It’s mid April already and in cold and cool climate Australia we are finally getting to have some sunny weather. Its been a long time coming! In the meantime many of us will have pumpkins that haven’t yet ripened and tomatoes that are not doing much at all. Perhaps pull them our now and make Italian green tomato pickle (recipe link at bottom of this page). Apart from that perhaps best to just forget failures due to weather you can’t control and move forward with planting carrots and parsnips. You might think it is tool late for this but The Bureau of Meterology is giving soil temperatures in our cool and cold climate Southern Tablelands, Capital and Snowy regions of NSW as much warmer than usual. This bonus warmth says sow seed now for those favourite winter root vegetables.
Dig in a little of your compost in your free garden bed then make two shallow channels in the bed. The bed needs to be a spot that get lots of sun and has very loose friable deep soil without stones or clumps. Sow the seeds into the channel and cover lightly with soil – sew not too thinly as you can thin out as the seedling grow into baby veg and eat these. Make sure the seed are kept moist until germination. To speed up the growing time after germination you can cover your crop in an agricultural frost mitigating cloth. There are a couple on the market that will warm the soil by a few degrees. That little extra warmth may be all that you need. If you do the same for silverbeet and the Choi family you will get a lovely crop of these heathful plants with tender leaves as a bonus. It’s only the frost and cold that makes the leafy greens somewhat tough in winter.
It is too late generally now for Brussel sprouts and a bit too early for peas. Brussel sprouts are best planted in December to Late February. The colder your climate the earlier you plant out BS seedlings. Do use seedlings if you can, if only to make the process quicker since in cold/cool climate NSW the growing season is short enough as it is with out extending the time from planting to eating.
Experienced and new vegetable gardeners have Wynlen House on-farm classes coming up in May and for those who want to get ahead in this time of rising food prices there is our Growing Community to join.
Check out: Our Learn Page and Membership Community Page
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