Jane has included some terrific tips and tricks on chooks, eggs, unusual vegetables and lots more.

1. Handy Hints
Brought to you by
https://www.earthgarden.com.au/

2. Winter Leaves
Do you leave them on the ground?
Do you rake them up and put them in the green bin?
Or do you make great use of them?
Fallen leaves are marvellous for composting and then make a great mulch for your garden.
Don’t use your blower machine and blow them into the gutters. They’ll just end up clogging up our
waterways where they are definitely NOT wanted.
Instead of wasting money buying in lots of mulch, if you have deciduous trees benefit from them
and start composting!

3. Love Eggs???
Whether you have your own chooks/ducks or you buy eggs
there is a much better use for the shells than
the green bin or even the compost bin. Try these ideas:
• Sprinkle them around little seedlings to give them a chance
to grow as snails and slugs hate crawling over them.
• Chuck them into the garden with white side up to put off
cabbage moths.
• Bake them then grind them up and give to your chooks. Great source of calcium and cheaper than
buying grit!
• Put a small amount in the planting hole with blood and bone then soil and a tomato seedling. Tomatoes
love the calcium hit it gives.

4. Do you have chooks?
Protein Poultry Power
Why is protein important in a chook’s diet?
Wellbeing and growth and the production of tasty eggs!
Feathers are 85 to 90 % protein so egg laying generally does not happen while feathers are trying to grow during/after moulting.
Therefore we need to add more protein to their diet. A good way to do this, and something they will love, is making up a Protein Treat
Platter!
• Eggs, cooked - 90% protein
• Fish, tuna and sardines - 60 to 70% protein
• Mealworms - 50% protein
• Pumpkin and Sunflower seeds - 30 and 23% protein plus antioxidants
• Parsley - 20% protein
• Oats - rolled oats or whole
• Japanese millet - can be grown in boggy soils
• Sprouts - lentils, peas, mungbeans etc.
Only about a teaspoon a day of any of these, per chook, mixed in with their normal food.

5. Did you know???
Have you tried “Delicata” squash? Absolutely delicious and easy to grow. Best
tasting roast pumpkin ever. For those with small families.
Enough for 2 people in each.
Seeds available at www.greenharvest.com.au
Purple podded beans. Another wonder. When planted with
corn hundreds of bright purple beans stand out against the
yellow of the corn making picking very easy. They turn
green when cooked.

6. Leeks – you can slice off at ground level and
many more will pop up.
Freezing tomatoes – cut a raw tomato off a little bit up from the stalk end, add a
criss-cross to about a centimetre down and freeze in a ziplock bag. 30 or so at a
time. Take out as you need. When you need to use them put them in a bowl of
warm water and in seconds they will pop out of their skins like magic!

7. Sweet corn – after picking leave it on the cob in its husk, microwave for 2 – 3
minutes then, using oven gloves, cos it’s hot, cut off the stalk end about 1cm up
and squeeze or shake the cob out. The cob comes out minus the stringy bits ready
to eat.

8. Science Update
Wax Worms
This is a caterpillar commercially bred for fishing bait.
It has been discovered, by Federica Bertocchini from the
Spanish National Research Council, that they
have the ability to biodegrade polyethylene, (plastic bags),
at uniquely high speeds.
100 wax worms can degrade a plastic bag in 12 hours.
The bi-product is ethylene glycol, a chemical used to make polyester and anti-freeze.
Wax worms lay their eggs inside hives where the worms grow on beeswax. They are parasitic and can
destroy bee hives.
A great outcome if this enzyme the worms use to break down plastic can be harnessed for other uses.

9. Things my Garden has taught me!
Planning is a beautiful thing. Find a system that works for you.
It’s all in the soil.
When it’s hot roll with it. Forget the plants that just don’t
do well in our scorching summers (so best not to plant
them).
Water the survivors then relax.

10. Knowing your garden’s environment.
How much sun? Temperature?
Pests? This might determine what you decide to grow.
Pesky parrots that love green tomatoes etc. You might need netting.
Kangies love certain veggies.
Mindfullness and bees.
Give them flowers!!!
Take a seat and try to see how many different types of bees you
can spot. If you don’t see any then you don’t have enough flowering
plants.

11. You get out what you put in.
If you only spend an hour in your garden every week then your
garden will show its displeasure!
Sunflowers are a delight to grow. Happy, happy plants and great for some parrots.
Cherry Tomatoes I love you! So easy to grow and bugs don’t
eat you.

12. Rescue Remedies for a Lop-sided World
Some great ideas to forget the craziness and get back to enjoying life.
• Go for a mooch.
• Not a walk to a destination and back but a real mooch. Where you
stop to look at the seven new fungi that have popped up this autumn.
or stop to listen to a frog call. It can take 5 minutes or 5 hours. Take the
kids along too. They’ll eventually wander along without needing to be
dragged or pushed.
• Pick something from your garden and eat it.
• Uncooked. Food that is seconds fresh really does seem to have the
breath of life in it.
• Make bread.
• Bread needs beating, bashing, pummelling. It’s therapeutic, making bread.
• Give someone a bunch of flowers.
• Someone unexpected, like a shopkeeper who sells great cheese!
• Pick flowers for yourself.
• If you are someone, male or female, and have never done this, do it now.
• Flowers have evolved to be attractive and make birds and bees and us feel good. Let them do their job.

13. We are a species that comforts.
That loves flowers.
And, yes, the world is still as tilted off its axis as it was before.
But it’s bearable.
And when you focus only on the day, this time, this place, a joy.