst others, the Ulysses butterfly. The tree/scrub is a host for the Atlas butterfly. It is also attractive to birds.

Seed pods.

Several seed saver groups in our local area have a seed bank. The seed bank is a bank on the move with seeds flowing in and seeds flowing out. It is important to have a seed bank from where we can access seeds, take seeds home, grow them out and return the following seed generation. The seed bank is also a backup in case we lose our seeds in the garden for some reason like a locust plague, floods or bushfire. Each variety of seeds has a plant passport which shows an identification number, name of grower and plant, time of seed harvest, when to grow, edible or not, how to use the plant and other useful details.

Most of the seeds kept in our seed bank are varieties no longer available commercially. These varieties have been dropped by seed companies but maintained by home gardeners and farmers.

Some of our seed varieties arrived in Australia with early migrants. These form part of an immigrant cultural and culinary heritage. Some example of such seeds in our local area are the Open Italian Lettuce, Madagascar bean and Marjorie Spear’s bean.

Marjorie Spear, for whom the beans are named, was born in South Africa, moved to New Zealand in 1945, and then in 1968 Marjorie and her family arrived in Australia. They settled in Kuranda on a property on Black Mountain Road. They named the property “Harmony Farm”; a depleted property that Marjorie turned into a healthy organic farm over the years. Marjorie was one of the first organic growers in Kuranda and she shared her seeds with a passion. Marjorie Spear’s bean made its way into our seed savers network and was registered in our seed bank on March 17^th, 2008 by the then called Seed Savers Up North group based in Tarzali. We have successfully kept this bean alive for 17 years and the seeds are available from all our local groups. Just awesome!

For more information on Seed Saving get in touch with your local community garden group or seed savers group. When you join one of these groups you become a part of supporting the survival and thriving of diverse foods for future generations, and help improve strong adaptations for plant species. You become a part of our greatest most important ancestral human traditions.

Ko-Wah seed savers: Helen: 0402803144 or email [email protected]

Atherton seed savers: [email protected]

Ravenshoe seed savers: www.ravenshoeseedsavers.au

Mareeba seed savers: [email protected]

Manoora Community Garden (Cairns) [email protected]

Last but not least. Please check out our National Seed Savers organisation at www.seedsavers.org.au