One of my favourite things to do in the garden is propagate plants,
and I do it all the time.
Everything from native grasses
to my own vegetable seedlings.
But inevitably, when you're propagating,
you're also having to pot up lots of plants.
I clear a little spot on the bench, which is a good way to do it.
But truthfully, this is valuable space
and I don't want to use it for that.
So sometimes I do this.
Wheelbarrow full of potting mix and I can work up on a bench,
clear off back into that wheelbarrow.
It works really well.
But the other day I found something that I think
is going to be even better.
How many of you have come across one of these at the tip shop
or on the side of the road?
They are really commonly chucked out.
Now, of course, barbecues don't last forever.
And all the metal in here,
the burners that are already rusted out and have been completely removed.
But this trolley is hardwood.
It's really well made.
And I reckon it's going to make a great potting bench.
The first step is to remove the old barbecue.
I'll brace the trolley and remove the bolts.
Beauty of this is it's often much easier to pull something apart
than it is to build it.
And how that can go straight to the steel recycling.
Going to use this old hardwood to act as the framework
that I'll screw that benchtop to.
And it'll keep this nice and square and really well braced.
Now I'm going to attach it right underneath this existing benchtop
at the right height for the new timber to fix to,
and to do that, I'm going to remove these smaller bolts,
which only go in about 50ml,
and replace them with those lovely long bolts that I just removed
from the barbecue.
Just clamped that second bracing timber in place,
and I'm just checking,
giving it a technical tap to make sure that the timber finish
is going to be at the same level as the existing bench.
To make the top of the bench,
I've been through my scrap timber pile and I found some bits and pieces
that are really durable outdoors.
These are some old jarrah floorboards that I picked up.
And I think that's what this trolley is made out of.
And this you might recognise.
This is known as kwila or merbau.
Truthfully, I would absolutely never buy this timber new.
It is really cheap and available,
but I don't believe it's sustainable.
But equally, it's so precious.
If I ever see offcuts at the tip,
I always pick it up because this stuff should never go in the bin.
I'm just going to fiddle with these to make them fit,
then fix them down.
Same on the other side.
And even up the edge.
So that is essentially a good, solid bench finished.
But I have done this gaping hole intentionally.
I've cut this on 45 degree angles, and that is because I want
to be able to scoop all the materials straight into that hole.
But when I'm not using it,
fit that piece.
Solid as a rock.
To create a good potting bench,
ideally, you need a really easy to clean and sterile surface.
So, actually reusing what was the cover from the barbecue.
And see, I've removed the handle here,
and then it is a weatherproof surface.
I think it's going to make a really durable cover for me
to pot on.
Just gonna...tap it into place.
I'm just going to give it...
..a little bit of adjusting here and there.
Give it. Go.
To have a really functional potting bench, it pays to have a back
and a side,
which means you can scoop into this corner,
put your pile of mix in the middle.
Now, I've made these out of some salvaged macrocarpa timber.
I'll just give the whole thing a bit of a sand, and there's always room
for a little bit of storage.
This is a 50/50 mix of linseed oil and turps,
which will help protect it from the weather.
I am pretty stoked with that.
Something that was heading to the tip
is now going to be one of the most used things in the garden.
I'll use it every single day and I can wheel it wherever I want.
And really, for me, that is the most fun you can have,
making something really useful out of something that was going to waste.
I'd love to know what projects you're going to do next.
It's an exciting time.
Winter's nearly done,
and with the ground warming,
so is plant growth quickening.
Now there's a few jobs
that if you get on top of them now,
they'll set you and your garden up well for the coming busy spring.
This purple sprouting broccoli is a work of art.
Now, a lot of visitors to the patch have asked us how we get our plants
to be so healthy and grow so well.
Well, we start with the soil.
Now, the wonderful thing about organic gardening
is creating beautiful topsoil.
I added quite a bit of compost to this
with a good amount of well rotted cow manure and it's come up a treat.
If you get your soil right, your plant health will follow.
The other thing is, is brassicas are very hungry plants.
So I gave them a good bit of lime prior to planting and then some
pelletised chicken manure after planting.
And they've been watered with fish emulsion every fortnight.
And the last thing is timing.
A lot of the pests that attack brassicas aren't active
over the cooler months, but with the coming of spring
comes the onset of the pests.
There's a few simple jobs you can do right now
to keep one step ahead of the peskies.
The first is remove any of these older leaves
and any ones that are coming into contact with the ground like this.
