Welcome to autumn, and here’s to the end of what has been a roller-coaster summer. Extreme heat, extreme wet, and everything in between has plagued us on the Downs this season, and to be honest, it’s been a tough few months for gardening. My enthusiasm has flagged in recent weeks, but I’m anticipating a much improved season ahead. The BOM is predicting average rainfall, warm nights and cool days. In other words, a mellow autumn that makes for great growing conditions. We can only hope.
Top billing on my “to plant” list for March is garlic. Why anyone still spends good money on the imported product, I have no idea. It’s usually irradiated or sprayed with methyl bromide to kill potential pests, often bleached, and regularly treated with growth inhibitors to prevent sprouting while in storage. By contrast, the garlic I grow at home is produced organically, with relative ease, in a reasonably small area (4sqm). It stores superbly, and keeps my garlic-loving household supplied for at least nine months of the year. And it tastes amazing.
Here’s the skinny: Garlic forms bulbs in response to two factors – cold weather, and more significantly, lengthening daylight hours. For these reasons Tassie undoubtedly grows the best garlic in Australia, but up here on the Darling Downs we have enough cold and just enough change in daylight hours to get decent results.
I’ve successfully grown a wide range of varieties, and contrary to some expert opinions, all have formed bulbs. The best, in my experience, are the softnecks. Gatton Research Station ran a garlic breeding program in the 1980′s, and came up with Glenlarge, and Southern Glen. Both are so called “day length neutral” varieties that fatten up nicely in our area. Other softnecks that perform well for me include Mexican Purple Stripe, Argentinian Purple Stripe (may be the same variety), and Italian White.
Hardneck varieties can also do okay. I’ve had good results with a beautiful French heirloom called Rose Du Var and a favourite with commercial growers, Monaro Purple. For the best range of varieties, try the Diggers Club (diggers.com.au) or for local garlic try Kym and Peter Sparshott (foodwithafuture@gmail.com), who grow lots of interesting varieties on their Ravensbourne farm. Plant cloves about five centimetres deep into reasonably rich, limed, well drained soil by the end of the month, and you’ll be harvesting in late spring.
Another allium that performs really well in autumn is the leek. Maybe it’s the Welsh blood coursing through my veins (leeks are a national emblem of Wales), but I go mad for the things, planting them now and harvesting during late winter for soups and stews. Or better still, fried gently in some butter with a handful of chopped almonds and thrown in a chicken pie. Wonder of wonders! The old Scottish variety Musselburg remains one of the best, but there are other good doers around. The French variety Jaune de Poitou is nice, and I’ve had good success with Giant Carentian. Prepare the soil and grow as for garlic.
Peas deserve a chance in autumn. Most people plant them in very early spring, and finish harvesting before the summer heat kicks in, but you can also do for edible peas, what you do for ornamental sweet peas. That is, plant them sometime near St Patrick’s Day, grow them on through autumn, harvest a few pods in early winter, and reap a bumper harvest as the plants really get going in spring.
I plant at both times of the year, but I always seem to do better with my autumn sown peas than those planted in spring. To make life even easier, I prepare the ground exactly as I do for sweetpeas – add compost and a half measure of organic fertiliser to the soil a couple of weeks before planting, followed by a dressing of garden lime when sowing the seed. Don’t worry about it burning the seeds – they absolutely love the stuff. As for varieties, my favourites are the heirloom Yorkshire Hero, for outstandingly plump pods, Dutch Capucyner for its decorative purple pods, and the traditional old snow pea Mammoth Melting.
Once the soil dries out a bit, conditions should be perfect for root vegies, and it’s high time for salad crops. Loose leaf lettuces do better in autumn than at any other time of the year, as does rocket and mizuna. Don’t ignore the lettuce relatives endive, chicory and radicchio. These too grow brilliantly during autumn, adding character to warm salads and bringing a decorative touch to the autumn garden. Radicchio starts to develop striking red leaves, which in my garden, perfectly match the autumn tones on nearby pear trees, blackberry canes and blueberry bushes. I’m hoping my fortunes in the garden change as surely as the leaves on my plants.
First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 2nd March 2013. Photo by Justin, Mexican Purple Stripe garlic.
Hi Justin
I have a bean tee-pee with the beans just about finished. Is it OK to plant climbing peas in the same spot or should it be left fallow until next spring? Not sure about how regularly legumes should be rotated and if I can get away with planting beans and peas in the same area and if so for how long?
Hi Barbara,
It’s not a major issue to replant legumes in the same bed, but the ideal is follow up a legume with something hungry like a brassicas. Otherwise you’re not really taking advantage of the nitrogen the beans have fixed in the soil.
