Johnny's Garden

Johnny is an old Italian man that live down the street from me in Cairns. I started this blog because I'd like to bring the experience and knowledge of these older food growers to younger food growers.
Jonny has been growing vegie's in the backyard for 30 years. He has at this time, spinich, spring onion, carrots, strawberries,lettuce, egg plant, capsicum and silverbeat as well as a variety of fruit.
He adds chook manure to his soil every year and at $7.50 a 50 kg bag from a poltry farm an hour away sounds economical. He say's "you have to replenish you soil"



He plants his spring onion late March from dry bulbs. He explains "you leave some spring onion in the ground till late November and they make a bulb like a bell shape at the end" this is then taken out with the roots and a string tied around (see picture 3)then hung up in his shed till he plants again in late March the next year.So from one year to the next he always has spring onion.The dry bulbs he gave me have sprouted up nicely in my garden, fantastic!
I did find that my spring onion after a couple of months to be a bit skinny and gangaly probably due to lack of sun as my tomatoes shaded them as they grew, so spring onion need lots of sun in the tropical winter.
Once his tomatos have finished in about late August in Cairns he then plants long beans - they are a black seed with a white spot.




He plants most of his seeds in seed pots away from direct sun(see picture 4) then once their 2 inches high he'll plant them in the garden. He places a container with holes in it over the seedling for the first 3 days (see picture 5) as he says it strengthens the seedling he has more success with this method then just planting them straight out.



He replants his strawberries (Pic6) every year this way he always has a bountiful. harvest. Late march he'll dig up all last years strawberries break them up into their individual sections and replant being careful not to cover up the centre bit of the section.He places saw dust under ripening fruit so they don't start to rot when the fruit touched the ground.

To lengthen the life of his favourite egg plant he grafts his favourite variety which is the large roundish one onto the variety that has thorns another Solanum commonly know as "Devils Apple" lengthening it's life from 1 to five years (pic 7)
Making the plant more resistant to Bacterial wilt and other soil born viruses.
Grafting works better with new soft growth. check the net for tips on grafting.
You can grow your egg plant anywhere in the garden to save room for more leafy veges in the garden bed and it doesn't need to be full sun, in amongst other tress and plants is fine.


Pic 8 show's Johnny's tomatos. He just lets them grow freely without stakes.Some go floppy and die when they go to flower. It maybe because there is so many together all competing for nutrients.

Johnny prefer's his capsicum green as they are less dry and the skin is more tender. However if you leave them on the tree longer they will turn red, the flesh will be more dry but the flavour more intense. So that's why red capsicum are more expensive?

He plants an Asian spinich similar to Bok Choy which he allow's some to go to seed and plants at the beginning of April. He say you need to plant the seed and Inch into the ground so it has to come up, makes it stronger.
Another important thing when you grow things like Bok Choy, silverbeat and spinich like plants is not to rip the whole plant at roots when it's ready to eat just take a couple of leaves from the outside of each plant and it will grow back. You'll then have a regular supply through the whole growing season. Fantastic!
Johnny recommends Mignonte lettuce as it grows well in the tropical winter and it's good eating.
He explains that the paw paw has male and female varieties and that only the female bares fruit. However by driving a couple of nails into the stem of the male variety it will also bare fruit - has anyone tried this?
He gave me some spinich seedlings to plant out which I did, however the blazing sun kill them after a couple of hours the day after I planted them. I should of covered them as he does for a few days. Next time I definitly will.
Agreat way to keep the spinich for year round use is to freeze it. He first harvests the leaves then chops it up into large pieces. Then in a large pot with only a few cenimetres of boiling water place it in for a couple of minutes. he then puts it in plastic containers and into the freezer.
It's best to keep harvesting spinich and silverbeat before it gets to big as it seems when it's young and growing the insects leave it alone but once it reaches full size the insects start to eat it and it starts to fall over and look untidy so keep harvesting the outer leaves and allow the inner leaves to grow.
It makes a great soup be frying onion and garlic in olive oil. Then adding some carrots and silver beat and spinich (lots) and 500ml of vegetable stock and allow to cook down. After 45min put it all through a blender. Add a bag of pre cooked soup mix and season. Finish by adding cream to taste. It's a great soup.

An amazing food garden will add some more at a later date.