They act as highways for insects to get up.
Many insects are attracted to the colour yellow
and knowing what pests you've got in your garden is half the battle.
Now, you can buy yellow sticky traps or you can make your own.
I've got an old stick and a yellow lid,
and I'm going to smear it with some Vaseline.
The insects are attracted to the yellow.
They fly along, and boom, they get stuck on the Vaseline.
It's a static trap.
So if you stick it in amongst your crops
and check it every couple of days,
you can identify what insects are active in the garden.
Aphids and cabbage moth love to hang out in the nooks and crannies
of your plant.
If it's cabbage moth larvae, they can simply be squished
on the plant.
Or if it's a soft bellied insect like aphid,
you can control it with a spray of white oil.
That way your plants will stay healthy, pest free, and tasty
right through the spring.
I love growing flowers and I love them even more if they bring
beneficial insects into the garden.
Of course, I sow all sorts of annuals,
but this is a really unusual one
and it's very easy to grow.
I'd highly recommend it.
It's a plant called Cerinthe major.
It's otherwise known as honeywort, which gives you an indication
of how much nectar is in that flower.
It's related to borage, and we know what that is -
it's a magnet to bring beneficial insects, bees, hoverflies,
all of those guys into the garden.
This one will do the same.
Has this fantastic steel blue foliage.
And as it starts of flower, it just bends over and presents
these gorgeous little bell flowers.
There's an even darker purple foliage form of this
that's available, but a really simple one to grow from seed.
Give it a go.
One of my favourite things to do in the garden is propagate plants,
and I do it all the time.
Everything from native grasses
to my own vegetable seedlings.
But inevitably, when you're propagating,
you're also having to pot up lots of plants.
I clear a little spot on the bench, which is a good way to do it.
But truthfully, this is valuable space
and I don't want to use it for that.
So sometimes I do this.
Wheelbarrow full of potting mix and I can work up on a bench,
clear off back into that wheelbarrow.
It works really well.
But the other day I found something that I think
is going to be even better.
How many of you have come across one of these at the tip shop
or on the side of the road?
They are really commonly chucked out.
Now, of course, barbecues don't last forever.
And all the metal in here,
the burners that are already rusted out and have been completely removed.
But this trolley is hardwood.
It's really well made.
And I reckon it's going to make a great potting bench.
The first step is to remove the old barbecue.
I'll brace the trolley and remove the bolts.
Beauty of this is it's often much easier to pull something apart
than it is to build it.
And how that can go straight to the steel recycling.
Going to use this old hardwood to act as the framework
that I'll screw that benchtop to.
And it'll keep this nice and square and really well braced.
Now I'm going to attach it right underneath this existing benchtop
at the right height for the new timber to fix to,
and to do that, I'm going to remove these smaller bolts,
which only go in about 50ml,
and replace them with those lovely long bolts that I just removed
from the barbecue.
Just clamped that second bracing timber in place,
and I'm just checking,
giving it a technical tap to make sure that the timber finish
is going to be at the same level as the existing bench.
To make the top of the bench,
I've been through my scrap timber pile and I found some bits and pieces
that are really durable outdoors.
These are some old jarrah floorboards that I picked up.
And I think that's what this trolley is made out of.
And this you might recognise.
This is known as kwila or merbau.
Truthfully, I would absolutely never buy this timber new.
It is really cheap and available,
but I don't believe it's sustainable.
But equally, it's so precious.
If I ever see offcuts at the tip,
I always pick it up because this stuff should never go in the bin.
I'm just going to fiddle with these to make them fit,
then fix them down.
Same on the other side.
And even up the edge.
So that is essentially a good, solid bench finished.
But I have done this gaping hole intentionally.
I've cut this on 45 degree angles, and that is because I want
to be able to scoop all the materials straight into that hole.
But when I'm not using it,
fit that piece.
Solid as a rock.
To create a good potting bench,
ideally, you need a really easy to clean and sterile surface.
So, actually reusing what was the cover from the barbecue.
And see, I've removed the handle here,
and then it is a weatherproof surface.
I think it's going to make a really durable cover for me
to pot on.
Just gonna...tap it into place.
I'm just going to give it...
..a little bit of adjusting here and there.
Give it. Go.
To have a really functional potting bench, it pays to have a back
and a side,
which means you can scoop into this corner,
put your pile of mix in the middle.
Now, I've made these out of some salvaged macrocarpa timber.
I'll just give the whole thing a bit of a sand, and there's always room
for a little bit of storage.
