Grant Douglas's Garden Diary

Week 10: second week of March

Now is the peak time for harvesting fruit and veges. Harvesting is the end process of the growing cycle and just as with all other parts of the cycle, it requires care and timing. If you harvest for storage before things are completely ripe e.g. Potatoes, Pumpkin, Onion, they won't keep as well as if you had let them ripen fully. But crops to be eaten fresh such as Beans, Corn, Brocolli and others, need to be picked at the optimum time for sweetness and tenderness, even though they are not fully ripe - delay for a few days and they become a lot less pleasant to eat.

Experience will teach you to recognise the optimum stage. Some things can be hard to tell whether or not they are ready to be harvested. For example, Water-melons can be tested by knocking on them to get a hollow sound, but this can take a bit of practice, so one other way is that the tendril between the water-melon stalk and the main stem, should have completely dried off. Rock Melons will smell ripe and should almost fall of the plant when you pick them up.

I have just picked our first Pepino (South American fruit tasting like Rock Melon) and it is a beautiful light golden colour and the purple stripes have darkened. You must pick these extremely carefully as their skin is paper-thin and they bruise very, very easily.

The way you harvest, can also effect the future crop, for instance, Cucumbers, Zuchinis will stop producing if you don't keep them picked, and sprouting Brocolli if you cut the head low down in the plant, you will get much larger, although a smaller number, of sideshoots than if you cut it higher up.

Never seen so many White Butterflies as this dry spell is producing, so keep them under control or your Winter Brassicas will suffer badly.

Because I process photographic film, I am very aware of the tap water temperature which, for interests sake, even though the days have been very hot, has dropped by 3 degrees in the last week, which has quite an effect on the soil temperature when you are irrrigating, so don't overdo it (especially your seedlings).

Sowing or Planting this week:
Brassicas - Cauli, Cabbage, Broccoli, Broccoflower, Borecole (kale), Brocoflower (remember to choose winter varieties of these brassicas eg Wintercross Cabbage, Snowmarch Cauliflower
Celery (plants only)
Leeks
Lettuce
Parsley
Perpetual Spinach
Silverbeet
Spinach (winter varieties)
Spring Onions

Sow Direct:
Carrots (If you can get hold of seed of a carrot variety called Spring Market Improved, they can be sown now and into the Autumn for spring production - they are not a particularly good colour, but are very slow bolting)
Chinese Cabbage and other Chinese Greens
Mescalin Mix
Radish
Rocket

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