Cauliflowers are the beefcake siblings of broccoli. They’re robust and meaty. Cauliflowers can be slow to grow compared with broccoli but they come in a bigger range of colours: orange, yellow, green, purple, and of course – for the traditionalists – white.

One of the worst things I’ve ever done in the garden is to grow cauliflowers over the summer

The traditional time to plant brassicas in Melbourne is St Patrick’s Day (March 17). But when I lived in Melbourne I waited until late April or even early May. This allowed me to:

• finish harvesting my summer crops without the needless destruction of removing them prematurely to plant winter vegetables

• avoid the dreaded Cabbage White Butterfly, which is prolific in March but less common toward the end of April.

In Kyneton the growing season is much shorter than in Melbourne. Here, I didn’t want to wait too late. I decided that my first brassica crop should be planted in mid-March. I thought I was being too eager, but I was still way off the mark. It was already too cold by then. The seedlings stagnated, the weeds overtook them, and that year my brassicas amounted to nothing but slug food.

Moving to Kyneton meant learning gardening all over again. I needed to optimise my brassica planting strategy for a cool temperate climate. I went back to basics and sowed different crops of brassicas at different times of the year. I knew that commercial Brussels sprouts growers sowed their seeds in November. I copied that and planted various brassica seeds in November. The cauliflower plants grew very quickly and produced huge heads. But gosh they were bitter. Totally inedible. I no longer grow cauliflowers in summer. They don’t respond well to heat. Last year, summer wouldn’t die and autumn was incredibly warm. This affected the caulis I harvested in May. Fortunately, they were still edible, despite a bitter taint.

Common problems when growing cauliflowers

• Cabbage White Butterfly can wreak havoc on young cauliflower seedlings – in fact on all brassicas. Read how to avoid this problem here.

• A range of fungal diseases can affect brassicas. I find this problem is best overcome with good airflow (achieved by spacing plants far apart and keeping the weeds down) and variety selection.

• If your cauliflowers have tiny florets, it’s likely your seedlings became stressed before you transplanted them. It’s number six in my list of top 10 gardening mistakes. You can read more about avoiding this mistake here.

• Rats can be a real pain when it comes to growing cauliflowers. They love to eat the developing heads. Read more about what to do about them here.

The following posts in the Vegetable Patch from Scratch series will give you more information on common problems when growing cauliflowers:

• Common pests of the vegetable patch

• Common diseases of the vegetable patch

• Common nutrient deficiencies of the vegetable patch

• Common problems of the vegetable patch.

Myth-busting: do cauliflowers need blanching?

A lot of folks swear by the need to blanch their cauliflower heads. Blanching refers to tying the leaves over the heads as they grow, not boiling and cooling the florets before freezing.

Protecting the developing cauliflower head reduces the amount of sun exposure. Excess sun exposure can lead to bitter cauliflowers (which explains my summer cauliflower disaster) and yellowing or browning of the florets.

However, I never blanch my crops. I grow too many plants for me to bother. I find that in winter the heads of my cauliflowers don’t need blanching. It would be interesting to grow cauliflowers in summer and see whether the blanching would render them edible. But the glut of cauliflowers every winter makes me grateful for a summer free of the stuff. So I won’t be trying this one at home.

The nitty gritty of growing cauliflowers: phenology, varieties and planting

Timing

This chart shows the best times to grow cauliflowers based on my experience of growing these crops in both Melbourne (warm temperate) and Kyneton (cool temperate), both in south-eastern Australia. The timing is applicable for growers in the same climates across the southern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere folks will need to adjust the timing by six months.

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Pumpkins would make great characters in a horror story: Don’t stand still in the pumpkin patch. In summer you can almost watch the vines growing. They’ll quickly ramble and climb over anything within reach. My busy imagination can easily picture humans and other prey captured and bound by their strong tentacle-like vines. They are as close to real-life triffids as you can get. A pumpkin vine will not be tamed. If you have a small courtyard or balcony garden, then forget it. You’ll be tripped over, tied up in knots and soon strangled by these space invaders.

Many folks first discover the excitement of growing pumpkins from the ones that sneak up in the compost. Pumpkin seeds are amazingly resilient, and as soon as the soil warms in spring, bang, they’re off and racing faster than a possum in a vegie patch. Whether they emerge right there in the compost heap, or grow from seeds in compost spread under plants, self-sown pumpkins always do the best. Compost pumpkins grow only in awkward positions. They ramble across the lawn, up into the apple tree or over the back fence and onto the turf of the neighbours – who get to harvest all the pumpkins. Last season, friends of ours in town even had a pumpkin vine completely block access to their front door. Once they grew up into the canopy of my avocados. A self-sown pumpkin wants to ramble and nothing will stop it. Fortunately, those self-sown pumpkins are also very productive.

I have a lot of space and water, and I grow a lot of pumpkins, mainly as a living ground cover in my orchard. Earlier this year I announced that I’d managed to store enough pumpkins for my household to be self-sufficient for an entire year. If you have the space, I highly recommend you don’t just rely on compost pumpkins but also deliberately plant a few. The reward is not just in the eating; they are also such fun to grow.

Smashing pumpkins: The who’s who of squash

Pumpkins (or squash as they are known in the USA, UK and some other countries) are categorised into several different species. The most common three you’ll find in the garden are Cucurbita maxima, Cucurbita moschata and Cucurbita pepo.

Cucurbita maxima is a species name that must be read aloud in a deep voice while you flex your biceps. As the name suggests, these are the beefcakes of the pumpkin world. They have robust, vigorous vines that produce some of my favourite types of pumpkin, including Jarrahdale and Queensland Blue.

Cucurbita moschata vines are less vigorous than Cucurbita maxima, and many of the varieties, such as butternut and Kent (aka J.A.P., “Just Another Pumpkin”), produce fruit smaller than C. maxima (Musquee de Provence is a notable exception). They are reputedly more disease resistant and tolerant of hot weather than C. maxima, but in my own garden I’ve found the reverse has been true. I struggle to harvest much fruit from butternuts, and this year my Kent pumpkins didn’t produce a single fruit. Both types of C. moschata pumpkins that I grew suffered from mildew and the vines died well before the C. maxima plants finally gave up. The exception to all of this is zucchini tromboncino, a variety of C. moschata that is one of the most powdery-mildew-resistant cucurbits I’ve come across.

When I grew pumpkins in Melbourne, I noticed that the C. moschata pumpkins always took longer to develop and didn’t ripen until late in autumn. This meant they were the ones the rats tended to hollow out while the C. maxima pumpkins were already safely inside. The Kyneton growing season must be too short for C. moschata, but if you can beat the rats, they’ll do well for you in Melbourne.

Cucurbita pepo, includes zucchini, spaghetti squash and the Sugar pumpkins, which are a type used primarily for making pumpkin pies.

Common problems when growing pumpkins

A lack of space is probably the most common problem for would-be pumpkin growers. Don’t pop a pumpkin seedling next to a tomato plant and expect them to play nicely. That tomato plant is doomed to languish beneath the pumpkin vine for the rest of the summer.

I’ve noticed that pumpkin seedlings that have been stressed tend to grow into vines that focus on producing male flowers. To avoid potential transplant stress, I prefer to sow seed directly. Rather than relying on greenhouse raised seedlings, I extend the growing season using polycarbonate pumpkin tunnels.

Just like zucchini, pumpkins can suffer from pollination problems. You can overcome this with hand pollination, but I don’t bother. Even if the first few female flowers wither and fall off, the vine will soon sort itself out. My pumpkins tend to be very productive without any intervention on my part. I’d even argue that not setting fruit early in the season allows the vines to grow much bigger and therefore be more productive in the long run.

Toward the end of the season, you might discover that mildew or other fungal diseases have taken hold in your pumpkin patch. The vines are done anyway and it’s the end of the season. I don’t treat affected plants with sprays or the like. Pumpkin harvest is imminent!

The following posts in the Vegetable Patch from Scratch series will give you more information on potential pumpkin problems:

• Common pests of the vegetable patch

• Common diseases of the vegetable patch

• Common nutrient deficiencies of the vegetable patch

• Common problems of the vegetable patch

The nitty gritty of growing pumpkins: phenology, varieties and planting

Timing

This chart shows the best times to grow pumpkins based on my experience of growing these crops in both Melbourne (warm temperate) and Kyneton (cool temperate), both in south-eastern Australia. The timing is applicable for growers in the same climates across the southern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere folks will need to adjust the timing by six months.

Read more

This is how cucumber season goes in my garden. I notice a cucumber approaching perfection, and when I return a few hours later to harvest it, it’s gone. My kids are cucumber monsters. In summer they’ll both eat two or three Lebanese cucumbers every day, each. They’ll grab one to munch on the way to the chicken run. Then they’ll snaffle another one as they head inside. They’ll leave a couple of tiny cucumber stubs with stalks on the kitchen table, the only sign that their afternoon tea ever existed. They also love cucumber pickles. They enjoy making them and they especially delight in eating them, and so do I.

My cucumber pickle recipe is a simple one that is easily adapted to suit other vegetables.

Cucumbers grow on vines but are not as rampant as pumpkins. They are incredibly productive and when trained over a trellis they have a relatively small footprint. Cucumbers don’t tolerate cool or humid conditions. When it comes to planting and growing them, timing is critical. But plant the right varieties at the right time and you’ll soon be overwhelmed with copious crunchy cucumbers.

