The Garden Clinic

Home grown: Lemons

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

The plant that gives Garden Clinic gardeners more grief than any other is the lemon. Here’s how to grow gorgeous lemons.

Home Grown: Nashi

18 March, 2021 | Justin Russell

Crisp and crunchy nashi pears are just as cold-hardy as common pears but need fewer chilling hours to produce fruit, making them a delicious choice for every climate zone in Australia.

Homegrown: Sweet Potato

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

This delicious tuber is one of the least-demanding vegetables in the patch. All it wants is sun and space.

I love the look of flowers picked straight from the garden and casually arranged in a charming jug, jar, urn, vase - even a bucket. But when I pick a posy from my garden and aim for a natural aesthetic with casual grace, my arrangement looks not so much just-picked as just-plonked! So I asked Sonya Gardiner for help and these are her tips - the 5 Fs of Fabulous Flower Arranging.

How to: brew compost tea

18 March, 2021 | Arno King

When I was a child all our neighbours and friends had a large tub - generally an old enamel washing machine tub - buried close to the vegetable garden. This was the ‘brew’ tub. Ingredients for the brew - compost, manures and seaweed - were widely discussed and benefits widely acclaimed. And it turns out these gardeners were onto something!

How to: build a salad bar

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

Our salad bar makes the most of winter’s great salad greens.

How to: fix the lawn

18 March, 2021 | Narelle Smith

Most warm-season grasses stop growing when the nights turn cold, allowing weeds to get a foothold while your attention has turned indoors. So now is the time to target terrors like bindii, wintergrass and dandelions and avoid seeding - and many years more weeding.

How to: fix your tomatoes

18 March, 2021 |

Fresh, vine-ripened tomatoes are one of the great joys of summer. The best way to ensure that your tomato-growing experience delivers baskets of delicious fruit is to keep plants healthy.

How to: grow a salad bowl

18 March, 2021 | Isla Barlow

Eden, Isla and Skye amazed their school friends when they took their own salad greens for lunch. Lettuce show you how easy it is!

How to: grow African violets

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

African violets are treasured, long-lived indoor plants. Make them shine with these tips.

How to: grow amazing geraniums

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

The plants I'm talking about here are botanically speaking Pelargonium though commonly called geranium. True Geranium species are delicate-looking perennials, usually with blue flowers.

How to: grow blueberries

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

Blueberries are pretty shrubs, with delicate, pink, bell-shaped flowers that give way to delicious purple-blue berries full of goodness and high in antioxidants.

How to: grow chocolate

18 March, 2021 | Robin Powell

Wherever we take travellers in the tropics, from Mexico to Singapore, the Daintree to Cuba, there is one tree that grabs their attention - cacao, the source of our lingering love, chocolate.

How to: grow garlic

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

April is garlic-planting time and it’s easier than you think to grow a year’s supply for your family.

How to: grow mushrooms

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

Button mushrooms are easy to grow at home.

How to: grow stepover apples

18 March, 2021 | Robin Powell

Bob Magnus (owner of Woodbridge, Tasmania) sells four different varieties of apples grafted onto extra-dwarf rootstock. These trees are designed to grow as a one-metre-high hedge. They are pretty and productive in an edible or ornamental garden. Choose all four for many months of fresh apples. Here’s how Bob recommends growing apples as a stepover.

How to: grow strawberries from seed

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

Strawberry seed packet holds well over 100 seeds and with a recommended retail price of $3.50 its the most economical way to grow your strawberries.

How to: grow your own ratatouille

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

Ratatouille will convert the most meat-loving individual into a vegetarian – if only for one night! It was originally a common dish, prepared in the summer with fresh summer vegetables.

How to: grow your vegies on the verge

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

We are fortunate to have a reasonably big space in our garden that we can allocate simply to growing food. Other gardeners make the most of space on a sunny balcony or terrace. If that’s not an option for you either, consider what might done on the verge!

