Early summer is one of the most exciting times
in the productive garden,
and if you live in a cool-temperate climate like this one,
it's also really important.
You have to take advantage of every moment in the season,
every space in the garden and, of course, every strategy.
So today I want to show you a few things to do right now
to get even more out of your productive patch.
One thing about growing in this climate
is that that warmer growing season is really short,
so you have to use a lot of strategies to get a harvest.
Things like tomatoes that a lot of gardeners would have planted
months ago are only now getting into the ground.
And I actually grow them from seed.
I start them in about August and then I grow them on
in different pot sizes in a sheltered spot
right through to a six-inch pot.
Now, these have literally doubled in size in a week.
They are rocketing away, which means it's time to start training them.
Now, the first thing I need to do
is, of course, give them some sort of support,
so this year I'm using a steel reo bar stake,
and I think it's gonna do a really good job.
Won't rot in the ground, and, of course, I'll be able to use them
year after year after year.
Now, the other thing you need to do at this time of the year
is to start to prune these tomatoes.
Most varieties that we grow in the home garden
will continue to grow on a nice long stem,
but you don't want that energy being taken by these.
These are the lateral buds, they come in this leaf axil here,
so you actually need to remove these completely.
Also, some of these lower leaves,
it's important that they can't touch the ground,
because that is a real risk for fungal infection into the plant.
And for a bit of safety, a pot on top.
Well, summer is renowned for those warm air temperatures.
If you're a gardener, it's the soil temperature that counts,
and a lot of things shouldn't go into the ground
until the soil is warm enough for them to thrive.
Now, I keep an eye on that warming soil in a couple of different ways.
The first one is by watching the garden.
You can see here
there are some nasturtiums germinating in the garden bed
that they grew in last year.
Now, here they will only grow in the warmer months.
In winter, they are obliterated by frost.
So the fact that they're germinating in this garden
tells me the soil is warming up enough for them to start growing.
The other thing I use is a little soil temperature thermometer.
Now, this is for measuring temperatures in compost,
but I also find it really fascinating
to watch how those temperatures fluctuate in the garden beds.
Now, you might notice
that I haven't actually mulched any of these beds yet,
and that is because even the sun's warmth can help to warm that soil.
But we have got some more hot and windy weather on the way,
so it's time I give them a bit more protection.
For an early summer mulch, I'm only using the thinnest of coatings.
As Jerry says, just a veneer.
As the warmer weather comes
and the bed is at much more of a risk of drying out,
I put on that insulative, thick doona of mulch,
but right now, I want the sun's warmth
and any rainfall to find its way into the soil.
While some crops are happy to be started early
and raised to maturity in pots,
others are always best sown directly into the ground from seed.
Beans are one of these crops.
Simply sow seed overnight in water,
push a hole in the ground between your first and second knuckle,
drop in two seeds and water in.
There are other crops
that really need that warmer weather to absolutely thrive,
things like corn and of course pumpkins.
And I have this space in the bottom of the garden
which I reckon is the perfect place to make my pumpkin pile.
So the way I do it is loads of cardboard.
There's a little bit of sticky tape on some of the boxes,
so it's important to remove that and then put it on really thick,
and overlap it so that the weeds can't find their way through.
Next I'm gonna add loads of nutrients
to help break down that cardboard
in the form of some of my chickens' manure.
And then, of course, magic ingredient - water.
You need to soak that cardboard and the manure.
Next I'm gonna use a bit of garden waste.
These are brassica stems.
They're gonna make a perfect drainage layer here.
Now, of course, this is aged a little bit,
this chicken manure, but it is still quite strong,
and you wouldn't use it directly onto new little plants,
but I'm mixing it up with this woody material
at the base of the pile.
That means that that nitrogen in the manure
will help to break down all of that woody stuff
right at the base.
It also means that by the time the pumpkin roots
have worked their way down to it,
it is composted a little bit further.
And then the magic ingredient
in almost any type of garden,
a little bit of homegrown compost.
And that's just gonna introduce all of those organisms
that are gonna help to break all of this down
and turn it into pumpkin food.
The icing on the pile is a thick layer of straw.
More of the magic ingredient, water,
which will settle this straw into place,
but also help to moisten all of those layers.
Then I'll make a planting pocket in the top
with a big bucket of homemade compost
mixed with a bit of soil.
I'll plant four seeds into the mound
and thin to the two strongest when they germinate.
You might have noticed that my chickens are just as interested
in this pumpkin mound as I am,
so I'm gonna put an old hanging basket on top of the actual plants,
and then I'll cover that straw
to make sure they don't pull all of my good work apart.
One really big tip I have to increase the productivity
in any garden but is particularly important in a cold climate
is to take advantage of every bit of space.
I use a lot of quick-turnaround crops
to get more value out of the bed
in between the main plantings.
So this bed was my brassica bed last winter,
and most of them were finished in early September.
I pulled them out,
except for that one 'Spigariello' up there,
which I'm saving seed from.
I composted the bed
and I am preparing it to then plant radicchio,
which goes in and grows over a really long period of time as well.
But in between those longer-term crops,
I always try and get in a shoulder crop
of something like lettuce.
This is 'Mignonette'.
It's one of my absolute favourite varieties to grow,
and there's only a tiny window
that you can have success in this climate with them.
These go in at the end of winter, early spring,
and then within six or eight weeks, I'm harvesting them all
as a glut,
I can put another layer of compost on,
and then the main crop goes in.
But that means I get twice the seasonal value
out of this one bed.
The last thing I want to share with you,
and it might sound really shocking,
that in the start of summer
I'm already thinking about winter.
If I waited until autumn,
when many people plant things like their brassicas,
the days are already too short
and the weather's getting too cold,
they won't grow.
They just stop absolutely still
and there's nothing to eat in winter.
So I use these warmer growing months
to make sure that there's also gonna be plenty to eat in the wintertime.
I've already sown seed of things like brussels sprouts
and some of the broccoli varieties
which we planted out in January.
And I'm also really focused
on one of my absolute favourite winter crops,
and that is radicchio.
Now, I've been trying to grow these well for many years,
and I've developed what I think
is a pretty good system.
First one is that you need to go into individual cells,
'cause they actually really despise being disturbed
in the root system.
Then I'm gonna water those in,
and in three or four weeks,
they'll go straight into the garden.
They'll enjoy lots of summer weather
to grow into big strong plants,
and when the cool weather comes,
they'll make those delicious red hearts.
There is no doubt that summer
is an incredibly exciting time in the garden,
the anticipation of all of those flavours to come.
But if you can keep your eye on the prize,
and that is the detail,
and practise a few of these little techniques,
not only will you be eating over the next few months,
you will have delicious food well into winter.
I've got plenty to get on with. I reckon you do too.