Grant Douglas's Garden Diary

Week 19: Second week of May

A rather large dollop of rain over the last few days. Hope it hasn't caused damage to anyone's garden. With the grounds so wet and your daily picking needs, it is worthwhile putting down boards on the garden where you walk frequently, to avoid damaging the soil with compaction.

The boards can also act as a way locating slugs and snails which will shelter there during the day. With the soil surface almost constantly damp at this time of year, from either rain or dew, slugs and snails can really get out of hand and garden hygiene (keeping the soil clean of debris and lower leaves up off the ground) is one of the best ways to control them.

What are you doing with your leaves? They are a good free source of organic material and shouldn't be wasted. Here's a few options for their use. You could make leaf-mould which is low in nutrient, but one of the best sources of humus for the soil (humus is what aerates the soil and retains nutrients and moisture).

Leaf-mould can be made simply by collecting up your leaves in a pile or preferably in a container at least one metre square and ensuring that they remain moist, by either covering, or regular watering. It can take 12 months for them to break down, but this can be speeded up by shredding the leaves or by stirring them up frequently, or adding a little bit of blood and bone to them (supplying them with some nitrogen as they are almost pure carbon).

You can also make leaf-mould by stuffing damp leaves into a plastic bin liner or rubbish bag, tying the top to seal in the moisture and forgetting about them for a year. If you choose to pick them up with your lawn-clippings - thus shredding them and adding nitrogen, they are great for adding to your compost heap.

The other options are using them as a sheet composting material when building up a lasagna garden (putting material on top of cardboard or newspaper, in alternate layers of hi-carbon/hi-nitrogen, or simply using the leaves as a very effective, long-lasting mulch material around trees or shrubs.

Now is the time to be thinking about preparation of new beds for Strawberries, Asparagus, and dividing Rhubarb - more about bed-preparation in another diary.

Red Onions can be sown from now on. Choose slow-bolting varieties to start with e.g. Rambo (available from Egmont Seed)

If you are in colder areas, most things you plant now will sit for much of the Winter if you can't offer them some form of protection, so you may want to hold off planting for the next 6 - 8 weeks.

Sowing or Planting this week:
Brassicas - Cauli, Cabbage, Broccoli, Broccoflower, Brocoflower (remember to choose Spring varieties of these brassicas eg Wintercross or Flower of Spring Cabbage, Snowmarch Cauliflower)
Garlic
Lettuce (Loose-leaf Fancy and Triumph Hearting)
Perpetual Spinach (Plants only)
Red Onions
Shallots
Silverbeet (Plants only)
Spinach (winter varieties eg. Hybrid No.7)
Spring Onions

Sow Direct:
Chinese Cabbage and other Chinese Greens
Corn Salad
Mescalin Mix
Radish
Rocket

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