Brisbane Edible Gardening

04/09/2026

It’s not what gardeners want to hear with the arrival of spring when everyone is really keen to get out and get growing but this time of year is dry in Brisbane. The food forest is paused, ready to burst forth when the rain joins the warm weather…but that is a couple of months away. Now is the time to mulch, top dress with compost and get all your beds ready and then either commit to diligently watering your garden with a few deep drinks a week for the next couple of months or to be very patient with your plants knowing that they are just ticking along slowly waiting for the rains to arrive. Trust in all of the organic matter you have enriched the soil with and the mulch you have added to save what soil moisture there is. Adding ponds around the garden will help a lot to keep the garden cool and provide water for the beneficial insects. Inconsistent watering is a sure way to stress and confuse your plants as well as use up their summer growing reserves prematurely.

04/09/2026

Hardy and beautiful salvia that flowers prolifically for at least 6 months of the year in our garden. Strikes easily from cuttings, especially at this time of year. Well worth growing, just be sure to prune it back hard at the start of spring or gorgeous autumn and winter flowers.

02/09/2026

01/09/2026

Before you put those gorgeous spring seedlings into the garden remember that growing your own food comes down to three basic principles:
1. Soil - soil is a living environment. It is so much more than dirt or a bag of potting mix in a plastic pot. Rich, pH balanced soil, full of well composed organic matter, rock minerals, fungi and all of the healthy thriving soil microbes. Feed your soil and it will reward you with resilient plants and delicious tasting produce.
2. The right plants - growing annual vegetables year round for continuous harvests takes a lot of work and planing. This is why, with the exception of about a dozen annual crops, the focus in our food garden is on perennial edible plants. For example, Perennial leafy greens like Okinawa spinach and Lebanese cress are everywhere in our garden for a backup year round leaf crop that mostly takes care of itself.
3. The right amount of sun and water. With the exception of edible plants which are grown for their leaves, the vast majority of vegetables like full sun (aka 6 hrs of full sun). They also like regular soil moisture. Which usually means watering a few times a week in summer. We don’t have the time for this so have a diversity of ponds and wicking beds throughout the garden. Top up once a week with water and they do a great job looking after themselves.
Final thought - Invest in a good composting routine. Regularly top dress your garden beds with compost, worm juice and mulch and it will go a long way to thriving soil, happy plants and a lush garden even when it gets hot and dry. Also, plant some for you and some for the wildlife. That way when the odd leaves get nibbled (and they will if you have an organic garden) there is still plenty more to go round.

01/09/2026

Time to tie up all loose ends after the Fair and then have a go at propagating some cuttings. Remember to bring your own pair of secateurs or scissors and any questions you have about propagating from cuttings. Time to share and learn.

30/08/2026

Thank you to all of the very enthusiastic gardeners who came along to the frugal gardening workshop today at BOGI. Happy gardening everyone!

29/08/2026

Frugal gardening is about turning something that someone else thinks is worthless into something useful. Broccoli boxes from the local green grocer are a great example. A coat of external paint to protect them from UV degradation and they can be transformed in a diversity of garden planters which are much better than black plastic pots, due to their insulation, to grow food in. They can be transformed into wicking pots, water pots and worm farms with ease. I’ll be showing you have to do this at the BOGI Fair (102 MacDonald Rd, Windsor, 9am this morning) if you’d like to learn how in person. Otherwise instructions to be posted shortly!

29/08/2026

Meet Dolly. Stealth nest layer and all round determined mum. Found last week sitting on 18 fertilised eggs! She is completely concealed amongst the mulch and plants though obviously the other chickens all know where she has set up camp and have been contributing eggs too. 19-21 sitting days for hatching so it won’t be long now. PS there would have been chaos if we’d introduced 18 new chickens at once to the existing flock so we gave the majority of the eggs to friends with clucky chickens but we couldn’t deny Dolly chicks of her own given all of her determination so she is currently sitting on a reasonable half a dozen eggs.

29/08/2026

Fabulous healthy lunches including salads, quiches, roasted pumpkins, air fried cassava and curry. All made with at least 90% home grown, organic ingredients. So good and hopefully inspiring for your work colleagues to get them out in the garden growing too.

29/08/2026

Strawberries. I know you can buy them for a few dollars from the supermarket but there is nothing like homegrown! After many trials we now grow our in large wicking beds and have had a very good crop as a result, even when we don’t have time to pop out and water. There are so many varieties available but we have had the best results from runners given from friends who have been growing the same variety for decades. Resilient, locally adapted plants give great results, it’s worth getting out and chatting with local growers and tomorrow’s BOGI Fair at Windsor is a great place to find them.