Common problems when growing cucumbers

Planting crops early tends to feed the slaters and slugs. As my Fool’s Garden highlighted, it’s a futile task. Every spring I’ve been frustrated by those tiny lumberjacks that eat through the base of my seedlings, leaving the upper half of each seedling to wilt on the soil surface. I’ve now learnt that patience is the key – don’t rush your planting (more on timing later).

Bitterness is a common problem – not my emotional response to the slaters and slugs, but bitterness in cukes from inconsistent watering. Some cucumber varieties, especially the apple cucumbers, are prone to turning bitter. That horrid taste is cucurbitacin, which can be toxic (read more about this here). Consistent soil moisture is the key to preventing bitterness. Picking the fruit early can also help to prevent it. Better still, just plant varieties that don’t become bitter. More on recommended varieties later.

If humidity is high in late summer or autumn, then powdery mildew will descend on your cucumbers and other cucurbit crops. It’s a sign that the plants are coming to an end. Usually, this full stop occurs in autumn as the weather cools. In January 2024 we experienced sub-tropical conditions and that led to my main cucumber crop being wiped out about six weeks before its time. Fortunately, I’d planted another successive crop; it kicked on with the rainfall and became very productive.

The following posts in my Vegetable Patch from Scratch series will give you more information:

• Common pests of the vegetable patch

• Common diseases of the vegetable patch

• Common nutrient deficiencies of the vegetable patch

• Common problems of the vegetable patch

Myth-busting: a full moon leads to more cukes

I’m not talking about getting nude (the other full moon) and planting your seeds as the sun sets during the second phase of the lunar cycle, all while hopping on one leg and quacking like a duck. I’m talking about a phenomenon that might have science behind it.

I grow a lot of cucumbers, and I’ve noticed that I harvest a lot of them during a full moon and the week that follows. Over the course of a summer my cucumber harvest appears to go through boom-and-bust periods of productivity, and I’ve wondered whether the moon was responsible. I investigated, and I found that among some gardeners and commercial growers there is a strongly held belief that the full moon influences cucumber productivity. However, if you delve into the scientific literature you’ll find nothing to underpin this belief. Apparently, the extra light available at night during the full moon is not enough to make a difference – even to cucurbits, such as pumpkins and zucchini, with their huge leaves. Science says that plants cannot grow by moonlight alone.

I was still curious and I wanted to see whether my internal pattern recognition skills were on the blink, so two summers ago, I started tracking cucurbit harvest data. Every day I counted how many cucumbers, zucchini and button squash I picked.

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To me, beetroot is synonymous with Sunday. No, I’m not religious. I’m not part of some bizarre beetnik cult that worships root vegetables. In our household, it’s a given that every Sunday we have a roast dinner. This culinary autopilot means that Sunday night dinner doesn’t need to be planned. And the result is a delicious, tasty, decision-free meal, every Sunday. Well, all right, we still need to decide what meat to pop into the oven: pork or chicken, beef or lamb. But the vegetables that accompany it are determined by what’s in season. Cauliflower and broccoli in winter. Beans and sweet corn in summer. Spuds are essential – you can’t have a roast without potatoes. We can raid our stores of carrots and pumpkin. And for nine months of the year, we can pluck a beetroot or two from the garden. Roasted beetroot are delicious. But you don’t need to limit them to a Sunday roast.

Turn up the beet and grow this versatile and delicious treat

One day, in a moment of culinary experimentation, the kids and I invented fire salad. It must have been late July because the carrots and beetroot were just starting to bolt (more on that shortly). I wanted to use them up before they became tough and woody, so I set some little fingers to work grating the carrot and the beetroot. They threw them together in a bowl and voila! Fire salad was created. Our kids cannot get enough of it: flavour-wise, the two vegetables complement each other well. Just don’t mix them too thoroughly or the orange carrot takes on the red juice from the beetroot and it doesn’t look as pretty. You can use fire salad in wraps and tacos, as a side dish, sprinkled on baked spuds, or on its own as an after-school snack. We make a huge batch and eat it for days.

You can juice beetroot, pickle it and make it into dips. Beetroot, walnut and feta salad is one of my favourite summer salads. You can eat the leaves. Their vivid red veins contrast against the dark green leaves and make a colourful addition to garden salads. You can even use beetroot in baking. One of the best chocolate cakes I ever ate had grated beetroot in it.

Common problems when growing beetroot

A quick online search will reveal dozens of problems that can occur when you grow beetroot. Bacteria can cause root rots and wilt. Viruses can cause beet curly top virus and beet yellows virus. Boron deficiency is a common nutrient deficiency in beetroot, and root knot nematodes can cause stunted growth and root damage.

But I’ve never had any of these problems occur in the beetroot I’ve grown. And I’ve been growing beetroot for years. I never receive questions from readers about beetroot, either. Beetroot is one of the most problem-free vegetables you can grow.

The main problem I have with growing beetroot is that they can bolt. In late winter and early spring they’ll begin to flower. As the flower stalks reach for the sky the bulbous root becomes woody and inedible. The bolting is caused by a phenomenon called photoperiodism. Once it has started there’s nothing you can do about it. Prevention is better than cure and the timing of planting your crops is critical to this.

The following posts in the Vegetable Patch from Scratch series will give you more information:

• Common pests of the vegetable patch

• Common diseases of the vegetable patch

• Common nutrient deficiencies of the vegetable patch

• Common problems of the vegetable patch

Myth-busting: Beetroot seeds must be soaked

I’m often asked about soaking beetroot seeds before sowing them. Their corky seed coating means it can take a while for the water to soak into the seed and activate the embryo. But I don’t bother soaking my beetroot seed anymore, as it’s too fiddly. The wet seeds stick to each other, the soil sticks to my fingers, and the jar of seed becomes a dirty mess before I’m halfway through.

In short, it probably won’t do any harm to soak your seeds, but the benefits are not huge either. Read more about soaking all sorts of different seeds before sowing here.

The nitty gritty of growing beetroot: phenology, varieties and planting

Timing

This chart shows the best times to grow beetroot based on my experience of growing these crops in both Melbourne (warm temperate) and Kyneton (cool temperate), both in south-eastern Australia. The timing is applicable for growers in the same climates across the southern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere folks will need to adjust the timing by six months.

Read more

I connect with thousands of gardeners. I love chatting all things gardening and the one gardening topic that seems to rule them all is tomatoes.

I discuss citrus and using microclimates – and you want to know about starting tomatoes in a greenhouse.

I announce that I’ve discovered Queensland Fruit Fly in my plums – and you report they have infested all your tomatoes.

I complain about the recent hot dry summer and having to hand water all the time – and you reply that at least it’s a good season for tomatoes.

I talk about planting bare root fruit trees – and you ask about deep planting tomatoes.

It’s always tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes!

To a home gardener, tomatoes are a most precious crop. If they grow and ripen, if there’s an abundance of them sitting on the kitchen bench, well then, everything is in order in the world. We can sleep soundly knowing that tomorrow is another day. Another day full of tomatoey goodness.

But when things take a turn for the worse. When early blight spreads or blossom end rot eventuates. When herbicide contamination sends the growing tips all twisty and spindly. When the dreaded rats descend and devour every ripening fruit. When the Queensland Fruit Fly infests the biggest and the best. My goodness, hell hath no fury like a tomato grower scorned. Rage and despair, anguish and depression, tears and tantrums. I’ve seen tomatoes cause it all.

What is it about the humble tomato? Why is it such an emotional crop? Why do we ride the tomato roller coaster?

I reckon a lot of it has to do with memories and family connection. Fond memories of being a child, in the garden with parents or grandparents plucking ripe tomatoes and eating them then and there in the garden together. Perhaps they evoke memories of passata sessions with your extended family and a connection to cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Or maybe the tasty juice running down your chin reminds you of summer holidays spent at a distant relative’s farm, sampling their food garden abundance. For me, it’s a competition with my Grandmother Peggy to see who could ripen the first tomato of the year. Many a Christmas Day Peggy would hand me a small gift bag or box from under the tree and I’d open it to find her first ripe tomato of the year. I never once beat her.

If she were still alive today, I reckon I’d be able to beat her. I’ve got the knack now. But she’s not. So every time I bite into that first ripe tomato of the summer I’ll savour her influence on my life.

Why do you grow tomatoes? What memories does it evoke? I’d love to hear your story and the connection that growing your own tomatoes brings you.

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Timing and genetics will make or break your tomato crop

These are the two most critical aspects of tomato growing success:

• Timing

• Seed selection.

Tomatoes won’t usually grow in the depths of a temperate climate winter (although yes, I’ve seen exceptions to this rule). In a temperate climate, tomatoes must be grown over the summer growing season when it is warmer. Spring and autumn are the bookends to the tomato season. Tomato plants won’t tolerate frost without the protection of a greenhouse or cloche. But it’s not just frost you need to worry about. Cold soil causes tomatoes to stagnate, leaving them prone to pests and diseases.

Plant your tomatoes too early and they might stall, stutter or even die. Plant too late and they won’t have time to ripen before the cool humid nights of winter introduce disease. All you’ll manage are a gazillion jars of green tomato chutney. Timing is critical when it comes to tomatoes. I’ve already discussed the timing of planting in relation to my quest to grow a Christmas tomato without a greenhouse (yes, it can be done). What’s a Christmas tomato, you ask? How do you grow one? Find out here.

