Ahh, the Autumn garden…perfect for brassicas, leafy greens, turnips, peas! Autumn is one of the best gardening times of the year!

Or it used to be.

I was mulching the garden this morning when I noticed new blossom on the plum tree.

New blossom on the plum tree. In May. In South Australia.

One of these things just doesn’t belong here.

The fact is that over the past several years, Summer has blended into Autumn, which has blended into Winter. Our warmer weather is stretching out into our so-called Winter, and we have much-reduced rainfall. Last week, we had temps in the mid 20s.

I flew to the West coast last week, and as I sat by the window looking down, all I could see was an ocean of brown. Dry, brown fields, stretching from Northern Adelaide to the Spencer Gulf. When we drove into the town, I could see close up that trees along the roadside were dying from lack of rainfall. It was a shocking sight.

This all has a cost, both to our landscape and wildlife, humans who rely on it for their income, food, or recreation, and for those of us who try to grow gardens.

For me, that cost was borne home to me in a very concrete form when I received a huuuuge water bill last month – 3x our usual quarterly average for the Summer.

We expect a higher bill in Summer. You cannot grow a mini-orchard in Adelaide without irrigating. We accept that as part of the deal for the privilege of our land use. However 3x the average is crackers!

Last post, I mentioned my trial of no-dig gardening, (and my lack of success). That doesn’t mean I am 100% sticking with the way I have always done things. Obviously, I have to change how I garden and what I plant. And that includes in my Autumn garden, when in the past I could have naturally reduced how much I rely on irrigation in the garden due to the cooler weather and rainfall. The fact is, I can’t rely on that anymore. And I can’t rely on old methods and plants anymore either.

Doing things Differently in my Autumn Garden

In previous years, this Autumn would be peak brassica planting season. I love to grow broccoli and romanesco especially. I also usually grow a lot of kale, turnips, and swedes (also known as rutabagas). I often grow onions, put in at least one patch of garlic, and some silverbeet.

All of these plants are heavy feeders, especially nitrogen. They take a lot from the soil without giving much back, and they do require a lot of water. That’s no problem when there is decent rainfall. But I can’t rely on that anymore.

This Autumn, my soil is not in great condition. As I mentioned in the last post, when I dug it over recently, I found it was full of roots and rocks. After months of heat and little rain, it lacked structure. I decided that the whole garden needed a rest and time to recover.

However, nature abhors a vacuum. If I plant nothing, weeds will happily jump right in. So, this season, I decided to plant high nitrogen crops to feed the soil and help give it back structure, organic matter, and nutrition.

Before planting, I spread generous amounts of pelletised chicken manure across the soil and raked it in. Then I planted legumes and green manure across the whole garden. I chose dwarf snow peas, climbing peas, broad beans, sweet peas, fenugreek, and a green manure blend. After planting, I mulched with chopped sugarcane mulch.

My intention is to water up to once a week from now until Spring, but only if the soil under the mulch is dry. Otherwise, this patch must now fend for itself. Fruit trees will continue to be watered if needed. If we get a crop of snow peas or broad beans, that will be great – but it is not my primary goal. Once these plants reach maturity, I will chop them down, leaving the roots to release their nitrogen in the soil as they die, and chop up the plants on top for new mulch.

My only concession to other veggies in the garden is a punnet of Tuscan kale, which I have popped in one corner. I love kale and it does not do well in the greenhouse at all – just too warm! So, it does get some space in the patch and hopefully will not require too much water.

The Autumn Greenhouse

I still want some veggies for our household over the Winter months, but I am focusing my efforts on the greenhouse, where I can control much better how much water I use. I have two large wicking beds and four troughs. I am growing leafy greens (lettuce, spinach, bok choy) and herbs (dill and coriander) in these, as well as trialling root vegetables in the wicking beds (leeks, celeriac and radish). I have really tried to consider what we like to eat over the cooler months, and what would grow best in containers.

Hopefully, the greenhouse will not be too warm for these winter leafy greens. I had great success with dill and spinach in the greenhouse last year. It was the best spinach crop ever, and lasted for months and months. Let’s hope for another bumper crop this year!

