Episode #3: Planting Vegetable Gardens with Maggie Beer

Host Charlie Albone is joined by the incredible Maggie Beer to discuss her passion for gardening. Maggie loves to create incredible dishes from her own produce. A renowned vegetable grower, Charlie and Maggie share their knowledge to help everyone have a brilliant vegetable patch.

Episode #3: Planting Vegetable Gardens with Maggie Beer

Charlie Albone:

Hi, I’m Charlie Albone and welcome to episode three of That’s How We Grow, in partnership with STIHL Garden Power Tools. I love the taste of freshly picked homegrown fruits and vegetables. The taste and the beautiful smell set them so far apart from anything you can buy in a store. The satisfaction of knowing you’ve fed and supported the food that you can now enjoy, well there really is nothing better. The popularity of veggie patches exploded during lockdown periods around Australia. People rediscovered their backyard, and embraced their veggie patch. While anyone can grow a nice vegetable patch. Anyone can have a good season. But planning a vegetable patch and having quality fruit and vegetables, season after season, sets gardens apart.

Charlie Albone:

This week on the episode, we have the amazing Maggie Beer. She’s an Australian cook, a food author, restaurateur and a food manufacturer living in the Barossa Valley. In 2012, Maggie was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia. The last time I saw Maggie, she explained to me the joys of verjuice, which I had no idea what they were. And Maggie actually makes my favorite ice cream ever made, but she hasn’t given me the recipe yet. So I’m going to challenge myself and to try and get it from her now. Maggie, thank you so much for joining us. Burnt fig, honeycomb and caramel. Now I have eaten an obscene amount of this ice cream. Can you please give me the recipe or is it a secret?

Maggie Beer:

Well, first start with a ton of figs and try and burn them? There you are Charlie, that’s as much as you’re getting from me.

Charlie Albone:

Oh, come on. Please, a little bit more?

Maggie Beer:

Oh no. The skill is all in burning the figs.

Charlie Albone:

So delicious. It’s really good. I mean, you’re known for gourmet foods. You’ve authored 11 award winning cookbooks. You’re a whiz in the kitchen, but I find that chefs, they often have a relationship with the garden as well, because of the obvious correlation. Is that something that you have?

Maggie Beer:

Oh, absolutely. My garden is as great a love as my kitchen, and even more so in the last, well, actually since lockdown. Lockdown has given me more time than ever, and I’ve always loved my garden, but been frustrated by not having enough time in it. So I’m just re-in love with it.

Charlie Albone:

That’s the problem with gardening. You want to do it so much that when you go off to work, and you just desperately want to be back there and the more time you can spend there, the happier you are. I had the best Father’s Day just passed, where I was let free into the garden and just slaved away, clearing out garden beds and finishing off my veggie patches. And I had the best day. It was fantastic. Really loved it. Where did your love of gardening come from?

Maggie Beer:

Well, it really only came from living in the Barossa. I didn’t start gardening really until I closed the pheasant farm, which is back in ’93, because just not ever having a moments spare in my life. We had locals who gardened for us for the vegetables, and so I didn’t have … At the farm, the soil, we have high salinity and poor soil on the farm side, the pheasant farm side. So was coming here, oh gosh, that’s 37 years ago, seems like yesterday. There were lots of trees, but not much of a veggie garden. And so that was the beginning, but really I only got serious about 10 years ago, and raising the veggie gardens, I have eight long veggie gardens, enough for a family of 20, and we’re only two.

Charlie Albone:

That’s a good problem to have.

Maggie Beer:

It is, because having the raised gardens has meant all the difference in the world to me. Because I’ve had a bad spine my life. So now it’s just so easy with the veggies. Not the rest of the garden, that’s digging.

Charlie Albone:

So what sort of height are your raised vegetable patches? Are they 600 mill? 800 mill?

Maggie Beer:

Yes, about 800 mill, because I’m quite tall.

Charlie Albone:

Okay, yes.

Maggie Beer:

And so they’re absolutely perfect for me.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah, I mean, one of the benefits of having them raised up like that, is you get the benefits of free draining soil, but it’s just from a practical point of view though it’s much easier to work them, isn’t it?

