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It’s been a fabulous growing season!
After a very dry spring, January started with rain, and it has continued to be a pretty perfect summer for veggies.
Right now, while you’re sweating through the humidity to keep up with the weeding and mowing, you also need to be planning for winter.
Brassica seedlings can go in now for a late autumn and winter harvest. You can plant a second rotation in April for spring harvest. Protect from cabbage moth if necessary, with exclusion netting, though I haven’t seen so many around the last few weeks.
You may just squeeze another crop of beans and definitely sow your snow pea and sugar snap seed now. Field peas too if you have room.
Salad greens of course - make sure the seed bed stays moist on the hot days.
Coriander will be perfect as will English spinach and silver beet. Radish will be ready in 5 weeks from seed.
Carrot and beetroot will germinate quickly and can overwinter in the beds. Cover your seed bed with hessian or shade cloth to keep it damp and improve germination.
Beetroot will germinate a couple of days before carrot if sown at the same time. Both these crops need a weed free bed and well-prepared soil without a heap of nitrogen. Soak your beetroot seed overnight before sowing in a bowl of water with a pinch of borax to improve germination and prevent hollow beets.
Feed your beds with compost or a good quality organic pelletised fertiliser and remember to check pH and adjust as necessary. Sow on a cover crop in the beds which will not be used over the winter, or top them up with compost, cover with newspaper or cardboard and then cover with lucerne hay so they will be fed and rested and ready to plant in spring.
You may just fit in another burst of sunflowers as well if you sow them now.
Don’t forget to water and weed!
SAGE member Lindsay Gates - coordinator of the SAGE food shares, pens her thoughts and journey to food shares with a beautiful open letter to the community, and an invitation to get to excited about food by attending, Read Lindsay's letter.
Concern is mounting that new food safety regulations could put local vegetable growers out of business and bring about the end of the iconic SAGE Farmers Market in Moruya.
The NSW Food Authority recently released a draft of its new food regulations which will impact all vegetable growers, dairies, and egg, meat and seafood producers from February 2025.