How about you – are you adapting your garden style or plants due to weather conditions?

If you have been gardening for a while, and you read or listen to garden media, you have probably heard of the ‘No Dig’ method. First popularised by Esther Dean in the 1970s, and more recently by Charles Dowding, a British gardener, the theory is that healthy soil should be as undisturbed as possible.

Esther Dean’s original ‘No Dig’ garden method was about building a garden easily in an area such as lawn or in heavy clay soils where digging a patch would be difficult, for example. I have built several of these over the years with success.

However, the more modern iteration is a bit different. It would be more accurate to describe modern ‘No Dig’ gardening as ‘Anti-Cultivation’ gardening. Proponents argue that by not digging or regularly cultivating the soil, we protect the soil biology, which leads to better garden productivity and soil health.

This version of ‘No Dig’ doesn’t mean never digging a hole (for example, to plant a tree). ‘No Dig’ means minimally cultivating your soil while adding copious organic matter to the soil. For example, a no dig approach would mean not digging over your patch at the end of the season after removing the spent plants, then replenishing your soil by adding compost and other organic matter to feed your soil.

Many leading gardening advocates have promoted this theory in recent years. There’s a lot of ‘before and after’ photos or ‘side by side’ photos on websites that apparently show the benefits of ‘No Dig’, but to be honest, that is not convincing to me. I prefer data, not anecdotes (please note that what I am about to describe is the very definition of ‘anecdotal evidence’). However, as more gardening experts extolled the benefits of this approach as the best way to treat your soil microbiome, I decided to give it a try.

My Approach

In the past my approach to soil health has comprised some similar ideas to the No Dig gardeners. I always add organic matter (homemade compost), dynamic lifter (pelletised chicken manure), and mulch (usually chopped sugar cane mulch) at the end (or beginning) of each gardening season. Sometimes I also sprinkle rock dust on the soil. Every fruit tree receives a bag or two of aged sheep manure in Winter, followed by an organic fruit tree fertiliser each month during the growing season. However, at the end of each planting season, I have always cultivated the whole garden bed with my trusty fork first before adding the organic matter. This has been my routine for ten years.

This Spring, following the ‘No Dig’ approach, I did not fork over the soil as I would usually do – I just left it alone. I did everything else the same.

The Results

My results were not great, I have to be honest. I put this down to a number of factors, which include the fact that South Australia is in a drought – we have had just a third of our average rainfall so far in 2025 and according to the ABC, we are experiencing the driest recorded year since 1849. Street trees across the region are dying. My water bill was three times the usual, mostly because I have been trying to keep my many fruit trees alive.

I am used to gardening in dry conditions. What I noted when trialling this method is that my veggies were generally more unproductive than in other seasons. Even pumpkins, which I always have success with, shrivelled on the vine (with hand pollination)! Nothing in the veggie patch really seemed to take that well, except for the green beans (and of course, the plants in the greenhouse, but they were not grown with this method). Everything else just seemed to sulk.

Again, this could have been related to weather conditions. However, the opinions of long-range weather forecasters is that these are the conditions we can expect in South Australia from now on. If that is the case, then I cannot expect that this approach will help me with this poor growing conditions. If anything, what I will need is to completely change what I grow and when. I’m looking into that now.

This week, a little later than usual (due to the a recent trip to New Zealand), I pulled out all my very sad looking plants. After a poor season, partly due to the very dry season and possibly the No Dig/Anti-Cultivation method, I decided to revert back to my old ways and dig over my bed. What I discovered astonished me! My previously beautiful, dark, friable soil was full of roots and rocks, all through the bed. I dug out over two kilos of roots of unknown origin from one 1m x 2m section of garden bed. My previously healthy, well cultivated soil was now some kind of playground for roots from…well, I have no idea. Now I know one possible reason my plants were sulking and unproductive – they were competing for water and nutrition all Summer long.

