Winter hints for spring production

Posted 9 Aug 2012

Although it is wet, snails and slugs are out looking for anything green and sweet. Lay old seed bags, bricks or timber on any new areas before planting early spring crops such as lettuces. After a couple of days the snails and slugs will gather underneath and they can be collected and fed to your chooks. Do this consecutively and you will deplete the population sufficiently to enable your new spring seedlings to get established.

Consider landscaping your vegetable garden. Create humps and hollows, these help to create microclimates. Digging trenches near established crops may prevent them from becoming waterlogged and provides worms with a refuge. Raised areas may also help to escape the severity of a frost.

Keep cold susceptible plants like grafted eggplants alive during winter by building them a mini hot house. Use polythene pipe and star pickets to frame a curve and cover this with shade cloth or recycled plastic. Buckets of water and rocks provide embodied heat and are also good at moderating cold winter temperatures.