Spring fruit and vegetable gardening

Hi everyone

Weeds

You have probably noticed all the weed plants are germinating and growing. It is time to knock them down, hoe them out or cover with mulch or cardboard before they grow bigger and develop seeds. Dealt with now, they will add to the soil humus as they break down.

Left until they are big, the job is harder. They will be well established with long roots that will disturb the plants you really want to grow. If they are allowed to set seed, there will be enough new seed produced to make the garden weedy for the next seven or more years.

I no longer weed my vegetable garden with fork, spade or rotary hoe. I only pull out the odd weed in Spring. I rely on cardboard and straw "books" or 10cm blocks of baled straw to suppress all my weeds. Sawdust is great too but it is a soil robber. Some nitrogen must be added with it to prevent it from starving the plants growing around it A few breakthrough weeds are easy to manage if mulch is used on the beds.

Lay mulch out in Spring in the hard to reach areas under small fruits, fruit trees. Place mulch up to 10cm thick between vegetable seedlings, when they are approximately 15cm tall. Any shorter and they are likely to be buried. It is important to lock the chooks out as they will think it is party time laid on just for them. This is my raspberry bed that has just been mulched this month, ready for Summer growth.

Prepare the vegetable plots or beds for Spring and Summer crops

Most of the vegetables that have been cropped over Winter will be coming to an end now. Finished plants can be pulled out and added to the compost or fed to the chooks. Pull back any remaining mulch on the bed to reapply later. Empty beds can be sprinkled with garden lime, blood and bone, compost, animal manures. Gently hoe the top layer of the soil to remove any weed and dig in the manure. Leave for at least a week before replanting with new plants.

Rotate the crop families that are grown in your beds

By rotating the crops and plots, the soil will build humus and create a healthy biome with less weeds, diseases, bugs and it will grow better fruits and vegetables for all your effort.

Crop rotations need a minimum of four separate or adjoining beds:

First - A well manured bed that has been rejuvenated with a green manure crop suits tomatoes and capsicum family, zucchinis and pumpkins and other rich loving plants.

Next - The plot previously used for tomatoes etc., use to plant all the greens and alliums.

Next - Follow plantings of green and alliums with the root vegetable crops like carrot, parsnip and beetroot. These plants like a poorer soil.

Next - Follow root vegetables with a rest cycle. Plant a green manure crop in the plot. Knock down green manure at 20cm high, cover with compost and manures, cover with a layer of straw mulch and leave to cook for at least a month. This will rejuvenate the soil.

Back to the beginning of the rotation cycle again.

What to plant now

All the leafy greens - silverbeet, chard, spinach, lettuce

Seeds of carrot, peas, beetroot and spring onion

Zucchini, pumpkin and cucumber seedlings

Sweet corn seeds or seedlings

Make sure all new vegetable seedlings are not allowed to dry out, or they will bolt to seed.

Leave until next month

Tomatoes, capsicum, eggplant, basil, chilli and beans to avoid frosts and cold soil.

What is finished and what can be rejuvenated

Vegetables such as broccoli and kale can still be cropped of their last broccolini and leaves. In a few weeks the aphids will find them and they will be done for the season. Pull them out and add to the compost. All the chinese vegetables such as bok choy, pak choy and choy sum are finishing. They will just go straight to seed if new seedlings are planted now. Leave until Winter to replant.

Cauliflower, brussel sprouts, cabbage can be pulled out now.

Silver beet, celery, perpetual spinach and chard plants will want to go to seed now. These plants can be cropped until Summer or later if they are chopped off at ground level, fertilised and allowed to re-grow. Otherwise, pull them out and replant new seedlings in another plot.

What other vegetables can still be harvested for a bit longer

Carrots, beetroot, herbs such as parsley and coriander, spring onions, snow peas, Winter lettuce, bok choy, kale, pak choy, choy sum, celery will all still be good for the next month when they will be replaced by Summer crops.

If you are lucky enough to have an ornamental garden, enjoy the last of the bulbs and the start of glorious clematis.

Happy gardening!