Again, these roots could have been due to the dry conditions. A tree or plant from a neighbouring garden, or even from one of my own fruit trees elsewhere in the garden, could have sent roots through to find water. This probably started in the Spring (we have been in drought for a long time). If I had dug the patch over earlier as usual, I could have nipped it in the bud as I would have discovered some of this earlier. I don’t know where all the rocks came from, but there were so many!

The current version of the ‘No Dig’ garden method was developed in the UK. Charles Dowding has stated that this method can work anywhere. I am not sure that can be the case for any gardening method. It’s also unnecessary, in my opinion, to try to make the case that one method can be successful in every climate and region. If ‘No Dig’ is best suited for cool temperate regions like England, Tassie, or New Zealand, that is fine. Those regions are famous for their regular rainfall (I just visited a part of New Zealand that receives 10 METRES of rain a year! Inconceivable!). South Australia, unlike New Zealand or England, is famously the driest State in the driest continent in the world – and this year, it is even drier.

On his website, Charles Dowding states that “good soil feels naturally firm, or even hard, especially when dry.” He says that this is good for plants to grow in, as this means that it has good drainage and air channels. I believe that in climates with decent rainfall, this might be the case. But in Adelaide, our soil is regularly cooked throughout the season from Spring right through to late Autumn by baking hot sun – in full afternoon Summer sun, the temperatures can easily reach above 50 degrees Celsius. In other regions of South Australia, it gets even hotter. Our soil is not just ‘naturally firm.’ It can be rock hard, cooked by an unrelenting sun and no bloody rain. That has to make a difference in how we approach gardening, and how we treat our soil.

I agree we need to take much, much better care of our fragile soil than we have in the past. I am just not sure this approach is the best for my soil in my garden. I am sure that ‘No Dig’ is a successful approach for some folks in some climates. Perhaps if I had the time, patience, and different climactic conditions, it would work out well in my garden over time. But I believe that for my patch and weather conditions, it was unsuited.

How about you – have you tried the ‘No Dig’ or a No or Low Cultivation method in your garden? I’d love to know if it was more successful than my effort – let me know in the comments!

Winter gardening conditions

It’s cold as a witches here in Southern Australia (or at least it feels so to me, who is notoriously cold-averse), even if it’s still quite dry. We finally had a bit of rain last week, although nowhere near enough. The long-term forecast for June is for quite a lot less rain than the average monthly rainfall, which means watering well into the Winter months. I planted kale yesterday, and the soil was dry – not middle-of-Summer dry, but still much drier than I would expect for the start of June. This is concerning, as the Winter vegetables require both cold and wet conditions to grow large and sweet.

The other part of the forecast that was concerning was that we are headed for another wet Spring. Last year’s Spring was unseasonably wet, which had both positive and negative effects for the garden. It was great to finally have the rain, but the cooler conditions in Spring led to difficulty growing certain plants that love the hot weather (eggplants, I hardly knew ye). It also created ideal conditions for fungal diseases.

To manage the dry conditions this Winter, I am keeping up with regular watering, mulching (I use sugar cane mulch), and spreading compost from my bins in the garden. I seems antithetical to water in June, but if I want to grow my own veggies, I don’t have much choice. As I do it, I spare a thought for our primary producers, who are still waiting for a decent break in the season.

Veggies for Winter gardening

In spite of the cold, there’s still plenty of veggies that can be grown in an Adelaide Winter. This Winter I am growing:

• Brassicas:
  • Kale – Tuscan Black, Scottish Blue, Red Russian, Pentland Brig;
  • Cauliflower – Mini White, Purple Sicily, Orange, Multi-Head;
  • Broccoli: Baby Brocky, Romanesco, Di Ciccio;
  • Kohlrabi: Purple, White;
  • Cabbage: Savoy;
  • Brussels Sprouts: Catskills.
• Root Vegetables:
  • Turnips: Purple Top, Golden Globe, Tokyo Market;
  • Swede: Champion Purple Top;
  • Carrot: Nantes;
  • Beetroot: Heirloom mix.
• Spinach: Green Viking.
• Alliums:
  • Garlic: Melbourne Market;
  • Onions: Creamgold, Long Tropea Red;
  • Leeks: King Richard.
• Greens:
  • Tatsoi;
  • Oriental Heirloom Mix;
  • Freckled Cos Lettuce.
• Peas: Telephone and Snow.
• Broad beans: Aquadulce.