Then there’s the seed selection. I’ve written in general about seed selection and why it is so important here. But my poster child for this topic is the humble tomato. You can have the best compost in the world, the fanciest staking methods, you can lavish water on your plants, talk to them, spend every night out there chasing away the rats, but if you start with inferior tomato seeds, you’ll only ever grow inferior tomatoes. Choose tomato varieties that you like to eat. Find the tastiest varieties and grow those.

Can you keep a secret? I organise a tomato taste test for participants at certain workshops that I run. Every time, I add a supermarket tomato or two into the mix and give them a fancy name like ‘Worthington’. No matter whether I buy the expensive organic tomatoes, or the cheapest cherry tomatoes or slicers, my workshop participants rank the supermarket tomatoes the lowest of the lot. Every time. They are so bland.

Don’t save seeds from those tasteless watery supermarket tomatoes, because all you’ll ever grow are supermarket tomatoes.

I’ve listed some of my favourite tomato varieties below and I encourage you to share yours in the comments.

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Common problems when growing tomatoes

Growing tomatoes is straightforward if you get the genetics and timing right. Plant the right tomato variety at the right time and she’ll be right. But get it wrong and there’s a whole list of diseases and ailments that can afflict your tomatoes.

Early blight is a fungal disease that can cause brown or black spots on the leaves and is more common during periods of high humidity. Good airflow can help prevent it. I find that Jaune Flamme, Brandywine Pink and many large red slicing tomatoes are prone to this disease. I can grow susceptible plants here in Kyneton, because our summers are hot and dry, so the disease doesn’t manifest. But when I grew Jaune Flamme in Melbourne the plants would be dead by the end of February thanks to the higher humidity and subsequent disease.

Wilt invades the roots via the soil. Again, choosing resistant varieties prevents this issue. It also eliminates the need to rotate your crops every year to avoid it.

Blossom end rot is caused by a lack of calcium – but that’s not necessarily because the calcium is lacking in your soil. I’ve written about blossom end rot here. The best way to avoid it is to keep soil moisture consistent and grow resistant varieties. Blossom end rot is most prevalent in Roma tomatoes. Don’t take any notice of the people on social media who tell you to add Epsom salts. This will only make it worse.

All tomato varieties are extremely susceptible to herbicide contamination, which can arrive in purchased soil, compost or straw mulch. Unfortunately, I’m seeing it more and more. You’ll notice it as twisted and distorted foliage at the growing tips. More on this problem and how to test for it here.

What about that new tomato disease that was in the news recently? Tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) affects tomatoes, capsicums and chillies. You’re unlikely to discover it in your garden for now, but if you’re concerned you can read more about it here.

All bark and no bite? Are your plants looking immaculate and lush in February and not setting fruit? Then you’ve probably overfed them. More on that here.

The Vegetable Patch from Scratch series will give you more information on:

• Common pests of the vegetable patch

• Common diseases of the vegetable patch

• Common nutrient deficiencies of the vegetable patch

• Common problems of the vegetable patch

Myth-busting double feature: pollination panic and determinate deluge

I often see social media posts of folks taking to their tomato flowers with an electric toothbrush. And sure, those slow-motion videos of the pollen flying everywhere do look amazing. But don’t believe the hype. There’s no need for any of that malarky.

I grow tomatoes under insect netting. It provides a great microclimate and helps to extend the season. It prevents the birds from eating the fruit and it stops the dreaded Queensland Fruit Fly from stinging them. However, my set-up also prevents bees and other pollinators from accessing the tomato flowers. And guess what? I still pick crates and crates of tomatoes every year. Tomato flowers seem to pollinate themselves just fine, which is probably why they come out true to type when you save their seed.

There’s no need for electric toothbrushes or pollination panic. The tomato plants have got it sorted.

The other myth I want to address is the determinate vs indeterminate tomato debate. Most salad, slicing and cherry tomatoes are indeterminate. They grow on ever increasing long vines and their fruit ripens over a lengthy harvest season. By contrast, determinate tomatoes, which include most of the cooking tomatoes, like Romas, are typically bush tomatoes. These need a bit of support, but not the elaborate staking that indeterminate tomatoes tend to enjoy. The other characteristic of determinate tomatoes is that they ripen all their crop at once. Or so the internet might lead you to believe.

I’m not so sure about that. My San Marzano saucing tomatoes ripen fruit over a long-drawn-out season. I normally pick the first ripe fruit in early February, and from there they increase their yields of ripe fruit in a big way until I eventually get sick of picking them. I rip the plants out to make way for green manure crops around late April or even May. I reckon it’s a myth that determinate tomatoes ripen all their fruit in a short few weeks.

The nitty gritty of growing tomatoes: phenology, varieties and planting

Timing

This chart shows the best times to grow tomatoes based on my experience of growing these crops in both Melbourne (warm temperate) and Kyneton (cool temperate), both in south-eastern Australia. The timing is applicable for growers in the same climates across the southern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere folks will need to adjust the timing by six months.

Read more

When it comes to breakfast, I’m a no frills kinda guy. Every morning, I have four Vita Brits (wheat based breakfast biscuits for my international readers) topped with whatever fruit is in season. In summer, freshly picked berries adorn my simple breakky. When I’m tired of the berries I switch to stone fruit such as peaches and plums. Diced pears, nashi and apples get me through autumn and well into winter. It’s only in, say, August and September that it’s challenging to come up with breakfast cereal toppings. Then it’s store-bought banana, stewed summer fruit from the freezer, bottled pears or – more often – freshly stewed rhubarb.

Like a good friend, rhubarb is there for me no matter what the time of year. When it’s cold and when it’s hot, I can always scrounge some rhubarb stalks from the garden. Despite its reliability, I neglect harvesting it in summer and autumn, when there are easier and sweeter pickings to be had. But come late winter, I humbly return, keen for some home-grown goodness on my breakfast.

Rhubarb is ‘old-mate reliable’. A perennial friend who gives so much and expects so little in return.

With rhubarb you only get out what you put in

Once established, rhubarb plants are bulletproof. They’ll survive drought conditions just fine. They cope with semi-shade (read a list of other shade tolerant food plants here). Like most plants, rhubarb doesn’t like wet feet, but even then, it can tolerate brief periods of waterlogging.

Rhubarb is resilient. But if you want to harvest long, flavoursome rhubarb stems you’re going to need to give more than tough love. Consistent watering during dry spells will help the plants to thrive, as will regular applications of nitrogen. You can use an off-the-shelf general-purpose fertiliser. But I prefer to use chicken manure from my deep litter system. The nitrogen-rich manure is balanced by the carbon-rich woodchips that I place in the run. Over time the manure and woodchips form a product that is perfect for perennial crops such as rhubarb and asparagus. Every few moths I clean out the chicken pen and sprinkle some of it around the base of the rhubarb plants. I avoid dumping piles right on top of the crowns, but even then, I reckon they could handle it.

Common problems when growing rhubarb

Rhubarb is pretty much a set and forget vegetable. It largely remains free of diseases and pests.

The biggest problem seems to be short or spindly stems. Some of this can be attributed to variety selection, but it usually results from a lack of water or nitrogen (or both).

Occasionally crowns will rot if placed in heavy, waterlogged soil. So consider planting them in raised beds or mounds if your soil is heavy.

The following posts in the Vegetable Patch from Scratch series give more information relevant to growing rhubarb:

• Common pests of the vegetable patch

• Common diseases of the vegetable patch

• Common nutrient deficiencies of the vegetable patch

• Common problems of the vegetable patch

Myth-busting: Rhubarb leaves are poisonous

In some cultures, rhubarb’s vigorous growth and rich red stems (of some varieties) make it a symbol of prosperity and renewal. Rhubarb has been used in traditional rituals and ceremonies to ward off evil spirits. But a belief I can confidently debunk is the belief that rhubarb leaves are poisonous.

The scientific basis of the poisonous leaves myth is that they contain oxalic acid. Many other vegetables contain this compound in various concentrations, including spinach, beetroot, pumpkin seeds and some nuts.

Oxalic acid is fine to eat in low quantities. But should be avoided by those who have kidney disease or kidney stones. Analysis shows the oxalic acid concentration of rhubarb leaves is around five times greater than that of spinach leaves. It’s a good idea to avoid eating rhubarb leaves because of this high concentration, but depending on how healthy your kidneys are, you would need to eat a lot of them to kill you. Rhubarb stems also contain oxalic acid but in much lower quantities. Boiling or stewing the stems helps to break the oxalic acid down to a level our bodies can digest.

I’m often asked if it is okay to put (supposedly toxic) rhubarb leaves into the compost. Folks are worried about poisoning their plants. The answer is yes, you can safely do this. The oxalic acid in the leaves naturally breaks down to carbon, water and oxygen, which plants can use.

The nitty gritty of growing rhubarb: phenology, varieties and planting

Timing

This chart shows the best times to plant rhubarb crowns (pieces of plant that have been divided) based on my experience of growing them in both Melbourne (warm temperate) and Kyneton (cool temperate), both in south-eastern Australia. The timing is applicable for growers in the same climates across the southern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere folks will need to adjust the timing by six months.

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My cousins are some of my best mates. My dad was one of four brothers and they each took turns to milk the cows in the dairy at Grandma and Grandpa’s farm in Mickleham, just north of Melbourne. Every weekend, while our dads worked, my cousins and I would make hay bale forts, climb trees, kick the footy and get into all sorts of mischief. We would spend time with Grandma Ruth, collecting eggs, baking jam roll, and sometimes helping in the garden. These were some of the best times of my life and formed strong childhood memories.