Maggie Beer:

Yes, and as you age, it’s much easier and I would recommend it for anyone, because then it just, if something is really simple, they’re more likely to do it as just a normal part of their life.

Charlie Albone:

Absolutely,

Maggie Beer:

So yeah. All for them.

Charlie Albone:

I’ve just finished a large vegetable patch in my garden. I made them all, I actually made wicking garden beds. So there’s a reservoir of water underneath, because I come and come and go from the property, I’m not there all the time, wicking beds mean that I don’t have to worry about watering them all the time. But they’re 600 mill high with a cap. So you can use them as seats, which is really lovely. So they’re, I’m finding the family is flocking to the veggie patch more, because they’ve got somewhere to sit and it’s really lovely, really enjoying it. When you created your gardens, did you do a lot of soil preparation?

Maggie Beer:

Yes, certainly for the veggie gardens, a huge amount of soil preparation. So it was a mixture of having some stones right down the bottom. Also lining, because they’re galvanized iron, and we get tremendous heat, lining the sides with some Polystyrene from broccoli boxes to stop the intense heat. Having a huge mix of sheep manure, chicken manure, loam, straw. Just really the preparation was very important to it.

Charlie Albone:

It’s key, preparation to the soil is key to the success. You mentioned that the rest of your garden’s in the ground. Is vegetable gardening your favorite type of gardening or do you like growing flowers and other sorts of things?

Maggie Beer:

Oh, the veggie gardens my first, absolutely first love. But I do love roses, and here in South Australia, in the Barossa, we have the perfect climate for roses. And I love scent, so I have a lot of scented roses. I have a lot of jasmine. I have with wisteria, and yes, I love that too. But the veggie garden’s first call. If I’m limited of time, that’s where I’ll spend my time. Because I have someone that comes in and helps for four or five hours a week, but we’ve got 20 acres, where, we’ve got-

Charlie Albone:

That’s a lot of work.

Maggie Beer:

Yes, well, a lot of it is the vines and the olives and quinces, but we’ve still got at least a hectare of just space around the cottage.

Charlie Albone:

Yes, lovely. Do you use the roses and things like that in your cooking as well? Edible flowers and that sort of stuff?

Maggie Beer:

Well, I love the rose hip. The rose leaves I always mean to, and never get around to it. There’s a lot of that in gardening and cooking, all the things. But the ones that I have that have a large hip on it, making a rose hip syrup and serving it with rabbit, there are endless ways of utilizing what’s in the garden.

Charlie Albone:

Gosh, you’re making me hungry talking about things like that. The, the weather’s really warming up now, do you prefer the fruits and vegetables that come in summer? Or do you look forward to every season and everything that’s different?

Maggie Beer:

Well, I, one of the great things about South Australia, is having four very distinct seasons. I grew up in Sydney and so coming here was understanding how to live the rhythm of the season. So each season is special, but if you ask me my favorite season, that’s always autumn. But then I love winter, and then I love spring.

Charlie Albone:

The seasons seemed to be the perfect length that you look forward to the next one. You’re almost, you’ve had enough of one season, then something else starts to happen. You fall in love with the next season, it’s great like that.

Maggie Beer:

Absolutely. I’ve got, my first asparagus has come, and the broad beans are nearly ready, and the purple sprouting broccoli is going mad. And I’ve still got the kale leftover from winter. And it’s that lovely, you are right, it’s the excitement of the season. I just love it.

Charlie Albone:

You are lucky, you’ve got the space to grow a lot. For the home gardener, in a standard block, it’s very difficult to grow enough food to support yourself. So I always think you need to, whatever you grow, really make a celebration of that harvest, and have a big me around it and get family around, if you can, at the time. Is that something you like to do? Or do you have a glut of fruit and veg that you can’t handle?

Maggie Beer:

Well, we do have a huge abundance, but then we’ve got the family, but we also have the eatery at the pheasant farm. So when I have too much rocket, when I have too much kale, I’ve got, it never, nothing goes to waste.

Charlie Albone:

That’s good.

Maggie Beer:

That’s part of my ethos, but yes, we can get too much of something, that’s so beautiful. Before we eat it all, it can go to seed if I’ve not been generous, because I love it too much.

