March 2019 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

My garden has been blasted by winds from the north west and south west, drying everything out, no matter how much I water. I am rarely despondent about my garden but, after the fires and smoke and stresses  of January then the winds of February, all I can do is learn and implement some strategies for the future.

Lesson 1: Shelter

My cucumbers have thrived for several reasons and the first is that they are sheltered from all wind. They needed no extra water than normal and have produced a continuous supply of beautiful, healthy, crisp, Dragon’s Egg cucumbers for months. They are sheltered by a deep bank of shrubbery to the north and by being at the bottom of a slope, so that the westerlies just blew over the top and hit the trees on the other side.

Not only does the shrubbery provide wind shelter but, if you choose right, you will encourage beneficial insects and birds as well as healthy soil life. In this part of my garden the shrubbery is only about a metre high but very dense, allowing sun even as we move into autumn, but little wind.

In another area I planted out broccoli seedlings and, to save them from cabbage moths, I made a frame and covered it with white shadecloth. Co-incidentally, this heavy duty shadecloth also protected the seedlings from the daily blast of the westerlies that howled through my wire, boundary fence, along which my shrubbery is still very young. Those broccoli seedlings are now big and strong and dark green, compared with some of my unsheltered tomatoes only a few metres away that look miserable and copped the wind severely.

Lesson 2: The Soil

Long before I planted out the cucumbers, I densely sowed broad beans as a green manure crop, quite late, some time in early winter, after last year’s tomatoes had finished and been removed. In October when the broad beans were just starting to flower, I trampled them down with my feet so they were lying all in the same direction, then chopped them up with my spade. I threw over some biochar and sheep manure. I didn’t dig it all in but I did push my fork in and loosen the soil below, allowing some bits to fall through. Then I watered it all well, before covering with some rotting, wet, old hay and leaving it until early December when I dusted over some potash and planted the tiny cucumber seedlings. By this time every bit of the broad bean leaves and stalks  and roots (which I left in the soil) had been composted in situ by the soil life and the hay too was almost gone. The cucumbers grew like mad the minute they landed and never looked back. They grew so fast that I didn’t get a chance to mulch them but they soon provided their own soil cover as they spread. Nevertheless, they needed very little water all summer.

Another example of the importance of looking after the microbes and other soil life is the wind blasted tomatoes which, in December, before wind or smoke, produced fantastic, early, ripe tomatoes. This previously deep hay method bed was also the one where I planted tomatoes amongst some self-sown companion plants, such as calendulas, nasturtiums, garlic chives and sweet cicely. The tomatoes flowered and produced very early. Interestingly though, the plants did not grow very big but managed to support dense clusters of ripe tomatoes very low to the ground. Once the heat and smoke then winds arrived, these poor tomatoes suffered so my idea of having 3 separate tomato beds turned out to be a good one.

Garlic

The recent Koonya Garlic Festival has put garlic at the forefront of my mind and I will be preparing beds this week. What it comes down to is that, whatever garlic cultivars you choose to grow, the health of your soil microbes will determine how well the flavour develops. The growth of the bulb itself will be determined by soil and weather.

Garlic does not need a lot of fertility but it needs humus (well rotted organic matter) for the soil microbes to be well fed. Here is what I am going to do:

1.   Dig to a spade’s depth and loosen any clumps. This does not mean turning the soil. It means loosening and working it.

2.   Dig in plenty of aged sheep manure (I am saving my compost for brassicas and other greens as I don’t have enough for everything)

3.   Dig in a well known, pelletised seaweed, fish, humic acid and manure product available in large buckets.

4.   Really concentrate on improving the structure of the soil, with elbow and back grease!

5.   Mention was made of lactobacillus bacteria so I might dilute some kefir or pickle juice and pour it over!

6.   Water, mulch and leave, removing the mulch at planting time.

7.   Plant out at times according to what garlic you have.

 

The planting, harvest and storage times depend on the cultivars you grow. I will be planting my 3 cultivars from late March onwards. First is what is locally called Tassie Purple, which is a softneck and will be ready in about December. Next, in about May, I will plant 2 hard necks: Dungansky and a Creole. They will be dug late January or even February. These are the ones that grow the long, curly stalks called scapes, which make excellent pesto.

Sow in March	Plant out now
Beetroot Salsify Burdock Tas. swede Carrot Parsnip Spinach Broad beans Asian vegetables Spring and salad onions Coriander, pennyroyal, cress Take cuttings of Evergreen herbs such as rosemary and sage	Good sized European brassicas (it is too late for punnets)      Spring onions Chives Leeks Lettuce Spinach Celery Silver beet   Spring bulbs (ixias, daffodils etc) Water well.   Evergreen shrubs and trees (only after we get a good rain. Otherwise hold off until April)