Approaching the heart of winter some days, it’s hard to imagine being outside. But fear not. From now until the first quarter around 7th June is time best spent in preparation of garden beds or growing spaces.
The Solutions Group has tools available in Invercargill to support you in sowing a garden. You can book tools via text message.
From June 7th on until the full moon will be optimal for sowing and planting all that produces above ground. Now is also the time for grafting and cloning due to the moon’s effect on the water molecules inside the vegetables. According to the Habitat Grow Calendar, the month of June doesn’t even get a listing (garlic season).
But fear not, as this makes a perfect opportunity to prepare for productive months ahead with prior planning.
The shortest day will reveal the least sunniest spots in the growing area which can be factored into your growing plan.
Leaf litter is in abundance and is a perfect resource to add as carbon for composting (3x more carbon/dry than wet). Pallets are also in abundance, which can be repurposed as a composting zone. Other resources such as dags, seaweed, grass clippings, horse poo, arborist mulch are good to collect as biomass for mulching, along with branches and lager chunks of wood are useful for filler in raised beds. Essentially anything organic that will eventually break down.
Upcoming months according to the grow calendar call for, broad bean, broccoli, cabbage, carrot, cucumber, garlic, kale, lettuce, mescaline, onion, parsley, pea, potato, pumpkin, squash, radish, rocket, shallot, silver beet, spring onion, tomato, turnip, zucchini.
Now presents a good time to prepare seedlings for aforementioned crops.
Try ordering Carol’s seeds on Trademe. It is a great idea to collect stock heritage heirloom vegetable seeds along with herbal plant seeds.