Skip to main content

Knowing when to plant seeds if you're between climate zones

When I started trying to plant seeds, I would look at the climate map and wonder exactly what zone we lived in.  In the Lockyer Valley, just west of Brisbane, we were either sub-tropical or temperate.  The only problem was that these have almost exactly opposite planting times!  And now in Nanango, we are still in an ambiguous area of the map, on the each of these two zones. 






We do have a very hot and humid summer in Nanango, but the winters can get very cold due to our proximity to the Bunya Mountains.  We can get frosts, but even this depends on exactly where you are, as properties on the top of hills generally don’t suffer as badly as those in the valleys (and this is a hilly area). 

Fortunately, at the local farmers markets I had a chat to a local lady was selling seeds about when to plant.  It turned out that she lived just up the road from us and could give us some good local advice.  She said to follow the subtropical guide through summer, but as soon the weather gets colder, you need to be prepared to switch to the temperate guide.  I had never thought of using both zones in that way! 



The biggest problem I have is frosts in winter. Originally, my techniques for protecting the garden from frost were limited to putting old net curtains over venerable plants, such as silverbeet, so that dew wouldn’t form on them, this seems to work, but I only have a limited supply of netting and it is labour intensive!  However, one frosty morning, I noticed that we didn’t have any frost around the water tanks.  This is because the large volume of water in the tank stays warmer overnight compared to the air temperature and provides a little pocket of warmer air to protect the surrounding grass from frost.  This made me think of replicating the effect on a smaller scale in the garden by putting buckets of water around the garden to protect silverbeet and seedlings.  We’re also lucky that the garden itself is close to the tanks, so probably has a little protection from cold air. 

This is a technique that was used by Bolivians for centuries to raise the local temperature and boost their productivity (more here).  It seems that you just have to work out over time which plants will grow well in your garden, in your micro-climate, in your soil, especially when a neighbour just up the hill may have a completely difference climate and geology to your own.  For example, I found out the hard way that peas will not grow here in the summer, its just too hot, but they didn’t do well in winter either (too cold!), they seemed to thrive in spring, when the temperature and sunlight hours in my garden were just right.  I don’t think that follows any planting guide!  So it looks like I will just have to figure it out for myself.

I've written heaps more about frost here.

What's your climate like?  Does it show up on the climate map?

Comments

  1. Gosh Liz, your post rings true on so many levels. Even though I am firmly in the tropical zone I find that some years the hot humid weaher is a long time coming, and so I can extend the winter crop a bit. The the thing is that you dont know in advance. One thing I have found quite useful is to plant a "top layer" that provides shade, and also a little protection from heavy downpours. I like to think I am creating a bit of a forest garden, letting nature even things out. it seems up here very few crops like to grow in full sun.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh yes! We live up a mountain ( Blue Mountains, almost at the top but not quite ) so we aren't cool weather zone all year round, but in winter we get many many hard frosts and snow most years so we fall into cool climate or cool temperate. Come summer proper, we become temperate as we can have many days easily in the mid to late 20s plus.

    I've struggled with peas here so much. Snow peas do kind of ok, but real peas, forget it! Spring is too cold for too long, then summer kicks in, and winter is also too cold :( so no peas for me lol. Interestingly the last few years we've had quite humid yet dry summers. Up here you never used to get humidity at all!

    It's all so interesting, and like you said, the microclimates! A town 9 mins further up from us, some people can grow citrus, some just can't. I get away with Myer lemons here and a variety of mandarin, another friend near me has a wonderful grapefruit tree, yet others say they won't grow up here!

    Love the tip about the buckets though. Makes total sense :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've got peas and beans in together right now I don't want a late frost my vegie garden got totally wiped out one year.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks, I appreciate all your comments, suggestions and questions, but I don't always get time to reply right away. If you need me to reply personally to a question, please leave your email address in the comment or in your profile, or email me directly on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com

Popular posts from this blog

The new Eight Acres website is live!

Very soon this blogspot address will automatically redirect to the new Eight Acres site, but in the meantime, you can check it out here .  You will find all my soaps, ebooks and beeswax/honey products there, as well as the blog (needs a tidy up, but its all there!).  I will be gradually updating all my social media links and updating and sharing blog posts over the next few months.  I'm very excited to share this new website with you!

Chicken tractor guest post

Sign up for my weekly email updates here , you will find out more about chickens, soap and our farmlife, straight to your inbox, never miss a post!  New soap website and shop opening soon.... Tanya from Lovely Greens invited me to write a guest post on chicken tractors for her blog.  I can't believe how many page views I get for chicken tractors, they seem to be a real area of interest and I hope that the information on my blog has helped people.  I find that when I use something everyday, I forget the details that other people may not be aware of, so in this post for Tanya, I tried to just write everything I could think of that I haven't covered in previous posts.  I tried to explain everything we do and why, so that people in other locations and situations can figure out how best to use chicken tractors with their own chickens. The dogs like to hang out behind the chicken tractors and eat chicken poo.  Dogs are gross! If you want to read more about...

How to make soap with beer (and tallow)

I may  have mentioned this before.... soap making is addictive!  Once you start, you just want to keep making more soap.  And not the same soap, you want to try all sorts of different soaps.  I made the mistake of joining a facebook group called Saponification Nation  and now my facebook newsfeed is full of glorious soaps, in all colours and shapes, which makes it even harder to resist the urge to experiment.  One soap that kept popping up a few weeks ago was soap made with beer. I generally prefer not to use ingredients just for the sake of it, I like to know that they are adding something to the properties of the finished soap.   As you know, I don't like to use artificial ingredients either (colours or fragrances).   When I read about beer in soap I found out that beer adds sugar to the mixture, which increases lather.  I use tallow in my soap, which has limited lather, so anything that adds lather could improve the soap.  ...