Charlie Albone:

I love, we have this amazing lemon tree. I just, one of my favorite things is to give the lemons away, because they’re like nothing else. The taste of something homegrown just seems to surpass anything you can buy in the shops, I think.

Maggie Beer:

Well, we have quite a, two weeks ago I picked two loads of my ruby grapefruit. It was just so huge, the biggest wheelbarrows I have, and full to the top. So then I have a problem with what to do with all those, yes.

Charlie Albone:

Right. Well, you could put them some ice cream perhaps.

Maggie Beer:

Oh no. I’ve got other things in mind. Have you ever tried Campari and ruby grapefruit?

Charlie Albone:

Yes, I have.

Maggie Beer:

Or making your own tonic water? So all of those things are in play right now.

Charlie Albone:

Yes. Do you, with the definite seasons you have in the Barossa and planning your harvests and what you grow, is so important. How much time do you put into that?

Maggie Beer:

Well, I guess over the years I’ve got a pretty good system. Because we’ve got eight beds, to make sure that we’ve got rotation. So I keep a map of it. I really think about it, because for me, everything tastes so wonderful when you just pick and cook. But I always concentrate on those vegetables that are not easy to buy. I don’t grow broccoli, but I grow purple sprouting broccoli. I grow rapini, or Cime di rapa, because you can’t buy that in the shops. So I don’t grow ordinary brown onions, but I grow beautiful red onions. I’m selective, and I don’t waste space on something that’s very easy to get.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah, it’s [crosstalk 00:12:20] that you grow individual things. Yeah, because, I guess if you can buy it readily, and you know it comes from a good source, do that, and grow the unusual stuff.

Maggie Beer:

Yeah.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah. We did mention soil preparation being so important. It can also be quite hard work if you don’t raise your beds up. Is that something you’ve spent some time on? Digging, turning over soil and things like that?

Maggie Beer:

Well, you talked about Sunday. I had the best day on Saturday, because I decided to pull out Agapanthus. Now, Agapanthus that had become so clumped. So I spent the whole day turning the garden over, and pulling out every little bit of the tubers of the Agapanthus and I felt so good. I then put some dung in, and some manure in ready to replant it. And I love that feeling. My back doesn’t like it.

Charlie Albone:

No, yeah, mine doesn’t like turning over the soil much either. Yeah, sometimes I get on the KombiTool or something like that, and get on a pick tine, and turn it over that way. But sometimes you just do need to get into the fork, you need the experience of that. What have you got planned for that bed?

Maggie Beer:

Zinnias

Charlie Albone:

Oh nice, a bit of color?

Maggie Beer:

I love Zinnias, and really the tall ones, not the small ones, not the mini ones. That profusion of color, because it’s against the wall of a very old cottage at the front of our property. So yes, it’s all already now.

Charlie Albone:

Yes, you mentioned that you grow quince. Now, I’ve got a really hot wall that I’m trying to grow cherries against, but it’s too hot, and I don’t have the right climate. So I’m going to give up on them, and I’m thinking quince would be perfect to espalier against a wall, because the flowers are just so vibrant in red and the quince can really take the heat. Do you have any tips for growing quince?

Maggie Beer:

Yes, quince are such a hardy tree, at least they are, I’m not sure about quince with humidity. But certainly in our climate, quince, or had you thought of fig against a hot wall? Because that would be wonderful too. I have figs against our hot stone wall, but the quince, it needs so little, it can get codling moth, but it’s very unusual. We don’t spray anything. And my favorite quince to use, is the Smyrna rather than the pineapple. There are many others, but the Smyrna is the one that I find the hardiest.

Charlie Albone:

I’ve written that down, definitely [crosstalk 00:15:23]-

Maggie Beer:

I have a lot of quinces, we have three quince orchards, yeah.

Charlie Albone:

Oh right. Yeah, I’ve got a persimmon orchard as well-

Maggie Beer:

Ah, have you?

Charlie Albone:

Yes, and they’re such a beautiful tree. They’ve got a lovely umbrella shape to them, and the fruit looks amazing, but that aftertaste, I just can’t quite warm to it yet. I have found if you put them in the freezer, they go a bit frozen, then you can scoop them out. And that aftertaste disappears a little bit.

