What To Sow or Plant This Month

If you live in a temperate climate like I do and you haven’t already, March is the month to sow seeds for the winter garden.

Photo courtesy of Louisjos via Pixabay

There is still time to plant out basil and amaranth before the weather gets too cold. It’s also the time to plant out garlic cloves and chickory, horseradish, and Chinese (Wombok) Cabbage. Plant leek seedlings now as well.

You can sow burdock, carrots, corn salad (Lamb’s ear or mache), radish, rocket, shallots, and turnips directly in the garden.

Seeds that need to be sown in pots or seedling trays are members of the brassica family such as broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, kale, pak choy, mizuna, mustard greens, swedes. Broad beans, chives, coriander, dill, endive, fennel, lettuce, New Zealand spinach, parsley, peas, silver beet (Swiss chard), spinach, and spring onions can all be sown now as well.   

This year, I’m keeping things simple and sticking to some of my tried and true favorites. If you’re looking to plant something reliable and delicious, you might want to consider these:

Broccoli: A fantastic source of vitamins and super versatile in the kitchen.

Snow Peas & Sugar Snap Peas: Perfect for snacking straight from the vine! They are perfect in a stir fry and add a sweet crunch to a salad. 

Carrots: I can’t imagine my vegetable garden without them. They never disappoint! Plus, there’s something so satisfying about pulling fresh carrots from the ground. 

Garlic, Onions, Shallots, and Leeks: Garlic is an essential ingredient for me; it’s my go-to aromatic. While I’m not a fan of onions due to their strong flavor, my daughter and son-in-law are currently living with me and use onions in nearly every meal. As a result, I will be planting some this year. Although I don’t enjoy onions, I do appreciate the flavors that leeks and shallots add to a dish, so I will find space for them in my garden as well.

Lettuce: The cooler months are the only time I can grow lettuce, so I take full advantage of having it in my garden.

Are you thinking about starting a winter vegetable garden this year? If so, what do you have planned? Are you excited to try out varieties that you've never grown before?

Until next time, happy gardening.

Janette.

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The Vegetable Garden in June

After what was an unseasonably warm autumn, where the temperature barely dipped below 20°C, winter finally arrived and the jumpers have come out of storage. 

The temperature may have dipped, but the garden is growing well. I have two growing spaces, the raised garden beds which I have only had for twelve months, and the in-ground garden space that I created not long after I moved in here fifteen years ago. 

The in-ground garden is where I am growing all of my brassicas. There is broccoli Di Ciccio and Green Dragon, a heritage mix of kohl rabi, Red Russian kale, Long Island Brussel sprouts, and four different varieties of cauliflower, orange, Green Macerata, Snowball, and Rober. That’s not weeds you can see growing, it is volunteer poppy seedlings, and Sweet Alyssum. They’ll put on a lovely display come spring.

A small section of the brassica bed.

In all, I have nine raised garden beds in three rows of three. In the first bed, I have a couple of potato plants. (I have since added more). I love homegrown potatoes. They are so much better than anything I can buy at the supermarket. I wish I had the room to grow more, and the storage space to keep them.  

In the second bed there are daffodils and tulips that were a gift from my two youngest daughters for Mother's Day this year. I have planted over the top with poppies. 

In bed three is a heirloom mix of  beetroot and Purple Top White Globe turnips. It was also meant to have parsnips growing in it, but after three unsuccesful sowings I gave up.

In bed four there is some Little Dragon Chinese cabbages (also known as Napa or Wombok cabbage). A row of Red Baby bok choy. (I have no idea where the green one came from as I did not sow any this year.) Along the front of the bed there is four Red Kitten spinach plants. 

Bed five is the strawberry bed. I replaced my older strawberry plants in autumn and that is why these plants are so small. This bed will remain permanent and I won’t use it for anything else.

Bed six is the garlic bed. The cloves I planted were ones that were kept from last year’s harvest and are a mix of Italian White, Italian Late, Purple Stripe and Rojo de Castro. Along both sides, I have planted a row of shallots. After years of not eating onions because I didn’t like the taste of them, I have recently discovered that I don’t mind the flavour of shallots and leeks.

