What to plant in August

It’s August already… doesn’t time fly! In gardens all across Melbourne, broccoli, cauliflower and other winter veggie goodies are being harvested like crazy. Our tomato seeds have germinated and are gaining in size with every day. Some fruit trees are beginning to blossom already, which is a bit earlier than usual. The long term forecast for the summer is looking great for our beach-side summer holidays, but bad for the garden, the Bureau of Meteorology is predicting a hot and dry summer. If you haven’t already, focus your attention on getting your garden water wise now and try to collect some of the late winter rainfall before it dries up. August is a month of anticipation for Melbourne based veggie gardeners. It’s still too early to get out planting our summer crops such as tomatoes, capsicums and pumpkins but getting too late to put in brassicas and other winter veggies. It’s a great time to be digging in some well-rotted manure or compost in preparation for spring planting.

What to plant in August:

• leafy greens
• spinach
• lettuce
• silver beet
• mustard greens
• celery
• peas
• snow peas
• onions
• beetroot
• carrots
• turnips
• parsnips
• radishes.

It’s also a good time to start a herb garden so that it can get established before the heat of summer arrives. For those of you with access to a green house, or other warm area, you can get a jump start on your spring veggies in pots. Seeds such as tomato, capsicum, melons, cucumbers, pumpkins, and zucchinis can all be started now as long as you keep them warm and damp. Try growing them in some newspaper pots. There’s still time to get your strawberry runners in. Asparagus and Rhubarb crowns can also be lifted and replanted at this time of year. Bare rooted fruit trees are plentiful in nurseries at the moment, and now is a great time to be planting them, either in the garden or a large container. If you’re in colder frost prone areas, hold off on planting out your potatoes and other frost tender plants for another month. But, if you’ve got a protected area, such as up against a north facing brick wall, you could start planting them out now. Spring is just around the corner and we can’t wait!