April Seasonal Gardening Tips

April Seasonal Gardening Tips

It's a wet humid start to autumn. Typical ideal growing conditions for a 'normal' autumn don't usually start until humidity drops below 70%, daytime temperatures under 30°C and night time temps 20-21°C. Whilst our temps are in the right zone, the high humidity due to continuous rain is still providing challenging unseasonal planting conditions. Now is a good time to plan ahead for new cool season crops. My garden looks like a jungle with plants thriving on all the minerals in moist soil. I've never seen cosmos grow to 2.5-3m before! Perennials like salvias of all species are looking superb with gorgeous red, purple, pink, white and blue flowers. The bees are thriving on nectar from zinnias, basils, cosmos, nasturtiums, portulacas, marigolds, coleus, cat's whiskers and other blooms. No doubt Serge's bees are coming over the hill to enjoy a feast on thousands of flowers right now! The garden is just abuzz with them including many solitary bee species. Paw paws are incredibly productive so we are using daily and freezing excess for smoothies. I find an easy way to stop the rot on ripening fruit after harvesting is to add bicarb soda to hot water in a bowl/sink and submerge the fruit for 20 minutes. This kills fungal spores. Wipe dry and they won't spoil in the fridge. I dry the paw paw seeds to grind into nutritious tasty pepper. In the attached PDF, I share some seasonal growing tips for our local climate, what to plant, a few issues to consider and garden tasks for this time of year. I hope you find this month’s tips helpful. Dig in! Cheers, Anne The Micro Gardener