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166 Wilson Road, Middle Swan
Perth, Western Australia
08 9250 4575
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OPEN 6 DAYS
Monday - Saturday 8.30am - 4.00pm
Closed Sundays
Hello & Welcome to Autumn!
This coming weekend is the Kalamunda Garden Festival - Paul & I are giving a talk on healthy soil at 10.15am in the Treerings Marquee - so if you're at the festival, feel free to come on in! (Although there are three stages all running interesting programs - so we've got competition! - ha ha!) Wild Gaia Plants will have a few GLSC items to sell - including garlic, kelp fertiliser, fish hydrolysate and more. Limited supplies though, so be quick!
We look forward to seeing you soon...
Prep your soil! Where you intend to plant your winter vegies, get some OM (organic matter) into the soil. This could be your own compost, or some aged manure, or you can try our one of our Concentrate products - which is made exactly for the purpose of enriching your sandy/depleted soil. If soil is particularly difficult to wet, use a good quality wetting agent (like Eco-wet), and look at incorporating more clay to assist with water holding next summer. 
Grow a green manure crop. Early Autumn is a great time to throw in some green manure seeds, which you can allow to grow for as long as you like before turning it through the soil. This is an inexpensive way to add organic matter to the soil (just remember the longer it grows, the more OM you get to 'harvest'). Just remember to slash it or dig it through before it sets seeds. Our green manure packs contain a wide variety of plant types - the theory is no matter what the conditions are in your garden, something is going to thrive and produce for you. 1kg will cover up to 20m2.
Pumpkin & Zucchini might be showing signs of powdery mildew as the nights are getting cooler. This is quite normal and may signify the plant is nearing the end of its seasonal lifespan. You can spray with milk & water (1:9) every couple of days to help slow down the spread; but apart from that avoid overhead watering and keep nurturing the plant to help the last fruit reach maturity. At the end of the season, pick off new flowers to get the plant to concentrate its energy into fruit that is already forming..JPG)
Sow your seeds. While it's time to save your summer seeds, it's time to be planting your winter crops. Use seedling trays (or recycle punnets/small pots - just give them a really good scrub first and leave out in the sun to dry). This gives you a little more flexibility to move trays around and nurse them if we have any hot/dry spells. We carry arguably Perth's biggest range of heritage & organically grown seed in Perth - come on in and check out our range. New orders are coming in regularly. 
Oooooh, so many things to choose from in Autumn! Check out our when to plant guides (there's one on vegies and one on herbs), plus there's also an extended e-guide 'Top 12 Edible plants for Autumn/Winter' - all are FREE to download. If you're new to gardening, the Top 12 guide has come very useful info; looking in-depth at popular winter vegies. Plus there's heaps of fact sheets on Perth growing - see the 'Learn' tab above.
Autumn in the garden is an exciting prospect - we get many customers in who are keen to begin their gardening journey, and are looking for a little help and guidance along the way. Often they're SO excited they want to rip out their entire back yard and get started. Our advice is always to start SMALL. While it doesn't sound exciting, there are so many good reasons to take an easy-does-it approach to starting growing your own food. While many of us dream of self sufficiency, the reality is with our busy lives (and for some - lack of space) it really isn't possible to grow everything you eat. But it IS possible to eat everything you grow - if you plan it out. So if you're wanting to get growing, here are our top tips to think about before breaking ground (or breaking the bank!).
Many people in Perth choose to use raised garden beds for growing. It can be easier to start from scratch with fresh, good soil; or there may be other reasons why you'd like a little bit of height to your garden beds. So think about what works for you. Sure - you can improve soil in situ and plant into the ground - but you'll definitely need to do some work to improve your soil (based on typical Perth sands!). We're happy to help with advice if you want to come in and have a chat. If you want a raised bed - what kind are you going with? You can build them from limestone blocks, bricks, timber - or go for ready made corrugated iron or a number of pre-made kits like our Foodcube. What matches your taste and the outdoor environment you have. Assuming you'll be living with the beds for some years - will they last, and will they make you happy?
This refers to your soil. Unfortunately, unless you have access to a number of resources - you are very likely to need to either buy in a complete soil or buy in soil improvers in order to prepare your garden bed. This is particularly important if you're growing food crops - because the vegies you grow are only going to be as healthy as the soil they're grown in. The right soil for any type of garden is the foundation for success. Feel free to bring in a sample to GLSC - we can have a look at it, do a free pH test, and give you some advice and suggestions on how to make it work for what you're trying to grow. 
Get growing!
It's ALMOST that time of year - and GLSC has now got garlic in stock! Garlic is a great crop to grow at home - it's quite easy to grow, and rewarding too! Fresh & organic garlic is often quite expensive in the shops. Cheap garlic is sourced from overseas; and is sprayed and treated before it hits the shelves; so not really a great thing to be eating if you can avoid it.