This is a 50/50 mix of linseed oil and turps,
which will help protect it from the weather.
I am pretty stoked with that.
Something that was heading to the tip
is now going to be one of the most used things in the garden.
I'll use it every single day and I can wheel it wherever I want.
And really, for me, that is the most fun you can have,
making something really useful out of something that was going to waste.
I'd love to know what projects you're going to do next.
Tomorrow marks the start of National Science Week,
and there are so many ways to get involved
in your local community,
or even in your own backyard.
Jerry's catching up with a group of citizen scientists
who are researching some of our favourite garden visitors.
One of the things that gives me great pleasure
is coming home to my garden
because it's invariably filled with butterflies,
and I've become so fascinated with them
that I try to document every species that visits or lives in my garden.
How many and what kinds of butterflies
are in the Brisbane area?
Well, that's where a unique citizen science project
called Brisbane's Big Butterfly Count
comes in.
The volunteer coordinator,
and one of south-east Queensland's biggest butterfly fans,
is Jutta Godwin.
WOMAN: Brisbane's Big Butterfly Count was initiated
by Brisbane Catchments Network,
and all its member groups are part of it
and contributed to the result in a multitude of ways.
So there are butterfly service three times per season
across Brisbane,
and that gives us hopefully really good data,
which we want to have
and want to compare next year and the year after and so on,
because we would like it to be a long-term issue.
Oh! WOMAN: Nearly.
Why is it important to do these surveys?
What is the outcome?
We want to protect what we have.
Definitely not lose more.
I mean, Brisbane is growing.
And for instance, this inner western area, where we are here,
is growing particularly fast.
And we would love to see habitat retained
because a lot of habitat is lost,
and we are just trying to pluck a little bit
in support of the environment through butterflies.
That's a beautiful butterfly. I've never seen it before.
It's actually not uncommon in Brisbane,
and it's the dainty swallowtail, and it loves citrus trees.
And I bet you have citrus trees. I do.
So you would probably have it lay eggs on your citrus trees
and the larvae will feast on it.
Once we've caught them, we put them in a jar and identify them,
and it's important to release them
so that they can perform their important role
in the ecosystem around here, pollinating plants,
the caterpillars keep plant growth under control,
and the caterpillars feed birds.
So, yeah, it's important to release him.
Her. Sorry.
Dr Trevor Lambkin is a butterfly expert
who is often on hand to assist Jutta and the volunteers
with the finer points of the underlying science
as well as helping to identify the different species they spot.
What was it that first attracted you to butterflies?
My interest in butterflies started
when I was, I think, about 11 or 12 years of age.
I just liked... I like their beauty.
They're a strange creature.
They go through this funny metamorphosis,
which, you know, they start with an egg
and they go through this grub-like stage
that you would never dream that that would turn
into a beautiful butterfly.
Then they go through this intricate pupation sort of process
where they're very vulnerable,
and then they emerge with their wings crumpled.
They're just a total mystery.
But their beauty just... That's what intrigued me to them.
I then started studying their life histories,
what host plants they live on,
and just of late I've been involved in revegetation work
trying to bring them back.
I've done enough...
As well as being an obvious part of our ecosystem,
they form a pretty important role
for a lot of...a lot of other insects that actually feed on them.
Of the average butterfly egg that's laid,
you will get through to the adult,
1 or 2 out of 100 will come through.
The rest are preyed on by parasitoids,
by other predators, reptiles.
And then you only need to catch a few butterflies
and you'll realise that this big piece is taken out of the wings.
There's reptiles out there looking for them all the time.
So they do form, in spite of their beauty,
an important food source.
KAREN: I got involved because my boys, Owen and Oliver,
are school boys,
and they went on a butterfly walk during the school holidays.
And since then we've been just totally wrapped with butterflies,
the excitement of butterflies.
And I'm excited because my boys on the weekend will ask
if they can go out into the bush and catch butterflies
instead of sitting in front of the TV or playing computer games.
WOMAN: I must say, I hadn't really thought
to get involved with butterfly collecting before,
but - or spotting -
but it's absolute fun.
It really is hilarious, sometimes, you know,
when you're racing around waving these things around
and... (LAUGHS) ..sometimes you succeed and sometimes you don't.
This is so beautiful.
And when it opens its wings, we can see that it's a male
because it's blue,
even though it's called small green-banded blue.
It's gorgeous, isn't it? It's the first I've ever seen.
Yeah, me too. Yeah.