Maggie Beer:

Yes, that’s the tannin. I presume you’re talking about the really old fashioned one, that’s diaphanous, and it has to look as if it’s rotten. Well, I’ve found, because we have a beautiful tree of this. I found I have to only pick those that are almost rotten. Then that tannin is not there. If you pick them even a day or two before they’re ready, then you get that, back of the, yes, that nasty tannin. But you’re absolutely right about freezing. But I often take the pulp out and make it into a baked custard or a bread. There are lots of other ways, or just having it as a sorbet, so as you said.

Charlie Albone:

Yes, it’s lovely. We’ve got alpacas and donkeys that, the alpacas take them off the trees, and then the donkeys run in and steal them. So, yeah. So you also, as well as gardening and cooking, you have a charity, is that right?

Maggie Beer:

Yes. Well, I have a foundation trying to change the food in aged care. So that’s the biggest job Charlie, I have ever undertaken. But we’ve been going at it seven years now. Really progress is never, ever as quick as you want it to be, but we’ve been able to pull together even the government to listen. And the Royal Commission has helped that, and earlier this year had a Congress, bringing all the parts of aged care together to find a path to do better. For my foundation’s part, the education process, so we’ve just finished doing 11 segments of filming for online training into aged care homes. Because there’s no specialized training, and the difference that beautiful food can make to the wellbeing of an older Australian, or of anyone really, but particularly those that can’t look after themselves, so it’s-

Charlie Albone:

Absolutely, yes.

Maggie Beer:

… so important.

Charlie Albone:

It’s so important. I mean, even the health benefits of eating good quality food is amazing, but also the sight of good quality food in front of you as well, it lifts the spirit. So it’s good for physical and mental health. So that’s amazing that you’re doing that. It’s really great.

Maggie Beer:

Absolutely.

Charlie Albone:

Is there any way that anyone can help support you in that?

Maggie Beer:

Well, yes. We have a website for my foundation maggiebeerfoundation.org.au, I think I’ve got that right. Gosh, I never look up myself, but Maggie Beer foundation will find it. And yes, we are always trying to do so much more education to pull people around us that are doing things well, there are so many possible ways to help. So going to the foundation website is a starting point for anyone who’s interested.

Charlie Albone:

Great. Excellent, that’s really excellent. I want to talk about your raised vegetable patches again, because you said something. I mean, setting up a vegetable patch, there’s a few key things you need to get right. Obviously you need as much sun as you can possibly get. Free draining, good quality soil. But how much of it is learning as you go, because you mentioned you’ve got race beds made of tin and you’ve insulated them. Now that’s something that someone might not pick up. How much have you learned on the way of your growing journey?

Maggie Beer:

Oh my gosh.

Maggie Beer:

Absolutely, I was lucky enough to have a neighbor that helped me set it up, and she has green fingers. Some people just do, I’ve learned to garden. It’s not, whereas I know how to cook without thinking, gardening I’ve had to learn. And she was a great teacher. And you never stop learning, but once you start actually raising something and eating it, and understanding how much better it will taste than anything else you’ll ever buy, it just drives you to expanding your knowledge. So where do I get that from? I just get it from experience, I think, and the help, because I don’t raise my seedlings myself, because I never have the time. So I have Rachel, who raises the seedlings for me now. So that means that’s the hard work.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah, that is the hard part. Growing from seed is very difficult, from seedling onwards, it’s much easier.

Maggie Beer:

It is. I can take it from seedling on, and I know how to look after it, because I know how much water it needs, because it tells me, the garden tells you these things.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah, once you spend some time out in a veggie patch and make mistakes, you learn from it, definitely.

Maggie Beer:

Yes.

Charlie Albone:

It’s funny, when I design gardens for people, they say, “I want a veggie patch, but I want it to look really cool and really trendy.” And I’m like, “Yeah, you just wait until you actually do it. And then you’ll think it’s cool and trendy.” It starts to look like every other veggie patch, and then, “Look how cool it looks now.” I’m like, “It looks exactly like every other one.” It’s great. It’s brilliant. Yeah, is there any vegetable you can’t live without?

Maggie Beer:

Oh gosh, any vegetable-

Charlie Albone:

Mine’s definitely broccoli. I love it.

