Author Archives: Helen McKerral

Helen McKerral

About Helen McKerral

Horticultural journalist, photographer, contributor to many garden magazines, and author of ‘Gardening on a Shoestring’. Adelaide Hills, South Australia

You can buy pots of garlic Growing garlic

7

Garlic – yum! Our household goes through a knob a week or more, triple that when I’m harvesting tomatoes and making passata to freeze! Although I grew garlic many years ago, plantings in the last decade have been less successful because nowhere has quite enough sun in the old garden… but once again, hooray! Plenty of sun in the new area! Garlic is easy to grow as long as you meet its straightforward requirements. Continue reading →

Planting a dry stone retaining wall - Armeria Planting a dry stone wall

1

With seventy square metres of dry stone retaining walls in the new garden area, the effect is currently rather stark… but, no worries. The big advantage of this kind of wall is that it can be planted! I popped in six thyme plants in late spring, but it was the wrong season so only three survived the scorching summer heat. Autumn will be much a better time for successful establishment. Continue reading →

freshly washed and cut Purple potatoes

1

What is it with me and vegetables of unfortunate appearance? A while back I shared with you the delicious-tasting but dubious-looking Native Finger lime and now I find myself unearthing Purple Congo potatoes. A bowl of the unwashed long, lumpy tubers looks as if I’ve been cleaning up not after a small dog, but a fully grown Rottweiler. Wow, these potatoes sure are butt-ugly! Continue reading →

Plenty of Tommy Toe tomatoes still to ripen Growing tomatoes on a trellis

4

Staking tomatoes, or “indeterminate” cultivars, are tomatoes that keep growing indefinitely – in the Adelaide Hills, that’s usually until late April or even early May in a sheltered spot, after which the cold kills the plants. However, Adelaide Plains gardeners often overwinter tomatoes. Determinate tomatoes have a bushy habit: they reach a certain size, and then stop producing additional stem growth, so they’re ideal for pots. Determinates have a shorter cropping season, whereas indeterminates produce a more steady supply. Semi-determinates are halfway between the two. Continue reading →

Leaf curl on red 'Sunset' nectarine Plant pests, diseases – and mistakes

4

So this blog is about some of my mistakes and failures so far – aka ‘learning opportunities’. Luckily only one is expensively terminal, the others are little setbacks and inconveniences from which plant(s) will recover.

Several mistakes have been because of poor cultivation methods. I lost about four raspberry canes through over-watering – the drippers were too close to the bare-rooted canes, I watered too often, and it’s possible I added too much organic matter to the bed. Continue reading →

Both the birds and the possums leave the fruit alone Sour Christmas cherries

8

Ah, that bowl of cherries on the table at Christmas time – what a quintessentially Aussie tradition, much like the bowl of prawns. Totally YUM! But growing up with Dutch Christmas traditions (pepernoten, Sinterklaas), I never really connected with the Christmas-cherry-thing until began sharing dinners with my Aussie partner’s family. And I was converted!

Continue reading →