In The Veggie Path - December (southern Hemisphere)
By Toni Salter, Tue Jan 10th
Sit back and enjoy the festive season this month. Hydrangeasmake a wonderful Christmas display with their giant "mop heads"in shades of white, blue and pink. Often it's too hot to do toomuch in the garden now and Christmas shopping seems to takeprecedence anyway. Many of you might venture on a summer holidayaround now, so I've included a few handy tips before you go.
Holiday Care
Take care of your precious work in the garden by ensuring that aneighbour or friend can do some watering if you go away.Makesure the garden is heavily mulched with at least 5cm (andpreferably 7 or 8cm) of straw, sugarcane mulch, compost and peastraw. If you use fresh grass clippings don't lay them asheavily or it may go sludgy.Keeping the garden covered in athick layer of mulch will keep down the need for watering somuch and will also keep out the unwanted weeds. Soak all of yourpot plants for several days leading up to your departure andplace them in a shady part of the garden when you leave. Youcould try to rig up some shadecloth temporarily over sensitiveplants or areas of the garden if you're concerned about them.And don't mow your lawn too low before you go, otherwise youmight find it completely dead by the time you get back.
What to sow
Start sowing your winter crops this month. This includes all ofyour cabbage family plants like cauliflower, broccoli, Brusselssprouts and Chinese vegetables. By the time they're a reasonablesize for planting out, the weather should be starting to cooldown. Carrots, beetroot, parsley, celery, leek and silverbeetare all winter crops so they can be sown now too.
Special care of seedlings needs to happen over the next fewmonths to make sure they survive the heat. Be vigilant withdaily watering and sometimes twice a day in really hot weather.I plant my seedlings out with cardboard milk cartons aroundthem. This gives them a bit more protection from critters andgives a bit of extra shade.
Successful veggies You should be able to harvest a few"new" potatoes now if you can't wait. New potatoes are the youngones just under the surface, simply forage around under the topplayer of soil and pick a few off. The bigger ones can be dug upall at once after the tops die off later on.
Tomatoes start to come on from now also. They'll stay greenuntil the weather is consistently warm to ripen the fruit. Ifyou got in some early plants then you'll have some lush redtomatoes for Christmas lunch. Mulch around the tomatoes and cornto give them constistent water and nutrients. Keep pickingthings like cucumber, zucchini and leafy vegetables to encouragemore cropping. You can almost watch zucchinis growing beforeyour eyes!!
Successive planting means planting out seedlings every month toget a continual supply of veggies. So even if you have a fewplants producing a crop now, still sow what ever you can toextend the harvest for a few months more. An easy way of gettinganother tomato plant quickly is to take a cutting by snipping ofone of the "laterals" (or side shoots) with a clean cut, dip itin some rooting powder, stick it in a small pot of seed raisingmix, tie a plastic bag over it after giving it some water andwait for about a week. Roots develop quickly and you'll have anew plant ready for the garden in a short time.
Pinch out growing tips of cucumbers, pumpkins and squash toencourage side shoots. These side shoots produce more flowersand keep the plant contained. Give regular liquid feed for allof your vegies especially leafy crops. Steep some chicken manurein water and use that for your leafy crops since it is full ofnitrogen. But remember to dilute it to the colour of weak teaand apply it only after you've watered the garden, otherwise yourisk burning the roots.
The Flower Garden
Hydrangeas give a fantastic focal point to a shady part of thegarden. They like to be kept moist so keep the water up to themnow. Did you know that you can change the colour of yourhydrangea flowers depending on whether your soil is acid oralkaline?From about July, just keep adding lime to the soil tomake them pink or add sulphur to make them blue.Do this for afew months and they'll be right for a December display.
Don't be fooled into thinking that there is something wrong withyour poinsettia in the garden because it isn't red like
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