Grandma Ruth was more preoccupied with farm life than the garden, but she still tended her flower beds with care. Sweet peas were one of her favourites. Grandma Ruth’s only fruit tree was a quince and the only vegetables I remember her growing were broad beans (known as fava beans in some parts of the world).

Every autumn Grandma Ruth would dig over a patch in the garden and plant the wrinkled bean seeds she’d saved at the start of the previous summer. There would always be more seeds than she needed, and she would offer the extras to us grandkids to take home and plant in our own gardens. This led to some of my earliest experiences of a home-grown glut.

Every spring, Grandma Ruth had an amazing crop of broad beans. Each weekend she would encourage us to pick a paper bag of broad bean pods and take them home to Mum to cook up. Spring was the only time of the year that we ate broad beans. But even then, I didn’t really like them.

At the end of the season, Grandma would leave some pods on the plants to mature. The seeds within would dry on the plants and she would shell them and store them in a glass jar. I can still picture that glass jar of broad bean seeds sitting on the sideboard in the run-down old farmhouse. The jar and its contents patiently watching over us cousins as we enjoyed Grandma’s delicious baking while our fathers milked the cows. The shrivelled beans were just waiting for the return of autumn. Waiting for their chance to be planted and to continue the cycle.

Broad beans: green manure or genuine food?

Now that I’m an adult, my palate has evolved and I love the flavour of broad beans. They provide a staple crop in spring, when there’s very little else being harvested. Along with asparagus, broad beans provide a respite from the long winter glut of broccoli and cauliflower.

But I hate the work involved with broad beans. Not the work to grow them – that’s dead easy. Just scatter some seeds across a garden bed in autumn and that’s it. What I hate is the work required to get them to the table. My mother does too. As kids, when we presented her with some of Grandma Ruth’s broad beans, Mum would thank us through gritted teeth. It’s only as an adult that I understand why.

First you take a big bucket of freshly harvested broad bean pods. Shell them. Your harvest volume is now a fraction of what you started with. Picked young and tender enough, these beans can now be cooked and eaten. But if you’ve left the pods to fill out with mature beans, then their skin will have become tough and bitter. So you need to peel each bean individually. The easiest way to do this is to quickly blanch or fry them. Then the skins split and you can squeeze the beans from their skin. Easy, yes. Time consuming, hell yes.

The problem with picking only the young pods is that the beans are quite small, so you need to pick and pod two bucketfuls rather than just one to get a small meal from them.

Either way, preparing broads beans for the table is a lot of work.

I grow a lot more broad beans than we need. Each autumn, as I remove my summer crops, I replace them with a green manure crop. I grow this crop to improve my soil (more on that here). Like all legumes, broad beans are nitrogen fixing plants and are a great choice for green manure crops. I love diversity in my garden, so along with the broad bean seeds I usually scatter lupins, coriander, peas, and any other vegetable seed that will grow at that time of the year.

Conventional wisdom says to dig a green manure crop in before it flowers. But if I did that here in Kyneton, the beds would sit fallow for a good six weeks before I planted my summer crops. So I allow the green manure to flower. And this leads to an almighty abundance of broad beans. I usually harvest only a few bucketfuls of pods for us to eat. I always leave a small patch of around 3 x 3 metres to mature the pods and the seeds for next year.

I probably eat more broad beans in the garden than I do at the dinner table. I’ll pick a few of the smaller pods as I’m walking past the plants and shell and eat the raw beans right there. The kids will often do the same. I also like munching on the flowers and tender shoots of broad beans – more than I like the beans themselves. These both taste just like the beans, but without the work. The flowers make a great garnish. You can steam the growing tips or eat them raw.

I also use broad beans as my primary indicator plant when running bioassays to check for herbicide contamination (more on that here).

Even if you don’t eat many broad beans, the plants are a very useful thing indeed!

Favaism: Life without broad beans

Eating broad beans can trigger a severe reaction in people who have a genetic disorder known as G6PD deficiency, also called favaism. It’s most common in people from the Middle East and parts of sub-Saharan Africa but it’s also present in other parts of the world. For more information, see the Australian Government’s Health Direct website.

Common problems when growing broad beans

Broad beans are bullet-proof and dead easy to grow. But there are a few problems I see every year.

Rust can affect the plants. This is a fungal disease and it tends to occur when humidity is high (pretty much all of winter here in Kyneton). Some varieties of broad beans are more susceptible than others. Some varieties are so susceptible to disease that once winter hits Kyneton, they just curl up their toes and die. You can increase the airflow all you like, but when it comes to broad beans, careful variety selection is the best way to avoid disease.

Some varieties grow very tall. This requires you to stake the plants or they topple over under the weight of the pods as they develop. Some varieties don’t grow as tall and therefore only require minimal staking at best – perhaps a stake on each corner of the garden bed and a string run between them to stop them flopping on the path. But I don’t bother and quickly learn to step over the fallen plants.

Aphid infestations can be severe in autumn and spring. I find that thanks to my resilient garden ecosystem and perhaps changing weather conditions, even the worst infestations clear up in due course with no effort on my part. The affected plants tend to be productive anyway.

Then there’s the issue of poor pod set. My plants flower profusely in late winter and early spring and the bees love visiting these flowers on sunny days. But some of the flowers shrivel and fall off, amounting to nothing.

At the end of September or start of October the remaining flowers magically start forming pods (yes, each year I record the date I first notice broad bean pods forming in my gardening diary). Interestingly, the same phenomenon occurs in warmer regions, such as Melbourne, but the pods begin forming earlier than in my cooler climate. Temperature must play a role in pod set (which is why I record and compare the dates I notice pods setting – it gives me an idea of how warm the conditions are in early spring). If your broad beans are flowering but not setting pods then give them a good dose of patience. They’ll get there when it warms up.

The following posts in the Vegetable Patch from Scratch series will give you more information on:

• Common pests of the vegetable patch

• Common diseases of the vegetable patch

• Common nutrient deficiencies of the vegetable patch

• Common problems of the vegetable patch

The nitty gritty of growing broad beans: phenology, varieties and planting

Timing

This chart shows the best times to grow broad beans based on my experience of growing these crops in Melbourne (warm temperate) and Kyneton (cool temperate), both in south-eastern Australia. The timing is applicable for growers in the same climates across the southern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere folks will need to adjust the timing by six months.

Read more

I don’t eat much garlic. A few years back I worked out that I shared my grandfather’s problem with digesting alliums such as garlic and onions. At the time it was a bit devastating, because I love garlic. I still use it in some of my preserves (such as pickled cucumbers) and we add a few bulbs when cooking the weekly Sunday roast, but our household uses very little garlic. I can hardly justify growing it.

But every year I grow a huge crop of garlic anyway. Why, you ask? Because it is so easy to grow. Save the best bulbs from last year’s crop, pop them in at the right time of year, weed them occasionally and that’s it. When the plants are finished, just lift the bulbs and hang them in the shed (more on that here). Never was there a more simple crop to grow. Other than a bit of time, it costs me nothing – no money to buy seeds, no water, not even compost or fertiliser. Nothing.

Don’t double book your patch

The major downside of growing garlic is time. Garlic takes a long time to reach maturity and is not harvested until well into summer. So avoid planting it in a space you’ve earmarked for planting out in spring, or you’ll find your patch ends up double booked. It’s a common mistake that many folks make.

Common problems when growing garlic

Garlic is “almost foolproof” ( a great oxymoron if ever I’ve written one). Not much can go wrong when growing garlic except:

• Rust. Orange spots or blisters on your garlic leaves are signs of rust. It’s a fungal disease, exacerbated by too much humidity. Lots of folks advocate for removing affected foliage, avoiding planting in the same spot etc. But when I had an outbreak of rust in 2023 I didn’t heed that advice and my crop was fine, despite the rust. The bulbs were big and healthy. They stored well and I planted them again in 2024. The rust eventually reemerged in the subsequent crop. I’m running an experiment this year to determine the best way to overcome this problem. More on that here.

• Rotting bulbs. If it’s the end of the season and your garlic plants have died back but the soil is still cold and damp, you can run the risk of the bulbs rotting in the soil. My sandy soil is free draining, so it’s never been an issue for me, even when I’ve left the bulbs in the soil for a month longer than I should have. If you have clay soil, timely harvesting of your bulbs can prevent them from rotting.

The following posts in the Vegetable Patch from Scratch series will give you more information on:

• Common pests of the vegetable patch

• Common diseases of the vegetable patch

• Common nutrient deficiencies of the vegetable patch

• Common problems of the vegetable patch

Myth-busting: garlic the vampire slayer?

The ancient Celtic word “all” means “monster slayer” and gives rise to the word “allium”, the genus that garlic belongs to. Traditionally garlic has been used against vampires, witches and evil spirits. It’s also great for warding off prospective romantic interests if you indulge in a garlic- rich dish on a first date. There are plenty of claims as to the health properties of eating garlic. But the myth about garlic that I want to debunk relates to the timing of planting.

The myth: “Plant on the shortest day of the year and harvest on the longest day of the year.”

I’m not sure where this myth originated, but if you follow this advice in my part of the world, your garlic won’t amount to much. The plants will grow, but the bulbs that form will be insipid and small. In the temperate regions of south-eastern Australia you need to plant your garlic in March to get the best results.

The nitty-gritty of growing garlic: phenology, varieties and planting

Timing

This chart shows the best times to grow garlic based on my experience of growing these crops in both Melbourne (warm temperate) and Kyneton (cool temperate), both in south-eastern Australia. The timing is applicable for growers in the same climates across the southern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere folks will need to adjust the timing by six months.

