The best of seasons, the worst of seasons, for veg.
Approaching the end of one of the more bizarre summers, of 1/3 brutal heat and 2/3 mild dampness, we'd love to hear which vegetables have revelled in this odd climatic offering, and which haven't.
(and check the blog for winter veg action - you should be on to them now!)
Here in the Dandenong ranges we have had 90% damp cool weather and 8% warm and 2% heat (don’t quote me on those percentages – but you get the drift. The perennials are magical this year but as far as successful vegetables go: silverbeet, lettuces and other leafy crops have been great as have beans. Forget the tomatoes, capsicums and even the zucchini didn’t fare well. I keep having the feeling that summer is gone – but we all know how dry autumn can be here in the south so who knows!
What a strange year we have all had on this planet!
I spent my early and middle years living in central Victoria, now live on the fringes of Dartmoor, Devon, UK.
Your description of this last summer sounds just like our average summer here! Perhaps gardeners in cooler areas back home need to invest in a small greenhouse which is what we all use to grow our toms, aubergines and chillies in. Also protects toms from blight which is a real damp summer problem in potatoe/tomatoe crops here.
I dream of our long “hot” summers still….maybe we could all dream of the middle weather. North Island NZ?!!
I resowed my beans three times before success- ie 43degrees and hot winds didn’t decimate them- but now the snails are having a good crack.. my big success are my pumpkins – they have been given some good hand watering but they never really got too wilted that they didn’t seem like they would make a recovery- I have about 8 on the go..
Dwarf beans cropping but runner beans are late. Only a few ripe tomatoes to date but more on the way. There will not be the glut I had last year. Blue Sapphire potatoes harvested a month ago were a good size. Tuscan Kale, ruby chard, mignonette and lollo rosso lettuce all ok. Beautiful crop of strawberries. Pumpkins and spaghetti squash are looking good. Corn not been good this year. Capsicums and chilli have not fared well. Cucumber has been fair to middling and basil has been a bit stunted due to lack of precipitation – I only water seedlings but after that my veges have to fend for themselves.
We established new vegetable garden beds in an old weed infested spot. So anything that grows minus a weed is a plus. Corn has gone bananas, Chillies have taken forever to turn the heat up. Eggplant is doing well. After having one year of bitter eggplants I now dig fresh compost in around the roots from time to time. Next year I’ll grow one next to the compost bin. Zucchini seems happy. Tomatoes huge crop but forget it. Pests and not going through veraison.
An idea for getting those tricky carrots germinating .
One I was taught back in my Aussie bush gardening days and which I still use here on my free draining granitic sandy soil and untrustworthy well- water supply.
Dampen wide strips of hessian to lay over the newly sown rows. Keep them just damp until visible germination, then remove! This also alleviates the need to use horticultural fleece as this is a plastic product and does breakdown and shreds after a couple of years out in the sun. Nasty stuff for the environment. There is available, search the web, products now made of cotton or fine spun wool. Wonderful.
Obviously these things we grow as summer vegetables come from a wide range of types of climate and so respond differently to hot and cold weather over summer. Great year for cucumbers, chilies if you like them green, potatoes. As most folk note, tomatoes are very slow. Because I thought it was going to be a stinking hot summer I planted a smaller variety of things this year so can’t comment on eggplant or carrots. Funny season.
Interesting, though, isn’t it Peter, that while they come from a wide range of climates, the range of veggies we eat is outrageously small. When you think of all the edible plants worldwide, the list of veggies we regularly eat could nearly be counted on one hand, and the entire contents of most fruit/veg shops wouldn’t need many extra hands for counting…
We don’t stray too far out of our comfort zones most of the time. Do you know Chris Williams’ work on edible starchy crops? He has a great collection of corms, tubers etc. Albeit, in Melbourne, where the effectively subtropical climate helps. I like growing my own stuff because I can get things you don’t find in the shops or nurseries. Granted this is usually just different cultivars of things we already know about. My tomatillo and New Mexico chile crops are coming along this year and I have some very promising radicchio cultivars in the garden at the moment (thanks to Mille Ross for those).
Here in South West Queensland our vegies are only just getting going as they were only planted in mid-late January due to having no water until then. We are still in the midst of a ‘green drought’, but having now had more rainfall during February then we had for all of last year; the heirloom ‘yellow pear’ tomatoes (who coincidentally I planted for the first time among the asparagus) are revelling in the conditions! The zucchini are beginning to fruit, and the snap peas also. The corn is budding, and the pak choy almost ready. Eshallots ( Spring onions I suspect they are known ‘down south’), 😊are also going well. Sadly, the beetroot and most of the onions, put up the white flag with zero success. We have had debilitating heat and winds that just finished them off. Having lost almost 80% of my large herb garden in the last year, the basil and sage are returning to former glory, and the young oregano and thyme are also looking like sticking around! The broccolini and broccoli seeds I planted are now in the patch as healthy seedlings.
This year I am trying something new with my vegie plantings – it may possibly not be new to others however! On the first of each month, I sow approx 6-8 seeds of our most eaten vegetables/herbs, and then on the first of the following month approximately I plant them out to ensure continuous cropping, without having a ‘glut’.(Well that’s the theory anyway… let’s see what happens!) I cheated a little in January and bought some seedlings to give everything a head start. It has been good for spirits to have been able to ‘grow something’ again!