How to: growing vegetables from seed

18 March, 2021 | Arno King

Planting punnets of vegetable seedlings is easy, but it is much more cost-effective and more fulfilling - not to mention offering wider choice and better results - to sow seed directly into the garden. The key is to sow plants suited to your climate, at the appropriate time of year.

How to: herb feast

18 March, 2021 | Isla Barlow

Skye, Eden and Isla love to collect fresh herbs from the garden to add to dinner. Herbs are easy to grow: a perfectly delicious project for the summer holidays.

How to: make a summer vegetable tepee

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

For space saving nothing beats a tepee! A single structure will provide 36kg of cherry tomatoes, cucumber and green beans over a 3 month stretch.

How to: make comfrey tea

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

This home-grown fertiliser contains more potash and more nitrogen than commercial feeds, and costs only the price of a bucket and its water. Your vegetables will love it, especially your strawberries at the end of winter and next season tomatoes.

How to: Make Potting Mix

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

Plants in pots need the right nutrients, water, air and a quality potting mix to live happily ever after.

How to: pickle cucumbers

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

When cucumbers are on, you may find you have more than enough for salads, sandwiches and crudite platters. The secret - pickles. Our favourite recipe is from Cornersmith: Recipes from the Cafe and Picklery by Alex Elliott-Howery and James Grant.

How to: use coconut peat

18 March, 2021 | Arno KIng

Need a lightweight, easily stored, highly effective potting medium? Look no further than this byproduct of coconut production, which has advantages for plants as well as gardners.

How to: use your pea harvest

18 March, 2021 | Robin Powell

Peas are one of those crops that can make the home gardener feel smugly self-satisfied because they taste so good fresh from the garden.

In my Kitchen Garden

18 March, 2021 | Kate Neale

In the first of a new series that shares the knowledge and experience of food growers around the country, Kate Neale dishes the dirt on her top summer growing tips and her favourite new harvest.

In my kitchen garden: Camden, NSW

18 March, 2021 | Mickey Robertson

Mickey Robertson’s kitchen garden at Glenmore House is as beautiful as it is productive, experimental and instructive.

In the garden: June

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

It's time to get the jump on the cold this June and prepare the garden for the mid-winter chill

In the garden: May

18 March, 2021 | Robin Powell

Back by popular demand - our reminders of what to do in the garden this season.

In the Temperate Kitchen Garden this autumn

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

The temperate kitchen garden in autumn is all about planning for winter, planting hearty veg and preserving your harvest for the colder months. Linda Ross has plenty of tips on what you can do in your patch right now.

It's time to: Temperate gardens in June

18 March, 2021 | Elizabeth Swane

After a big growing season, early winter offers an opportunity to restore a little order. Sharpen those secateurs and get ready, because it's time to whip things into shape in the temperate garden this June

July Jobs

18 March, 2021 | Robin Powell

Mid winter is a time to prune. But it doesn't have to be devoid of colour in the garden. Time to get busy with the mid-winter July jobs.

June jobs

18 March, 2021 | Robin Powell

Time to get the early winter jobs done this June.

Kale

18 March, 2021 | Justin Russell

It’s the most unpretentious of vegetables, yet is so fashionable there was a worldwide shortage of seed recently due to overwhelming demand. Beyond the fad, it’s worth a spot in the garden.

Kitchen garden Artichoke

18 March, 2021 | Justin Russell

Though globe artichokes are simple to grow, preparing them for the table involves that rarest of modern commodities - time. But if you’ve ever eaten freshly cooked artichokes you know the several processes involved amount to small effort for delicious reward.

Kitchen Garden Jobs winter 2017

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

In the Kitchen Garden this winter Linda Ross is composting, planting winter veg and planning for the future.

Kitchen Garden Spring Jobs

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

This spring try something new: a vertical pumpkin patch; a fence line of sweet potato or a hanging basket filled with the sweetest, most productive strawberry ever.

Kitchen Garden Spring: Soft Herbs

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

The key to a thriving herb garden is to give each plant the conditions it needs to prosper. The result is easy gardening, and delicious pickings. Here Linda Ross shows you her favourites and the conditions they need to thrive in spring.

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Graham Ross