I have grown almost all of the above from seed, starting most of them in February in seed trays in the greenhouse, and transplanting them out to the garden when they are large enough. The root vegetables, broad beans and peas were sown directly in the garden.

You might be wondering, why so much kale? That’s a great question. In my view, Tuscan Black kale (also known as Dinosaur Kale or Cavolo Nero) is the best tasting, easiest to grow, and most versatile kale. However, because kale is very healthy, I also like to try other varieties to see what else will work in my patch, what tastes good, and what can be used in other dishes. Besides, whatever we don’t eat can be fed to the chickens.

Turnips are a big fave with me. Freshly picked turnips are delicious and sweet, and I almost always have good luck with them in my garden. They grow quickly and with minimal effort, so I try to always have a couple of rows growing in the Winter patch.

Peas are a challenge for me. I find that they often succumb to brown mildew before they fruit enough to be worth the effort, but I am trying to plant successively and to assiduously train them so they don’t trail along the ground. I hope this will help hold off any fungal diseases long enough to pick a decent crop. I’m also growing a couple of different varieties to see what will work best.

Last year I skipped growing broad beans, and I missed having them in the Spring. Sweet little peeled broad beans are a gift that only home gardeners receive: picked young and cooked that day, we don’t even need to peel them most of the time. Tossed with pasta, garlic, olive oil and feta, or cooked in an omelette: delicious!

I have cherry Rhubarb in the ground ready for crumbles and roasting with cinnamon and star anise, cumquats starting to fruit in a large pot, and dragon fruit in the greenhouse that I am hoping will fruit for the first time this Winter. I also just picked a yuuuuuge tub of limes, some of which have gone straight in the freezer and the rest given to friends and family. We still have plenty of preserved limes, lime pickle, and marmalade left from last year, so dropping them whole in the freezer will keep them until we have time and pantry space for more preserves.

What are you growing this Winter? Let me know in the comments.

I’m a very fortunate person, in that I have a home, a job, a family, and a big backyard with lots of space to grow a garden. When I have the time, I write this blog about my adventures trying to grow an organic garden and being as self-sufficient as I can be while running my own business, supporting my family, and being a good partner and friend.

Sometimes, that works out.

Sometimes…it doesn’t. Over the past three months, my garden has been the loser in the equation. My business has been extremely busy – busier than it has ever been, in fact. That’s great news for me as a small business owner. You never want the opposite!

What it has meant though is that I have been triaging my life. Work and family have been prioritised. Eating healthily and trying to get some sleep have come next. The garden has fallen right down to the bottom of the list of things I have had time to focus on.

This weekend I had my first full weekend off in a while. I caught up with family and close friends. And, after weeks and weeks, I went out to the garden and spent more than five minutes there.

Boy, what a mess.

The greenhouse

The thing about a greenhouse is, apparently, that it needs caring for. You cannot leave it to itself. Bugs rush in when a gardener doesn’t have time to tread. And those bugs have had a glorious picnic in my lovely greenhouse. By bugs, I specifically mean aphids.

I had to throw out unredeemable pots of eggplant and chillies. While it is the end of the season anyway, I had been hoping to continue growing these well into winter, with the help of the warm greenhouse. Foiled by critters and my own neglect! No eggplants for me!

I cleared out the whole space, sprayed the plants that I could keep, put in new fly traps, and fed and watered everything. I’ve made a little promise not to let it get that bad again. I hope I can keep that promise.

The veggie patch

The veggie patch was a mishmash of old Summer plants, weeds, and half-eaten brassicas. What a sad state of affairs at the tail end of Autumn! I ripped out all the remaining eggplant and chillies, and Summer flowering annuals that just looked revolting. I weeded as much as I could, and then I planted up a bunch of lettuce, bok choy, and onions. Finally, I gave everything a good watering of seaweed extract and fish emulsion.