Well, the season keeps going here in Southern Tasmania. I harvested beans, eggplant, tomato, chillies and corn today. Last year at this time we were getting early frosts.
Here in the Dandenong ranges we have had 90% damp cool weather and 8% warm and 2% heat (don’t quote me on those percentages – but you get the drift. The perennials are magical this year but as far as successful vegetables go: silverbeet, lettuces and other leafy crops have been great as have beans. Forget the tomatoes, capsicums and even the zucchini didn’t fare well. I keep having the feeling that summer is gone – but we all know how dry autumn can be here in the south so who knows!
What a strange year we have all had on this planet!
I spent my early and middle years living in central Victoria, now live on the fringes of Dartmoor, Devon, UK.
Your description of this last summer sounds just like our average summer here! Perhaps gardeners in cooler areas back home need to invest in a small greenhouse which is what we all use to grow our toms, aubergines and chillies in. Also protects toms from blight which is a real damp summer problem in potatoe/tomatoe crops here.
I dream of our long “hot” summers still….maybe we could all dream of the middle weather. North Island NZ?!!
Barring the tomatoes all fabulous!
I resowed my beans three times before success- ie 43degrees and hot winds didn’t decimate them- but now the snails are having a good crack.. my big success are my pumpkins – they have been given some good hand watering but they never really got too wilted that they didn’t seem like they would make a recovery- I have about 8 on the go..
Dwarf beans cropping but runner beans are late. Only a few ripe tomatoes to date but more on the way. There will not be the glut I had last year. Blue Sapphire potatoes harvested a month ago were a good size. Tuscan Kale, ruby chard, mignonette and lollo rosso lettuce all ok. Beautiful crop of strawberries. Pumpkins and spaghetti squash are looking good. Corn not been good this year. Capsicums and chilli have not fared well. Cucumber has been fair to middling and basil has been a bit stunted due to lack of precipitation – I only water seedlings but after that my veges have to fend for themselves.
We established new vegetable garden beds in an old weed infested spot. So anything that grows minus a weed is a plus. Corn has gone bananas, Chillies have taken forever to turn the heat up. Eggplant is doing well. After having one year of bitter eggplants I now dig fresh compost in around the roots from time to time. Next year I’ll grow one next to the compost bin. Zucchini seems happy. Tomatoes huge crop but forget it. Pests and not going through veraison.
An idea for getting those tricky carrots germinating .
One I was taught back in my Aussie bush gardening days and which I still use here on my free draining granitic sandy soil and untrustworthy well- water supply.
Dampen wide strips of hessian to lay over the newly sown rows. Keep them just damp until visible germination, then remove! This also alleviates the need to use horticultural fleece as this is a plastic product and does breakdown and shreds after a couple of years out in the sun. Nasty stuff for the environment. There is available, search the web, products now made of cotton or fine spun wool. Wonderful.
Obviously these things we grow as summer vegetables come from a wide range of types of climate and so respond differently to hot and cold weather over summer. Great year for cucumbers, chilies if you like them green, potatoes. As most folk note, tomatoes are very slow. Because I thought it was going to be a stinking hot summer I planted a smaller variety of things this year so can’t comment on eggplant or carrots. Funny season.
Interesting, though, isn’t it Peter, that while they come from a wide range of climates, the range of veggies we eat is outrageously small. When you think of all the edible plants worldwide, the list of veggies we regularly eat could nearly be counted on one hand, and the entire contents of most fruit/veg shops wouldn’t need many extra hands for counting…
We don’t stray too far out of our comfort zones most of the time. Do you know Chris Williams’ work on edible starchy crops? He has a great collection of corms, tubers etc. Albeit, in Melbourne, where the effectively subtropical climate helps. I like growing my own stuff because I can get things you don’t find in the shops or nurseries. Granted this is usually just different cultivars of things we already know about. My tomatillo and New Mexico chile crops are coming along this year and I have some very promising radicchio cultivars in the garden at the moment (thanks to Mille Ross for those).
Here in South West Queensland our vegies are only just getting going as they were only planted in mid-late January due to having no water until then. We are still in the midst of a ‘green drought’, but having now had more rainfall during February then we had for all of last year; the heirloom ‘yellow pear’ tomatoes (who coincidentally I planted for the first time among the asparagus) are revelling in the conditions! The zucchini are beginning to fruit, and the snap peas also. The corn is budding, and the pak choy almost ready. Eshallots ( Spring onions I suspect they are known ‘down south’), 😊are also going well. Sadly, the beetroot and most of the onions, put up the white flag with zero success. We have had debilitating heat and winds that just finished them off. Having lost almost 80% of my large herb garden in the last year, the basil and sage are returning to former glory, and the young oregano and thyme are also looking like sticking around! The broccolini and broccoli seeds I planted are now in the patch as healthy seedlings.
This year I am trying something new with my vegie plantings – it may possibly not be new to others however! On the first of each month, I sow approx 6-8 seeds of our most eaten vegetables/herbs, and then on the first of the following month approximately I plant them out to ensure continuous cropping, without having a ‘glut’.(Well that’s the theory anyway… let’s see what happens!) I cheated a little in January and bought some seedlings to give everything a head start. It has been good for spirits to have been able to ‘grow something’ again!
Well, the season keeps going here in Southern Tasmania. I harvested beans, eggplant, tomato, chillies and corn today. Last year at this time we were getting early frosts.