In The Veggie Patch December

Writen by Toni Salter

December is quiet in the garden, so it's a good opportunity to attend to some of those "must-get-around-to-doing-sometime" jobs in the garden. A good purge and clear up is often in order, especially for older gardens. So hop to it! You'll be greatful you did when the busy spring planting season comes around.

If you live in the tropics, now is the start of the cool dry season and you can grow a wider variety of crops, so you'll be run off your feet, unlike your fellow gardeners in the colder northern areas.

What to plant
Plant rhubarb crowns and asparagus crowns now. They're a great addition to any garden. Aspargus crowns last for 20 years and will reward you with thick tasty spears after the first 2 or three years. Initial preparation is essential for good crops. They need to be planted deep so try to get them about 30cm below the surface an incorporate loads of compost and manures. A yearly tidy up and top dressing with manure should be all they need afterwards.

You can keep planting your onion crop until late winter. Seeds sown now will be ready for harvesting from around August in some areas. In cold regions wait until after the worst of the winter weather has passed and plant "early" varieties in February or March instead.

Sow peas directly into the garden and add a mixture of varieties, from old fashion shelling varieties to sugar snap and snow peas for garden salads. Most will need a trellis or climbing support. Peas provide a great source of nitrogen for the soil so plant them together with lettuce and spinach. Winter lettuce varieties go well now but you can get an early start to spring plantings if you have a nice sunny windowsill or glasshouse to keep them going until ready to plant out in February. This is for the very keen and not so faint hearted (for fear of disappointment).

Add lime to your soil now if it is slightly acidic. Check the pH with a simple test kit bought at your local nursery. Peas, spinach and onions like a slightly alkaline soil (pH of 7.0 up to 8.0).

Consider sowing a "green manure" crop to help add nutrients and bulk to your soil. A green manure crop is a fast growing plant (usually 6-8 weeks) that is grown only to about knee height, then slashed and turned back into the soil. Some plants you can use are oats, pod vetch, lupins, mustard, red clover or even broad beans can also be used. A legume (or plant producing a bean-like pod) adds nitrogen to the soil through the roots and bulky mulching material is added through slashing the leaves before it has a chance to flower.

Roses
Now is rose time and with some extra time this month you can scour the catalogues and nurseries to purchase and plant any exciting new additions or even put in some of the old favourites. Remember roses will need to be pruned between mid December to mid January for best results. If you suspect any late frosts then leave it later rather than earlier. Prune them back to at least half their size, I go as far as 1/3. This encourages strong watershoots to appear in Spring giving plants a good strong framework and lots of healthy new canes to flower on.

Odd jobs
Mulching now may protect your plants from winter frosts by buffering temperature extremes. It also keeps moisture in and cuts down on the need to water your veggies too often. Make sure you lay it at least 5 to 7 cm thick otherwise you'll be disappointed and weeds will start coming through. You can use any deciduous leaves that have fallen now as mulch. Or better still compost them first and use the compost in Spring. A word of warning when collecting leaves around the garden: dispose of any diseased leaves otherwise you could inadvertantly spread the disease rith throughout your garden with disastrous results next summer.

Deciduous leaves are hard to break down becuse they lack nitrogen. They will last a long time in the garden but can also prevent water passing through if they are laid too thickly. This makes leaves ideal to create paths between your garden beds. Usually paths between beds get a lot of wear and tear, so take the time this winter to define your garden beds and get rid of the half worn grass around them. Place a good layer of damp newspaper straight on top of your grass, define the garden edges with plastic, timber, terracotta or concrete edges and then lay the leaves directly on top of the newspaper. Make it a thick layer as it will settle down over the next few months.

Now is a good time to prune and tidy up all areas of your garden. Consider rigging up a composting area with 3 individual bays to hold the different stages of decomposing material. A triple system allows you to create a pile and then turn it into the next bay. This is a much easier way to turn your heap than trying to turn it onto itself, where you never seem to be able" to quite reach that bit in the bottom". Keep turning it into the next bay and then you can leave the last bay as storage for your finished compost. This will continue to break down over time and can also become a great spot for earthworms. Remember to keep it covered so that rainfall doesn't leach out any of the goodies before you need it.