It will not be the Winter garden of my dreams, but at least it doesn’t look as bad as it did when I went out this morning. I was still able to pick a bunch of radishes and spring onions, the last of the green chillies and a few remaining eggplant, and we have had a bumper crop of limes this year.

If you have any recipes for limes, I’m listening…

On the plus side, the Sawtooth Banksia seeds I bought in Tasmania have finally germinated. I have three tiny seedlings, and hope to have three lovely Banksias ready to plant out in my garden in Spring.

I hate the cold. Just putting it out there. I don’t just dislike the cold, I hate it. I cannot bear the feeling of shivering, the discomforting, twisty, nerve tingling feeling of being under-optimal body temperature. In Summer, I will happily sit in warm rooms and go outside to feel the baking heat on my skin. I don’t complain about heatwaves or hot weather. I look forward to it.

This can be a problem for others. When others turn on the air conditioning, I grab a jumper. I don’t bother with air conditioning, and they have to ask to turn it on. In the Winter, I rug up in uggs, padded vests, scarves, and woolly jumpers, even if the heat or the fireplace are on, and for those that feel the heat, it can be disconcertingly warm in our house. When I worked in an office, many people would complain that my office was too warm, and I had to keep a jacket in my office to respect the differing needs of my colleagues.

All this to say: thank goodness Winter is almost done. I cannot stand it for much longer.

I can tell for sure that Winter is almost done, because I was outside in the garden on the weekend, and saw the first asparagus spear poking its head up from the soil. This can mean only one thing: like the crocus spotted in Narnia, it means that Spring is on its way. The Winter is almost over, and Aslan is coming.

This weekend, as with most weekends lately, I had to work. However, I took two hours out to muck out the chook shed, give them fresh bedding, pull out some old brassica plants, dig over the broccoli bed, and pat the chickens. Then I wrapped myself back up in pure white furs, magicked up some turkish delight, and went back inside my ice castle. Soon.

Soon.

Spring – my favourite season of all – has finally arrived, and my garden has suddenly shifted from cold weather sulks to blooming, all in the space of a week.

I have not posted in a while because there has literally been nothing to post about. It has been cold (I hate the cold), wet (I appreciate the rain, but I am not someone who will run outside in it), and I have had surgery on my foot. That has taken a while to heal to the point that it is safe for me to start digging in the dirt again.

That time is now, just in time for Spring planting and for wandering around my garden looking at all the bulbs, trees, and shrubs that have decided to blossom all at once. I’m loving it.

In Autumn I gave our lavender bushes a gentle prune. Actually, I hacked them viciously with my hedge trimmers and hoped for the best. They have all come back into bloom looking better than ever. I have multiple varieties of lavender in my garden, from plain old English lavender, to the fancy schmancy double pink, white and strawberry coloured breeds that I forget the name of.

The odd thing about all the lavenders I grow is that after a season, they begin to naturalise, and I now have about twenty lavender bushes in my yard. Now if I see a lavender seedling, I either give it away to a friend or neighbour, or I have to pull it up and toss it in the green bin. I don’t want my entire garden to be lavender bushes. I assume other people have this problem, but when I have spoken to other gardeners, they have not experienced it. I think that my particular aspect, on a west-facing hillside that has full sun most of the day, is just a happy place for lavender. Herbs in general grow well here and naturalise. I am always yanking out surprise rosemary, thyme, parsley, oregano, and other herbs that have popped up in odd spots. While I don’t mind some extras, they will take over if I am not vigilant.

The daffodils are almost finished, but Dutch Irises, Anenomes, Ranunculus, Star Flowers, Freesias, Harlequin Flowers, Violet Sparaxis, and Snowflakes have arrived. The Harlequin Flowers are now naturalised in the garden and in the lawn on one side, and their cousins the Violet Sparaxis are back for a second year. I am very excited to see the Dutch Iris (our first planting of these beauties this year), and our second planting of giant Daffodils and smaller white Jonquils offered a beautiful display at the end of Winter. Next year I am going to plant even more bulbs so that the Spring garden looks like a carnival exploded. Some gardeners and landscapers have rules about what colour flowers and plants you should match with others to make your garden ‘harmonious.’