TREVOR: The butterflies we see flying,
they're really only just the very...
..a small part of the ecology of the environment.
It's what we see. We notice them.
So we can use them as a barometer to check just how...
If they're there, right. We have a healthy environment.
If they're not, the environment's not very healthy.
And this is...
Part of this Big Butterfly Count, of course, is that
we're looking at natural areas, plus we're looking at revegetated areas.
And that will be a comparison we can make
at the very end of the study.
How can gardeners get involved
to help with the ongoing health and survival of butterflies?
Well, there's a few things you could do.
The first thing, of course, is to reduce pesticide use.
Second is plant the host plants that attract the females,
and, of course, have some good nectar there for the adults.
Now, in addition to that,
a good garden has got some nice sunny glades in it
where, say, the male butterflies can patrol back and forth
and set up like a position
where they...they're waiting for a female to come along.
And that whole process, feeding, mating, laying eggs, is...
You can... It can all be done in the backyard garden.
Get to know the butterflies where you live,
or even better, get involved in a survey,
because butterflies are not only beautiful,
but they're important bio indicators of the health of your garden
and, of course, the entire environment.
JUTTA: Butterflies are fascinating for everyone.
It's really important to find out more
and have another argument to protect our environment.
And if you don't know what we have, we can't even start to protect.
Spring isn't very far away,
but there's still time to make changes
to parts of the garden that aren't working so well.
Here's Josh with a project he hopes will be a fruitful one.
My garden is full of productive plants,
but like all gardeners, not everything always goes to plan.
The trick is to keep on trying,
and where there's a problem, find a solution.
These trellis fruit trees along the driveway fence line
includes a mix of dwarf black mulberry,
guava, olive, plum and nectarine,
as well as a pear tree that was planted seven years ago.
And while the rest of the fruit trees are producing nicely
or getting underway,
the pear tree has been disappointing.
I only got four fruit off this last year, which is pretty disappointing,
despite the tree being healthy.
It's also a bit lanky, and the reason for both of those issues is this.
It's the neighbour's jacaranda growing over the fence line.
Now, north is that way,
which means this tree gets plenty of sun in winter,
which is of no value whatsoever because it's deciduous.
Whereas in summer, when the sun's overhead,
well, that's when the shade kicks in.
So I could either cut that tree back,
which would be a real shame
because it's beautiful shade canopy for the neighbourhood.
Or I could move this to a sunnier spot,
which happens to be just down the driveway,
and that's what I'm going to do.
Being a deciduous tree,
the best time to relocate this pear is over winter,
when the tree is dormant.
If it were an evergreen, like a citrus, autumn is ideal,
while the weather is cooling but the soil is still warm.
Transplanting at the right time for the tree minimises shock
and allows the tree to settle into its new spot
and get growing when the weather warms.
Right. Now the branches are free, I'm just going to give it a light prune.
And this is firstly to make it easier to shift,
but also by cutting some of the branches back,
that'll mean less leaf canopy when it reshoots in spring
and less stress on the plant when it's re-establishing.
It's also a good time to tack off any of these awkward branches
that are growing away from the two-dimensional plane
that I'm trying to grow this tree at.
I'm starting by scraping back the soil.
Then, using the blade of the spade,
I'm cutting into the soil where the roots are likely to be.
I'm starting about half a metre away from the trunk
and progressively moving in
to try and keep as much of the main routes intact as I can,
while still being manageable to move.
As the soil comes away, exposed roots can be cut with secateurs.
OK, so I've exposed the root ball,
and as you can see, it's reasonably confined.
Most of the roots are growing down and I've cut those nice and cleanly,
so now I can hoick the tree out.
I've already prepared a planting hole down this end,
which is deep enough and wide enough to accommodate the root ball.
But before the tree goes in, I'll do a final check of the roots.
I want to make sure that all of these damaged roots
have a nice clean cut, just like that,
again, just to reduce the chance of infection.
That's really important.
The other thing is to ensure that when it's planted in the hole,
that it's planted at the same level as it was when it came out.
And importantly, this graft union is above soil level.
I'm not adding compost to ensure good drainage around the cut roots,
and I'm not fertilising either, as the tree is dormant.
I'll give it a light feed in spring.
So it's just a matter of backfilling with soil...
..giving it a tamper in
and a good soaking with a hose as I go
to make sure there are no air pockets around the roots.
Normally when you transplant a tree like this,
you'd stake it to keep it nice and firm
until the roots re-establish.