Bed seven is the carrot bed. I'm so happy with how well the carrots are growing this year, so lush and green. It is a real mix of varities in this bed including Black Nebula, Kyoto Red, Purple Dragon, Solar, and Nantes.

Bed eight is were I grew Beauregard sweet potatoes this past summer. I had planted them late and didn't think I would get a harvest, but I was wrong. 

In the greenhouse, there are the beginnings of my herb garden. Parsley, thyme, oregano, chives, and garlic chives.

I’m overwintering some tomatoes that came up in the beds where the tomatoes grew over summer. More volunteers that came up from the compost that I added to the potato bed will soon join them. Hopefully, by the time spring arrives, I will have tomatoes all ready to go out into the garden.

As well as growing vegetables, I am growing some fruit as well.

My Sunshine Blue blueberry flowering in winter. When this happened last year I panicked thinking I would have no blueberries, but I needn’t have worried as I had a bountiful harvest. I have since learned that some varieties do set their flowers in winter.

I also have a Valencia orange, a Navel orange, and an Imperial mandarin, (which fruited for the first time in a long time), raspberries, a Loganberry, a blackberry, a blackcurrant, and a Flame seedless grape. All grown in pots as I rent, and I want to take them with me if ever I need to move.

Until next time, stay safe, and be kind to each other.

 

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Sowing for the Autumn/Winter Garden

It's not a very exciting photo I know, but I wanted to post, so I have a record of when I sowed and what I sowed. These are all the seeds that can't be direct sown, and were sown on March 5th. The seeds that can be direct sown won’t go in until we get some cooler weather, which at the moment feels like it is never going to happen. We have had a reasonably cool summer this year, but just as the temperatures should have started to drop, it rose instead and we are now on day seven where the temperature has been above 35°C. Today’s high was 41°C, (105.8°F) as was yesterday, and the day before. 

Here is a list of the seeds I have sown so far.

Brassicas 

Brussel Sprouts - Long Island

Broccoli  Green Dragon and Di Ciccio

Cauliflower - Macerati Green, Purple Sicily and Rober

Pak Choi - Shuko

Lettuce - Green Mignonette, Freckles, and Butternut

Spinach - Red Kitten

Here is how they are doing after six days.

As soon as the weather starts to cool down I will be sowing all of the carrot, turnip, parsnip, wombok cabbage, and pea seeds.

There is still a week of warm to hot days ahead so while I wait for the weather to change I will order some compost to top up the vegetable beds, and dream of the harvest to come.

Until next time, stay safe and be kind to each other.

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The Winter Vegetable Garden

I'm very happy with the way the winter garden is growing this year especially after the dismal year I had last year. 

Mammoth Melting snowpeas July 14th, 2020

August 8th, 2020

Brassicas July 14th, 2020

August 23rd, 2020

The harvest has been small so far. Mammoth Melting snowpeas

More snow peas and a very early asparagus spear.

Red Kitten and English Medania spinach

Violaceo di Verona cabbage, another white cabbage, Red Kitten spinach, Freckles lettuce and another tiny head of broccoli.

I've harvested two beautiful Purple Sicily cauliflowers that grew from seedlings planted last winter but that never made it to maturity before the warmer months arrived. I moved them to another part of the garden not thinking that they would make it through summer, but make it they did and this beauty was the reward for my patience.

I've since harvested another of these as well as a white cauliflower which I think is a Rober, but I'm not sure.

Some harvests have been smaller than some others.

 A tiny head of broccoli

Tiny turnips.

     What could quite possibly be the worlds smallest cauliflower?

Freckles lettuce

Everything else is coming along nicely and in a few weeks, I expect to be harvesting lots of cabbages, broccoli, beetroot, Speckled snowpeas, more cauliflowers, potatoes and carrots.

The beautifully coloured flower of the Speckled snowpea.

I miscalculated how long potatoes take to mature and the spot I had set aside for them was where I will be planting my tomatoes mid-October so they are growing in pots this year instead.

