Get ready for spring in the garden | In Your Patch

With only one month of winter remaining, it time to turn to preparing for spring.

It’s that transitional month where it seems somewhat mad to consider summer seedlings, like tomatoes and zucchini, but that is exactly my recommendation.

It’s time to set up your poor man’s (or woman’s) hothouse, a clear plastic tub turned upside down, and prepare seed trays of tomatoes, beans, and zucchinis.

How do you think all those seedlings are available at nurseries come the first day of spring?

They prepare them right now, grow them in hothouses, and transport them across the country ready for eager green thumbs to plant out at the start of September.

You can do it yourself with a little forward planning.

What to plant now?

If your soil looks like mine it’ll be very wet, waterlogged in places. If you want your spring veg to thrive add some material to your soil to help create drainage.

Compost, sand, perlite, and general organic material will all help. All pea varieties love the wet conditions. As do all silver beet varieties.

They’ll grow faster as the soil warms but they’ll continue to do well no matter how wet it gets.

Rhubarb is another, it’s a good time to plant now. All the onions also handle the cold and wet conditions.

A late planting of the faster variety cabbages, broccolini, and small cauli can also work.

If you haven’t got your garlic and broad beans in you may be a touch too late but try them anyway if you have the space.

Potatoes can also still go in. Our school potatoes have taken a beating – the rats have dug up a lot of our future harvest. If anyone has any suggestions on how to combat that issue please let me know!

I’ve experienced a nightmare season of black caterpillars, indicating a complete imbalance in my backyard garden. I removed over a dozen on one poor, sad frangipani alone – something I’ve never witnessed before (and hope to never witness again!).

I spent several hours picking off by hand, and then sprayed with Dipel for all those I’d missed.

Personally, I like to use August to create some air and better drainage in my beds by adding materials discussed above, let the rain do its job and really soak into the soil, add some worm castings for soil health (bearing in mind you’ll get a huge amount of germination of whatever’s been going into those worm farms from those castings – I’m counting on tomatoes, pumpkin, zucchini, and tromboncino), and let the beds rest and rejuvenate for a week or two post winter veg harvests ready for spring and the mass plantings I’ll start in September.

I’ve also noticed my stone fruit has not yet started to form any flower buds so my spray regime for leaf curl will happen in August this year.

What’s on in our community this month?

Have some gardening news or events you’d like to share here? Contact terrisharpe@hotmail.com to feature.

Happy gardening everyone. Stay dry. Or get a bit wet! It’s only water – something we will surely need come spring so collect and store some of this rain if it’s at all possible to do so.

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