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Category: Garden Diary

Roots and Perennials Days in Late Summer

This is a good time of year for planting perennials in my part of the world. We are past the frizzle days of high summer, but still enough time left for things to establish before going into winter dormancy, and be really ready to take off in spring. We are also coming into what is traditionally our wet season, though in this La Ninã year, that really isn’t a factor.…

Fruiting Planting Days in Mid Summer – Don’t Be Afraid of Shade

From late winter until now, I plant climbers – beans, cucumbers, squash and tomatoes – along the fences all the way round from the eastern to the western side, and sometimes (usually a bit more lightly) on the northern side too. The tallest beans even start to climb across the netting over top of my beds, the beans hanging down like fruit. But from late summer onwards, I start planting…

Leafy Planting Days in Mid-Summer

One of the best things about planting advanced seedlings is the head start you get. I think people tend to forget how long plants spend germinating and as babies. These seedlings are a month old already. If I’d planted them directly a month ago, this bed would have spent all that time hardly used, just inviting weeds.

Leafy Planting Days in Early Summer

I really am too far north for brussels sprouts, and climate change is only making it worse. Every few years, just often enough to keep my hopes up, I jag a combination of variety, timing, and weather that gets me a crop. But most times there is just not a long enough period of cool weather for them to form sprouts, and I get loose leafy sprouts. I should give…

Bringing in the Garlic

I‘ve started bringing in the garlic. It’s a good crop this year, which I’m really pleased about. I think, like a lot of gardeners, I was extra conscientious about planting this year. I really really didn’t want to end up buying Chinese garlic. As well as all the usual concerns about what agricultural chemicals may have been used growing it, and the methyl bromide treatment demanded by Australian quarantine, there…