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Growing cabbages used to baffle me. In my five years of gardening here in cool temperate Kyneton, I’d never been able to reliably grow a decent crop of cabbages. They tended to bolt early, split or just amount to nothing. I’d pick the occasional winner, but that was a rarity. I was so frustrated that I couldn’t troubleshoot the problem. So I put out a call for help on social media: What am I doing wrong?

That post highlighted how the knowledge and experience that I share with you is not a one-way street. A spark of insight from one comment led to a tweak in the way I grow cabbages, and bam, just like that, the problem is solved. Now I’m growing some amazing looking cabbages. Here’s how you can grow fantastic cabbages too.

Stop slugs, space seedlings and savour sumptuous sauerkraut

Keep the weeds down as young seedlings can quickly become smothered. The weeds also provide habitat for slugs.

Give your cabbages plenty of space and lots of nutrients. Cabbages are not a crop for the small-space gardener. Fortunately, cabbages grow in autumn and winter, so their high water requirements are normally taken care of by rainfall.

Common problems when growing cabbages

There are quite a few things that can go wrong when growing cabbages. Most of them are easily overcome with good planning.

• Cabbages that are planted too late in the season may bolt before they form a decent head (because of photoperiodism). This is usually evident by the head splitting apart and sending up a flower stalk.

• Another reason for early bolting of cabbages is poor spacing (more on this later). Cabbages need lots of room to grow.

• One of the most annoying aspects of growing cabbages is slugs. They’ll destroy young seedlings. What’s worse is when they find their way into the cabbage head itself, making preparation a slimy and arduous task of finding and removing the slugs.

• Cabbage White Butterfly can wreak havoc on young cabbage seedlings and other brassicas. Read more on how to avoid this problem here.

• A range of fungal diseases affect brasscias. I find these are best overcome with good airflow and careful variety selection.

• One of the most critical aspects of growing cabbages is ensuring your seedlings don’t become stressed. Choosing stressed seedlings will cause the plants to bolt early. More on that here.

The following posts in the Vegetable Patch from Scratch series will give you more information on:

• Common pests of the vegetable patch

• Common diseases of the vegetable patch

• Common nutrient deficiencies of the vegetable patch

• Common problems of the vegetable patch.

Myth-busting: cross-cut cabbages

The most common cabbage myth is spread by parents unwilling to discuss human reproduction with their children.

Another common cabbage myth is that they (and Brussels sprouts) need to have a cross cut into the base of the stalk before cooking. Some folks claim this is because it helps them to cook better. However, this practice probably stems from the superstitious belief that evil spirits or tiny demons hid between the leaves of cabbages, sprouts and lettuces. In medieval times, a cross needed to be cut into the base of the plant to drive the evil spirits out and prevent them from entering your body and causing a stomach ache.

The nitty-gritty of growing cabbages: phenology, varieties and planting

Timing

This chart shows the best times to grow cabbages based on my experience of growing these crops in both Melbourne (warm temperate) and Kyneton (cool temperate), both in south-eastern Australia. The timing is applicable for growers in the same climates across the southern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere folks will need to adjust the timing by six months.

Read more

At the start of the growing season everyone in my family loves broccoli (or “trees” as the kids call it). It’s tender, delicious and packed full of fibre and nutrients. I grow so much broccoli that after a month or so of eating it several times per week, the whole family is over it. After a six-month broccoli glut, we’re begging for mercy!

Broccoli is fun to grow, especially as it can turn around a harvest far quicker than cabbage, cauliflower, and especially Brussels sprouts. Our kids love to eat it raw, right there in the patch, and many other parents tell me the same thing. But if you cook it and serve it on a plate, the kids just turn their noses up at it. Growing broccoli at home can be a sneaky way to get your kids eating more vegetables (a bit of reverse psychology may help… “Whatever you do, kids, don’t pick and eat that broccoli!”).

Sprouting, heading, in between and “total nerd” broccoli

Growing broccoli is super easy and can be very rewarding, and there’s a mountain of choices when it comes to variety selection.

There’s sprouting broccoli that produces small shoots over a long season. Perfect for small households and adding to stir-fries.

Monster varieties are the opposite. Some of my varieties regularly produce heads of broccoli over 40 cm in diameter.

There are even some varieties that do a bit of both. They start by producing a medium sized head and then send up plenty of side shoots as a follow-up.

Then there’s the colour choice. I tend to stick to your standard green, but there’s also purple broccoli.

Finally there’s the broccoli for maths nerds. Broccoli Romanesco grows in a spiralling fractal pattern. That pattern follows the Fibonacci sequence. Technically broccoli Romanesco is a cauliflower, not a broccoli, but they’re the same species, so we’re splitting hairs. I’m including it here because of its common name.

Wherever your preferences in broccoli lie, there’s a variety that perfect for you.

Common problems when growing broccoli

• One of the most annoying aspects of growing broccoli is slugs. They’ll destroy young seedlings and can even find their way into the broccoli head itself.

• White Cabbage Butterfly can wreak havoc on young broccoli seedlings and all other brassicas. Read more on how to avoid this problem here.

• A range of fungal diseases affect brasscias. I find they are best overcome with good airflow and careful variety selection.

• Rats can be a real pain when it comes to growing broccoli. They love to eat the developing broccoli heads. You can read the story of how they wiped out the first crop I ever grew in a rental property and what to do about them here.

• One of my biggest issues with growing broccoli is a deficiency of the nutrient boron. If you grow in sandy soil or a high rainfall area, you may notice it too.

The following posts in the Vegetable Patch from Scratch series will give you more information on:

• Common pests of the vegetable patch

• Common diseases of the vegetable patch

• Common nutrient deficiencies of the vegetable patch

• Common problems of the vegetable patch.

Myth-busting: it turns out broccoli does play well with others

Allelopathy occurs when plants secrete substances into the soil that can harm other plants. Eucalypts and pine trees are fine examples of allelopathic plants (avoid putting the vegetable patch near them).

There’s a myth that broccoli can also produce allelopathic residues that affect other members of the cabbage family grown in the soil in future years. It’s touted as a good reason for practising crop rotation and growing brassicas in a different spot each year.

However, there’s no scientific basis to this claim. I have grown brassicas in the same garden beds for years without an issue. By all means rotate your crops for other reasons, but brasscias are not allelopathic.

The nitty-gritty of growing broccoli: phenology, varieties and planting

Timing

This chart shows the best times to grow broccoli based on my experience of growing these crops in both Melbourne (warm temperate) and Kyneton (cool temperate), both in south-eastern Australia. The timing is applicable for growers in the same climates across the southern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere folks will need to adjust the timing by six months.

Read more

I find beans a fickle crop to grow. I seem to only ever go through boom and bust cycles with beans. They’re either sulking or producing so many pods that I can’t keep up. In a way, they remind me of citrus. Once you can overcome their sensitivities they’ll reward you with abundance.

Beans are delicious. I love eating tender young pods raw, right there in the patch. The key to harvesting tasty beans is to harvest often. Picking every second day ensures that the pods are harvested before they start to develop seeds inside. Once the seeds are developing, the pods tend to become tough, stringy and not as sweet. Beans are great steamed, and you can even blanch and freeze them to use later. If you leave some beans on the vines to dry at the end of the season, you can use the seeds for soups and stews.

Runner or bush, broad or perennial beans?

What a huge choices we have when growing beans. There are so many different varieties. I’ll write about some of my favourite varieties towards the end of this guide. But for now, let’s look at the four different categories.

Runner beans (climbing beans)

These are my favourite type of beans to grow as they maximise the use of space and I love watching them as they reach for the sky. These are the high achievers of the legumes. You’ll need a trellis to support them. Runner beans are great for establishing bean tepees for the kids to play in.

Bush beans

Also called dwarf beans. These have a shorter growing season than runner beans. This means that they will generally produce pods a bit earlier in the season than runner beans. And you can plant them later in the growing season and still harvest pods. Bush beans don’t need a trellis, but that means you’ll have to bend over to harvest them if you are growing in the ground). I find they produce a glut over a shorter harvest period than runner beans and also seem more prone to viral diseases.

Broad beans

Also known as faba or fava beans, broad beans grow best over the winter period. They’re very different from runner and bush beans – so different that I’ve dedicated a separate How to Grow Guide to growing them.

Scarlet runner beans

These are a perennial bean, and for that reason they’re also known as seven year beans. During their first growing season they establish a large tuber under the ground. Provided the soil is free draining, the tubers will overwinter and re-shoot the following spring. The scarlet red flowers provide a spectacular display. They can produce massive pods, but I find you need to harvest the pods when they are quite small, the size of a pencil. Otherwise, they are too tough and stringy to eat.

Common problems when growing beans

As I alluded to above, I encounter all sorts of problems with beans. Most of these problems can be overcome through careful choice of varieties, as some seem more susceptible to each of these problems than others.

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My kids love helping me in the garden. One of their favourite activities is growing potatoes. Potatoes are a very easy crop to grow, and planting tubers is much easier for little fingers than carefully sowing tiny broccoli seeds. 

Once planted, potatoes are quick to emerge from warm soil. This quick turnaround keeps children engaged. The flowers are bee magnets and together we enjoy tracking the insects’ flight path as they come and go from the hives. But the fun really begins when the tubers develop. Bandicooting for potatoes (see the note at the end of this article) or digging them up is a delight for kids. It’s like the end of a treasure hunt where you finally get to dig where X marks the spot.

