In the garden: December and January

December and January are two of the hottest months of summer. With the summer holidays upon us there is no excuse not to get out into the garden and get it ship shape – just remember to slip, slop and slap! Growth at this time can be unbelievably fast, which is good if you are an impatient gardener but bad if you are a water-stressed plant!

The sky’s the limit

Sometimes the biggest problem is finding enough space for all the food you want to grow. Deciding what to grow and what should be given the prime real estate can pose many problems. There is nothing worse than spending six weeks carefully nurturing seedlings to get them healthy and big enough to plant outside, only to find that you have no room in the garden to plant them.

Sometimes it’s a good idea to grow up and use some vertical space. This is especially great for naturally rambling and climbing plants such as runner beans, peas, pumpkins, cucumbers and tomatoes. So if you find your garden horizontally challenged at the moment here are some simple ideas to create some more growing space skywards.

Tasty turrets

Use recycled PVC plumbers’ piping to create a vertical garden. I use the larger diameter drainage pipes – you can find pieces at your friendly demolition yard. Cut into lengths and then drill 3cm diameter holes. Hammer two bamboo or metal stakes into the garden and then slide the pipe over these. Fill with good-quality potting mix, some water-absorbing crystals and compost then plant with strawberries, lettuce, spinach or herbs. Water them from the top regularly. Your crops will be protected from soil-dwelling insects and in the case of strawberries it is very easy to net the towers to protect them from birds.

An old ladder

If you have an old ladder, open it out so it is standing like an A–frame and settle it into the soil so it’s firm and will not topple over in the wind. You can grow any manner of trailing plants around the base of the legs – though this is an especially good way to grow pumpkins. If you have ever grown these before you will know how they are inclined to take over the garden with their rambling, scrambling vines. But with a ladder you can train the plant skywards and as the pumpkins develop, gently position them on the steps of the ladder to grow. Being off the soil the fruit is less likely to be damaged by insects, break off the stem or rot in wet weather.

Spare wheel climbing frame

Old wheel rims are easy to find. Just go into a local bike shop that does repairs and they should have a whole stash of them out the back. Use them to construct climbing frames for beans and peas with long lengths of bamboo and garden twine attached to ground pegs. Mature plants can be very heavy so ensure your structure is strong. Plant runner beans at the base of each peg and gently coil the growing tips around the twine so the plant gets the idea.

Steel mesh

Cruise building sites around your area and ask for any off-cuts of steel reinforcing mesh. This large square mesh makes for a great DIY climbing frame and can be reused over many years. Secure in the garden bed with some strong wooden or steel stakes and ensure that there are no sharp edges. I wrap some tape around the sharp points of the mesh to protect passing eyes but you could drill holes in blocks of wood or ping pong balls to achieve the same effect.

Rustic tepees

You can get all arty and collect driftwood from the beach to build mini tepees. Collect pieces of driftwood around two metres long. Set them into the soil in a circle so that the ends all meet at the centre and tie the top with some strong twine. Grow two plants at the base of each length.

Use an umbrella, ella, ella…

Do you have any patio or hand umbrellas that have blown out in the wind and are destined for the bin? Don’t throw them out as they make fantastic climbing frames. Position in the garden so the framework of the umbrella minus the fabric forms a canopy over the garden bed. You may need to use a wooden stake to attach the umbrella stem to. Plant around the canopy and encourage the climbing plants to clamber up into the network of the umbrella frame.

Ministry of d’fence

There is no law that states you must grow your vegetables in your vegetable garden. Look around your property for other areas to grow climbing crops. Maybe you have a particularly ugly but sunny fence line? Go on, ‘fess up – we all have one of these.

Many climbing edibles have an ornamental quality to them. Have you seen scarlet runner beans in full flower with the bees humming around them? Beautiful. These plants do need something to grip, so tack some chicken wire to the fence surface to give them a helping hand.

Or perhaps you could train some climbing beans up the posts of your covered deck, carport or the trunk of an established tree? The only requirement is at least six hours of sun so the plants do well and produce lots of beans.

Growing guide – summer crops

Beetroot

Keep sowing small plantings of this healthy vegetable. I soak the seed overnight before sowing straight into the garden. As a general rule of thumb no root crop likes to be transplanted so it is important to sow directly where it is to be grown. To see if your beets are big enough to harvest clear soil from around the base. Always use a small trowel to dig them up as it is possible to leave the root in the ground when you pull them up. If you damage any of the roots when harvesting eat those first as they will not keep very long.

Tomatoes

In warmer areas you can keep sowing some young plants. Feed all the flowering and fruiting plants with an organic fertiliser. Keep watering regularly. Tall varieties which are tied up will benefit from a prune with a sharp knife. Remove the old leaves at the base and also the long laterals. You can pick the tomatoes just as they are colouring and take them inside to a sunny windowsill to ripen further if you find that the birds are beating you to them.

Cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts

Even though we are in the height of summer this is the time to start raising these winter crops from seed. If you get these established before the cooler weather you can enjoy a crop right through winter. For plants in the garden now these are the months where you will be battling the white cabbage butterfly. Here are my three ways of dealing with these nasties:

• Firstly, use a very fine insect-proof netting to cover all your crops, ensuring that no butterflies can sneak in anywhere.
• Secondly, spray with Bacillus thuringiensis. I know, what a long name, let’s just call it Bt. This is a completely organic spray. It is actually a naturally occurring bacteria that is harmless unless you are long, crawl on your stomach and have suckers for feet. Luckily it is now quite easy to find in most garden centres.
• Finally, and this is my favourite type of control, get the kids to hand-pick the green caterpillars from your brassicas and feed them to the chooks for a healthy snack!

Sweet corn

Give the plant a side dressing of compost or sheep pellets and keep them well watered as the corn is developing. Whenever you are passing your corn crop, give the stalk a gentle rattle. This causes the male pollen at the top of the plant to drift down on to the female flower, which grows to form the cob. Do give the plants some privacy during their intimate moment and look away!

Potatoes

Keep mounding up soil around the stems of the leafy growth. Keep a watch out for the psyllid bug and spray with neem or pyrethrum if necessary. And do some bandicooting for the odd meal. This is where you dig down with your hand around a growing plant and feel for any large potatoes which you can pick without harming the plant.