Pest alert!
Winter is usually a pest free time in the garden, but don't be fooled. Many will pupate over this time. Similarly, fungus is laying dormant just waiting for warmer conditions to spread it's deadly force. So don't become too complacent.

Fruit fly and codlin moth in apples are ones to watch out for. Remove any fallen fruit that may harbour their little eggs or maggots. Ensure that your orchard area is clean and you'll avoid many problems. Now is a good time to consider some companion planting. Green Harvest have a wonderful "Good Bug Mix" of seeds to sow around your fruit trees and near the veggie patch. It's a mixture of continual flowering herbs and plants that will attract the natural predators. Worth getting a pack or two.

Keep an eye out for caterpillars still, especially on vulnerable young cabbage family plants. Hand removal is often best. Use Dipel (Bt) if you have to.

Spray bordeaux mix for fungal problems like leaf curl, shot hole, rust, apple & pear scab and brown rot. This is done now to minimize damage to leaves.

Fruit trees
I always think of apple pie at this time of year. The old favourite recipe gets me special appreciation from the kids as well as hubby and it leaves those factory frozen ones for dead. So it's worth putting in a Granny Smith just for the "love factor". Many can be grown in pots now along with other dwarf stone fruit. Take a look at my article on creating an orchard in a pot at Veggie Lady articles. You'll be surprised by what you can achieve in a relatively small space.

Pruning of your apple and pear trees takes place now. Shape them into an "open vase" by removing the inward growing shoots and leaving the more vertical branches alone. More fruiting occurs on this vertical growth and the shape will improve air circulation to prevent fungal problems. Try growing some espaliered on a north facing wall or in rows running north-south. Encourage one or two vertical "leaders" and then tie down the long soft branches to horizontal that come from the central leader. You'll have to wait for spurs to grow from the horizontal branch before fruiting occurs.

Now is a good time to order and plant decidous fruit trees that arrive "bare rooted". This means that they come without any soil attached and should be planted quickly to they don't dry out. Give the longer roots a trim and tidy up so that you can spread the roots out as you plant it in the hole. Make sure the hole is big enough and incorporate some good compost when back-filling. I avoid putting manure in the planting hole since direct contact with the roots can burn them. Instead top dress with some manure, mulch heavily and give it a good water. By the time the tree breaks its dormancy and starts to grow, it'll have a good supply of nutrients from the boken down manure above.

You can revive old fruit trees by cutting back one third of a tree's branches every 3 years. By the end of the 3 years you should have cut back the entire tree. Don't cut all the branches at once, it throws the tree into chaos and it sends out shoots everywhere (this is unfortunately what i did in time gone by - oh for the value of education!!). When new shoots appear, simply rub off the smaller ones and just keep best ones to form the new shape of the tree. The vigorous new growth will reward you with good fruit production.

Grape vines should be cut back very hard, which may seem savage but it is necessary. Leave only short 3-bud spurs at 20cm intervals along the main branch. This is important for preventing disease and getting good fruit.

Replace your strawberries about every 3 years. Many get diseased and affected by viruses. All new runners put out by infected plants will contain the problem. So it is best to replace with new, fresh and disease-free plants for better cropping.

Citrus are in full swing now so enjoy your sweeter navels as they come into season. My kids never ate oranges until I gave them a bowl of home grown, sweet and juicy organic navel oranges. They devoured them in one sitting, with juice streaming down the sides of their mouths!! Mandarins, limes and grapefruits are harvested now too, along with banana passionfruit, avocados, guavas and olives.

About the Author
Toni Salter is the 'Veggie Lady'. Her website http://www.theveggielady.com contains free advice on what to do in the garden, a planting guide, organic pest and disease control, featured plants and more each month.