Growing Gardens

with Julia Hancock

Fruiting like crazy

Most of the vegetables we grow in the summer are varieties that produce fruits, and the very best time to sow or plant these this month falls on September 26 and 27 according to my moon planting chart (so it must be true!)

Fruiting vegetables include beans, capsicum, chilli, cucumber, eggplant, okra, pumpkin, squash, sweet corn, tomato and zucchini. They fall into three main categories as far as their growing needs are concerned.

• Moisture but moderate fertiliser - beans come from the legume family that produce their own nitrogen, with the exception of French beans which appreciate some help. A good all-purpose vegetable fertiliser will suit them well. They need regular watering and harvesting to keep production up.
• Less water and fertiliser - capsicums and chillies are very modest in their needs, and indeed if they are over-fertilised they will produce less fruit and more foliage. Keep soil evenly moist, watering in the morning to prevent mildew.
• Heaps of water and fertiliser - sweet corn and tomatoes are the greediest in this regard, in fact sweet corn can almost be grown in a swamp it's so thirsty. Growing tomatoes in a pot is a good way to meet their requirements.
• Generous water and moderate food - cucumber, eggplant, okra, pumpkin, squash, and zucchini all like to be planted in rich soil and their roots to be kept moist all the time. However it's important to mulch to prevent soil from splashing up onto the leaves and to minimise the humidity around each plant to prevent fungal disease. Using a drip irrigation system works very well with this group of vegetables.

Harvest all these fruits as soon as they are large enough to do so, to encourage successive crops to form. Spraying the foliage with a dilution of seaweed fertiliser in the morning once a fortnight may prevent the proliferation of mildew.

Lismore Garden Club News

Spring is the season when our attention returns to the garden. If you consider yourself a gardener, why not come to the next meeting of the Lismore Garden Club. It will be held at the Lismore Workers Club on Thursday, October 7, at 1.30am. You'll be made most welcome. For information on the club, phone Mary on 6621 5293.

A spectacular vivid yellow flowering tree that can be seen in flower around the streets of Lismore at present is the tabebuia (pronounced TAB-E-BOO-YA). Tabebuia is a native of tropical America and the Caribbean. There are around 17 different tabebuias in different shades of pink and yellow.

They are a very hardy, easy to grow tree. They are fairly compact at around six metres height by four metres wide. Tabebuias can be grown from seed quite easily. A magnificent specimen of a yellow tabebuia can be seen in Kruseana Ave, Goonellabah, in full bloom. It's definitely worth the drive.

Happy Gardening
Ron Burns