Potato towers, grow bags, sacks and small spaces

Potatoes make up a big portion of our household diet and we grow a lot of them. But you need only a small space and you can grow a few potatoes. You’ve probably seen plenty of social media posts about different ways to grow potatoes. Folks have created some fancy set-ups.

One set-up I would avoid, though, is a potato tower constructed out of car tyres. Car tyres can leach some nasty chemicals as they break down. I don’t believe they belong anywhere in the garden (or playgrounds).

Common problems when growing potatoes

Potato leaves are sensitive to frost, so planting too early might cause a bit of dieback in the leaves, but the plants usually recover if the frost wasn’t too severe.

I usually leave my spuds in the ground for as long as possible and just dig them up as required. Our winters are very wet, and I find that some varieties of potatoes are more prone to rotting in the soil than others. Either choose your varieties carefully (more on that later) or dig them up before the soil becomes too cold and wet.

My biggest problem when growing potatoes is forgetting to keep the tubers covered. In the height of summer, the plants do a great job of shading any tubers that are developing on the soil surface. But as the plants grow taller, they start to lean over. This allows gaps to form in the canopy. As autumn nears the plants often begin to die back and soon all the shade is gone.

Soil or compost needs to be mounded up against the stems of the plants to cover developing tubers and stop them turning green. I am always too busy or forget to undertake this important task. The result is that around a third of our potatoes come out with green on them. Fortunately, many tubers develop deep down and remain covered until we dig them up. I’ve noticed that some varieties are more likely than others to develop tubers on the soil surface and some are better at keeping them covered. More on that in the list of varieties at the end of this post.

The following posts in the Vegetable Patch from Scratch series will give you more information on:

• Common pests of the vegetable patch

• Common diseases of the vegetable patch

• Common nutrient deficiencies of the vegetable patch

• Common problems of the vegetable patch

Myth-busting: Eating green potatoes will kill you

Once exposed to direct sunlight, potato skins will begin to develop a green colour and a toxin called solanine. It’s important to note that the green is caused by chlorophyl, but the same conditions that induce chlorophyl formation also induce formation of the solanine toxin. The increase in the two is correlated but not caused by one or the other.

Solanine toxin in green potatoes can cause digestive issues, but it takes a lot of it to cause death. It is incredibly rare for someone to die from eating green potatoes but it’s best to avoid eating them anyway. Instead, I use any affected tubers to plant next year’s crop.

Read more about storing potatoes here.

The nitty-gritty of growing potatoes: phenology, varieties and planting

Timing

This chart shows the best times to grow potatoes based on my experience of growing these crops in both Melbourne (warm temperate) and Kyneton (cool temperate), both in south-eastern Australia. The timing is applicable for growers in the same climates across the southern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere folks will need to adjust the timing by six months.

Read more

Everything about growing zucchini is turbocharged.

You start by planting big seeds. Once germinated, the seedlings muscle up like an early ’70s Schwarzenegger. When the plant is fully grown, the leaves are huge, rough and spiky. A zucchini plant means business, and it shows this through its conveyor belt production of fruit. A zucchini plant is a very productive vegetable indeed.

I love playing the game of hide and seek with my zucchini plants and so do the kids. In the height of summer, I try to inspect the plant daily. Sometimes you miss a developing fruit, and then it’s too late. Overnight a small, tender, perfect zucchini turns into a monster. These monsters are not ideal in the kitchen but they’re fun to find. The kids love picking the whoppers and parading them into the house. What’s not to like about growing a monster zucchini?

Did you hear the one about the woman who grew the world’s largest zucchini? She wanted to take it to a friend to show it off, but the zucchini was so huge, it stuck out the car window and she couldn’t lock the car. She stopped at the shops for a few things on the way, and when she returned to her car,  a terrible thing had happened… someone had left her the world’s second largest zucchini!

We have a “one zucchini plant only” rule in our household

I think everyone makes the same mistake at some point. You buy a punnet of zucchini seedlings from the plant nursery and don’t want to waste the excess seedlings. Rather than give them away or compost them, you plant all those seedlings into the garden. It can’t hurt, can it?

Then boom, you spend the rest of the summer carrying arm loads of zucchini into the house. Every day. You can’t give them away fast enough. Friends stop visiting because they’re sick of the zucchini you try to offload to them. You can have too much of a good thing.

A few years back we decided to implement a one zucchini plant rule in our household and we’ve never looked back. I highly recommend you do the same.

Common problems when growing zucchini

I’ve already alluded to the biggest problem with growing zucchini, and that’s their overproduction. However, sometimes zucchini have a little “blip” just when it looks as though everything is going well. Seedlings will bolt out of the blocks and quickly grow into large plants. They’ll begin to flower profusely but then the little female zucchini wither and fall off. This is most likely a result of a lack of pollination.

In autumn, at the end of the season, you’re likely to encounter powdery mildew on the leaves of your zucchini plants. Cooler night-time temperatures combined with increased humidity causes this fungal disease to proliferate. Often gardeners look to short-term remedies. I see the disease as an inevitable consequence of the transition from one season to the next. To me powdery mildew is simply a sign to remove the spent plants and begin planting winter vegetables.

Interestingly, I see in Melbourne that many zucchini plants suffer powdery mildew outbreaks as early as February as a result of the coastal humidity. In contrast, up here in cool temperate Kyneton, our summers are hot and very dry. The low humidity reduces the incidence of fungal diseases and it’s usually the first frost that suddenly wipes out our zucchini production in late April or early May.

The following posts in the Vegetable Patch from Scratch series will give you more information on:

• Common pests of the vegetable patch

• Common diseases of the vegetable patch

• Common nutrient deficiencies of the vegetable patch

• Common problems of the vegetable patch.

Zucchinis die a lady-like death

I love the autumnal demise of the zucchini plant, possibly because I’m sick of zucchini at that point, but more so for the spectacle of Illeis glabula that it attracts.

Illeis glabula is also known as the Fungus Eating Ladybird and they begin their feast as zucchini plants slowly succumb to powdery mildew each autumn.

These ladybirds with yellow spots quickly breed up and cover the leaves with adults and larvae that munch as much powdery mildew fungus as they can.

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Myth-busting: zucchini or courgette?

Zucchini are easy to grow, so there are not really any great myths to bust on the process of growing them. But there are some interesting discussions to be had about what to call them.

First, zucchini or courgette? That depends on where you are from. Courgette comes from the French word for green gourd and is commonly used in Britain and New Zealand.

Zucchini comes from Italian and is more commonly used in Australia and the USA.

In Italian, you can refer to a zucchini using both the masculine (zucchino) and feminine (zucchini) forms. Italian speakers also refer to plural zucchini as zucchine (feminine) or zucchini (masculine). We’ve adopted this word into English where zucchini can be either singular or plural. But you can also refer to multiple zucchini as zucchinis.

My editor, Kerryn, says it doesn’t matter, so long as I’m consistent.

The nitty-gritty of growing zucchini: phenology, varieties and planting

Timing

This chart shows the best times to grow zucchini based on my experience of growing these crops in both Melbourne (warm temperate) and Kyneton (cool temperate), both in south-eastern Australia. The timing is applicable for growers in the same climates across the southern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere folks will need to adjust the timing by six months.

Read more

For me, sweet corn evokes many memories and emotions.

It reminds me of late summer and early autumn camping trips to northern Victoria with a huge bag full of freshly picked homegrown corn cobs stashed in the back of the ute. We roasted those cobs over the campfire and ate them until we were stuffed. Good times.

Sweet corn also reminds me of the frustrations of growing food in suburbia. If there’s one crop that rats love, it’s sweet corn. The few years that I tried growing it in Melbourne were always the same. The plants would grow well (and use up a lot of water in the process). The cobs would start to ripen. We would enjoy our first delicious meal from them. The next morning, bam, the whole lot would be gone. Overnight the rats would have stripped the cobs clean. After a few years I gave up on growing sweet corn in the suburbs. It was just too frustrating.

Then there’s the humility. Sweet corn has taught me to always test my assumptions. I used to be adamant that sweet corn should always be directly sown, not transplanted. I’d tried transplanting it and it had never succeeded. But last summer all that changed. I had problems with germination rates in my corn, so I sowed back-ups in the greenhouse and transplanted them. It worked. It worked so well, in fact, that my early crops of sweet corn from now on will be started in the greenhouse. I’ve changed my thinking and my advice to others and it’s all thanks to some dodgy corn seed (more on this story here).

It doesn’t make me feel quite as sentimental as tomatoes, but sweet corn is such an emotional crop!

Plant sweet corn successively for a continuous crop

The main challenges of growing sweet corn crops are water and space. Sweet corn needs a lot of both. There’s no point growing a small crop of, say, six plants. It usually doesn’t work out very well. You need to grow large crops of sweet corn to ensure high quality cobs (more on that in a minute). Sweet corn is also very thirsty. The plants need an abundance of water to grow big and strong. Large strong plants equate to large and tasty cobs.

I have a lot of space to grow food. And I have a very reliable supply of water on our property. This gives me the luxury of being able to grow lots of sweet corn. I love it so much that every summer I’ve lived in Kyneton, I’ve grown five or six successive crops, each of 50 plants.

Common problems when growing sweet corn

Growing sweet corn is fun. If you have the space and water, then I recommend you give it a go. Some summer days you can almost see the plants growing taller, and kids love playing in a corn patch. But things can also go horribly wrong. Think rats, drowned seed, drought stress and pollination problems.