The beauty of trellising a tree like this
is that I can just tie these lateral branches to these trellis poles
and that'll keep it nice and firm until it re-establishes,
also will help keep its shape.
So don't give up on an underperforming tree.
Assess the conditions and, if needed, make the move.
I'll keep you posted as to how this one goes.
There's no doubt that nature is a formative influence
on so many creative pursuits,
and our next gardener is no exception.
Meet Holly Ringland, an award-winning Australian author
whose love of plants is written on almost every page of her story.
My name is Holly Ringland. I'm a writer.
For the last decade I've lived between the UK and Australia.
I came home for Christmas in 2019 with a couple of bags,
and we just haven't gone back because of the pandemic,
We're on beautiful Yugambeh land, south-east Queensland,
behind the Gold Coast, in the hinterland.
I'm living on three acres with my parents,
my partner,
and five very fluffy Australian shepherd dogs.
That's our family.
And so today you're going to work on the...
WOMAN: We don't have to worry about the heat so much.
So we can we can pretty much work all day.
I was raised by women and their gardens,
so I watched Mum and Granny,
I watched them take what they maybe couldn't say or express,
and they turned it to flowers and plants in their garden.
The conditions that they lived in, what they withstood,
and that resilience and strength in Granny and in Mum
was mirrored in the natural world that they engaged with.
And that's where I learned about how nature can save us and heal us
and help us to transform ourselves.
I grew up on the Gold Coast
from about the time I was four or five,
and from that time, I've known these national parks,
I've known these trees.
This national park is protected subtropical rainforest
at Jambreen on Mount Tamborine,
which is in the Gold Coast Hinterland,
and in this particular area features these majestic trees,
which are red Caribbeans.
I love brainstorming and daydreaming in a spot like this.
And the effect on your eye and on your heart really
is just a sense of being in somewhere sacred
the way that we revere a church or a library.
Frenchie is the greatest gift. I call her my joy beacon.
She is a 1968 Olympic Riviera Caravan.
What we've done is created a writing desk and bookshelves
where I can sit,
and I filled it with plants and flowers.
My first novel is called The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart.
I wrote the first draft in the north west of England
when I was 34 years old.
I've wanted to be a writer since I was three
when Mum taught me to read.
And at 34, I still hadn't committed to that 3-year-old's dream
because I was too frightened.
And I had spent a lot of my life managing trauma
from living with male-perpetrated violence for much of my life.
And as anybody who's gone through any kind of trauma or grief knows,
a lot of your energy is taken up with
trying to look like you are surviving and you are happy.
I was starting to get quite emotionally sick inside
because I wasn't doing what I have known since I was three
I wanted to do with my life.
I started writing this story about a girl, Alice Hart,
growing up by cane fields on the east coast of Australia.
We meet her when she's nine years old.
She lives in her mother's garden,
where flowers protect her from the dark moods of her father.
After irrevocable tragedy changes her life,
she goes to live with the grandmother she's never met, June,
on June's native flower farm called Thornfield,
which is run by women and grows Australian native flowers.
There Alice learns to speak a language of native flowers
as a way to say the things that are too hard to speak.
When I was in England and I was writing the first draft,
I was researching
how trauma manifests symptomatically in children,
and one such way is selective muteness.
One of my search results was the Victorian language of flowers,
which I vaguely knew of.
We all kind of know that if someone sends yellow roses,
that perhaps it's to symbolise friendship.
But I'd never clicked that there was once,
at the height of its popularity in Victorian times,
this enormously pop culture craze that swept Europe and America
where people spoke in Northern Hemisphere flowers to each other
through the bouquets they sent each other.
And that really tickled me.
So I started playing with this idea, reading about Australian flowers.
I had this great, meaningful, powerful joy
of learning about how these flowers thrive
and what they give to insects, to birds, to other plants.
And those growth habits informed the emotional meaning
that I gave to each flower.
Like thornbox, for example, which provides shelter for small birds.
And the meaning of it in Alice's story is girlhood,
because she's at that time arrived at the flower farm
that's run by women,
and they provide protection for her.
I love sticky everlasting daisies, the paper daisies.
They can be easily cut, dried and preserved
while retaining their stunning colours.
And that idea of a flower retaining its life and colour
after it's been cut, after it's died.
That's why I gave it the meaning "My love will not leave you."
One of my favourite discoveries and meaning-making for flowers
was when I learned about the Sturt's desert pea,
that when you are trying to propagate them yourself,
if they have any root disturbance,
they basically fall to pieces and you won't be able to grow them.
