JUNE In The Garden
- Robertson Garden Club
- Jun 4, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 27, 2024
Written by Kathy Finnigan
Winter is here and it is time to get out and get stuck into some winter gardening tasks.
THE VEGETABLE GARDEN
Plant seedlings:
broad bean
bulb onions (brown, white and red Spanish) and golden shallots bulbs.
Sow directly:
(in a warm spot or raised bed)
spring onions
broad beans
English spinach.
In containers, under glass or indoors:
cabbage
cauliflower
broccoli (and raise as seedlings for August planting) and
mesclun mix
rocket
coriander.
These should be kept in containers and placed in a warm spot and fertilised and watered as needed.
Asparagus and rhubarb crowns will be in stores soon and both appreciate a well-prepared bed dug deep and improved with lots of compost and well-rotted manure.
Manure crops
If you have some of your garden bed empty over the cooler months, why not plant a green manure crop. They add nutrients to impoverished soil as well as improving soil texture. Please enjoy an extract from Organic Gardener Magazine below.
Boost fertility with green manure
By: Justin Russell in Organic Gardener Magazine
First published: April 2011
Last modified: May 2013
A way of composting in situ rather than building an external heap, green manure is simply a crop that gets broadcast sown on a spare garden bed, is allowed to grow until lush and leafy, then before it sets seed, gets slashed to the ground and turned back into the soil. Within days the “manure” begins to decompose, providing food fungi, micro-organisms and earthworms, which in turn, increase the soil's fertility with their castings.I've been using green manures since I built my current vegie garden in 2007, and with excellent results. I find that once decomposition of organic matter is complete the soil becomes as light and fluffy as one of my wife's pancakes. This fluffiness indicates to me that the soil is full of life-giving oxygen and healthy aerobic bacteria, and will retain moisture and nutrients like a sponge.
I'm getting ready to sow some cool season green manure this week. A good seed combination for autumn and winter, particularly in frosty zones, is a triumvirate of mustard, legume and grass. When mustard decomposes in the presence of moisture, it releases a natural form of mustard gas that helps cleanse the soil. It's particularly effective on harmful nematodes. A legume such as clover or vetch will capture nitrogen from the air and “fix” it in special modules in the roots, boosting fertility. And a grass such as barley or oats will provide bulk organic matter to feed the worms.
The great thing about green manure compared to composts and animal dung is that it can be purchased very cheaply by the kilogram. If you're unsure of quantities, you can buy ready-mixed green manure kits from some seed suppliers, but it doesn't really matter whether one plant is more dominant than the others. The main thing is to give green manure a go. It's the best way I know to keep your food producing garden humming along for years, and even decades to come.
GARDEN MAINTENANCE
In The Vegetable Garden
Cut back asparagus fern, fertilise and mulch. I do my peonies at the same time with the same fertilizer and mulch. I try and find a fertiliser with a combination of poultry manure, blood and bone and fish meal. I then add pot ash or wood ash from my wood heater. I mix it well and scatter a small spade full around each plant, water well and then mulch with sugar cane mulch to a depth of 10 cm. It is also the best time of the year to divide rhubarb crowns and replant and/or fertilize and mulch established clumps.
In The Orchard
Time to start preparing sites for bare rooted trees and berries. Plants will start to appear in the nurseries in the next month so get your planting sites ready in advance by digging holes, adding amendments such as well rotted compost and rock minerals. This will mean, that once purchased, your plants can go into the ground straight away.
Here is a helpful video on how to plant bare rooted trees via Gardening Australia.
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