Autumn planting time in full swing | In Your Patch

What’s happening in the garden in April?

In harvesting circles, we’re into pumpkins.

A favourite we grow every year in the school garden is the Tromboncino and you can see why.

All the seeds are located in the short, wide, bulbous end, meaning there’s a whole lot of flesh that’s super easy to prepare.

There’s also harvests of basil, lettuce, beans, cucumbers, the odd late zucchini, figs, and stone fruit.

In planting circles, it’s time for all the brassicas – cauli, broccoli, cabbages, brussel sprouts, kale, snow peas, sugar snaps, all the Asian greens, celery, seed potatoes, coriander, and then later in the month, garlic and broad beans.

We did an experiment last year at TAFE Margaret River to see if planting a larger garlic clove did indeed produce a larger bulb as we’ve all been led to believe.

Guess what – this one, in our experience at least, is true.

We grew noticeably larger bulbs from our larger clove plantings.

If you continually refine your bulb selection, keeping only the largest and best each season, eventually you’ll have a really high proportion of your best to both eat and plant again, every year.

It’s time to feed all your citrus fruit trees, remember a little four times a year if preferable to a lot only once or twice a year.

Not only does fertiliser help with fruit production and quality, but also helps maintain the tree in optimum health, helping to fight off pests and diseases.

At the end of April depending on the rains you may like to consider dropping your watering days down to once a week.

Continue to mulch to maintain soil and microbe health and perhaps consider a cool cover crop to boost nutrient levels.

Autumn is most definitely a favourite time of the year for gardening, as temperatures drop, wind remains calm, and there’s still some heat in the day.

Get outside and enjoy it while you can!

Terri Sharpe is Coordinator and Garden Specialist of the Margaret River PS Kitchen Garden Program and a Horticultural lecturer at South Regional TAFE.