Tips for getting started on planning your new season vegetable garden.

June has arrived and with it the beginning of winter proper.  This is the month of the winter solstice where we experience the shortest day/night around the 21st of the month. We call it mid-winter but it’s really only the beginning of the 3 main winter months here in the southern part of the globe of June, July and August.  Of course if you live on the other side of the equator it is the summer months.

Its mid-November now and those of you who are gardening down here in the part of the world where I live in the southern hemisphere (New Zealand) are in the midst of peak planting time. By November the ground should have warmed up enough for you to get most of your vegetable plants in to the outdoor garden and you should have a good planting of everything in the ground.   Even if it is the first row of something that you are going to keep succession planting – but the combination of day length and increasing ground temperature means that the conditions are just right for peak growing.

Weeds in the wheelbarrow - how to avoid overwhelm in the vegetable garden.

“Spring stands at the gate with her finger on the latch”

I love this line by Patience Strong where she is perfectly describing this month where even though it is still winter, the promise of spring is in the air and popping up around us. She was of course writing in Northern Hemisphere so it was February she was writing for but the euivalent month for us down at the bottom of the world is August.

July here in our part of the world is till the depths of winter and although I’m thinking and preparing for the new season – there is not much time spent in the actual garden. It is  great to get out there on frosty morning to see how the ground is chilled and laced with ice – and to think triumphant thoughts about slugs and other pests not surviving the winter chill to make it through to eat my precious spring plants.  And then there is the occasional warm day when you notice that the daffodils are emerging and you realise that even when you can’t see it, there is still growth and movement going on.

Well the mid-winter solstice is upon us now and today I am going to be doing a bit of a tongue-in – cheek ‘ceremonial” planting of garlic. It is traditionally planted on the shortest day and harvested on the longest and as I am a fan of tradition – I am going to plant some in a facebook live.   All going well.   Meaning – if I can get my husband to be the cameraman as I won’t be able to plant, talk and hold the camera at the same time.

Sow:

Broad Beans, onions (in trays or outdoors if warm). Brassica seeds sown now will take 4 months to mature. Lettuce. broccoli, cabbage, carrots, Chinese cabbage, leeks, lettuce, onions, parsley, shallots, spinach.

Plant:

Cabbage, broccoli, cauli, kale, lettuce, parsley, silverbeet or spinach, strawberries, soft fruits such as currants, raspberries etc, fruit trees

Cultivate:

Mound up soil around leeks. Keep well-watered along with celery. Weed around asparagus.  Protect heads of cauli from the weather by covering with big leaves. Keep weeding and hoeing between plants to keep weeds down.

Harvest:

Beans, courgettes, sweetcorn, pumpkins, main crop potatoes, carrots, parsnips, beetroot, spinach and silverbeet, herbs

Prepare:

Dig beds where crops have finished, add compost to trenches, Sow green crops, make compost and mulch bare ground in preparation for winter weather and preparing beds for spring