February growing guide
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By February, life has returned to normal after the holiday break. School is in and most of us have settled back into our usual routines. The garden is still full of colour, with brilliant sunflowers highlighting that we are not quite done with summer just yet. The sun is rising a little later and starting to set earlier but there’s still some heat in it and there will be days when temperatures peak in the high 30s or 40s so keep that in mind with your watering schedule.
Veggies
Brassicas are top of my list for February planting in cool and warm temperate climates, especially the slow growing types such as purple sprouting broccoli, Romanesco broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. All brassicas prefer a slightly alkaline soil, so add lime if yours is acidic. They’re also greedy little things, so enrich the soil with rotted manure or chook pellets a week or so before planting.
It’s also a good month to plant leeks, beetroot and peas, as well as members of the carrot family. These seeds are notoriously slow to germinate, but hot tip - in warm February soil you should see seedlings emerging within a fortnight.
Late summer is an excellent time to sow spring onion seed directly into the garden. Grab yourself a few packets of heirloom varieties such as 'Welsh', 'Evergreen Bunching' or 'Red Legs', which forms slender crimson bulbs. They'll be ready for harvest just in time for the cooler weather.
Summer's a great time to dry herbs and, conveniently enough, this is also the time when most of them should be harvested. The object is to get rid of the 70–80 per cent water content as quickly as possible. Choose a place out of direct sunlight with good air movement, some warmth, and as little moisture in the air as possible. The final colour of the dried herb is a good indication of the volatile oil content; the better the colour, the higher the content.
What to plant in the veggie patch.
It’s planting time! You can pick from a bumper crop this month…
Amaranth, Asparagus Pea, Beetroot, Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, Burdock, Cabbage, Carrots, Chives, Coriander, Cucumber, Endive, Florence Fennel, Jerusalem artichoke, Kohlrabi, lettuce, Long Yam, Luffa, Malabar Greens, Mangle-wurzel, Mizuna, Mustard Greens, Okra, Onion, Oregano, Pak choy/Bok Choy etc, Parsley, Parsnip, Peas/Snow peas, Potatoes, Pumpkin, Quinoa, Radish, Rocket, Rosella, Salsify, Shallots, Silverbeet, Spring onion, Spinach, Squash, Sunflower, Sweet corn, Sweet Potato, Tomatoes, Turnips, Warrigal Greens, Zucchini.
Fruit & Trees
Some of the very early cropping varieties of apples and pears may be ripe enough to pick from mid-February onwards. Passionfruit will also mature and fall to the ground about now, and there may also be good crops of lemons and oranges in some areas.
Continue regularly trimming evergreen trees and shrubs to keep them neat, particularly hedges, Buxus balls and mop-tops.
Citrus trees, passionfruit vines and other evergreen fruiting trees and shrubs may be planted from the middle of the month. Water in well and keep moist (but not wet) until they are well established.
Water chestnuts can be grown in a pond, an old bathtub or even a large waterproof bowl or bucket. Plant the corms about 5cm deep and 2 corms to the square metre. Keep the plants moist until they are about 10cm tall, then fill the container up with water until it’s about 7-10cm deep, with the tips of the leaves just showing. Leave the pot flooded at that depth for about seven months, then drain off the water in late autumn. Leave the soil moist but not wet for another month or so, then harvest the water chestnuts. Water chestnuts will grow in most areas of Australia, but they are frost tender and require at least an eight-month growing season.
Natives
Native plants have never been more popular, and why not when they can be easily incorporated into any style of garden. You can use a variety of grasses, desert plants, shrubs, ground cover, succulents, food plants, fruit and berries to create a diverse native garden.
For flower beds and edgings, think flowers such as Swan River daisies and kangaroo-paws with their fabulous velvety flowers. For hedges, check out the many varieties of lilly pilly, westringia and callistemon. For shrubberies, look for new forms of the old favourites, like grevilleas, banksias, wax flowers and mint bushes. For striking architectural plants, you can’t go past Gymea lilies and grass trees, with their amazing blackened trunks. And for fabulous low-maintenance tub plants, dwarf acacias like ‘Limelight’ and ‘Green Mist’ are winners.
Flowers
Dig garden beds and fertilise in preparation for planting spring-flowering bulbs in the next few months. Hyacinths, ranunculi, babianas, anemones and daffodils can be planted when the autumn soil cools down. Daffodils like sun and good drainage.
Keep summer colour coming from petunias and impatiens with regular doses of liquid fertiliser (flower and fruit formulation). Later this month, pansies appear in nurseries and can keep the show humming through autumn into winter.
Lightly prune and fertilise repeat-flowering roses to encourage autumn flowering.
For a continuing show of camellia blooms, feed plants with a potash-rich fertiliser.
Prune geraniums (zonal pelargoniums) by about half to encourage bushiness.
Cut back hydrangeas that have finished blooming, unless you like to keep the ageing flowers through autumn. A good rule is to make the cut above two buds on the stem.
Indoor plants
Water indoor plants when the top 5cm or soil of potting mix feels dry to the touch. Allow excess water to drain freely from the base of the pot. Don’t leave pots standing in saucers of water.
You can keep the air around indoor plants humid by regularly misting plants with a water atomiser.
If plants need repotting, use a potting mix specifically formulated for indoor plants. You want them to be made from coir fibre not composted materials that may provide shelter for fungus gnats.
Pest watch
Pick up and dispose of any fruit on the ground under fruit trees – they may be diseased or harbouring insect pests. Discard in the household rubbish – DO NOT put them in the compost bin!
Cut out and dispose of galls (stem or branch swellings) on citrus trees to help eradicate gall wasps.
Check for lacebug infestation on azaleas. If present, leaves will have a silvery look on top and a rusty brown appearance underneath. Spray with an organic insecticide.
A little bit more
Make sure the lawn is well watered at least once a week, if local water authorities permit or there’s no rain. The earlier in the day you water, the less risk there is of the sun burning the grass through moisture droplets.
Watch for bindi spreading through lawns and get on top of any incursions quickly.
As crops finish, pull out plants and put them into the compost bin, but only if they are disease-free. Dig over empty rows to break up the soil and incorporate the mulch. Add a dressing of garden lime (one handful per square metre) and a dressing of organic manure in preparation for autumn planting.
Watering, mulching and feeding still take centre stage in February but there’s also the prospect of adding new shrubs, trees and edibles to the garden over coming weeks. The best way to keep up with what you can plant is to visit your local garden centre and check out what’s in stock and looking good.