Grant Douglas's Garden Diary

Week 8: fourth week of February

We're coming up to the official start of Autumn and although the weather is still variable, night and day temperatures are dropping. (Our tap water has dropped 2.5 to 3 degrees in the last 10 days.) Probably most people could now start sowing Spinach and Chinese Greens for Autumn crops.

Spinach can be sown direct or transplanted, but Chinese Greens should really only be sown direct to discourage their bad habit of wanting to flower and go to seed. If you grow hearting lettuces, now is the time to change over from Great Lakes types to Winter Triumph.

Also if you grow the Gourmet Type Lettuces outside and not in the greenhouse, where you pick just the outside leaves over a long period, it is worth putting in a large sowing and planting now, so that they will hold and you can pick over the cooler months, when re-growth has slowed right down. As the days grow shorter and cooler, your timing between succession sowings should become shorter to maintain a constant supply of all your Winter crops.

A postscript to last week's comments about stink bugs and passionvine hoppers. If you have hard yellow peices in the flesh of your tomatoes, it is due to Shield (stink) bugs and the best way to combat the Passionvine hopper is to make sure your plants don't come under water stress.

With all the Summer harvesting and Winter planting going on at the moment in the garden it is really important to remember to feed the soil with plentiful amounts of compost (at least five cm) between crops. If you don't do this, you are simply mining your soil and will run into problems with both nutrients and soil structure, in the long run. This is especially important, if as in most home gardens, you are removing the plant residues, rather than turning them under and allowing them to rot down before planting. To misuse a "Beatles" lyric "no, not "I want to Hold your Hoe" but "The Compost you Make should be Equal to the Crops you Take". Actually, this is not quite true, you should be putting on even more than you take out. More about Compost-making in a few weeks as Autumn is the ideal time to be making some.

If you Pumpkins have reached a good size, then you can stop watering them. Do not be tempted to harvest them until they are fully matured (skins hardened), as they will not keep very well. Harvesting usually happens after all the tops have died away and they have had a good sun-baking. If possible turning them can help get the undersides hardened as well. This applys to Squashes such as Buttercups and Butternuts, as well, although Orange Squashes such as the Waltham can be picked as soon as their colour has reached a deep enough orange.

If there is anybody out there with a gift for writing and cooking, you would probably be doing the world a big favour if you could produce a book called "1001 things to do with Zuchinis".

Sowing or Planting this week:
Basil (for later greenhouse production)
Beans (for green house production)
Brassicas - Cauli, Cabbage, Broccoli, Broccoflower, Brussel sprouts (plants only), Borecole (kale), Brocoflower (remember to choose winter varieties of these brassicas eg Wintercross Cabbage, Snowmarch Cauliflower)
Celery (plants only)
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
Coriander
Dill
Mescalin Mix
Radish
Rocket

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