If there’s one thing on your mind as you head into summer – let it be soil care. When the soil is well the crops are well. Here are your 3 soil health essentials:
If you’re going away, sow greencrops in every gap and make sure everything is properly hydrated before you go away.
What to plant + sow in December
A December planted zucchini, cucumber + a few tomatoes are awesome when late summer rolls around. Keep the harvests flowing in, in a regular way with regular, little plantings and sowings this month.
Sow
Direct Sow
- Carrots and parsnip
- Sow coriander and rocket in part shade – beneath taller crops works well.
- Flowers like cosmos, bishops flower and cornflower to keep the bees and beneficials fed.
- Sow summer greencrops in every space: phacelia, buckwheat, mustard, marigold, bishops flower, daikon, flax, crimson clover or lupin are all great options. Make a mixture! The more diverse the ground cover the stronger your soils.
Tray Sow
- Climbing beans, dwarf beans, corn, cucumber, zucchini, tomato, dill, basil, chervil, red onion, spring onion
- Zinnia, anise hyssop, sunflower, cleome, migonette, love lies bleeding and loads of marigolds
Direct or tray sow
Transplant
- Corn, leeks, red onions, spring onions, potatoes, parsley and companion flowers
- Last call to plant out melons, squash, kumara, and yams. They need to be in ground early summer at the latest if you want them ripe by autumn
- Plant tomatoes, basil, marigolds, zuchinni, melons, cucumber, dwarf beans, climbing beans and soya beans into the greenhouse, unless you live in warmer climes and can plant them outside
In praise of dwarf beans
Dwarf beans are such a useful gap filler – they zoom from seed to harvest in 9 weeks! But unlike climbing beans they crop all in one go, and that’s it – c’est fini! For continuity of supply, sow a new little row every fortnight or month – whatever suits.
Choose dwarf beans if your garden is windy – they are easy to tuck away out of the blast. Hold them up with a stake either end of the row and a bit of twine about the middle – no frames, another bonus!
Protect new seedlings
If it’s hot at yours, shade comes to the rescue. I plant all my summer seedlings out under an older plant or amongst greencrops or under a simple shade cloth shelter – what a difference! Much depends, of course, on your climate and the weather of the day.
- Plants that love heat may only need shade for a day or so, and only if it’s roasting hot.
- Plants not so keen on the heat like leafy greens, need shade a little longer and may even need it for the duration. In hot or dry places, plant them where there is afternoon shade from a taller crop or tree.
Regular + odd jobs
- Harvest onions and garlic and get them up and curing. Especially if they are heading off to seed – the bulbs wont fatten anymore from here. Re sow the bed right away with a mixed greencrop, or plant a mix of light feeders like beans, flowers and saladings.
- Make a compost pile – or 3!
- Move worm farms out of the afternoon sun.
- Fossick beneath potatoes for the first new spuds of the season – treats!
- Stay chill about the pests. There’s lots you can do to minimise them – water properly, stop over feeding, stop feeding artificial fertilisers and grow a boomer population of beneficial insects. Meantime squash the ones you see on your daily check in.
Harvest herbs
Mint, thyme, lemon balm, roses, chamomile and oregano are lush and ripe for harvest right now. Catch leaf herbs before they flower, and flower herbs when they are at their height of perfection. Pick them in the morning after the dew has dried but before the sun burns off their oils. I dry them in my dehydrator.
They also dry perfectly well, hanging in small bunches or laying in single layers in baskets or woven trays, somewhere warm, airy and out of direct sunlight.
Jars of homegrown herbs are super useful for winter in cooking, medicine and herb teas. They make lovely homemade christmas pressys too.