There's a theory that nothing much grows when Canberra turns icy, except the number of layers you need to take a short walk, and one's waistline, because carbs are comforting in the cold...
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But in reality there are a heck of a lot of cold-tolerant veg and flowers produced by 4000 years or so of plant selection by humans hungry for a hot pot of pottage or the sight of colourful blooms in the vase on the kitchen table.
We have even more cold-hardy cultivars since the advent of new breeding techniques, plus changes in the Aussie diet from "basic British". Even in my childhood the glorious range of cold-hardy Chinese and Japanese veg weren't easily available for our gardens or dinner plates.
I still remember my mother smiling in gratitude as Mr Doo the Chinese market gardener next door handed her a giant armful of bok choi and winter radishes and I'm not sure what else, as those wonderful fresh winter veg went straight into the bin. REAL veg to Mum meant cabbage, carrots, silverbeet or pumpkin, plus the inevitable potatoes which were mashed, burnt, or roasted.
This is the time of year when the plants that ONLY grow in autumn and winter begin to poke their heads up. I planted primulas a decade or two ago, and their feral seedlings now emerge every autumn. They bloom all winter, then in spring turn into seed heads which lodge on all the bare spots of the garden for next year.
The hellebores are appearing too. I mow ours back when they stop blooming in late spring - don't do this for their first three years, till they are well established. Hellebores tend to get splotches from red spider mites in summer, especially dry summers, so the mowing keeps them nicely pruned.
This is also the time to plant pots or punnets of hellebores. The baby seedlings probably won't bloom this year - nor will they come true to type - but will then flower for the century or so from next year onwards as long as no one decides to cover your garden in concrete or artificial grass.
Out in the vegie garden the bok choi I never got to eat as a kid is surging upwards, ready for a quick stir fry in oyster sauce. So is the English spinach. Sugar snap peas seeds can still be planted now, as can broad beans, which I have grown every year except this one, partly because two-thirds of my vegie garden is still covered in a choko vine gone gaga after three years of rain, but also because I'm the only one in this household who eats them. Young, just-picked broad beans are a delight even without a touch of olive oil and lemon juice or parmesan cheese, and nothing like the rubbery ones in supermarkets.
Scatter the seeds of sweet winter radish like French D'Avignon - winter radish aren't savage like the summer ones, but sweet and crunchy, good raw or sliced and stir-fried. Try corn salad this year - it's leaves are only sweet and tender when grown in winter in our climate. Try growing Chinese broccoli with its thin tender stems, or 'Baby Leaf' kale and the fairly recently bred hybrid cauliflowers that also grow brilliantly in cold soil.
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But the real "mission impossible" plants for winter are onions: long-keeping brown ones, sweet red Spanish ones, tender early maturing flat white ones - plant all of them now, as seeds or seedlings - preferably seedlings, as while onions grow in winter, weeds may grow even faster.
Make sure the soil below is weed-free, either by digging once and leaving for three weeks for seeds to germinate then dig again and plant, or better still, covering the bare soil with clear plastic to really get those weed seeds poking up from the soil, them ruffle the soil well to get rid of the tiny monsters.
There is still the time to plant jonquils, daffodils, tulips and any other spring bulb you can find to buy and fall in love with. Just make sure they feel firm, not squishy. A squishy bulb is compost tucker - don't plant it or you may be spreading whatever made it squish.
But do plant. Summer's growth is often just too fast (assuming it rains or you have plenty of water.) Winter growth is sedate, and ever so slightly magic, all that generosity from cold soil.
This week I am:
- Welcoming the first sasanqua camelias, great fat flowers in shades of pink, white and red. The first tree dahlia of autumn bloomed this morning too!.
- Advising others to begin fruit tree hygiene now. Prune off dead twigs, mummies, band apple trees with tree banding grease, corrugated cardboard or old wool to help control codling moth and oriental peach moth, and clean up old ladders and fruit boxes where moths may shelter. Let hens scavenge round the orchard to pick up old fruit or insects on the ground. (I rely on fruit-munching wallabies and various predators to do the pest control).
- Picking Tahitian limes and Malabar limes (they used to be called Kaffir limes). The fruit is tough and not juicy, but as fragrant as the more commonly used leaves, plus green and purple native finger limes.
- Wondering who is eating the avocados at night. Wallabies, possums, fruit bats, or early morning currawongs? I think the lower fruit are being munched by wallabies, and the higher ones dropped as the currawongs try to carry them off. But I blame the fruit bats for the vanished medlars and late apples.
- Trying to haul up the strength of will and muscle to deal with a choko bush gone loco.
- Preparing to bring in the frost-tender plants that become indoor plants in winter, like the coffee bush and the philodendron. In other years I've brought in potted cinnamon and allspice trees, but I left them out too late one year, and the frosts zapped them.
Jackie French
Jackie French is an Australian author, historian, ecologist and honourary wombat (part time), 2014-2015 Australian Children' Laureate and 2015 Senior Australian of the Year. She also writes a gardening column for The Canberra Times.
Jackie French is an Australian author, historian, ecologist and honourary wombat (part time), 2014-2015 Australian Children' Laureate and 2015 Senior Australian of the Year. She also writes a gardening column for The Canberra Times.
