Garden

Our property is in Kumbia in the South Burnett region of Queensland Australia.  The climate is sub-tropical, we get hot summers, which can be very dry or very wet.  We have cold winters and can have frost at times.  As we are relatively close to the equator, day length does not change much - in Summer it gets light around 5am and dark at 630pm, in Winter its more like 6am and 530pm respectively.

I'm still learning what grows well here and a lot of things have been a bit backwards, for example, Winter is the season for strawberries!  Here's a bit of info about about climate:

Is it winter yet? Cold weather preps
Surviving the QLD Heat Wave(s)
Growing food in the sub-tropics - the vege garden
Winter vegetable gardening in the sub-tropics
Frost preparations

Summer harvest, Winter planting

This is what I've learnt so far:

• Spring - warm days and cool nights, minimal pests, so a good time to get plants established
• Harvest silverbeet, mustard greens, spring onions and broccoli, herbs start regrowing
• Start planting seeds and seedlings for summer!
• Summer - hot and humid, slugs and powdery mildew are a problem, but if plants get established in Spring and are nice and strong they can survive and produce well
• Tomatoes, zucchinis, squash, silverbeet, corn, eggplant, beans, capsicum
• Autumn - still warm, but nights cooling off again, time to prepare for winter frosts and bring in the last of the summer harvest, time to plant winter crops including:
• peas, brasicas and root crops
• Winter - expect heavy frosts, nothing tender will survive to be eaten, put effort into silverbeet, brasicas and root crops, watch out for bandicoots!

I do try to follow organic principles where possible and my two best allies for adding fertility are mulch and compost/weed teas.  More on compost here.  And I have a worm farm.

Some other garden posts that you may find useful:

Hydroponics basics

Managing a backyard hydroponics system

Discovering Permaculture

Perennial vegetables and permaculture

Saving seeds

Growing from seeds

Broadcast sewing leafy greens

Tips for starting vegetables from seeds

My top five veges for beginner gardeners

Jerusalem artichoke

Water the garden while you're away

Crop rotation in the garden

Growing root vegetables

Thoughts on broad beans

Green onions, spring onions or shallots or…? 

The truth about legumes and nitrogen fixation

Companion planting - myth or reality?

Stop making excuses not to garden! 

How much to plant?? 

Three essential principles of organic gardening 

What you need to know about soil 

Weird vegetables in my sub-tropical garden

Does growing vegetables save you money?

Growing and eating chokos (chayotes)

Dried garlic granules

Planting seeds or seedlings?

Tromboncino!

Perennial plants and trees - a food forest

Growing pepino

Some fabulous gardening books that I refer to frequently (Thank you for supporting my blog by using my Amazon affiliate links)


     




Book reviews:

A Postage Stamp Garden - book review
The history of heirloom vegetables
A garden book and a cook book that I think you'll ...