Gardening to-do list before autumn arrives

With the heat of summer seemingly never-ending you are probably wondering why anyone would be considering autumn gardening at this point. February is the time when you need to consider the things to get done before its too late. While some of our warmest days are still ahead of us, the garden has much work for a gardener in the know.

For a beginner, by the time they realise it is autumn, it is already too late to do all the important things that every gardener knows is necessary for a successful gardening year, so follow the advice of those in the know and get working now, so that you can reap the benefits later.

Herbs seed harvesting

If you have been growing a herb garden, February is the time to harvest most of the culinary seeds produced in your herb garden. It is also the best time to trim and prune your herb garden which is probably looking a little scraggly by now and might need repotting or trimming depending if it is planted in a container or in a garden bed.

Use the pruned branches to dry and store for use in winter, or, if you already have enough dried herbs, spread the cut branches amongst other plants in your summer garden to keep pests at bay. Hang the cut branches upside down inside a large manila envelope, and attach the envelopes to a line or hangers in an airy room and as the seeds dry and drop, the envelope will catch all the seeds. Harvested seeds not used in the kitchen during the rest of the year, can be planted in spring, saving you money on seeds. Growing most herb types is quite simple. They tend to root easily from cuttings and can be easily split for planting into two separate places simply by dividing the roots. Laying branches on the soil will more often than not result in many herbs rooting shallowly in the perfect way for them to be severed from their mother plant to allow for relocation.

Cuttings

Take cuttings of semi-hardwood tip herbs like rosemary, bay, lavender, thyme, verbena and sage in February and use these to grow new plants.

To root a new plant from cuttings, fill a pot with compost or herb soil mixture adding in washed river sand to ensure good drainage, put this mixture into containers leaving a small gap between the top of the soil mixture and the top of your pot or container. Cut healthy, disease and pest free shoot tips about 10 centimetres long, trimming off lower leaves, and cutting cleanly beneath the leaf joint.  Ue a rooting powder to encourage fast root development, dip the cut ends of the cuttings into the powder and push a few, no more than six, cuttings into each pot.

Once the pot has drained, place a clear plastic bag around the pot, and secure with an elastic band.  Keep the cutting pots in a sheltered, shady yet well-lit place and check on them regularly.  If there is a build-up of condensation simply open the bag for a while, and if the soil gets very dry you can drizzle over some extra water. Within six to eight weeks the cuttings should have rooted and can then be potted into individual pots.

Vegetable garden

Durban has the warm sub-tropical climate which allows gardeners more choice over when they sprout seedlings and plant vegetables which in cooler areas need to be planted only when it gets cooler. You can try sweet peppers, chilies, eggplants, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuces, baby marrows, green beans and cabbage in February and still have time for a good yield before winter. Even potatoes, in big barrel-like containers, or even a tower of old tyres, can be planted in time for a late autumn harvest.

Garlic and onions

February is also the perfect time for planting garlic as the specific planting season for garlic begins in February in South Africa and continues through to April for giant garlic varieties. Garlic planted at the wrong time will not have the best results.

It is also important to remember that garlic must be harvested before the leaves turn yellow and they begin to re-sprout.

With organic or home-grown garlic, you can even sprout kitchen garlic left over from fresh cloves you haven’t used up in cooking, these can be planted straight into the garden and often produced good crops. However, garlic cloves bought from your supermarket, no matter how well they seem to sprout in your veggie rack, never tend to produce anything once planted in the garden.

The grocery store bought garlic is also often irradiated to pass customs if it has been imported, and this, along with preventing the garlic from growing into a new plant, also undermines the health-giving qualities of such garlic, so it is always preferable to try to grow your own or buy organic garlic.

February is also an optimal time to sow onion seeds into seedling trays or even directly into garden beds in shallow drills covered with about a centimetre of soil. Onions can take anything from four to seven months to mature, so it is important to plant early and thin the seedlings out to about 10 centimetres apart in rows that have 20 centimetres between each row to give them sufficient space to grow over the months. Onions also need sufficient watering to get nice and big, so they are ideal near to your kitchen so you can throw grey water – as long as it doesn’t contain any harmful chemicals – over them daily.