Fleur Chapman

FEAT U R E TIP: To stop a cut piece of avocado browning, coat it with a little lemon juice. If planting your avocado tree in the ground, ensure the soil is free-draining. Planting on a mound is a good way to increase drainage in lessthan-perfect soil conditions. Choose a spot in the garden that is protected from both frosts and hot direct sunlight. ‘Bacon’ has the best cold tolerance. If you are in a tropical area, ‘Waldon’ and ‘Hazzard’ will fruit well. For a solid, adaptable variety suitable to most regions, try ‘Pinkerton’. After fruiting, prune back around 20 percent of the tree to refresh it for the next season. As they are a fruiting tree, feeding is important. Apply a complete organic fertiliser and some additional potash regularly to keep them at the height of production. GROW YOUR OWN HEALTH LEMONS Avocado Providing your family with the best, most nutritious foods need not be a challenge; there are so many common, accessible and easy-to-grow plants that go a long way to keeping us happy and healthy. I MAGE S G ur u P ro d u c t i ons W e love our healthy, fresh produce here at The Garden Gurus – the benefits gardeners enjoy from homegrown food really are immeasurable. Not only is it friendlier on the household budget, but growing food gets the whole family outside and active together. The health benefits continue after harvest too, with so many incredible nutritional powerhouses so easily accessible. Just how good are they? Here is a rundown of five of these easy grow-at-home foods you might like to try. 18 AVOCADOS It may go a little against the grain to say, but fat is your friend. Your body needs fat to assimilate other nutrients properly, such as fat-soluble carotenoids and vitamins A and K, ensuring optimal nutrition from the foods you eat. The healthy fats in avocados also help release hormones in the intestine that signal satiety, meaning controlling your appetite is easier and in general you will eat less. As well as these two helpful traits, avocados themselves contain a host of health-promoting compounds such as vitamin C, The Guru Magazine / Issue No. 58 / Autumn 2016 Lemon FLEUR CHAPMAN vitamin E, folate, potassium and copper. Avocadoes can be raised from the seed, but take years to get to the fruiting stage and are not reliable. Buy grafted trees for quicker fruiting and more reliable results. The secret to healthy avocado trees is drainage – they dislike wet feet and just 24 hours in a waterlogged position could kill the tree. For this reason they are great pot specimens (but choose a smaller-growing variety such as ‘Wurtz’ that reaches only 4-6m). Use a top quality potting mix and keep an eye on watering. High levels of vitamin C is the most obvious health benefit of the lemon, which we are all aware helps boost our immune system. Vitamin C is very important for another reason; it also aids in the absorption of iron (especially non-heme iron, or plant-based iron). A squeeze of lemon in your green smoothie or drizzled over the top of your favourite steamed greens will significantly help your body utilise an otherwise difficult mineral to absorb. Lemons can also help aid digestion by stimulating gastric juices and assisting in flushing waste more efficiently from the bowel. Although acidic itself, lemons have the magical ability to alkalise the body, which is thought to lower inflammation in the body and decrease the risk of illnesses such as asthma, gout, osteoporosis and excema. Many people swear by lemon water taken on an empty stomach first thing in the morning for better skin, more energy, reduced appetite and general better health. Lemons prefer a slightly acidic, loamy soil in a full-sun position. If you live in a cooler area, plant them against a wall to keep them a little warmer. Fertilise each spring with a specialised citrus food or some good homemade compost to keep it happy, healthy and productive. Mulch is important for lemons as they have shallow feeder roots that need protecting, so cover the ground with some lucerne or pea straw but keep the trunk exposed to prevent rot. Prune after fruiting by opening up the centre of the tree to increase airflow and clipping young shoots to promote bushier growth. Shitake mushrooms are epiphytes, happy to grow on old rotting logs in cool moist positions. In both cases these actually need a bright, well-lit spot for best results. MINT Mint is said to have benefits to respiratory system, acting as a decongestant and expectorant, which can be helpful MUSHROOMS for conditions such as asthma, colds and ‘Grow at home’ doesn’t necessarily mean influenza. Mint has a wonderful upliftin the ground. Try adding some button or ing fragrance, so smelling this powerful field-style mushrooms to your food-proherb is believed to stimulate serotonin ducing repertoire. Mushrooms are a levels which helps relieve stress, fatigue vegetarian’s best friend, offering that and (like bananas) leaves you generally comforting ‘meaty’ taste and texture to happier and healthier as a result. It is boost a meal and take on other flavours also commonly considered helpful to beautifully. They are the only non-meat digestive health by relaxing the muscles source of vitamin D, especially if they are of the intestines and allowing gas to pass exposed to sunlight or UV light directly through, so a cup after a bowl of beans is after harvest. Vitamin D is important best followed by a long walk away from for calcium absorption and maintaining loved ones. A refreshing cup of mint tea healthy bones. Mushrooms are a made by simply steeping leaves great source of B vitamins, in hot water is a natural and TIP: which play a key role in gentle way to relive abTo clean keeping the nervous sysdominal discomfort and mushrooms for tem functioning well. has even been sworn by cooking, simply wipe them They contain fiber, for sufferers of irritable over with a damp cloth. vitamin C and essenbowl syndrome (IBS). Immersing them in water Mint is ridiculously tial minerals such as will make them soggy, as easy to grow; in fact, potassium, selenium, they are very porous turn your back on a mint chromium and copper. and absorb liquid plant in the garden and it The easiest way to easily. has taken over the whole grow mushrooms indoors bed! For this reason, keep is in a commercially available your plant in a pot or at least an kit. You can also start with some area of garden where it can be controlled store-bought (or grower-bought) mush(or you don’t mind it spreading rapidly). room compost and simply cut the top Grow it in full sun or part shade and haroff the bag and water it to get the mushvest or tip prune regularly to encourage rooms growing. If you have an old wood>> bushy growth. en box, line that with some hessian and place your mushroom compost in that. Keep it moist and in a dark area in the house, such as under a bed or the kitchen sink. Button and field style-mushrooms don’t need light to grow, so the darker and cooler the corner the better. There are many different types of mushrooms. If you are feeling a bit more adventurous, or you have a taste for Asian cuisine, why not try the more exotic oyster mushrooms that come in pink and yellow colours, or the much-loved shitake Mint mushrooms. The Guru Magazine / Issue No. 58 / Autumn 2016 19 FEAT U R E GA RDENING ALOE VERA This one is a little different, as it is more commonly used as a topical application than internally. The gel (from inside the leaf) is an effective natural soothing ointment for skin complaints such as sunburn, cold sores, acne, eczema, psoriasis and insect bites. Simply snap a small piece off on demand for instant relief. While not as common (although growing in popularity), aloe vera can be taken internally as a juice or the gel added to smoothies and is said to be a fantastic whole-body tonic. It is also reported to have benefits to the skin and digestive system, with vitamins including B, C, and E plus folic acid to round out your nutrition. Be a little aware of taking this one internally however, as there are some contraindications, especially with those who have diabetes, a heart condition or a bleeding disorder. In large doses, aloe vera juice can also have a laxative effect. Aloe vera is a succulent requiring full sun to part shade and prefers warmer climates. If your aloe vera is in a pot, bring it indoors in cooler weather and place it near a sunny window to keep it happy. They are fairly hardy but will suffer if they become waterlogged, so make sure you use an appropriate fast-draining mix. Keep them lightly watered. Aloe vera can be easily propagated by seed or repotting the small plants (pups) that often start growing at the base of the parent plant. Aloe vera 20 The Guru Magazine / Issue No. 58 / Autumn 2016 EDGING FOREVER I nstalling edging should be one of the few gardening jobs that only needs to be done once. Garden edging should hold perfectly all curves, angles and straight lines. It needs to maintain a definitive and long lasting barrier between any two elements in the garden – lawn, path, bed or pavers. An edge should give the impression that the devoted garden owner has leapt out of bed every single day of the year and enthusiastically wielded the shovel or edger to maintain that perfect border. So, how to achieve those perfect edges and still have time to sit back and admire them? There are many edging products on the market and a short amount of worthwhile homework will quickly lead to some obvious conclusions. Plastic is hopeless; it neither lasts long in the ground nor stays still. Wood looks good for a short time but is open to rot or termite damage, and is also difficult to bend into curves. Which leaves steel – durable, versatile and long lasting. Mild steel garden edging works well in all soils; it is easy to bend to any shape and will last for generations. EverEdge flexible steel garden edging is perfectly suited to all gardening projects, whatever their size. Made from 1.6mm mild steel (90 per cent recycled) it is quick and simple to install. Just hammer directly into the ground using the spikes that are part of the metre lengths – there are no extra pins, pegs or joiners. It is simple to form any curve or angle by hand with EverEdge because no special tools are needed. EverEdge will also maintain a perfect straight line, as the end of each metre length is slightly offset, which means the next piece slots in completely flush. EverEdge is used the world over by the full variety of horticultural enthusiasts, from landscaping professionals to home gardeners. Its range of powder-coated colours and Cor-Ten finishes means it is able to match all types of landscapes. EverEdge in the galvanised and powder coated finish is available in black or brown and three different depths – 75mm, 100mm and 125mm. The 75 mm depth is generally used to edge lawn, whilst the 100mm and 125mm depths are used to edge flower and garden beds. The larger depths can also be used to provide an underground barrier for grass runners. EverEdge in the Cor-Ten finish is available in the 100mm and 125mm depths. It takes four weeks for the rust finish to fully develop and then it stops rusting and will not deteriorate further (unlike other steel). The colour does not leak into white pebbles or concrete finishes. EverEdge has been available in England for 20 years and has recently arrived in Australia. EverEdge is distributed Australia-wide via courier or through local stockists. For more details, visit www.everedge.com.au. A BRILLIANT, SIMPLE AND LONG LASTING WAY TO MAINTAIN TIDY GARDEN EDGES EverEdge flexible steel garden edging is easy to install, bends to virtually any shape, suits all soil types and is available in a variety of colours and depths. Everedge is made from 1.6 mm gauge mild steel galvanised and powder coated or with a Cor-Ten rusted finish. www.everedge.com.au Tel:-