Late Autumn in the Garden - Beaudesert Bulletin

Cultivating knowledge, friendship and good will through gardening

By Tamborine Mountain Garden Club Inc.

Winter is nearly here, the nights are getting cooler, and its soup and casserole weather!

If you’ve planned ahead, your garden will reward you with lots of fresh produce to make those soups and casseroles next level delicious and nutritious.

If like many of us, your garden planning needs some fine tuning, it’s not too late to put in some late winter /spring growing veggies.

It is also a good time also to start planning and planting for spring blooms.

What to plant and Jobs to do

In the veggie patch try your luck with asparagus crowns, broad beans, broccoli, cabbage, chives, English spinach, garlic, garlic chives, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, nasturtium, onions, parsley, parsnip, peas, potatoes, radish, rocket, sorrel, snow peas, spring onion, strawberries, swede and sweet potatoes.

For some colour June is ideal for sowing or planting seedlings of alyssum, calendula, carnation, dianthus, hollyhock, linaria, lobelia, marigold, nasturtium, nemesia, pansies, poppies, primulas, statice, stocks, and violas.

Winter is perfect for catching some sunshine while doing some jobs in the garden:

Prune fruit trees to remove criss-crossing or dead branches, or to thin crowded growth, or reshape them
Prune crepe myrtles if you want to reduce their size or reshape them
Ensure garden beds under eves are kept watered
Give lawns a dressing of lime and water in well
Give hedges a light trim

Plant health – common nutrient deficiencies and organic remedies.

Problem	Deficiency	Organic fix
Yellow leaves, poor growth and premature flowering	Nitrogen	Add liquid fish fertiliser and compost
Blue-green lower leaves on brassicas seedlings and poor growth	Phosphorus	Usually means they were in the container too long, so plant them quickly so they can utilise the phosphorus in the soil
Yellow older leaves, leaf scorching and brown spots	Potassium	Add sulphate of potash or potash rich compost, or ash from the fire box. But remember, potash is alkaline, so check your pH first and use it sparingly or not at all if your soil pH is 7.5 or more.
Yellow between the veins of older leaves	Magnesium	Water with Epsom salts and reduce potassium applications – check soil pH
Cupping of new foliage, tip burn, blossom end rot of solanaceous vegetables, and internal browning of brussels sprouts	Calcium	Apply gypsum