Each of the silks hanging out of the end of the cob links to one of the kernels inside the cob. Each kernel need to be pollinated by the male flowers on top of the plants. If the kernels aren’t pollinated (by the wind), then they don’t swell and fill with delicious sugary sweetness.

To help ensure good pollination:

• Plant in blocks (not long rows)

• Plant at least 30 corn plants (I have seen successful crops grown with fewer plants, but pollination is not always that great with less than, say, 24 plants).

Freshly planted corn seed is prone to rotting in cold, damp soil, so crops planted too early in the season, before the soil has warmed up, tend to fail. As mentioned above, from now on my earliest crop of the season will be started in the greenhouse and transplanted.

Underwatered and underfed corn plants will be stunted and unproductive. Feed and water your crop well or don’t waste your time.

Then there are the rats. I’d go so far as to say don’t bother growing sweet corn in suburbia or anywhere that has rats. More on rats here.

The following posts in the Vegetable Patch from Scratch series will give you more information on:

• Common pests of the vegetable patch

• Common diseases of the vegetable patch

• Common nutrient deficiencies of the vegetable patch

• Common problems of the vegetable patch

The nitty-gritty of growing sweet corn: phenology, varieties and planting

Timing

This chart shows the best times to grow sweet corn based on my experience of growing these crops in both Melbourne (warm temperate) and Kyneton (cool temperate), both in south-eastern Australia. The timing is applicable for growers in the same climates across the southern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere folks will need to adjust the timing by six months.

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I know, my Philosophy of Edible Gardening traffic light system says you should focus on growing leafy greens. But gosh, it’s so easy to become self sufficient in growing carrots. Carrots are an incredibly productive crop yielding many kilos of delicious roots per square metre. Bar a slight hiccup with long-term storage of carrots one year, my family has been self-sufficient in carrots for four years and I’ve dedicated only one raised garden bed each year to achieving this. You should definitely be growing your own carrots. There’s such joy in heading to the patch to pluck a fresh carrot for dinner. It’s one of my kids’ favourite gardening activities, even though it results in carrot roulette.

A nervous game of carrot roulette

Growing a perfect carrot is tricky, and there are plenty of pitfalls for novice gardeners to overcome. Despite my awareness of many of these pitfalls, every year I end up growing some wonky carrots. Some years there are more of them than others. This creates a game of carrot roulette.

Most of the carrots that I grow are like the two on the left in the picture above. Large, straight and pretty much perfect. However, every now and then I find one that’s forked, twisted, sometimes stumpy and anything but perfect. Just like my friend there on the right. Yes, it’s still edible. Yes, it’s still delicious. But gosh, it takes a lot more work to get it to the table.

You want to make sure you scrub your carrots to remove all soil. This is the case for all root vegetables to reduce the potential for heavy metals and other contaminants in your food. There are so many nooks and crannies with forked carrots like the one on the right. Plus, there’s a lot more surface area to clean. No one wants the job of cleaning Old Mate on the right.

The worst part is that from the soil surface there’s no way to tell which carrots are perfect and which are forked. It’s pot luck.

Common problems when growing carrots

Forked carrots can occur for a few different reasons:

• Soil that is hard and or full of pebbles or rocks can cause it (which is not the case with our sandy soil).

• Transplanting carrot seedlings usually results in damage to their tap root, and this leads to forked or twisted carrots. (This is number one on my list of mistakes that I see gardeners make).

• In our garden, it is more likely the result of root knot nematodes or some other root munching soil critter. These may have affected the tip of the tap root while the seedling was still small, causing it to fork and develop a funky growth habit. Crop rotation and growing a biofumigant green manure crop such as mustard can help to reduce the nematode population. Read more about nematodes here.

Another problem with growing carrots is poor germination. As mentioned above, carrot seed needs to be sown directly to prevent damage to the taproot. Germination of carrot seed can take three to four weeks in cool soil. It needs to be kept moist during that whole time. If the seed bed surface dries out even for just a few hours then much of the seed is likely to fail. Keeping it moist may require you to water several times per day in warm weather. I discuss other strategies for starting carrot seed here.

Carrots are supposed to be biennial; that is, they are supposed to flower only at the end of the second growing season. I find the best way to prevent carrots from bolting is to harvest the roots before flowering occurs. I usually harvest mine in late June and pack them down for long term storage. More on that here.

The following posts in the Vegetable Patch from Scratch series will give you more information on:

• Common pests of the vegetable patch

• Common diseases of the vegetable patch

• Common nutrient deficiencies of the vegetable patch

• Common problems of the vegetable patch

Myth-busting: night vision

As children, we’re often told that eating carrots will help us to see better at night. Carrots are high in vitamin A, which is important for good vision. If someone suffers from a vitamin A deficiency, this may cause night blindness. However, carrots are not the only source of vitamin A, and provided you eat a balanced diet, chances are that eating carrots will make little difference to your night vision. This myth, at best, is only partly true.

The nitty-gritty of growing carrots: phenology, varieties and planting

Timing

This chart shows the best times to grow carrots based on my experience of growing these crops in both Melbourne (warm temperate) and Kyneton (cool temperate), both in south-eastern Australia. The timing is applicable for growers in the same climates across the southern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere folks will need to adjust the timing by six months.

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One happy surprise about my tree change to Kyneton was the asparagus patch. We purchased the property and moved in winter, when asparagus is dormant. The following September, I was super excited to see huge fat asparagus spears emerge from the soil. Fresh asparagus is delicious. My children love snapping spears off and eating them raw, right there in the garden. A few asparagus crowns can lead to an abundance of spears at a time when there’s not much else being harvested. Broad beans are the other spring crop, but asparagus is so much easier to prepare than broad beans.

Asparagus is the ultimate crop for the lazy gardener

Asparagus plants are perennial, meaning they keep growing year after year. There’s no need to worry about planting seeds each year and all that palaver. Just plant them, keep them happy and pick the emerging spears.

Oh, and give them some time – growing asparagus takes time. If you’re an impatient gardener then growing asparagus is going to be a test for you. It can take several years before you start harvesting your first spears. Asparagus needs a good dose of patience.

Other than time, the plants don’t need much else. Growing asparagus is easy and very rewarding.

Common problems when growing asparagus

Established asparagus crowns are pretty much bullet proof. They don’t seem to suffer much from disease. One of your biggest problems could be planting too many of them. You’ll be harvesting handfuls of spears every few days. But the resulting glut will make you very popular with friends and family.

The best way to reduce the impact of redlegged earth mite is to keep the asparagus bed well weeded. This reduces the mites’ habitat and gives better airflow to the emerging spears.

Allowing weeds to grow can cause other problems, too. They can conceal emerging spears, meaning you don’t see them until it is too late and they become tough and woody. Weeds also allow pests such as slugs to hide and cause damage to tender young shoots.

My biggest problem with asparagus is that on my property it has become a weed itself.

The following posts in the Vegetable Patch from Scratch series will give you more information on:

• Common pests of the vegetable patch

• Common diseases of the vegetable patch

• Common nutrient deficiencies of the vegetable patch

• Common problems of the vegetable patch

Myth-busting: the inferior female asparagus

A few years ago I stumbled across a social media post mentioning that male asparagus plants produce big, fat spears and female plants tend to produce many small and thin spears. I’d never heard this but found the idea very interesting and so I delved into it.

There certainly exists a long-held belief that this is true. Amazingly, the myth is also perpetuated by commercial growers of asparagus. The theory is that because the female plants invest so much energy in growing berries, which contain seed, they don’t have as much energy to put into spear production next spring. But I like science. So I checked out some scientific papers on the topic, such as this one, this one and quite a few others.

Some research shows that male plants produce a bit earlier in the season and perhaps a greater number of spears than female plants. However, many of the studies highlighted that spear weight and overall yield was greater from female plants. Females tend to produce fatter, longer spears, which is exactly what most growers want.

The main downside of growing female plants is that they tend to create an abundance of feral plants. If these self-sown plants grow directly in your asparagus patch then it can create too much competition and lead to smaller spears.

In my personal experience, some of my best asparagus spears have come from female plants. One male plant that I have produces masses of thin, whippy spears. The kids love eating them, but they’re not ideal.

In short, I don’t think it matters and I’m not going to bother weeding the female plants out of my patch.

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Planting asparagus seedlings versus transplanting crowns

Asparagus crowns can be expensive if you’re buying them from the shop. An alternative is to purchase asparagus seedlings (or grow them yourself from seeds), which will certainly help to keep the costs down.

I’ve mass planted asparagus seedlings into edible forest gardens for many clients over the years. The seedlings always take forever to get going. It will take many more years to harvest a decent crop from a seedling-grown plant than from one grown from a crown. The seedlings are also very prone to dying from snail attack and they can become swamped by weeds. If space is limited and time is short, then go straight to planting crowns in your garden.

Timing

This chart shows the best times to plant asparagus crowns based on my experience of growing these crops in Melbourne (warm temperate) and Kyneton (cool temperate), both in south-eastern Australia. The timing is applicable to growers in the same climates across the southern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere folks will need to adjust the timing by six months.

Soil preparation requirements for asparagus

Asparagus is a heavy feeder, so you will need to add plenty of compost or well-rotted manure to the soil before planting.

