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Fruiting Planting in Mid Autumn – Peas, Snow Peas and Broad Beans

Today it’s wet and cold.  All of  a sudden the weather has changed and you can really feel the winter in the air.  I guess it’s only a week and a half now until the southern hemisphere Halloween, which marks the last of the traditional autumn harvest festivals and the start the season of reflecting and remembering.

The solar hot water system wasn’t up to the job of creating a hot shower to come in to from a wet and muddy garden today, so I lit the slow combustion stove this morning.  I have had the bread proving on the shelf above it and yoghurt in the warming oven all day, and now a tray of vegetables roasting in the oven.  My son has been visiting and I waved him off with a “care package” of garden produce this morning, and we had friends visit and I made a garden salad for lunch.  Just enough time this afternoon to plant the fruiting annual seeds in trays in the shadehouse.

I’ve planted a tray of Telephone peas, one of Oregon Dwarf Snow Peas, one of Diggers Climbing Snow Peas, and one of Aquadulce Broad Beans.  The Aquadulce were chosen because they are an early variety, and this far north our broad bean season is short.  The Oregon Dwarf are not really a dwarf – up to 1.5 metres tall according to the packet.  I choose climbing varieties these days to make double use of my fortress fencing, but these are supposed to be mildew resistant, and I am hoping they are the variety that I lost year before last. Someone commented on that post that Oregon Dwarf had done really well for them in Melbourne.  The Diggers are insurance – a tall climbing snow pea – because we like snow peas!

I have planted them in paper pots, (or tubes really)  in a mixture of compost, creek sand and ash.  I add quite a lot of wood ash to the mix for peas and beans – about two-thirds of a bucket for these four trays of mix.  Peas and beans like a more alkali soil and ash helps bring the Ph up.  I shall dig in a bit more ash when I plant them out in about a month’s time. For now all the fence-trellises are occupied with beans and cucumbers.

Ah Sunday!

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Leafy Planting in Mid Autumn – The Winter Greens Go In

I was out all day yesterday and today I have to go to work, but it’s the leafy planting break of the year and I’m determined not to miss it!

It’s one of the things I like about the lunar planting calendar, that it pushes me to rescue my gardening from the “things that can be put off for a week or so” pile.  If I can get out to the shadehouse today, even for half an hour, I can get the first round of seeds in.  It means I am planting things that are right for the season, rather than playing catch up trying to get things in when it is really too late for them.  And it means I have the start of a staggered planting that that keeps us in a Goldilocks-good supply of varied greens all year.  And that, in turn means I’m tempted to cook with what is fresh and green and gorgeous out of the garden and the packaged and frozen supermarket shortcuts are no competition.  And that in turn means I eat healthy. A little routine that has such a big ripple effect!

Mizuna has been my canary plant. Up till now the Mizuna out in the garden has been one-leaf-for-me, two-leaves-for-the-chooks, but this week, all of a sudden, the cabbage moths and web moths have disappeared.  It is past the equinox and the days are shortening noticeably now, so it’s now safe to plant the bolters. The weather has cooled off so much in just the last couple of weeks that we are  stocking up on firewood and feeling more and more like eating stews and casseroles.

So this morning, before work, I had a lovely half hour in the shadehouse planting seed of lettuce, parsley, celery, dill, coriander, rocket, aragula,  raddichio, sorrel, endive, kale, cabbage, bok choi, cauliflowers, broccoli, spinach, silver beet, and leeks – just a few of each – I want to make sure I leave room for subsequent rounds.

Over the next couple of days, I will also get around to potting on the seedlings I planted last month. They are all now at the two leaf stage – two permanent leaves as well as the cotyledon baby leaves – and ready to go into their own private pots with a mix of compost and creek sand.  By next month, they’ll be 15 cm or more tall and ready to plant out as advanced seedlings.

