The year is rocketing away and it’s been a time of great change for everyone. A time to reflect on our health, wellbeing, choices and connecting with nature. Perhaps you have taken the opportunity to live more sustainably by growing some of your own food and medicinal plants or at least getting started as a beginner gardener. In this newsletter, I share powerful reasons to grow parsley, quick foods to grow before Christmas, how to seed save and gardening tips for this month.
Plus, I’m excited to offer a bonus gift for purchases and a chance to win a Live Chat Garden Coaching consultation with me. Dig in for details below!
Gardening Gifts
If you’re thinking about what to give your gardening friends and family, I invite you to check out the practical and educational laminated gardening guides, moon calendar, eBooks and books available in my online store. I also offer Live Chat Garden Coaching Gift Vouchers (digital and printed) that can be used anywhere in the world. Gift Vouchers for Onsite Consultations are popular too. Knowledge is a gift that keeps on giving and I’m grateful for your support and helping sustain my small business.
For your bonus discount, use the Coupon Code: 10%OFF during checkout to save 10% off your order.
All orders over $20 placed before Christmas will also receive my new eBook Guide to Growing a Nutrient-Dense Organic Food Garden as a BONUS Gift. It’s packed with practical tips and a checklist with key principles and action steps. Another tool to help you grow a productive healthy garden. SHOP NOW.
Win a Live Chat Garden Consultation!
Since it’s the season for giving and I value your support, I want to give back to my readers. So, for every product ordered or product review from now until Christmas, customers will get one ticket in the draw to win a personalised live coaching class. A one-hour one-on-one tailored consultation to answer your questions, design your space, troubleshoot problems and spend time helping you with shortcuts to grow an abundant healthy garden. I’m excited to offer the chance to win a Live Chat to every customer. So, if you’ve purchased a product in the past, but haven’t left a review yet, now’s your chance to be in the draw! Every product and review counts as a chance to win.
If you order 2 products and leave 1 review, you get three chances to win and so on. So, if you decide to buy your Christmas gifts in my store, you may well be the lucky winner of this special consultation. I’ll announce the winner in the January newsletter. What better way to start the new year, than with your own personalised class to plan next year’s garden? Visit the Shop here. Remember to use the discount coupon code: 10%OFF too!
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Quick Foods to Grow Before Christmas
Want to enjoy fresh homegrown ingredients in coming weeks? Then now is the time to get planting! There are many fast-growing crops you can grow. Here are a few suggestions and tips:
- What to sow: Radish, Baby beetroot, Lettuce, Rocket, Tatsoi, Mustard Greens, Red-veined Sorrel, herbs and baby Carrots (eat thinnings)!
- Plant seedlings rather than seeds. You save money by sowing seeds but starting with seedlings can save you an average of 2-4 weeks and (sometimes much longer) waiting for seeds to germinate.
- Speedy Sprouts. There are many vegetables, herbs and legumes you can grow as sprouts in just a few days by germinating the seeds and rinsing in water. They are fresh, crunchy and tasty additions to salads and packed with digestive enzymes.
- Microgreens. You can also sow many leafy green vegetable and herb seeds and raise as microgreens or baby leaf greens. You harvest in just 7-21 days. Follow this Growing Chart with 28 different varieties to make it easy.
- Harvest vegetables when immature, young and tender rather than waiting until they grow full size. For example, pick young celery when stalks are thin rather than stringy and they are delicious. Less water used too! Baby leaf greens, Asian greens and baby carrots are a few other vegetables you can pick early.
- Time your planting or seed sowing in harmony with the moon cycle. This simple way to garden with Nature’s clock works on the basis of the moon’s gravitational influence on soil moisture and plant sap. Use a Moon Calendar to pick the best dates for quick seed germination, planting and speeding up your harvests.