Hope things are drying out over your way!
Hi Justin
It is lovely to see the sun again and everything drying out nicely.
Because I have the tee pee structure in place, would prefer to keep on growing beans in summer and peas in winter with just adding compost and well rotted manure when planting, plus Seasol/Power Feed applications. Is this OK on a long term basis and if so, should there be other nutrients added?
Otherwise I could make another tee pee and rotate every one, two or more years.
I wouldn’t recommend growing the same crops in the same soil year after year Barbara, unless you can give the soil a rest over winter and replenish with some compost. Even then it’s much better to have a movable trellis (or a second tee pee) and rotate at least every couple of years.
Hi Justin again,
As your photo of Garlic suggests ,it is planting time again. My result last year was quite a failure as so many of the bulbs had rotted.Yet I dont recollect it being a very wet Spring. My thought is that as I mulched the bulbs ,the moisture level was too high under the mulch.
Do you put a layer of mulch on your garlic crop ? Also do you think we should wait until this prolonged wet spell resolves itself??
Howdy Kevin. In answer to your first question, I’ve always mulched my garlic crop without any problems. Garlic hates competition from weeds, and the mulch acts as a suppressant, but note that I am growing in raised beds with reasonably well drained soil. In heavier soils it might be worth leaving the mulch off and manually removing weeds.
In terms of when to plant, the latest advice from the BOM is that we’re in for a wetter than average autumn and early winter, much like last year. Sea surface temps are at record highs off the east coast, which means more east coast lows than usual and higher rainfall. So you might be waiting a while. I’d be more inclined to work on improving the drainage in your garden beds if its a problem and getting the cloves in somtime this month or next. Leave them too late and they’ll shoot.
I will be planting in a raised bed but will cut back on the thickness of Mulch. Wait for awhile to see what happens.Just dug out 3 barrow loads of compost and a small eyed snake which looks like red bellied black but is highly venomous according to a web site for snake identification.Thats twice now I have encountered snakes in my compost pile ( the last one was a 6 ft Mulga also called a King Brown)
Hmm. Joe Blakes are always a risk with nice warm, open compost piles. Had a red bellied black hanging around prior to this rain but it seems to have disappeared for now. Nonetheless, I still prefer heaps (was going to say piles, but who prefers piles!) over tumblers and bins.
Re mulch, I should have said, I always mulch but I never whack it on really deep. Just enough to keep down the weeds. And I use reasonably coarse sugarcane.
Hi Justin, the garlic I planted on St Patricks day are sprouting nicely. However this morning I decided to check the PH in the plot alongside them and it is rather acidic ( probably about 5)
Question is should I try to change the level now to a more Alkaline level and if so do you think it would be OK to sprinkle the lime between the rows? ( about 400 mm apart)
Noted that ABC Gardening segment went a bit into reverse , less emphasis on the veges !!
I’d throw some lime on Kevin – can’t see why it would do any harm, unless you apply a huge amount in one hit. Five is a bit low for happy alliums.
Hi Justin, Do you have an Apricot Tree and if so what variety if it does O.K. in this area??
Have cut out a large Lisbon Lemon as we have ample amounts of Limes almost year round ,so now have room for one more fruit tree !!
Picking heaps of Fuyu Persimmons but all marked by fly attack I guess but no internal damage.
Skin must be too tough ,I guess.
We’ve got a couple of 30 year old apricots down the front Kevin. Not sure what variety they are, but both grow pretty well, and one produces fruit every year. They’re not the perfect tree for Hampton (they probably like it a bit drier and hotter in summer), but I think they’re well and truly good enough for backyard growers. You’ll need a bit of space or be willing to prune though.
Hello Justin. Wondering where to get garlic bulbs you talk about in your post? I haven’t seen any anywhere so am wondering could you plant some if you bought an organic variety from the shop?
Hi Regina, Sorry for the late reply – I’ve been away camping for a few days and was happily off the grid
You can get garlic from the Diggers Club, Green Harvest, Eden Seeds, the Lost Seed, or my friends at Ravensbourne, Peter and Kym Sparshott (foodwithafuture@gmail.com). And if everyone’s sold out, the next best thing is indeed organic garlic from a decent greengrocer.
Hi Regina, Green Harvest at Maleny currently have Garlic sale online and delivered per post.
Hi again Regina, In my opinion there is no reason why you could not buy Australian grown Garlic and have successful results.
My current crop planted on St Patricks day are up and away and I bought them in Woolworths.
Thanks everybody for all the great suggestions.
I know, I know ,I shouldn’t have used that swear word ( W s) in front of Justin.
!@#$%^&* Woolworths! I regret it every time I shop there.