Maggie Beer:

Well, mine’s probably eggplant. I would grow five different types of eggplant through the summer, which go right through to the autumn. I couldn’t bear to be without it, and to be without the cross section of the different varieties. Oh no, that’s, but yes. Potatoes are probably bottom of the list until you get a wonderful waxy potato, and then I don’t have space for them in my raised garden. So they go in with the roses, and never can get them out.

Charlie Albone:

How do you treat your ground-grown garden beds in comparison to your raised beds?

Maggie Beer:

Okay. Well, they need, because we can have really intense heat, but it’s a dry heat, so the watering system has got to be in there. There has to be regular feeding. Feeding is just so much more important than you think. If you’re just, until you are really involved in a garden. So feeding your roses, feeding your citrus, they’re very hungry, feeding your macadamia. They’re really hungry plants. So mulch is really important in our climate, but also is pulling the Couch out of the garden when it invades.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah, competition is a killer.

Maggie Beer:

Competition is a killer. So, making sure you don’t have too much under your citrus as competition. But these, I think you’re right, experience teaches you as well as learning from others.

Charlie Albone:

So Maggie as a gardener, and as somebody who grows a lot of different vegetables, do you follow the rules of crop rotation and fallow fields and things like that? As you’re an organic gardener, I could imagine that’d be quite important?

Maggie Beer:

Yes, I think planning is so important and I keep an annual guide of my eight plots of the veggie garden. So the rotation can be very clear, because one year someone did me a favor and put tomatoes in when I was away. Then I finished up with a problem, and then fallow, mustard seed, we tend to put in as a fallow crop in between. But it’s very important to be moving your tomatoes, your eggplants, all of those, to be moving them and not coming back to the same place for three years, I find.

Charlie Albone:

Yes. Well, I think those types of plants, each one draws different nutrients from the soil. So if you keep planting the same thing in the same spot, it’s just extrapolating the issue of taking one too many nutrients out. Having a mustard crop or something like that, you can turn it back into the soil, but it also allows you to give some time to put in some compost and some other nutrients back as well.

Maggie Beer:

Yes, and it is really important. I’ve learned to do that, I’ve learned the importance of it.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah. It is tempting to keep growing something in the same spot if it’s done well, if you’ve had a good season. You think, “I’m just going to do that again.”

Maggie Beer:

Yes, and I guess the luck that I have, is having the eight separate beds. It’s very easy to be systematic about it. It’s one of the few things I might be systematic about.

Charlie Albone:

Yes. So do you give it three years between growing something in the same spot then?

Maggie Beer:

Yes, I give it three years, because I’ve got the space to do that. So I’m not sure, but I’ve had the problem once, and I don’t want to have it again, of having to leave it fallow for several years, because of having … Oh, I’ve just, mental blank. When you have the problems in the soil from the…

Charlie Albone:

So did you have a nematode in the soil?

Maggie Beer:

A nematode.

Charlie Albone:

You did, yeah?

Maggie Beer:

Sorry. Yes.

Charlie Albone:

Yes.

Maggie Beer:

And once you, they’re terrible, and they’re even terrible when you pull them out and you see you’ve got them, they make you feel dreadful.

Charlie Albone:

Have you always had a big garden? Or have you ever gardened on a smaller scale?

Maggie Beer:

I’ve never gardened on a smaller scale, but I try and encourage anyone. With my cooking, I really try to say to people, “Even if you don’t have a garden, even if you have pots on your balcony, have fresh herbs. What that will do to your cooking is just incredible. It’s a starting point.”

Charlie Albone:

Yes.

Maggie Beer:

Excuse me. So encouraging people to have the smallest, if that’s what they’re limited to, is really important to me.

Charlie Albone:

Yes, starting with herbs is a great place to start growing stuff that you’re going to eat. I find things, easy things to grow like lettuce is the next step up, and spinach and stuff like that, that is quite easy to grow. Yeah, and then once you’re into that, you’re into it. You’re just trying anything, I find.

Maggie Beer:

Absolutely, you know how quickly radishes come up?

Charlie Albone:

Yes.

Maggie Beer:

Well, if you get a watermelon radish, and it comes up and it’s so spectacular, you think you’ve been responsible, green on the outside and red all through. And you slice it, and you think, “Oh, my goodness,” it gives you-

Charlie Albone:

I’m so clever.

