Planting beetroot you need to soak them first

One of the keys to growing beetroot from seed is to soak the seeds in warm water first. Warm not boiling.

If you want to know which beets are which you'll need to keep track of your soaking seeds.  I put a few seeds in small bowls and tuck the seed packet underneath until I am ready to plant.  Stagger your plantings and your harvest by planting every two weeks.

How to transplant onions the easy waay

I used to find transplanting onion seedlings back breaking and tedious.
But, ah, here is the easy solution.

Dig a trench and push the soil taken out to the right.

Place one seedling at a time along the trench, roots at the bottom ,leaves lying against the soil on the left.


As you push the soil from the right into the trench use your trowel to gently squeeze against the wall of the trench, at the same time you will create a new trench.

Don't worry about trying to stand the seedlings upright, over the next week they will stand up by themselves.

Vegetable gardening on a clear autumn day under the falling leaves

A mid week flex day is a wonderful luxury - I wish I could drop to 4 days work and make this permanent. The bonus was that despite yesterday being a wet, dreary day, today was clear and fresh. A perfect late autumn day. So I spent it in the garden.



Last weekend I planted two beds full of garlic.  Today I planted some winter vegetables.

In this area of New South Wales, Australia we plant the following seeds in May:
Broad beans
Garlic
Lettuce
Onions
Pak choy
Peas
Radish
Spinach
Silverbeet

And seedlings:
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Leeks

June is the same.
When I topped up all the garden beds with compost last weekend I covered them in lucerne mulch. Now its easy enough to poke seedlings down through mulch. Seedlings don't always germinate and push up through all those layers however.

This is the solution I came up,  I pushed the mulch back to provide a barrier between different seeds, it will still keep the moisture in.