Remember way back in the leafy planting days of midsummer I posted about planting seed of brussels sprouts? That was just under three months ago now, and the seedlings are now over 20 cm tall.  I love brussels sprouts but this far north, it is tricky to get a long enough growing season for them.  By late August the cabbage moths will move in again and it will be all over for them. I have to plant seed in midsummer to get them bearing by June so I get a few months of harvesting to make it all worthwhile.  And that means I have to have them growing through the peak of the cabbage moth season.  I solve it by holding them in the shadehouse, feeding them regularly with seaweed brew and compost tea, as long as possible.

This year it has all just come together nicely – these seedlings are just starting to really want to go out into the garden and the cabbage moths have packed up for the season.  I shall plant them out over the next couple of days, well surrounded by dill to give them a bit of extra protection, and with luck by June I’ll be posting the recipe for Brussels Sprouts Soup, which is surprisingly good and something to look forward to.

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Roots and Perennials Planting Days in Mid Autumn – Self Sown Garlic

I’ve noticed that a couple of corms of garlic that hid in my garden and escaped harvesting have sent up green shoots. So I guess they are telling me it’s time to plant garlic! The traditional wisdom is that garlic is planted on the winter solstice but that has never worked for me even before climate change kicked in.  I’m going to trust the self-sown garlic – plants generally know best.

Garlic is one of the few things I plant directly, one clove at a time, pointy side up, using the standard system of planting things as deep as their own diameter.  I’ll transplant these to separate them and give each one a bit more room.  Each clove will yield a corm.  Keep them well away from peas, beans, broad beans – anything that depends on its nitrogen fixing bacterial partners, because garlic is quite strongly anti-bacterial.  Nothing else to it.

Besides garlic, I’m also planting carrot, parsnip, beetroot, and onion seed this planting break.

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Fruiting Planting Days in Mid Autumn – Peas in Paper Pots

Today and tomorrow are fruiting planting days according  to the lunar calendar, and I’ve been hanging out for these ones because finally it is pea planting season!  I’m planting Telephone climbing peas and Melting Mammoth snow peas.

I love beans, specially snake beans, but by this stage I am starting to get over them.  I have enough in now to keep producing for another month, but I won’t be planting any more till Spring. And it is also past the end of the planting season for all the summer fruiting vegies – zucchini, squash, cucumbers, eggplants, capsicums – cherry tomatoes are the only ones I will keep going into winter.  It is a bit early yet for broad beans, so for this break it’s all about peas!

However, I don’t yet have room out along the garden fence-trellises for the peas.  The older beans are still producing mature beans for drying, and I have a few more weeks of production left in the Continental cucumbers.  Raising seedlings in the shadehouse and planting out mature seedlings is a major strategy of labour and space economy.

For large seeds like peas, it is not worth the seed germinating stage.  I plant directly into a seedling raising mix that is mostly good compost with a bit of creek sand for drainage.  For alkaline lovers like peas and beans I add a bit of wood ash to raise the pH.  For the peas I have made little newspaper tubes to plant into. You can see how below. I have planted three seeds in each and will weed out the weakest.  They will grow very happily in the shadehouse for several weeks, safe from most pests and from being forgotten and fatally neglected, giving me another fortnight’s production from what is now living in their future home.

When it is time to plant them out, I’ll add a bit more compost and wood ash to the site, then dig a little hole and plant each pair of seedlings, complete with their paper tube.  The worms will eat the paper, and it means I can plant very advanced seedlings with almost no transplant shock.



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Leafy Planting Days in Mid-Autumn

I’m all set up and ready for planting on Tuesday and Wednesday leafy planting days.  I’m planting:

The box is full of a home-made seed germinating mix, mostly creek sand with a bit of compost for water retention.  I like using mowed cow pats better –  I collect old, dried cow pats and run over them with the mower to yield a catcher full of shredded cow manure.  It has few nutrients to speak of but holds water beautifully.

It seems a waste to use compost for germinating seeds, when the seeds carry their own nutrient supply and I will be potting the seedlings on as soon as they are germinated anyhow, into individual pots with a nice rich seedling raising mix. But it’s right at the end of the dung beetle season, and they have been so busy I couldn’t find any cow pats.

I have been looking forward to this planting break – the first of the season’s spinach, cabbage, chinese cabbages, cauliflowers and kale!

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