How is it that a carrot can go to seed and 200 new carrots will spring up where those seeds have fallen, but when a novice gardener laboriously digs a garden bed and plants carrot seed, the weeds grow faster than the carrots and the poor gardener ends up with a mess instead of a harvest?
Answer: The gone-to-seed carrot has inhibited the growth or germination of many (not all) other plants nearby, thus allowing its seeds room to survive. Novice gardeners usually only dig once before they plant. This removes the weeds, but not their seeds.
It's not fair that all that digging was wasted, but carrots don't know the meaning of the word 'fair'.
It's not fair, either, that waratahs grow with no human help whatsoever only a few kilometres from here, but die within a year or three if planted in my garden. Sadly, the wild waratahs are growing in basalt soil, not our granite, and in an area that gets more rain than we do. Result: happy waratahs. (Waratahs might grow for me if I had enough water in drought years to make sure their soil was kept moist but well drained.)
Gardening is actually pretty simple. Follow these seven rules and your garden will flourish.
Rule 1. Small plants will be choked by bigger or faster growing plants unless you take strong measures to prevent this. Plant into weed-free soil i.e. soil that has been dug, all weeds removed, left for three weeks for seeds to germinate and dug again, or soil that has been mulched till all below seems dead, then left for three weeks to see what comes up. Keep the soil weed free by 'tickling' the soil around seedlings (i.e. a gentle raking - use a garden fork or even a kitchen fork or your fingers). As the plant gets bigger, mulch.
Rule 2. Potted plants need a hole 2-3 times as deep and as wide as their pot so their roots can extend. If you cram a potted plant into a small hole the root system may stay the same shape as the pot indefinitely. Seedlings need a hole at least as deep as their root system. Water lavishly after planting to push loose soil into any air bubbles left once you have gently returned the soil to the hole around the roots. Do not add rocks, animal manure or under-composed mulch to the hole - all of these can damage the roots.
Rule 3. Feed annual plants weakly weekly, and perennial ones in spring and summer, or use a slow-release plant food according to directions. Always water well after feeding and never fertliise dry soil unless you have the water waiting to soak the soil and dilute the fertiliser. Feeding your plants in the middle of a rain storm works well for the plants, but not for you if you get wet and cold, or hit by lightening.
Only fertlise when the plant is actively growing i.e. putting out new shoots or leaves.
Rule 4. Water your plants whenever they wilt, and observe when your plants wilt, so you can then water just before wilting stage.
Rule 5. Read the label, Mabel, or check the internet to see what your plant likes and when it should be planted before you bung it in, and preferably before you buy it.
If you plant unprotected cucumbers outside now they will die. If you plant a coffee bush in the middle of your Canberra lawn, it will soon be deceased.
Once you have mastered the art of growing plants that are perfectly suited to your garden you can try tricks to grow more finicky ones, like coffee, or even seeds from a Cape York rainforest*.
Rule 6. Follow rules 1- 4 without deviating.
Rule 7. Follow rule 6.
*Always label any seed you collect, even if just in an old envelope with a link to a photo of the tree it came from. I've had trees grow, fruit, produce delicious harvests and eventually die of old age - or at least middle age - and am still not sure exactly what we were eating.
This week I am:
- Discovering that one small area of onion plants has become a small area of weeds. Hopefully the onions are still in there somewhere. I'm hoping for enough time in between crises to haul out the weeds and rescue the onions.
- Watching some parts of our garden wilt or turn brown from frost, but others survive. This is the key to growing what wouldn't naturally grow in your area - see what works. In our garden plants grown in pots on the paving that both retains and reflects warmth cope with a little frost, while those grown down on the grassy flat turn up their toes when it's minus one. The cucumber vine under my study window is still fruiting (slowly) and the nearest of the three cherry tomatoes is still giving ripe tomatoes, too, though the less protected other two are brown.
- Filling a brown vase with giant spires of yellow sage. The flowers begin to drop off the spires five minutes later, but if I keep sweeping them up we get at least 24 hours of glory.
- Being amazed as I am every year that broccoli plants double in size even in a week of frosty nights and cold days while other plants stop growing or die back. 'Plant at the right time' works.
- .Longing for a 20-metre-long, 10-metre-wide and 40-metre-high bushfire-proof heated glass house that is also impervious to cricket balls and wombats, where I could spend most of winter and grow vanilla vines and pineapples.
- Crunching winter lettuces and baby cucumbers.
