Garden Notes for the Family Vegetable Garden December

Abundance in the Kitchen Garden

   You should be well into eating from your garden this month – a reward for all the hard work you put in!  Keep picking and eating your fresh produce and keep sowing and planting to ensure a good long season.  Be observant this month too for signs of water stress – it’s better to give the ground a good deep watering once a week than a lot of little sprinkles.  Mulching will continue to be important to keep the weeds at bay and keep any moisture in the soil in.

     Mound up potatoes and if you have access to seaweed, mulch down the rows with seaweed, manure and straw. The beauty of this is that once you have harvested those spuds, you can dig all that mulch into the ground and the soil will  love you for it.  There are so many good things about mulching – it does its job for the season and is then dug into the soil helping to create good structure and adding vital nutrients.   

     If you planted early enough you should have some delicious new potatoes for Christmas – even if you have to bandicoot them by reaching your hand into the row and pinching a few off the main plant, leaving it to continue to grow. New potatoes are different to main crop ones in that they are ready once they start to flower. Pink flowers indicates red varieties and white flowers, white.  Peas traditionally make an appearance at Christmas as well with the oldest and the youngest family members assigned the task of shelling the fesh peas.

    There’s so much going on in the December garden and it’s a busy time. Keep an eye on your plants to watch they don’t get stressed by either too much or too little water.  If you are away over Christmas think about how you can manage the garden. Avoid having seedlings ready to be planted during this time unless you can get them in. Ask a neighbour or a friend to check on the garden in return for some of the harvest. Put pot plants into the shade and make sure they have plenty of water.

Jobs for this Month

Sow:  Keep up succession sowing. Beans, carrots, lettuces, Swedes, turnips, spinach, radishes etc.

Plant: Cabbage, Cauli, corn, celery, leeks, lettuces, spinach, courgettes, pumpkins, capsicums, chillies, tomatoes in a warm spot.

Stake: beans and peas.

Cultivate: Thin beetroot to 15 cm apart. Mound up main crop potatoes. Liquid manure green and fruiting crops such as courgettes, tomatoes etc but hold off on roots and tubers like garlic, onions and potatoes to allow them to start drying off.

Harvest: Garlic – traditionally starts on the longest day (21^st Dec). Stop watering now and harvest when still 6 green leaves per plant.  Pick peas and beans regularly to keep them producing. Eat lots of lettuces, herbs, spinach, potatoes, asparagus (until mid-Dec), strawberries and other soft fruits.