“Apprentice yourself to Nature. Not a day will pass without her opening a new and wondrous world of experience to learn from and enjoy.” – Richard W. Langer
Powerful Reasons to Grow Parsley
If parsley hasn’t been on your radar as anything other than a green garnish, then hopefully this healing herb will make a reappearance on your table for all it can offer. Despite parsley being one of the world’s most popular culinary herbs, it’s undervalued for its medicinal properties. Parsley is a beneficial herb to use as a general tonic, to cleanse the blood and help detox the body by stimulating the kidneys, bladder and liver to remove waste. Parsley leaves are an excellent source of vitamins A, C and K, folate, potassium and iron. Vitamin C, an anti-inflammatory agent, has been shown in research studies to help prevent arthritis and build the immune system. 2 tablespoons of parsley provide you with 13% of your daily Vitamin C requirement!
Curly parsley (Petroselinum crispum) and Italian parsley (Petroselinum crispum neapolitanum) are the two main cultivars. Grow this delicious herb in a deep pot to accommodate the long taproot. Italian flat-leaf parsley resembles celery with its long edible stalks and they are good substitutes for each other in recipes. The greenish-yellow edible flowers are a bee magnet and attract beneficial insects as they feed on the nectar and pollen.
Parsley sets seed in the second year so be patient if you want to save seeds! Once parsley starts flowering, it begins the process of setting seed and will die. However, you will have plenty of free seeds to start the life cycle again. Sow seeds in spring and summer.
Grow parsley in a sunny to partially shaded space in well-drained soil or potting mix and mulch. Liquid feed regularly and snip from the outside in for lots of luscious leaves. Parsley is the perfect herb for small kitchen gardens, as a medicinal companion plant and for pots.
Learn How to Save Seeds
Do you know how to save seeds from your garden plants? This is an easy fun skill to learn that enables you to be self-reliant. Seeds saved from plants you grow that are adapted to your own soil and microclimates are likely to be much more resilient to your climate conditions than those you buy.
If you want to upskill on the basics of why you should save seeds and how to do it successfully, check out my series of articles on this topic in Garden Culture Magazine.
- 1: The case for rekindling the lost art of seed saving. Why you need to save seeds now!
- 2: Selecting seeds and controlling pollination.
- 3: Harvesting and processing seeds.
- 4: Storing seeds correctly and testing viability.
Gardening Tips for November
“I can’t imagine anything more important than air, water, soil, energy and biodiversity. These are the things that keep us alive.”– David Suzuki
Gardening is incredibly relaxing, improves mental health and is the perfect antidote for stress, so make some time to sow seeds or a new plant!
Subtropical SE Queensland – What to Plant Now
READ Gardening Tips for November for what to do now in SE Queensland, pests to watch for and more. (Download PDF)
Subtropical Planting Guide – a laminated perpetual guide to the 5 seasons in SE QLD.
For other locations, read my article on what to plant and when with resources for other areas around the world.
Mondays on ABC Radio
On Mondays, I invite you to listen to ABC Radio Sunshine Coast (90.3 FM) and tune in from 5.50pm for a bite-sized ‘Plant of the Week’ segment. I mostly chat with radio host, Sheridan Stewart to share quick tips on growing a different plant each week plus other skills like propagating, using herbs in the kitchen and pruning. You can listen in live. Sometimes we take a break due to last-minute programming changes or I pre-record for other locations. If you miss an episode, you can listen back the following week only. I also post tips on the plant of the week on my Facebook page, so if you’ve missed these, check out recent posts. For those subscribers tuning in each week, I hope you are enjoying the tips.
Got a Problem?
Too much shade? Ants, aphids or fruit flies? Too hot or dry? Challenges raising your seeds or seedlings?
Read all past problem-solving articles here. They’re packed with useful tips.
Dig into my free online Article Library for more topics
Click here to VIEW ALL ARTICLES
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Want more inspiring ideas?
Each week I share photos and videos of what I’m growing, harvesting and eating from my garden and ways I use my homegrown food. Follow me for more tips and inspiration in between newsletters.
I look forward to sharing more news and ways to grow good health next month.
Happy gardening!
Anne
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© Copyright Anne Gibson, The Micro Gardener 2020. https://themicrogardener.com. All rights reserved.
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