last gasp harvest

[tielan]

Report from a late summer garden (in the southern hemisphere):

Harvest and planting for winter.

My area in Australia is mild enough that cool-weather leafy greens do pretty well over winter, so long as you protect them from frost.

I know most of you equatorially-north folks are just getting into planting times for your gardens - what do you plan to grow this year (and how's that coming along), and is there anything new you're going to try this growing season?

Speaking for myself, I'm trying to grow: cabbage, cauliflower, bok-choy, raab broccoli (I've never had luck with regular broccoli), rocket, brussel sprouts, onions (both the ones you use the leaf stalk and the ones you store the bulb), carrots, parsnips, sugarbeet, and the usual run of beetroot (which I have finally worked out how to cook: bake in individual wrappings of foil, and then after 40 mins, put a dob of butter on top and bake for another 40 mins).

Comments

[ladybrooke]

We're planting tomatoes, corn, beans, watermelons, green peppers, a single red pepper plant, cantaloupe, lettuce, and maybe zucchini and squash. We already had the first three planted, but then flooding happened, and it all died/washed away. :/ The lettuce and cantaloupe are new! I'm hoping they grow well.

I hope everything you're trying to grow turns out well!

[tielan]

Ugh, flooding. Whereabouts are you, if you don't mind saying? And are you going to grow the corn/beans/squash in a Three Sisters configuration like the native Americans used to? An Australian farm - Melliodora - had a blog post about it earlier this year, detailing their experience with it (in an Australian context, of course), but might be worth looking at?

[ladybrooke]

I'm in Southern Indiana, near Louisville, Kentucky - on the eastern side of the American midwest. Probably not! Mainly because our squash plants tend to go nuts and kill everything near them, and I'd rather not have to deal with my step-dad sulking if they strangled his beans. :P On the other hand, the anthropologist in me would like to experiment with planting that way.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Last year I helped with a Three Sisters planting. Sadly the squash vines weren't enough to keep the chipmunks out of the corn.

[tielan]

Ah yes, the eternal issue of garden pests and how to stop them stealing the harvest...

I'm curious now, how do you keep chipmunks out of corn? Fence the corn away?

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

They were fenced, but the gauge was too large. I think the real method is going to depend on consulting with the hawks.

[ladybrooke]

Our main problems are deer, rabbits, and birds. :/ I have yet to come up with a solution that will keep all three away, especially since none of them but the deer are scared of the dogs.