This is probably the most popular variety of garlic grown - a genetically diverse group; this year's supplier Boorara Organics advises this is from the Duganski strain of garlic - one of the most common commercial strains.
Sometimes called Cuban Purple, this garlic also comes from Boorara Organics - a certified organic grower. This strain of garlic originated in Spain. It has a hotter/stronger flavour than purple stripe (some say it's their favourite). However, cloves tend to be smaller and the plant is ever so slightly less robust - so it's not a variety grown commercially. The bulbs take about 2-4 weeks longer in the ground to mature, and often 1-2 weeks longer than the purple stripe to emerge after planting. The garlic bulbs are covered with a white skin, which when peeled away reveals deep red coloured skin on the individual cloves. Rojo garlic has great storage qualities - lasting 6-12 months from harvest.
Elephant garlic is more closely related to leeks, but does produce a very large bulb that is eaten and used like garlic. It has a much milder flavour, and doesn't give you 'garlic breath' - one of the other names for Elephant garlic is "kissing garlic"! Elephant garlic takes 2 years from growing small cloves to produce the whopping size it can reach. In the first year, the garlic will produce a 'round' which doesn't have the individual cloves formed. This is still edible; you can either replant it, or leave it in the ground. The 2nd year it will flower, and the bulb will produce individual cloves. Elephant garlic is a robust plant to grow, and bears striking flowers on stalks - which are useful in floral displays fresh or dried. The plant can remain in the ground year after year and forms a good edition to a cottage or vegetable garden.
If you aim to produce a year round supply of garlic, you'll need a fair bit to plant. After harvest, it can be a problem keeping it stored without it going soft or beginning to sprout. Personally, I like to freeze it. For me - this involves setting aside an afternoon to clean off the papery skins, peel the outer skins, and popping the clean individual cloves into small batches in the freezer to use as required. They can be crushed frozen and make a great pulpy goo to add to your recipes! You probably don't need to clean them perfectly - the skin comes off quite easily when frozen - but I like to make sure when I need them, they're good to go. For the last couple of years, we've been self sufficient in garlic. I've planted out about 150 cloves at the start of planting season and the resultant crops have kept us going. Of course - depending on how heavy you use garlic; that may be either too much or not enough for your family. You'll need to do some math! The good thing is that garlic can be planted quite close together (10 - 15cms) so you can intensively plant a bit over a m2 and achieve this volume. 
Prepare your soil a few weeks ahead of planting if you're digging through compost and manures (our vegetable concentrate is ideal!). Water well, and keep the soil moist. Plant garlic pointy side up with tips about 2-3cms below the surface. Throw around a few handfuls of blood & bone, and maybe a quick dose of kelp - and that's about it. While you can top up fertiliser if you need to in early growth stages - avoid high nitrogen fertilisers after about September onwards - this encourages leaf growth when you want it to begin to bulb up. Give the plants a feed of potash at the start of spring/end of winter. Keep plants mulched & weeded (garlic doesn't like competition). Tops will begin to yellow off & eventually fall over. When to harvest can vary each year with the weather & crop development. Before pulling, carefully dig down with your hands and make sure that the bulb is forming cloves. While you can still use garlic picked too early; it won't have good cloves. Garlic picked too late will begin to separate like in the photo above - also perfectly useable, but less good to store. When you lift garlic, dust off excess dirt and leave the whole plant (with leaves attached) to hand somewhere with good airflow for around a month before cleaning and storing how you choose to. Avoid humidity as garlic will go mouldy.
It's time to ge growing! To kick start your autumn/winter crop propagation - we're offering HALF PRICE Seed Raising Mix this month to our VIP's.Spend $60 and pick up a bag of our Certified Organic Seed Raising Mix for $7.00.
Thank you to all those people who sent in photos this month. It's great to see that your gardens and lawns are hanging in there over summer! Remember every month we pick a winner of a $50 store credit to spend with us - so maybe it will be YOU next month? Send in your photos (subject line "photo competition") via email, or via our Facebook page and you're in the draw!
I’m just thrilled with the success of my blueberries this year. I realize it’s been a mild summer, but you eat fresh fruit while you can. This is their second year, and they have been bearing since the first week of November and it is now mid February and they are just trailing off. 150grams to 200 grams every two or three days. On days over 32 I put a shade cloth over the top of the bird netting.
I couldn’t find any information about what to do with blueberries in pots in the second year, so with my hands I dug out what soil was not attached to roots and replenished it with your beaut Blueberry Mix, which is what I planted them into in the first instance. Seems to have done the trick. Keep up the good work.
Please support your local independent retailer who supports us! The specialist retailers listed here will be happy to give you gardening advice and help you with our products - please call to check what lines they carry as they can't stock all of our products (but may be willing to get stock in for a custom order - if you ask nicely!). Some of these fabulous retailers also offer a home delivery service (marked with *) - so why not go local? (Please contact the store directly for details.)