Not me. I am all about all the garden equivalent of a Ramones gig.

Seed Planting for Summer Veggies

Last year it could well be argued that our Summer veggie patch was…pretty sad. Partly, it was the weather. Our part of Australia experienced the hottest and driest Summer on record. Even usually reliable crops like zucchini, chillies, and eggplant didn’t fruit, or shrivelled up in the heat before they got the chance. The only really excellent crop we had was pumpkins. So many pumpkins! We literally ate the last bit of last year’s pumpkins just this week.

Partly, though, it was a lack of organisation on my part. I was determined to grow everything from seed, and I planted many of those seeds too late to achieve the kind of crop I wanted. I definitely started my tomato seeds too late, and they really had no chance.

This year, I have started early. I purchased some seedlings, and have planted out some seeds in seedling trays to give them a head start. The plan is that by October, I will have well grown plants ready to go out into warm soil. At the moment I still have Winter veggies in the plot, so there is nowhere for any Summer veggies to go anyway, but it is also still too cold.

The seedlings I purchased (on an excelled two for five bucks sale) were:

• Tomato Red Truss
• Tomato Sweet Bite
• Eggplant Bonica
• Capsicum Sweet Mama
• Chilli Jalapeno
• Squash Yellow Ruffles

Tomato San Marzano

Tomato Moneymaker

Eggplant Listada Di Grandia

Cucumber Marketmore

Watermelon Sugarbaby

Zucchini Golden

Zucchini Romanesco

Zucchini Lebanese

Pumpkin Lakota

Basil Lettuce Leaf

Some of these are going to be my final attempts at these particular varieties: Eggplant Listanda Di Grandia, Tomato San Marzano, Cucumber Marketmore, and Pumpkin Lakota. If these are unsuccessful this year, I will not try them again. It is likely they are not suited to my conditions, as with the exception of cucumbers, I have had no trouble growing other pumpkins, eggplant or tomatoes. I have a love-hate relationship with cucumbers: I’d love to be able to grow them, they hate me. I’ll try one more year and then I quit.

I am also planning to grow Tomato Jaune Flamme, Chilli Anaheim, Chilli Devil’s Tongue, Basil Cinnamon, Pumpkin Australian Butter, and several varieties of sweet corn, chillies, and beans. I love beans and can’t wait to grow them every year.

Sadly, I will not have much more room for anything else. We have planted asparagus, raspberries, grapes, strawberries, rhubarb, boysenberries and an avocado tree in the backyard, and are about to instal chickens. All of these take up valuable real estate. It is likely that many of the tomatoes and capsicums will have to be grown in pots this year.

What are you planning to plant for Spring and Summer? Do you prefer to grow ornamentals or are you excited to grow some Summer veggies for your kitchen?

Well. It’s only been two months.

Imagine being someone that is slightly obsessed with growing things. Then imagine that you have not been able to grow or plant or do anything in the garden in the peak growing season of the year. This has been my existence for the past two months as my workloads have skyrocketed and I have spent my weekends in front of a computer screen. My job is entirely deadline focused, so there has not been a way of getting out of it. My poor garden.

Actually, the garden has been fine. My husband has maintained the watering, and everything I planted at the start of Spring just tootled along at its own pace. The tomatoes were in dire need of tying up when I went outside yesterday, and there was hella weeding to be done, but nothing else seemed amiss. Nature finds a way.

I dug up all the garlic, and now it is drying in the sunshine. We are expecting four days of extremely hot Australian weather, so that should be sufficient to dry it out before I bring it inside. We use a lot of garlic so this should last a couple of months. I guess I will have to plant more next year if I want to grow enough for a whole year.

