How to grow vegetables in the South Australian climate
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Most vegetable advice written for a South Australian garden treats the place as hot and dry and stops there, which gets you half a garden. What we actually have is a Mediterranean climate, so the summers are hot and dry and the winters are cold and wet, and that means two separate growing seasons with two completely different lists in them. The winter half is the easier half, and it is the one that gets left out.
The warm season, and what stops it working
Tomatoes, zucchini, capsicum, eggplant, chillies, cucumber, pumpkin and beans are the warm season crops, and they go in once the frost risk has passed rather than on a date, because a tomato put out too early sits there sulking in cold soil while a later one catches it up in a fortnight.
The thing nobody warns you about is that these crops have a ceiling as well as a floor. Tomatoes stop setting fruit once it gets much past 32 degrees, so a run of hot days gives you flowers that drop and no fruit, and that is not something you did wrong. Capsicum and eggplant sunburn on the shoulders of the fruit in the same conditions. A bit of afternoon shade over the hottest part of summer keeps all three of them producing, and shade cloth over a simple frame is the cheapest fix in the garden.
The cool season, which is the easy one
Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, silverbeet, spinach, lettuce, peas, broad beans, onions, leeks, carrots, beetroot and turnips all run through our cooler months, and they want far less water and far less attention than the summer list does because the rain does most of the work.
If you are starting a patch and you want it to go well the first time, start in autumn with the cool season crops rather than in spring with tomatoes. Slower growth, fewer pests, and the weather is on your side instead of against you.
Two crops worth being honest about
Carrots get recommended as heat tolerant and the plant is, but the seed is not. Carrot seed germinates badly in hot dry soil and you will be watering that row twice a day to get it up in January, so spring and autumn sowings are much easier here.
Sweet potato turns up on every hot climate list and it wants a long hot season to make anything worth digging. Down this end of the state it is a gamble rather than a staple, and it is not something we carry, so plant it as an experiment rather than as the thing you are relying on.
Soil, because ours needs the help
Hot dry summers pull moisture out of the ground faster than most soils can hold it, so organic matter is doing double duty here. Compost or well aged manure dug through before planting, then a mulch layer of around 75mm on top, will change how often you need to water more than any other single thing.
Keep the mulch a few centimetres clear of the stems, and if water beads up and runs off instead of soaking in, that is hydrophobic soil and a granular soil wetter fixes it faster than watering for longer does.
Watering, and the timing that matters
Deep and less often beats a daily sprinkle, because a short daily watering keeps the roots up in the top 50mm where the soil bakes. A proper soak every few days sends them down to where it stays damp.
Water in the early morning. Late afternoon looks sensible because it is cooler, and it leaves the foliage and the soil surface wet all night, which is exactly the condition fungal disease needs. Morning watering gets the moisture in and then dries the leaves off as the day warms.
Companion planting, honestly
Nasturtium as a trap crop pulls aphids and cabbage white off the plants you care about, and it works. Flowers like alyssum and calendula feed the hoverflies and parasitic wasps whose larvae eat your aphids, and that works too.
Basil planted next to tomatoes making the tomatoes taste better is a lovely story with nothing behind it, and marigolds as a general insect repellent is a much bigger claim than the evidence supports. Plant them because they earn their place in other ways, and do not build your pest plan on them.
The rest of the small stuff
- Shade cloth. 50% over the tomatoes and capsicum through the worst of the heat, off again once it passes.
- Drip line. Water at the roots, under the mulch, on a tap timer set for first light.
- Wind. A hot dry northerly strips moisture off leaves faster than the roots can replace it, and a hedge or a screen on that side is worth more than extra watering.
- Start small. Two beds you keep on top of beat six you feel guilty about, and you can always add another one next year.
You will lose things. Everybody does, and losing a crop is how you find out what your particular patch does in February. Come and tell us what went wrong and we will usually have heard the same story from somebody else that week.
Shop related products
- D.T. Brown Zucchini Lebanese, 25 seed pack. About as close to foolproof as the warm season gets.
- D.T. Brown Capsicum California Wonder, 100 seed pack. A reliable blocky capsicum.
- D.T. Brown Chilli Pepper Hot, 50 seed pack. Handles the heat better than most of the patch.
- D.T. Brown Beetroot Forono, 200 seed pack. A cool season root crop that keeps going.
- Easy Wetta Garden Mulch, 50L. The layer that decides your watering.
Did you know we also stock shade cloth by the metre in 50%, 70% and 90% in 1.8 and 3.6 metre widths, along with shade fix clips and shade stays, a granular soil wetter, and loose vegetable seed over the counter at $2.75 a packet including five tomato varieties. None of that is on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what is on the shelf.
The seed, the mulch and the soil improvers are in the garden centre, and the packets are in the D.T. Brown seed range.
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