Grant Douglas's Garden Diary

Week 40: Second week of October

Last week there was a wee warning about not getting carried away with early planting. Well those of you who have gone ahead and planted early tender crops may have a nervous couple of nights with 0 degrees forecast tonight. Do what you can to protect things.

Pollination is a very important process in the vege garden, especially for crops where we consume the fruit or seed. Here's a few examples where pollination is either different than the norm, or where help can be given to aid it.

Broad Beans - normal bees cannot pollinate the Broad Bean flower, bumble bees are necessary as they take a bite out of the base of the flower, so there is no use having Broad Beans flowering very early in the season when there may not be bumble bees around as they will not set pods. So mid-Winter sowings are better than Autumn sowings.

Other beans are self-fertile, and although the bees will visit them, it is not actually necessary. So cross pollination does not occur and so seed can be saved for next year's crop.

Corn is one of the few crops where we eat the seed and cross-pollination between super-sweet varities and non super-sweet varieties will result in the super-sweet varieties being almost inedible. Corn is wind-pollinated and so if you are growing different varieties, they must be planted a long, long way apart, like hundreds of metres, or it must be planned so they are not flowering at the same time.

Cucumbers - have both male and female flowers, and most require pollinating. But there is one variety which I grow, a telegraph variety called Early Perfection (a non-hybrid) which is Parthenocarpic, which means that they will produce fruit, without being pollinated and their fruit will be seedless. If pollination does occur, the fruit can become distorted in shape and have seeds, so one way to overcome this is to pick off the male flowers, if this is the only variety you are growing. The male flowers will not have the embrionic cucumber at the base of the flower.

Tomatoes - are self-fertile but still need to pollinate themselves. Outside, this is done by wind, but inside a green-house you may need to help them by gently shaking the plants. This is best done at the warmest time of day, as this also enhances pollination. This is why varieties such as Early Girl have been bred to set fruit under cooler conditions. Full pollination, in other words the pollination of every segment of the fruit, results in a maximum sized fruit, whereas partial pollination results in smaller fruit.

Enough reading for tonight. Will give a couple more examples next week.

Sowing or Planting this week:

Tomatoes, Peppers, Chillie's, Egg Plant (Don't plant outside yet if you are in a cooler area)
Basil (Don't plant outside yet if you are in a cooler area)
Beetroot
Beans - Scarlet, Runner (Shiney Fardenlosa), Dwarf (In punnets for planting out)
Brocolli Spouting (Marathon Variety)
Cabbage (Spring or Summer varieties)
Cauliflower (Frieda - Summer variety)
Celeriac (for transplanting or direct)
Cucumber - too early for planting outside, so sow in containers, or plant in greenhouse
Kohl Rabi
Lettuce (Loose-leaf Fancy and Hearting (Webbs or Greatlakes)
Onions
Peas (I choose Easy-peasy variety)
Potatoes (for those in warm areas get a second succession sprouting, for those in colders area, get your first sowing sprouting)
Pumpkin/Squash (not in the ground, but sow in containers for planting out later)
Red Onions
Shallots
Silverbeet and Perpetual Spinach
Snow Peas (Snap Peas)
Spinach (winter varieties eg. Hybrid No.7)
Spring Onions
Sweet Corn (sown in punnets for planting out later)
Watermelon/Rockmelon (Sow in containers for planting out later)
Yams (Sprout ready for planting soon)
Zuchini - planting outside in warmer areas. Protect at night.

Sow Direct: (Protect soil surface from heavy rains)

Carrots (In warmer areas only - I find Topweight a good early variety)
Chinese Greens (Warmer areas)
Corn Salad
Corriander/Dill (Marginal)
Mescalin Mix
Parsnips
Rocket
Radish

Happy Gardening. This week I'll sign off the way the Country Life Team did on the radio on Saturday with "Keep the gumboots close and stay positive".

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