Chillies and cucumbers are pumping. Spend time trimming off leaves that are looking a bit dry and tired.
Consider staggering your planting - plant something new every few weeks starting now to prepare for the colder months.
It's a great time to plant:
• Herbs - coriander, dill, basil and parsley.
• Veges - brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower), carrots, celery, spring onions, kale
Grow more, save more in winter: Quick tips for continuous crop
Vegetable gardening is a continuous process. Soil can get exhausted and could develop a build-up of disease-causing pathogens. It's important to have a system for growing veges and group plants (veges and flowers) based on their characteristics.
Here are some tips for the coming winter growing season:
1. To ensure a continuous supply of vegetables, gardeners need to switch from warm-weather plants to cool-weather crops. If you have multiple garden beds, an effective tip is to divide crops into respective planting areas. Plan beds in anticipation of the change in crops. Some gardeners have four beds (one for each vege family).
Here are some examples of veges grouped according to their vegetable families:
• Alliaceae (Chives, onions)
• Cruciferae (Brassicas)
• Cucurbitaceae (Cucumber, pumpkin, squash)
• Legumes (peas, beans)
Cooler season veges are brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, broccolinis, spinach, endive, radicchio). Warmer season veges are beans, eggplants, tomatoes. All season options are lettuces, carrots, onions, herbs.
If you have a smaller space, consider the following ideas for crop rotation: Instead of making one large, raised garden bed, consider having 3-4 smaller ones or consider using larger pots for plants that are more prone to diseases.
2. Crop rotation is useful to avoid or minimise the risk of diseases and pests.
When plants get diseases, the disease-causing elements (bacterial, fungal, viral diseases, etc) stay in the soil for a while where the infected plants used to be.
If your area isn't big enough for rotation planting, don't plant anything in the garden for a year or two so disease-causing soil elements have nothing to feed on. Consider planting in containers temporarily to ensure vege supply.
3. Note that weeds also bring diseases, so it's important to keep the garden beds free of weeds.
4. Crop rotation helps manage soil fertility which gives plants more nutrients.
Peanuts are great in fixing nitrogen into the soil which improves soil fertility. They are usually followed by brassicas which are nitrogen-hungry.
Peas are good to plant before squash. Beans enrich the soil and are a good crop to plant after tomatoes.
When the same veges are planted in the same spot year after year, the soil may no longer have the nutrients required by the plants.
5. As much as possible, always use a good quality garden/potting mix.