But once they are established,
they can withstand desert heat and desert frost.
And when I thought about that concept
of how shaky something is to become,
but once it exists, it's so solid.
That's when I thought to myself, that's how courage feels to me.
And so I made up the meaning for desert peas,
being "Have courage, take heart."
I had the incredible honour
of living in the Western Desert for a period of my life
and on Pitjantjatjara land, I learned from anangu women
about the art and power of dressing for celebration and ceremony.
These are ninti seeds,
which come from the bat's wing coral tree.
They smell like fire because
holes have been burned through them to be able to string them.
So when I smell them, I'm reminded of all the amazing women
that I was honoured and lucky and privileged to learn from
in the desert, sitting around fire with them.
And they remind me that landscapes that matter to us,
where we fall in love with place,
they never leave us, even after we leave that land.
How great to explore a little bit of the world through Holly's eyes,
and if you like that, you can catch more of Holly
on the brand-new ABC program Back To Nature,
where she and co-host Aaron Pedersen
explore some of the most beautiful places in the country.
Tune in on Tuesday at 8pm or any time on iview.
Now, you haven't had a to-do list from me in a few weeks,
so here's plenty to keep you busy.
In cool, temperate areas, warm weather is a whisker away.
Feed beds with blood and bone to promote strong growth
and replenish mulch to slow down the spread of spring weeds.
Give herbaceous perennials like salvia the chop,
cutting stems to ground level, where new growth is present.
This hard pruning clears the way for spring growth and summer flowers.
While you have the secateurs handy, have a go at your gardenias,
removing old buds that have failed to open
and pruning the plants to shape
before they set better buds in spring.
Warm, temperate gardeners,
treat peach and nectarine trees for fungal leaf curl.
Spray trunks, stems and buds with copper oxychloride
repeating after rains and until bud burst.
The scent of wattle is in the air,
and while many acacias are too big for home gardens,
prostrate varieties like Acacia cardiophylla 'Gold Lace'
are perfectly suited to pots and smaller spaces.
Soil pH determines hydrangea flower colour,
so if colour counts, it's time to act.
Adding bluing tonic fortnightly will turn pink flowers blue,
while a cup of garden lime will see blues turn to pink.
August is the start of subtropical spring,
so it's the perfect time to plant quick-growing spring crops
like loose leaf lettuce varieties, rocket, tatsoi, bok choy,
and mustard greens.
It's also the ideal time to look at installing a watering system.
Whether it's basic or complex,
providing regular irrigation to seedlings and thirsty edibles
can offset the damaging drying effects of westerly spring winds.
It's hibiscus haircut time.
Pruning now gives new growth a healthy head start
on the awful erinose mites that aren't yet active
and promotes a longer, showier flowering period.
Go troppo and plant out tropical greens
like aibika, Brazilian spinach,
kangkong, amaranth and sweet potato,
that love the warmer weather
and will all thrive once the rains come.
Remove crusty canes from heliconia clumps,
snip off dead or damaged stems at ground level,
as well as removing those stems that have already flowered.
They won't flower again.
Keep an eye on ripening jackfruit
and harvest before these heavy fruitful fall and do damage.
If harvested green, jackfruit can be ripened further indoors.
The longer they sit, the sweeter they get.
As winter winds down in arid areas,
wildflowers are bursting into beautiful bloom.
Make time to head to a botanic garden or go bush
to appreciate these living jewels.
It's prime potato planting time.
Certified seed spuds can be purchased
and planted into compost-rich soil now.
There's no need to chit or pre-sprout them before popping them in.
It may sound boring,
but turning on your bore and running the system for five minutes each week
will prevent the pump from seizing up and creating an expensive repair job.
This week is Science Week,
so whether it's in your backyard or beyond,
there's no better time to get involved
in a local citizen science project.
Let us know what you get up to on our socials.
Well, that's it for this week,
but I'll meet you here again, same time, same place.
Catch you in the garden.
I'm exploring some of Victoria's most remarkable forest
with an expert ecologist guide.
It's hard to believe, but I'm in the middle of Sydney.
And I'm meeting a landscape architect
who has transformed his inner city home into a lush oasis.
Come on out to the roof park. Wow.
And if your life's a little bit of a grind,
let me show you how to put some spice into it.
Ginger and turmeric.
They're not that difficult to grow if you know the basics.
Captions by Red Bee Media
Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation