By Bruce Molloy & Elisabeth Fekonia - Working in the garden in May and June
The months of May and June will have the gardener very busy indeed.
 It is an important time of the year as we can plant so much that we can barely keep up with it all. If we can succeed in planting the garden full at this time of the year, it will help to give us maximum productivity for the longest time. Most of the vegetables we love are of European origin and so we can grow these very well in our cooler winter months. If we wait too long to plant those potatoes, cabbages and broccoli, then we will risk them maturing when the weather warms up again. This will reduce their productivity, for example the potatoes will have great foliage but very few potatoes underneath the ground and the cabbages don’t grow as big as they good if they haven’t had a cold spell over them. Broccoli will have a long productive life all the way through winter if the cabbage moths haven’t been too severe on them in the early autumn months.
Have you noticed how easily we can grow lettuce through the winter months? Lettuce seed won’t germinate when the temperatures are over 30oC and you will see them germinate spontaneously in the garden when the summer heat has gone.
At this time of the year it is also easier to keep the garden soil moist. You can easily mulch a layer of 10 centimetres deep on the garden at this time of the year if you do it after a good spell of rain. The mulch will keep the ground moisture intact for several months and so you will greatly reduce your watering needs. One such an example of gardening this way is by growing potatoes in the mulch method.
Potatoes can easily be grown under mulch and all you need to do is to place the seed potato on the bare soil (don’t cut them, keep them whole) and pile layers of mulch on top. Make sure that the soil is well irrigated or wait until a good spell of rain and then you can start with some mulch from the tip or grassy hay mulch and then layer on some old rotted manure, lucerne mulch, shredded paper, fresher manure and any other organic material. You can easily make this layer up to half a metre deep and the potatoes will grow through as it breaks down over time. You then harvest the potatoes when the tops have died down and root around for the potatoes that are buried under the mulch. You will find that the soil underneath is still quite moist even if there has been no rain or irrigation.
You will find that by September when it’s time to plant the corn, you can plant directly into the broken down mulch. This will provide the nutrients and mulch for a productive crop of corn with no extra work at all.
What to plant now:
• All the brassicas such as broccoli and cabbage, all the cucurbits except melons, carrots, beans, all herbs, potatoes, lettuce, beetroot, tomato, peas, parsnips, leeks, celery
Seed to sow now:
• All of the above can be sown from seed now.
What to harvest now:
• Eggplant, capsicum, beans, cucurbits such as pumpkins, cucumber and squash, tomato, beans, choko, sweet potato, lettuce, early cauliflower, sugarloaf cabbage, carrots, broccoli, horseradish.
The Humble Spud
Growing potatoes in this climate needs to be done at the right time of the year if you expect a good harvest from them. In cooler climates more potatoes will grow per plant, but in our sub-tropical climate a few larger potatoes will develop per bush, accompanied by many smaller ones. If we plant our seed potatoes from March to June then we should expect the best results for this climate. Plant them a bit later and the production could go down. Using seed potatoes will give a much better chance of a good harvest. Using sprouted potatoes from the shop may or may not produce good results as personal experience has taught me.
If you would like to grow the potatoes in the mulch method, make sure that the potatoes have contact with the soil before heaping the mulch layers on top of them. The young potatoes should be well covered so that the sun won’t turn them green. Remember that the mulch will break down as the potatoes grow. Don’t think that several inches of mulch will be adequate, aim for a layer of at least 30 centimetres deep to start with.
Did you know?
- Onions form their bulbs when the day light hours increase. For our climate we need short day onions for best results.
- Potatoes and other root vegetables are all influenced by increasing daylight hours. If potatoes are planted too late in the season the foliage will grow very little, if any potatoes.
- If you pick only the outside leaves of the lettuce this will extend the harvesting time. Plant lettuce as a border around the garden edges for easy pickings.
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