Jackie French: Never trust a zucchini, and other garden truths

I admit my glasses do fall off my nose now and then. I use them for reading, so push them down so I can see over them. The zucchinis - probably - did not reach up a leaf and grab the glasses from my nose, or use a mysterious leaf-ray to lure them down.

But malicious hiding of my glasses? Those plants are guilty. Never trust a zucchini.

Ever wondered why there is always at least one monster zucchini per plant lurking under the leaves, even if you diligently pick them every day? It's malice, pure zucchini malice.

After all, we humans snatch their young and turn them into delicious ratatouilles and grilled zucchini, instead of letting the zucchini mature into vast marrows, with hard, ripe seeds. We deprive our zucchini plants of grandkids, too - the baby zucchini they produce will never have baby zucchini of their own, unless just possibly they are a non-hybrid variety being grown by a devoted gardener who will let some of the harvest mature into hard-skinned monsters, then save their seed to plant next summer.

I hunted for my glasses. Bryan hunted for my glasses. Several friends hunted for my glasses. Three zucchini plants don't take up much space. They weren't even mulched this year.

No glasses were to be found.

Finally, last week, we dug them out, plus the final zucchini of the season. Still no glasses, even when the area was raked. This week Bryan caught a gleam in the garden in the afternoon light - just the tip of my glasses, now retrieved and relegated to my spare pair of reading glasses.

There is no way those glasses could have been buried by human hands. But a few insidious zucchini leaves, hiding them entirely and covering them for months? As I said - never trust a zucchini.

"What should I be doing with my garlic plants now?" is not the first question you expect an eminent medical specialist to ask at the beginning of a consultation. The answer, which I promised to put in the column this week, is 'Nothing'.

If you haven't planted garlic, hunt out varieties that can be spring planted. But the best garlic in this climate is planted about February, so that the plant's leaves can grow well to promote bigger bulbs in spring. That is when you feed the young garlic plants, too, with good compost, or old hen manure or something else high in potash and nitrogen.

And mulch - garlic does not take kindly to weed competition. If you want to win the "best garlic of the Canberra season" competition - or even begin one, so you can win it - spray young garlic leaves with Seasol or another foliar fertiliser weekly and weakly till the first frost. Then stop. Do not feed garlic after the green tops stop growing in winter.

The only thing that garlic plants need now is to keep them entirely seed free, and make sure the black tailed wallabies don't nibble the young leaves.

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Wait till the garlic's leaves begin to yellow in about November/December- not till they have died right back - then pull them out, dry them in the sun, brush off the dirt, eat as much as you can fresh and sweet, and leave the rest of the bulbs hanging up by their withered stems in a dry dark place, so you have homegrown garlic to eat till next spring.

Don't store your garlic in the fruit bowl or with other veg - the ethylene produced by the ripe fruit - and some veg that are actually fruits - will encourage the garlic to sprout before spring. Keep them isolated and airy.

Question 2.

"Why is my red camelia suddenly producing white flowers too?"

It is just possible that your bush has put out a "sport" branch of white blooms, a mutation, just like our avocadoes sometimes put out a branch of tiny seedless 'cocktail' avocadoes, which can be grafted onto another tree so we could have an entire cocktail fruiting avocado tree if we could be bothered.

More likely, though, your red camelia was planted on white camelia stock, and a shoot has grown up from the roots. If you like the look, leave it. if not, trace the branch back to ground level and cut it off.

"Who pinched the two-dollar coins I put on the windowsill of my second floor bedroom?"

You either have sneaky housemates or bower birds. I lost a whole pocket full of change many years ago when I turned my back for about 10 minutes.

Rejoice if you have bower birds, for they are wonderful. Watch the green juvenile males magically turn purple-black over summer, except in bad seasons when the young males can stay looking greenly juvenile for years. Congratulate yourself on probably possessing the most valuably decorated bower bird bowers in the area.

Bower birds love blue things - a single blue peg must have been stolen 100 times from competing nests in the last few decades, as no one nearby uses blue pegs. But they also love gold. NB: Do not leave your gold earrings near an open window in bower bird decorating season.

"Is my orange tree dead after the frosts?" (Insert any other cold-sensitive tree here).

Dunno. Your tree may just have gone into shock/hibernation and lost its leaves, but may recover. Some branches, however, will almost certainly have been killed, and may rot, and those rots may infect the healthy parts of tree, assuming any are left. Wait till frosts are over and prune off as much of the tree as you can bear to remove (ie. at least half or even two thirds) and wait at least six months, watering weekly, to see if new leaves appear. They probably will.

"Can I eat those little fungi that come up above the tree roots?"

CAN you eat them or SHOULD you eat them? You could, if you don't mind becoming seriously deceased; ie. DON'T. Sadly, if there are fungi along the lines of your tree roots, it probably means they are dead or dying, and your tree will soon be a gonner too. Time to find the phone number of a good tree lopper.

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