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Plans for Summer

10 Aug
I have big plans for summer. Last year was my first full summer growing season, and I learned some big lessons that inform these plans.
  1. Sydney really does have a fruit fly problem. If you don’t take precautions they will spoil your fruit
  2. Capsicums and chillies require lots of sun
  3. Don’t bother growing full-size tomatoes in pots
  4. Plant more corn, but in successive blocks so it doesn’t all ripen at once.
  5. Zucchini isn’t worth the space
  6. One okra plant will give you only one okra fruit at a time
  7. Don’t forget to plant dill
  8. If you let the chickens out, they will eat everything – including your mustard plants and dormant oriental lily bulbs
  9. Don’t harvest garlic while it’s wet – the bulbs need to dry rapidly.

So with these lessons under my belt I have planned to grow this season (in no particular order):

  • tomatoes
  • corn
  • dill
  • parsnip
  • celery
  • celeriac
  • carrots
  • cucumber
  • capsicum
  • chillies
  • okra
  • eggplant
  • golden nugget pumpkins
  • lettuce
  • mustard
  • potato
  • wild rocket
  • sugar snap peas
  • sunflowers
  • watermelon
  • basil
  • borlotti beans
  • dwarf beans
  • daikon

I sowed the tomatoes a week ago, but the weather was a little cold and I was avoiding the nasty wind so the rest of the seeds had not been planted. Yesterday I bit the bullet and sowed them indoors. I figure that they’ll germinate quicker inside anyway.

Tomatoes

I plan to make this the year of the paste tomato. I have sowed 6 different varieties with the intention of identifying one or 2 that really suit my climate. That way I can focus on that variety next year and hopefully get a bumper crop for canning. More likely is that the fruit fly will attack with a vengeance and I’ll just have to grow tomatoes for preserving in winter.

The paste tomatoes I am trying are:

  1. Palmwoods
  2. Pacesetter
  3. Amish Paste
  4. Napoli Paste
  5. Speckled Roman
  6. Rio Grande

The Rio Grande seeds were from Liz and the rest were ordered from Eden Seeds. In addition to the paste varieties I’m growing Grosse Lisse, Brandywine and a variety from my neighbour Adriana for slicing and Camp Joy, Tiny Tim and Broad Ripple Yellow Currant as cherry varieties in pots.

Have you made plans for Summer yet?