EXTENDING THE SUMMER GLUT in cool - temperate areas – jan/feb 07

If you live in a cool temperate climate in the southern hemisphere then this is for you!
It’s coming up to that time of year where you should be getting the best out of your summer crops (water availability permitting!)
Hopefully you have mulched the whole garden to keep the moisture levels up and kept an eye
on the ever present weeds that just love the fact you’ve made a great home for them. Weeds
are a great soil type indicator. In my suburban garden I have sandy acidic soil, so the culprits invading the garden are usually dock, sorrel, milk thistles and spurge. I do get lots of chickweed and fat hen which means the soil is very fertile (where the compost bin and chicken house live especially) but the chooks get to eat them, so I don’t mind. The rest go into
the compost. So, back to the task of extending those summer crops. I’ve found that with our uncertain
temperatures down here on the south coast at the moment, I’ve had to take some extra care
with the vege garden as we have had very high temperatures early on in the growing season
and I’m preparing for the heat of last few weeks of summer. I’ve built a trellis over my back
verandah to keep that part cool with a passionfruit vine and some shade cloth to keep the
temperatures down on my potted plants. I’ve designed it so that the northern winter sun will still
be able to get through. I had the clothesline placed in the centre of the garden as I have a
small back yard where trees for shade would be more of a hindrance than help. I placed shade
cloth over this when I knew we were going to have extreme temperatures and where I had
vulnerable seedlings I made small shade cloth umbrellas with a series of small stakes. Living
on the coast I have a high dew content and I found that the shade cloth captured quite of bit of
water for the plants.
Hopefully you have placed your vege garden on a northerly aspect with the higher plants such
as corn, beans and tomatoes towards the south and west. Beans are incredibly hardy and can
cope with a bit of westerly heat. I use my corn patch as a living trellis by growing beans there.
But it’s the hot dry winds of summer that make gardening a challenge. Hardy trellises of
passionfruit vine or a windbreak hedge of lillypilly or strawberry guava would help alleviate this
situation. Companion planting of herbs and flowers also provide extra shade for vulnerable
plants. Most of the soft bodied veges, such as lettuce and spinach, can tolerate quite a bit of
shade.
To extend the life of most plants you have to remember to keep up the care of those plants.
Watering at the right times is still essential, especially with the heat, so that means early
morning or better still the evening before. Drip irrigation of the vege garden works well if you
can spread the water well enough. It may take a bit of experimenting to get it just right for your
needs.
Sometimes we often fall into the trap of letting the fully grown vegetable plants go,
thinking that they’ve reached their full potential when the fruit is ripe.
This is true to an extent, but we can help the fruiting content along by picking
regularly, feeding regularly, pinching back leggy tendrils or tip cutting. Picking tomatoes with
the first blush of colour allows the plant to keep on flowering thinking it needs to keep on
fruiting. It’s wonderful to watch those tomatoes fully ripen on the kitchen window sill. This isn’t
viable, of course, if you planted a huge amount of fruiting vegetables, so this means being
efficient with collection and preserving, making sure you’re doing something everyday while the
fruit is coming on.
Beans can get really out of hand if you don’t pick regularly and this season
I’ve already got my seeds for next summer after leaving them alone for 4 days!
Another way of extending the life of your food output is to keep on planting through the
summer months, providing you can shade the young seedlings well with either larger plants or
shade cloth. Young zucchini and tomatoes plants are less susceptible to frost and mildew
problems as the weather cools down. Plant out extra veges when the older plants have started
flowering.
Seaweed fertilizer – either sprayed directly onto plants or at the base. I made mine in a big
bucket with some weed off the beach. I let it sit for a month in the sun with a lid to keep the dog
and mozzies out. Watered down 20 to 1and applied weekly will give veges a real boost.
Urine – watered down 20 to 1 and used once a month keeps the nitrogen levels up. Never
store urine as the ammonia levels and some pathogens may get out of hand. I use it
regularly on my compost heap to help in the breaking down process.
Compost – keep up the compost making process and keep on adding it to the garden. You
can make a compost tea out of it as well to spread the goodness evenly over your garden. A
couple of handfuls in a bucket of water stirred and let sit for a couple of days will do the trick.
Worm Juice – I can’t say enough about worm juice. It’s a wonder drug for your plants. They
will produce massive amounts of fruit with regular applications of watered down juice. This can
be a foliage spray or applied at the base of plants, 20 to 1 again.
Remember to spray only at dusk in our hot weather or you’ll scorch your plants. Water acts like
a lens on a plant when the sun hits it directly. Good luck with the glut and happy gardening.