Having said that, I have feral asparagus plants popping up everywhere in the garden. Our native soil lacks many important nutrients, and yet some of the seedlings thrive despite utter neglect and limited rainfall over our long, hot, dry summers. The plants don’t seem to mind a bit of shade either. What does it all mean? Your asparagus will grow best in very fertile soil, but it will still grow and produce if your soil is less than ideal.

Read more about light, moderate and heavy feeders and my approach to crop rotation here.

Transplanting asparagus crowns: my experience and experimentation

The original asparagus patch that we inherited with our property is great. It is incredibly productive and produces way more asparagus than we can eat. But it is located in the “old berry patch” which is one day going to become the “new kitchen garden” as part of a big garden makeover. Given the huge lag between planting crowns and harvesting good quantities of spears I thought I’d get a head start on the new asparagus patch.

I have three raised garden beds in my orchard that are not used for much. Last year I decided to make them my new asparagus beds. In the process I thought I’d try a different approach in each of the three raised beds, and I’m seeing some interesting results already.

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This is the first instalment in my series of How to Grow guides. It’s quite different from my Vegetable Patch from Scratch series, which is organised by stage, covering everything from site analysis to crop rotation to green manure crops. This new series is for people who want to know everything there is to know about how to grow carrots. Or cabbages. Or peas – you name it.

Each instalment of How to Grow covers:

• my favourite varieties

• when to plant for greatest success

• common problems

• phenological indicators

• how to prepare the soil and plant

• layout and spacing.

I’m not going to bombard you with them all at once. I’m aiming to send one guide per month to coincide with a timely moment in the gardening calendar. Together they will form a library that you’ll be able to access any time here.

If you’d like them to bypass your inbox, no problem: click here to update your preferences and uncheck the “How to Grow Guides” checkbox.

The vegetable crop that I’m most sentimental about is tomatoes. But I’ve come to realise that for many of my readers, it’s peas that evoke the strongest memories. My partner Caryn often talks about sitting at the kitchen table with her grandmother chatting away while they shelled peas together. Every spring I watch her do the same thing with our kids. That is, if the little ratbags leave any for us to harvest and bring inside.

To pea, or not to pea?

And the answer to that question is a resounding yes!

Snow peas and dwarf peas, sugar snaps and telephone peas. There’s a pea for every gardener’s taste. There are even sweet peas, which produce flowers that look and smell amazing, but don’t try to eat them, they’re toxic.

You don’t need a trellis, especially for the dwarf varieties of peas. But using one will allow you to fit more into your vegetable patch and can help to improve airflow (thereby reducing pest and disease issues).

There are lots of different trellis options to consider – read about them here.

Common problems when growing peas

Every crop of peas I have ever grown has been overwhelmed by fungus. It starts from the bottom of the plant and slowly rises up through the foliage over the course of a few weeks. Ultimately the plants are completely consumed and die. It happens every single time. Sometimes it takes a while for the fungus to take hold and other times it’s very quick. But it is inevitable. It’s never stopped me from getting a good crop of peas, but I do practise some strategies to slow down the effects:

• Good airflow helps to reduce such fungal infestations (hence trellising being a great strategy)

• Variety selection is important; some varieties are more resilient than others

• Seasonal conditions have a huge influence. You can grow snow peas at any time of the year in a warm temperate climate but the plants will die much more quickly during a humid summer than they will in a cool winter. So your succession planting needs to reflect that.

The following posts in the Vegetable Patch from Scratch series will give you more information on:

• Common pests of the vegetable patch

• Common diseases of the vegetable patch

• Common nutrient deficiencies of the vegetable patch

• Common problems of the vegetable patch

Myth-busting

In Norse mythology, peas are as a gift of the god Thor, so they should be eaten only on his name-day (Thursday). Personally, I’m happy to eat peas any day of the week.

One common gardening myth is that growing a legume crop such as peas or beans will replenish soil nitrogen levels for the next crop. Peas do have a symbiotic relationship with Rhizobium bacteria. However, nitrogen is a very mobile element and the small amount of extra nitrogen that has been added by the legumes will be quickly lost back into the atmosphere.

Adding compost is a far more reliable way to increase nitrogen levels in your garden soil. Growing legumes is still a useful thing to do – they break up your soil with their roots, they cover the soil surface as a living mulch, and they can be used as a green manure crop to add valuable organic matter – but don’t rely on them to add nitrogen.

The nitty gritty of growing peas: phenology, varieties and planting

Timing

This chart shows the best times to grow peas based on my experience of growing them in Melbourne (warm temperate) and Kyneton (cool temperate), both in south-eastern Australia. The timing is applicable for growers in the same climates across the southern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere folks will need to adjust the timing by six months.

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Blueberries are amazing plants for the home gardener to grow. They are small shrubs growing up to two metres tall and 1.5 metres wide. Deciduous blueberry plants can display stunning autumn foliage, so they are a great addition to ornamental gardens as well as those focussing on edibles. However, the main reason to grow blueberries is for the fruit. Blueberries taste great, are packed full of nutrients and can be frozen for use throughout the year. Each plant can produce a large crop of more than a kilo of fruit.

Where to plant Blueberries

Blueberries have two important requirements that will influence how and where you plant them.

Amazing Drainage: Blueberries hate wet feet. Ironically, they have evolved to grow in peat bogs, but they occupy the high ground within those ecosystems. Blueberries will struggle to grow in clay soil. This means, that much of Melbourne based gardeners will need to plant their blueberries into pots or raised beds. Blueberries need a very sandy soil to ensure adequate drainage. They can also benefit from being planted into mounds. Avoid planting blueberries at the bottom of a slope or anywhere water is likely to pool (even slightly).

Acidic Soil: All plants need the mineral iron to grow. Iron occurs naturally in soil. Most plants have ‘iron chelators’ to enable them to extract the iron that they need from the soil. Blueberries (and other ericaceous plants such a camellias and azaleas) lack the iron chelator enzymes and struggle to extract iron from the soil. The availability of iron in the soil is influenced by the soil pH. Iron is ‘locked up’ in neutral and alkaline soils. However, the more acidic the soil, the more iron becomes available to plants and the more able Ericaceous plants are to thrive with adequate iron. Acidic soil is not essential to growing blueberries, but it will make life easier to grow them. Neutral soils will either need to be acidified with sulphur or have adequate iron made available to the blueberry plants.

Our soil here in Kyneton is granitic sand. The sandy soil is very free draining and has a low pH of 5.5. This is perfect blueberry country! We have 21 blueberry plants growing along two long raised mounds. The two rows are 2 metres apart (trunk to trunk) and the plants within the rows are 1.5 metres apart. In our set up, drip irrigation has been installed under a heavy layer of wood chip mulch.

If your soil is too heavy for growing blueberries in the ground then they are very productive in pots. In fact, my number one tip for renters is to focus on growing berries such as blueberries in pots. For those of you growing blueberries in pots, you’ll need to use an acidic potting mix that drains freely (we’ve found that Nature’s Soil is fantastic for Blueberries). Avoid using heavy potting mixes or garden soils in the pot, as the plants will struggle with this. Small plants can be started in say a 30cm pot, but the plants will need to be potted up every second year. Go up by around 10cm pot diameter each time.

As they like good drainage, you should never place a saucer under the potted blueberry.

Pollination

Blueberries need pollen from a different blueberry variety to pollinate their flowers and set fruit. So you will need to grow more than one variety.

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Ongoing Care and Maintenance

Blueberries are conflicted plants! They need access to continuous moisture, but need amazing drainage. Keep soil moisture levels well topped up, especially in summer when the plants are fruiting. Failure to keep soil moisture topped up, will see the fruit quickly shrivel on the plant and the whole crop being wasted.

Blueberries crop on new growth and are hungry feeders. Ensure you regularly apply plenty of rotted manure (chicken manure is great), compost or a general purpose fertiliser to keep them thriving.

Blueberry Pruning

I don’t prune my blueberries much (especially if they are small). Apparently, if plants become too neglected, they will tend to produce small berries. However, I haven’t experienced this.

Blueberries produce on newer, young growth. Pruning should aim to encourage plenty of vigorous new growth. As the plant becomes established consider removing entire canes from the base. Aim to remove the older, more spindly canes and retain as much strong new growth as possible.

Blueberry Types

There are three different types of blueberries

Northern Highbush Blueberries (Vaccinium corymbosum)

These are the most commonly grown blueberries. They require a high number of chill hours so are only suited to growing in temperate climates. Northern Highbush Blueberries are deciduous plants, usually growing as large as two metres tall. They are tolerant of frost and usually have fantastic autumn foliage.

Southern Highbush Blueberries (Vaccinium corymbosum hybrid)

These blueberries are ‘low chill’ and can be grown in the warmer states of Australia. They are not commonly grown in Victoria.

Rabbit Eye Blueberries (Vaccinium ashei)

The name ‘Rabbit Eye’ comes from the fruit resembling the eye of a rabbit. These plants are usually evergreen (or partially deciduous). The plants are low chill, meaning they can be grown in warm climates, but will also grow well in Victoria. I find these are often crop later into the season, although the fruit can sometimes be a bit gritty, so variety selection is very important. Many of the Rabbit Eye varieties have a low, spreading habit.

My Recommended Varieties and How to Propagate Them (It’s quite tricky!)

Choosing the correct varieties to grow is essential to growing abundant crops. Some varieties are more resilient, productive and most importantly are tastier than other varieties. If you are going to go to the effort of growing blueberries then makes sure you get the biggest and tastiest fruit possible. Listed below are a few of my favourites and a section at the end on how to propagate them

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