Maggie Beer:

That’s exactly right. It gives you encouragement for the next step.

Charlie Albone:

So Maggie, when you started your veggie patches, how did you pick the location? What were you looking for?

Maggie Beer:

Well, the location, two things. One, it had to be full sun, and it had to be close to the back door. As close as possible, that you went past it every day. Even if you weren’t out in the garden, it sang out to you, “Come and garden.”

Charlie Albone:

Yeah, that’s so important. It’s so important to have it too. I find if you’re a real keen gardener, and you really want to do it, you can place it further away from the house, because you want to be there. But if it’s closer, you’re more likely to check on your veg every day. That’s when you get on top of any issues as well.

Maggie Beer:

Absolutely.

Charlie Albone:

I mean, you set them up from scratch. So, you know the process. Apart from full sun, was there anything else you were looking for? I know you’ve raised them up, which obviously helps with drainage and for practical reasons, was there anything else you looked into?

Maggie Beer:

Yes, because our soil here naturally is, we have sandy loam. So we needed to have a much richer soil in. So it was buying in some loam. Having, we had sheep manure, bird, pheasant manure, and the straw from the sheds, were all very important. So that was, it was natural compost. We also put along the sides of the bed itself, because of the heat of summer sometimes here in South Australia, it just puts some cushioning of the sides of broccoli boxes to keep the main heat away. So it was getting all that good goodness into the soil, was really important. And deep, even though vegetables are quite shallow, it somehow was very important to me that I had such a depth in case I wanted to plant something.

Charlie Albone:

I think a big body of soil as well, with the insulation of the broccoli boxes, that just adds to insulation of the soil. So you’ve got a hot top and a cold bottom, if you will. That’s perfect for growing vegetables.

Maggie Beer:

Ah, see, I did something, I didn’t know. The other thing was the watering system, just tubes, about five tubes coming down each way. So when you plant, you plant where the water is coming out, because water, we have to contain our water here. Water is a scarce resource. So we have to make every bit of water count. So that was important.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah, you really need to be careful. Heavily mulching vegetables, really important as well, irrelevant of what climate you’re in. It does a lot of good again, it gives you those cool roots, and it helps to suppress weeds. And it will help spread your water out as well. It has that capillary effect of pushing the water out before it goes down, which is really important. Yeah, and you could also try a wicking bed, similar to what I set up, would be really good for somewhere where water is so scarce.

Maggie Beer:

Well, I’ve been tempted to start again with wicking beds in another idea I have, but I haven’t convinced Colin yet. So he, whether he wants to start again. I’m working on it, Charlie.

Charlie Albone:

Starting again is daunting, but yes, all big projects are most rewarding, aren’t they?

Maggie Beer:

They are indeed.

Charlie Albone:

Yes, do you have any tools that you love? I was talking to Graham Ross last week, and he’s got an old fork that his granddad passed down to him, and that’s his favorite tool? Do you have anything like that, that makes you nostalgic?

Maggie Beer:

Not nostalgic, but a friend just gave me, if you had have asked me a month ago, it would’ve been a different answer, but a friend has just given me a gardening knife, and it’s serrated on one side. It also has measurements of how deep it is. And it means that I can, say I’m wanting to cut off my red cabbage, as I did last week, the last of the red cabbage, I can cut it at the base with the knife, and I can dig down. It’s really hand tools that are great for me. I mean, give, if you ask Colin the same question, it’d be something to take all the weeds from around the trees of our orchard, because I won’t let him spray. But yes.

Charlie Albone:

Have you tried using salt and vinegar to get rid of weeds as a spray? As an organic spray that works quite well.

Maggie Beer:

No.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah, so you mix up salt and vinegar, and it really dehydrates the plant. And I mean, for perennial couches and grasses, you do need to give it a couple of hits, but if you use salt and vinegar, it will kill quite a lot of weeds, certainly annual weeds. If you add a bit of soil wetter, we as well, it really helps with those grasses.

Maggie Beer:

Oh, okay. Let me write that down. We’ve used milk in the garden for, yes.

Charlie Albone:

Milk works really well on fungal diseases and things like-

Maggie Beer:

Absolutely, yes.