I tested out a new shovel by digging up the compost from the two compost bins. One was half full, while the other was full. Both were ready to use. One had truly incredible compost in it because I had used pigeon poo from the next door neighbour’s aviary. It breaks the compost down very quickly. The corn and tomatoes got a great feed yesterday. The other contained rabbit poo and straw, which also broke down very well. Considering I have not had the time to give my heavy feeding plants a good feed this season, this should make up for it.

I am growing two types of corn this year; an heirloom painted mountain corn and an F1 hybrid called Jubilee that I grew last year. The mountain corn is already producing cobs. I expect it will be another month before the Jubilee follows. My experiment of growing beans up the corn stalks has been somewhat successful. The beans are growing up the corn as planned, but the beans are growing much faster than the corn. I started building some additional supports yesterday to help the corn so it would not be strangled by the beans. I also made the error of planting Scarlet Runner beans next to the corn, not realising that this bean grows enormous! It is the largest growing runner bean and requires a much sturdier frame than a poor corn stalk.

Now all the weeds are cleared and plants fed, I am going to figure out if I have time to grow a quick crop of eggplant and zucchini before the end of the season. I can’t believe I have not had time to grow a single zucchini this year.

It was so lovely to be outside in the dirt again, even if it was mostly digging up weeds and shovelling pigeon poo.

As part of a concerted effort to ‘relax,’ my husband and I decided to forgo our usual Saturday routine of housework and other crap we hate chores and headed out to a big garden sale. This garden sale was made extra special because it had a free (that’s right, free) sausage sizzle. We were there, baby. We lined up like the rest of the sad sacks with nothing better to do, and got our free barbecued snouts’n’entrails in bread, smothered in mustard and tomato sauce. A perfect artery-clogging waste of 10 minutes on a Saturday, probably resulting in 10 minutes reduced lifespan later down the track.

I have been wanting a hydrangea plant for a neglected shady corner of the front yard, and found one at the sale, along with a beautiful carnation bush, all for 30% off. We got out of the sale with a carful of mulch, plants, and potting mix for less than $80 and called it good.

This was the weekend that I vowed to remove the remaining broccoli plants to make way for the Summer seedlings. And yet, they are still producing more than a kilogram of broccoli heads and sprouts a week! So I decided to leave them a little longer, and to start slashing down the broad beans instead.

Some people do not enjoy broad beans, perhaps remembering the grey, overcooked bullets of their childhood. In fact, they are a delicous, elegant vegetable that is very useful in the garden as a soil improving crop over the winter time.

Broad beans, like all leguminous crops, are ‘nitrogen-fixing.’ Simply explained, this means that they draw down nitrogen from the air, and store it in little nodules in their roots. They use this nitrogen to feed the plant. Nitrogen-fixing plants are good for the soil, because when they die, the nitrogen in the little nodules is released into the soil, nourishing it. Runner beans, peas, and broad beans are all good crops to grow either before or after heavy feeding crops (for example, corn or tomatoes) to prepare the soil. I am planting tomatoes in the bed that held my broad bean crop, and I have planted climbing beans directly alongside the corn crop.

I picked half the broad beans and slashed down the plants, leaving the roots in the soil to release the nitrogen. I left the slashed plants on top of the soil, as although I am planning to mulch in the next couple of weeks, I did not have time this weekend. The pile of broad bean stalks will help the soil retain moisture in the meantime. I’ll pick the rest of the broad beans next weekend.

With the 2.5 kilograms of broad bean pods we picked (no kidding), we gave some away, and used the rest to make Jamie Oliver’s Broad Bean Pesto recipe. My husband patiently shelled and blanched and then skinned all those beans! He deserves a medal.

If you grow broad beans, or even buy them frozen, I recommend this recipe – delicious and easy (unless you have to shell two kilos of broadies).

The rest of my time outside was spent pricking out my tomato seedlings and replanting new seeds. I am trying yet again to grow watermelon. As with cucumbers, watermelons are my white whale. Hopefully I don’t suffer a similar fate as Ahab…but I doubt anyone was dragged to their untimely demise by a watermelon plant.