Its time to shake off the winter vegie patch blues, my friends, and get the ball rolling for a productive season ahead!
Start with a big old clean out to create space (and score lots of goodies for making compost!), then focus on sowing greencrops. So well timed: greencrops sown now will prime soils for mid spring plantings.
Make space for the new
These 5 practices keep space freed up for a constant flow of new crops + keep health high + keep a very small area, highly productive. In an ideal world, keeping the vegie patch sorted, happens in a little and often way – I call this keeping momentum up and it’s simply done:
- harvest crops as soon as they are ready. Right about now is a good time to get over wintering yams, carrots and parsnips up. Wash them, dry them and store them in a bag in the crisper.
- remove spent crops as soon as they are no longer useful. Chop them off at ground level then crunch or chop them up for compost or mulch. Put big chunky bits like broccoli stalks beneath avocados or other fruit trees to slowly break down.
- keep on top of weeds. If weeds are big and bolshy – get weeding. Yuk, I know, but far easier now before spring growth kicks in. If you dont need the bed in a hurry, the option is there to cover them with black plastic and leave them to melt into the soil. Far better for soil fertility to avoid letting weeds crowd the garden out, and face it far better for you too! Get them small, little and often is your friend in so may ways, either pull them, how them or cover them with mulch, or exclude them by growing living mulches.
- keep productive crops clean of old ratty foliage. Without old leaves blocking space up, opportunity to sow and plant arises, especially beneath tall crops like broccoli.
- fill the new spaces right away! Preferably with soil building greencrops – especially if the soil is tired and needs reviving. The fastest road to fertility is to keep the soil filled with roots.
What to plant and sow in August
SOW
DIRECT SOW
- Greencrops of mustard and phacelia, for spring nectar to feed and entice bee + predatory insects.
- Lupin greencrops sown this month will be pre-flower and ready to cut down or plant amongst, come October. A perfectly timed precursor to mid-spring plantings of heavy feeders like corn, tomatoes and squash.
- Potatoes, if conditions are right
- Poppy, calendula and borage
TRAY SOW
- Broccoli, cabbage, spring onions, red onions, brown onions, peas in plug trays, miners lettuce, corn salad, parsley, various saladings
- Tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, cucumbers, zucchini will need a heat pad in order to warm the seed raising mix to 20°C. Don’t rush into these! There’s a bit of math coming up to help you figure out if you are ready or not.
DIRECT OR TRAY SOW
- Broadbeans
- Spinach, coriander, bok choy, beetroot, saladings or rocket in the greenhouse, or under a cloche – unless its warm enough outside at yours.
TRANSPLANT
- Broadbeans, peas and brassicas
- Broccoli, kale, cabbage, onions, shallots, spring onions, perpetual spinach, silverbeet
- Saladings, beetroot, potatoes or bok choy in the greenhouse
- Strawberries
- Asparagus
Asparagus prep
Prep your asparagus patch for a productive season by weeding it first, then spread a decent layer of homemade compost. If you don’t have enough, mix it with bought compost or vermicastings. A layer of seaweed on top is an awesome option if you are seaside.
Top it all off with a generous mulch of whatever you can scrounge – sea wrack makes a well suited mulch, reminding asparagus of its seaside origins. This year I’m using long grass aka homemade hay. Don’t worry about blocking the asparagus, those spears are like little drills – they’ll easily pierce through.
Timing it right: tomatoes, peppers and aubergines from seed
Tomatoes, peppers and aubergines are ready to transplant 6 – 8 weeks after sowing. Work backwards from here to figure out your perfect sowing moment.
If you have a greenhouse or live in the winterless north, you can get on the job this month knowing that there is a toasty warm, free draining, well nourished environment to transplant your seedlings into.
Without these things, wait until conditions are right. When conditions are right, plants are happy. And when plants are happy they flourish – growing strongly with a lot less pests and disease. Gardening satisfaction guaranteed.
Regular + Odd jobs
- Order in seeds – remember greencrops!
- Keep broccoli, leafy greens and parsley going as long as you can with daily harvests. Mulch the soil around them to keep it cool through September and slow them from going to seed.
- If you wont have enough compost for all your beds, order in some that’s organic and residue free. Bought compost will be immature and devoid of life, so buying it now gives it time to mature and become imbued with life. Sit it on your soil for a while, simple as that. Don’t smother it under a plastic cover, a bit of carpet or some such is better. If its been sealed in a plastic bag, free it from its suffocating bonds and empty it onto the soil. Perhaps pour some EM over it – let it breathe and revitalise before adding it to your garden. If you cannot find good compost, consider vermicastings – less risk and an all round excellent soil food.
August in the greenhouse
Its time to give the greenhouse its annual scrub down. Such an important job each year to get rid of any newly formed moulds before they embed in the plastic.
I use warm soapy water and a soft broom. Clean both the outside and the inside, then rinse the soap off and set the sprinkler on the beds to wash any soap through.
Prep the beds
Next add compost. The greenhouse is a high stress environment it needs more than outside beds do. Check in with your soil to work out how much compost yours needs. A fine layer is enough for me because after many years of applying compost, rotating crops with greencrops, keeping moisture steady through summer and letting the chooks in for 6 weeks in winter, the soil is fab.
If you don’t have enough compost, sow a greencrop now for planting amongst later. Or, extend your compost by mixing it with vermicastings or well rotten manure or cheats compost. Then mulch with whatever rotten organic matter you have to hand.
- Plant companions like alyssum, bishops flower, nasturtium, poppy, borage, phacelia and shoofly near the door and down the back, like a trail of breadcrumbs to bring the bees and predatory wasps all the way in.
- Set up the heatpad, gather seed raising mix, wash labels and trays – spring is coming!