Charlie Albone:

… and things like that. A 50/50 mix will get rid of a lot of fungal diseases. So yeah, try salt and vinegar that works really well.

Maggie Beer:

Vinegar and some wetter? Yes, okay. Wow.

Charlie Albone:

Yes. So that’s my recipe for you. I’m still after this ice cream recipe, a fair trade.

Maggie Beer:

Oh no, that’s not quite a fair trade. We need something else.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah, I’ll have to scratch my head. Maggie, it has been an absolute delight talking to you. Thank you so much for your time.

Maggie Beer:

I’m thrilled, Charlie. Always love listening to you.

Charlie Albone:

So now it is time for me to answer some questions from the community. And Jonathan from Melbourne asks, “Is there a difference between planting a veggie bed and my regular garden bed?” Well, yes, there is. So all types of garden beds, like organic matter added to them. If you add compost to sandy soil, it will help to bind it together. If you add compost to clay soil, it will bring in worms and help to break it up. But a veggie bed is such a highly productive area, with such a lot of growth and such a lot of harvest that comes out of it, you need to support that with additional nutrients. So a little bit extra compost than you would in a garden bed, and lots and lots of fertilizer.

Charlie Albone:

So that can be organic, or it can be synthetic, whatever your preference is. I like to use organic in my veggie beds and I use synthetic when I’m not eating the food. So just up the quantities of things that you would do normally. In a normal garden bed, I would say put a hundred millimeters of compost over the surface and dig that through well. In a raised veggie patch, you’re probably be doing 150 mill, and then you’d be using an organic mulch, like a pea straw on top. Always combine it in well, and you should be going great.

Charlie Albone:

Joanna from Plenty, north of Melbourne asked, “I created my first veggie patch last year. And I’m looking to create another this spring. One thing that’s putting me off, is I’ve got clay soil, and it was really compacted and hard to dig in. Is there any way to make this easier?” So I mentioned in the previous question, that adding compost to clay soil is really important. But before you do that actually, you need to do a bit of a stability test, which sounds more difficult than it is. You need to distilled water, which basically, boil the kettle, and leave it to cool. Put that in a jar, then put a tiny bit of your clay soil into that jar and leave it for 24 hours. Once you go back to it, you need to look at the color of the water.

Charlie Albone:

If it is crystal clear, and the soil is just sitting at the bottom, you’ve got a stable clay soil, and you can just add compost. That’s a great thing to do. If the water is cloudy, then you’ve got an unstable clay soil. So adding Gypsum to that soil will help to flocculate all the little parts together and give you a stable source. So you need to add some Gypsum first, then you can start adding your compost. The addition of compost will help to free it up.

Charlie Albone:

Do you have a gardening question? You’d like us to answer, send us an email, charlie@stihl.com.au. You need to really dig that compost through your garden bed. Now you can do that with a fork. You can do that with a shovel or you can make it easy on yourself and use a STIHL KombiTool with a pick tine. That’s going to help to combine it really well, and break the soil up. Once you’ve done that you’re ready to plant.

Charlie Albone:

Now I feel absolutely starving. I’m going to head out into the garden and find something to eat. But what else did we learn? Well, we learned the benefits of a raised garden bed. It’s important to get that good drainage and to make your garden beds practical at the same time. The importance of crop rotation as well, you don’t want to come into any issues like nematodes. So crop rotation is the way to go.

Charlie Albone:

We also talked about how to plan a new bed and the difference between a veggie and a regular garden bed. We touched on, and sadly, I didn’t succeed on finding Maggie’s secret recipe for her ice cream, that will remain a mystery going forwards. In our next episode, I’ll be joined by my old Selling Houses Australia co-host, Andrew Winter. Whilst by his own admission, Andrew might be an awful gardener, he knows how much a well planned and maintained garden can add to the value of your property. I’ll also give you all advice you need on how to tackle a wild or overgrown garden if the time should arise. Need the tools to take on any garden challenge, go to the STIHL website or head into your local STIHL dealer today. Follow STIHL on Instagram, @stihl_AU. Follow me on Instagram as well @charlie_albone. And don’t forget to check out STIHL blog with plenty of great gardening advice, tips, and tricks.

Listen to the audio recording of this podcast here.