Spring is just weeks away and with the warmer weather comes a whole new planting palette. Here’s just a taste of what you can get in the ground now.
Annuals for Warm Season Colour
Fill pots and hanging baskets with vibrant annuals to brighten outdoor entertaining areas or mass plant them in garden beds for a dramatic effect.
During the warmer months it’s all about Petunias, Snapdragons, Zinnias, Begonias, Marigolds and Impatiens just to name a few.
If you plant one thing this weekend make it the new Raspberry Shock Wave Petunia. Shock Wave Petunias spread up to 80 cm across and are smothered in masses of petite flowers for many months. ‘Raspberry’ displays pretty pink veined flowers lit with a dusky glow. It’s perfect in pots and hanging baskets or on mass in garden beds.
For the full range of spring-summer annuals check out your local garden centre or Bunning’s store.
Tips for Success:
• Water new seedlings in with a seaweed based plant tonic to help promote healthy root growth and reduce plant stress.
• Most annuals will flower in just 6-8 weeks from planting out as seedlings. To get the most out of them liquid feed every 2-3 weeks.
• Keep an eye out for hungry pests like slugs and snails.
• Stay on top of weeds so that they don’t compete with your seedlings for water and nutrients.
Tomatoes
Tasty tomatoes have deservedly become one of the mainstays of Australian vegetable gardens. They are easy to grow, productive and versatile in the kitchen – that’s what makes them such an irresistible choice! Once you have sampled delicious vine-ripened tomatoes, there’s definitely no going back to store-bought options.
Most tomatoes that you would commonly see in the supermarket have been developed to have tougher skins, uniform shape, colour and ripening, as well as an improved storage and shelf life, often at the expense of flavour. So why confine yourself to boring, round, red tomatoes when you can grow green, yellow, pink, red and even black tomatoes in a diversity of shapes and sizes?
Tomato Health and Nutrition Facts:
Tomatoes contain large amounts of vitamin C and are a good source of vitamin A, potassium, iron and vitamin E. It is the phytochemical lycopene, however, which is perhaps grabbing the most attention when it comes to the health promoting claims of the tomato. Studies have linked lycopene to the prevention or inhibition of a growing list of cancers and diseases, including prostate, colon, breast, endometrial, lung and pancreatic cancers, cardiovascular disease and stroke.
Growing:
The best thing about growing tomatoes is that you can experiment with so many types that aren’t available in supermarkets.
Tomatoes are warm-season, frost-susceptible plants. In cooler areas, plant out seedlings after the risk of frost has passed. Tomatoes require a well-drained, open and sunny spot in the garden – at least six hours of sun a day is ideal.
Before planting, prepare the soil by digging the area to around 60 centimetres deep, incorporating plenty of compost. Avoid the temptation to add excessive amounts of animal manure as high nitrogen levels will encourage leaf growth rather than flower and fruit formation. Tomatoes like a soil pH between 6 and 8. If your soil is too acidic, sprinkle a handful or two of lime or dolomite per square metre on to the soil before planting. Lime will also help prevent blossom end rot developing.
Be generous with your spacing. Tomatoes need room for their roots to spread, providing stability for the plant and improved access to water and nutrients in stressful periods. More compact varieties will obviously need less space – so check labels or growing instructions for specific recommendations. Tomato plants can root along the stem, so seedlings can be planted deeper than normal to encourage a larger root ball and a stable start.
Apply an organic mulch to suppress weeds and help conserve moisture. Tomatoes require regular and deep watering. Apply water to the base of the plant, rather than the leaves and avoid over-watering as this increases the incidence of fungal problems.
Tomatoes are the one crop that I always rotate to reduce disease build-up. If at all possible, try not to plant tomatoes in the same bed for at least two years.
Sunflowers
Spring is the perfect time to sow sunflower seeds. Kids love their jack in the beanstalk like stems and big sunny faces. Every year we have a competition in our family to see who can grow the tallest sunflower. If you want the best chance of success try growing Giant Russian Sunflowers. My grandma holds the family record of 4.5 metres. She grew hers in a fertile, sunny spot in the vegetable garden. The plants where so tall that their heads poked over the top of the garage. You can direct sow sunflower seeds to roughly twice their depth. Cover them lightly with soil and water in. Just make sure you keep slugs and snails away from young seedlings.
Garden Feast by Melissa King, Allen & Unwin, RRP: $49.95
