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Costa Georgiadis's chooks are pretty happy right now.
Like the rest of Australia, the gardening guru is spending a lot more time at home and, unsurprisingly, in his backyard."They're spending a lot more time in the broader garden and actually out on the street as I do work on my street garden," he said.
"Their definition of lockdown is free range."These are troubling times, but for Costa there is "a big silver lining", and that's seeing how many people are getting back into their gardens.
So to help you make the most of it, Costa has some ideas on everything from what to plant now to how many chooks you can have (if you can find them), and what to do if you live in an apartment.
1. Embrace the slowdown
First of all, Costa wants you to just take a moment to get to know your garden."It's really such a special time in the sense that without the pressures of having to go anywhere, there's this chance to slow down," he said.
"One of the smallest and simplest things from a gardening point of view is to actually go out into your garden and just observe what's going on."It might sound basic, but Costa says most of the time we're just moving through the space — taking the bins out or watering the plants while staring at our phones.
So he wants you to try these simple ideas:
- See what insects are there, and around which plants
- Take close-up photos of bits that interest you
- Observe if there is any bird life, and what type
- Look at what's active in the morning and different at night
"I talk to children about doing that, but I equally share it with adults because there's so much going on in our gardens that we tend to miss," Costa said.
2. What you can plant right now
There are a lot of things that can go into the ground at the moment.The typically cooler parts of the country haven't yet become too cold, and the hotter northern areas are now starting to become more mild.
"So there's this wonderful, almost spring window," Costa said.
"As far as gardening goes and growing, this is one of the prime slots similar to when we come out in in early spring."
Here are a few options to plant now:
- Edible greens
- Salads
- Silverbeet
- Chards
- Radishes
Some of these are quick turnaround and you will be able to start "repeat havesting" within 30-50 days. That is, picking off outer leaves and leaving the rest to continue growing.
Then you can turn to longer-term vegetables like snow peas, broad beans, broccoli and cauliflower.
"There's things that we can wait for the full term and there's other things that we can harvest along the way, and those salad greens are a great place to start," Costa said.
3. Make the most of apartments and indoor living
A lack of space doesn't have to mean a lack of garden, and there is still plenty you can grow.Just get experimental, Costa says.
"Get your celery or your spinach or even your Asian greens, cut them off from the base with about two centimetres or so, then put them on the window sill in a little bit of water," he said.
"Things like spring onions — and I've got it going on at the moment with some silverbeet — they'll reshoot and you can literally watch them start growing from the central core.
"Then once they get up a bit and you see little roots you can go out and plant them into the soil and it's just a nice little project."Other things you can grow in jars on your window sill include mung beans and lentils.
Costa says there's no shortage of online tutorials for sprouts.
"That's a great little science project for the kids."
4. Think about chickens
Costa's chooks like a bit of gardening themselves, especially when he tries to put the mulch out."They didn't go to the school of colouring in between the lines, they spread the mulch outside the garden beds," he said.
"But hey, they're happy."
If you're looking to buy some chickens, chances are you're not alone.
At the same time there was a run on toilet paper, chicken breeders around the country were also being inundated.
If you do want to get some chooks consider how you will keep them.
"You can have a pre-made coop and some of them come on wheels, so you can actually move them across the yard so that they're not fixed in one point," Costa said.In terms of space, Costa says a smaller coop is OK as long as the chickens have space they can be let out to roam around in.
About 10 square metres is a good guide.
"That would be enough to have a couple of chickens, and it's always nice to have two rather than one so they've got some company," he said.
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