Apart from some very small broccoli heads, the only other problem I have had in the garden this year is whitefly. Normally they arrive at the beginning of winter, stay around for a few weeks and then leave, but this year for some reason they have stayed around much to my annoyance. Luckily, this year I invested in some insect netting which protected my young brassica plants from them as well as the Cabbage White butterfly. They have been a very worthwhile investment. 

I think that's all for now, I will be back next week with another post.

Until then, stay safe and be kind to each other, Jan.

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Seasonal

Welcome to this month's Garden Share Collective, hosted by Kyrstie from A Fresh Legacy and Kate from Rosehips and Rhubarb, the theme this month is SEASONAL.

Seasons, they come and they go, and with each seasonal change the produce that we grow changes too.

My huge crop of oranges this year. 

Most fruit and vegetables have distinct growing seasons, peas grow best in the cooler weather that winter brings, while others like tomatoes and eggplants like it hot and grow best in summer. There are some vegetables that will grow in more than one season like cabbage,broccoli, spinach, silverbeet, beetroot and coriander but even they will do better grown in the right season.

Early Crop Massey

If you don't grow your own, knowing what fruits and vegetables are in season can help when you buy your produce. Sure, you can buy apples in December, but do you really want to buy fruit that's been depleted of all its goodness while it sat in storage, or would you rather buy something you know is fresh, that will taste better and be better for you, and in season fruit and vegetables should be cheaper. 

Seasonal growing can differ depending on where you live, what one person can grow in summer in say New South Wales I might have trouble growing here in South Australia, an example of that would be potatoes. I grow mine in the winter, because our summers are just too hot, a lesson I learnt the hard way. Coriander is another that I grow in winter as it is less likely to bolt to seed.

Broccoli in the background and cauliflowers in front.

Below is a list what is growing in the garden at the moment.
Peas
Garlic
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Kale
Turnip
Wombok cabbage
Lettuce
Spinach
Silverbeet 

And this is what I will be growing during the hotter months ahead, your list might look a little different. 

Asparagus

Basil

Beans

Beetroot

Broccoli

Capsicum

Carrot

Celery

Cucumber

Eggplant

Leeks

Lettuce

Pumpkin

Sweet corn

Tomatoes

Zucchini

For a month by month planting guide try Gardenate. It is easy to use and you can even have planting reminders sent to you via email every month.

The garlic is enjoying all the rain we have been having and is growing well. The plants on the left where the replacement that were planted last month.

For more information on what fruits and vegetables are in season in your state, click on the link below, it will take you to the Seasonal Food Guide Australia, then simply click on your state capital to see what's in season when. There is also a link that will show you where Farmers Markets are located in your state.
Seasonal Food Guide Australia

Harvest

Much the same as last month, but at least the parsley in the insect garden is now big enough to start picking.

Italian parsley ready for picking.

Planting

Broad beans - 26 seeds of Early Long Pod 

Turnips

Carrots - Chantenay - Top Weight - Nantes

Spinach - English Medania

Pak choi - Kwang Moon

Lettuce - Red and green salad

Things to do 

Not a lot really, by the middle of next month I should be able to start  sowing seeds for summer crops, before that though I might plant another crop of broccoli. 

That's it for another month of Garden Share Collective, thanks for stopping by. If you would like to see what other gardeners have been up to this month, pop over to either Kyrstie's or Kate's blog. I will see you next month for another round of Garden Share Collective.

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Leaves

Welcome to this month's Garden Share Collective, hosted by Kyrstie from A Fresh Legacy and Kate from Rosehips and Rhubarb, the theme this month is LEAVES.

Leaves, what would trees be without them? Bare, that's what they'd be. Without leaves a tree would have no means of making the energy it needs to grow through a process called photosynthesis, it would not be able to grow bigger, or produce the flowers that with luck will turn into the fruits and nuts that we love to eat. Leaves are also the way that a tree releases oxygen into the atmosphere, a fact that we don't always appreciate. 

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