Tips from Zin House Head Gardener
Summer is an incredibly abundant season for us here in Mudgee. The orchard branches are beginning to droop, heavy with a parade of ripe stone fruit. Tomatoes, eggplant, and zucchini grow wild on the garden floor. To attain a healthy summer garden there’s a few dos and don’t you’ll want to follow. To help us, we picked our Head Gardener, Lydia Blocksidge, for her tips & tricks when it comes to preparing for a summer garden.
In Australia, we’re lucky that our summer months typically bleed out into autumn as we maintain warmth, so even if you haven’t started, an abundant summer garden is still possible to start!
Preparing your garden
Do:
- Use mulch to cover your soils. Mulch is the best way to prepare your garden for the summer as it helps the soil retain moisture and protects the soil from the harsh summer elements like sun, wind and rain. It also suppresses and slows weed growth. Some of my favourite mulches to use are lucerne and sugar cane (be sure to find certified organic/chemical spray-free) and dry wood chip. For smaller projects you can also use leaf mulch from around your garden.
- Grow cover crop (also known as green manure) prior to planting your summer garden to prepare your soil for the summer. Cover crop has many functions and benefits but one that is particularly important in summer is to introduce roots into your soil. This improves the water holding capacity of the soil, helping to retain soil moisture in the heat.
- Create microclimates in your garden by growing hardy, tough plants that create shadow and shade with more tender crops (some of these may not produce food). Another way of doing this is by planting your produce where trees shadows are cast to give relief from the sun, especially afternoon shade as the sun tends to be most harsh in the afternoon.
Don’t:
- Don’t plant out of season. For example, tender, leafy greens don’t do well in the summer heat and will bolt (set flower and turn bitter) before they’ve grown to maturity.
- Avoid watering your garden in the middle of the day. The droplets act as a magnifying glass and can burn your plants. Instead, it’s best to water at dawn or dusk.
- Don’t plant monocultures. Instead plant a diverse range of produce, each plant reaching maturity at different times so harvests are staggered and also supporting a diverse range of microbial life in and above the soil.
- Don’t let your soil dry out. This causes your plants to get stressed, and when plants are stressed, pests and diseases move in. Dry soil also loses it’s ability to retain moisture as it forms a “crust” on the surface. This makes it difficult for water to filter through.
What to grow
- Grow seasonally appropriate produce. The Zin House gardens are based in Mudgee, which has a similar climate to the Mediterranean (hot/dry summer) so Tomato, Eggplant, Zucchini, Pumpkin, Cucumber, Chilli, Peppers, Corn and summer herbs like basil and parsley thrive in the summer and will be making an appearance on The Zin House menu this summer.
- In humid climates, you can also grow these crops but crops with glossy leaves are best. Furry leaves catch moisture in the humidity and this can cause rot or certain diseases to thrive. So plant things like peppers, chillies and corn as they have glossy leaves and are therefore more resilient in the humidity.
- Try companion planting, for example, Tomato, basil and beans are a fantastic summer combination. Tomatoes consume an abundance of nitrogen from the soil. Beans are a legume and attract nitrogen fixing bacteria that live on the beans roots and take nitrogen from the air and convert it to a plant soluble form in the soil. Typically, if they go together, they grow together.
What Lydia is looking forward to
Summer is a challenging but abundant season. It is the season of fruit in Mudgee as our fruit trees are deciduous and lose their leaves to lay dormant during the cold, frosty months. At Zin House, we’re looking forward to harvesting our stone fruit including peaches, nectaries & apricots, apples, pears, figs and pomegranates. We also can’t wait for our tomatoes (the flavour is incredible!) to eat fresh and make passata. Lydia loves cucumbers as they always cool her down during hot days in the garden and grilled summer veg like eggplant and zucchini in the evenings. She also notes it’s a wonderful season for sunflowers, marigolds, zinnias and dahlias.
