The summer in our Australian cool/cold climate zones is usually warm and dry. Well. not this year. The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting lots of rain and cooler days for the summer months in the south east of Australia. This means we need to garden a little differently this season.
The wet, cool and humid weather makes it easy for your plants, particularly the summer fruits like tomato, chili, cucumber and pumpkin, to get fungal and bacterial diseases with very slow fruit ripening. One method of supporting your growing veggies in this weather is to keep them warm and a bit sheltered. It’s time to be creative with home-made cloche frames and plant covers.
This summer it is also essential to deal promptly with damp loving pests and diseases to keep your vegetable patch thriving. Put out the organic (or other) snail pellets regularly. Build this into your summer garden practice. Every time you plant or weed, sprinkle the pellets around. Don’t give those wet loving snails and slugs a chance to build up their numbers in your garden. Next, keep up the nutrients. Heavy rain can leach nutrients from the soil and regular feeding will help. Given how wet everything is, feeding with a pelletised complete fertiliser may be a better option than a liquid fertilizer, at the moment.
Minimising the risk of fungal and bacterial diseases is critical. Keeping plants plants growing “up” away from the ground is an excellent strategy. Vertically growing suitable vegetables keeps the fruit and other vital parts of the plant away from contact with the ground and can increase air circulation in your garden. Cucumbers like growing “up” and it can work with pumpkin too depending on the variety.
Don’t forget about Gardening Hygiene. This is especially important in wet weather. Clean your tools! Especially when removing low growing leaves from the tomatoes. Fungal and bacterial disease can spread from plant to plant particularly in moist conditions.
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