Now we're back in the garden we're jumping back into our monthly planting rotations to ensure we always have something to harvest.
Feast or Famine?
I think one of the things that I don’t love about growing my own food is that feast or famine with harvests. Nothing worse than being stuck in the kitchen processing excess harvests or watching your hard work rot in the bottom of the fridge, and then not having anything a week later. I would much rather focus on picking what I need when I need it and here in subtropical south east Queensland we have the advantage of being able to plant year round, even if summer has its challenges.
Always have something to harvest
To ensure we always have something to harvest I stagger plantings. Instead of filling my beds with new plants at the start of the season, I aim to fill a single bed each month, think of it like a shopping basket for the future.
I need about 4-5 beds for this rotation, if you have bigger beds you could split it up into zones. My layouts are loosely based on squarefoot gardening and I plant densely to get the most out of my space.
I have separate beds for things that take longer like the garlic, and the biennial things like eggplant, chilli and capsicums. These beds are just for staples and things that grow within 90 days. If you’re a dirt lover you can access all of my monthly plans inside the portal.
Garden Bed Preparation
For July which is mid winter for us here in subtropical Australia we’ll be planting into our newly prepared wicking bed, this bed is approximately 1x1.2m in size. This bed has been replenished with compost, a mixed organic fertiliser, and our Volcanic Rock Dust.
I managed to get my hands on some amazing compost that I’ve just used to top it off. This red soil organics trifecta mix has been the closest to home made compost I’ve been able to purchase, not sponsored or affiliated, I’ve just been influenced from your comments, thank you for the recommendation.
What our planting plan looks like for July
If you're after our planting plans you can grab them inside Dirt Lovers, this one is our July Small Subtropical layout.
First up we’re planting our Pea seeds. These seeds are ones I sell on my website, I’ve curated the best varieties for the subtropical climate, I’ve put loads of growing instructions on our packs and they come in resealable foil lined pouches. I’ve put my trellis on the Southern side to prevent them from shading the bed as they grow, it’s good to check your sun position as things like root veggies wont grow if they get shaded, even if it’s from what you’ve planted. As I’ve got snow peas, sugar snaps and purple podded peas already growing we’ve opted for greenfeast which is a podded variety suited to our climate. I sow two per hole, double the size in depth and around every 10cm apart. The trick with large seeds is to water them once and then leave them until they germinate otherwise you might find they may rot before sprouting.
Next to the peas I have some broccoli seedlings, these are a hybrid variety called green magic that are fast maturing. I started these in my greenhouse about 6 weeks ago. You could replace these with Cabbage, Swiss chard, tatsoi or Kale, it’s getting a bit late for us for Cauliflower but you could go with a fast growing cauliflower like ‘sixty days’. Broccoli need a lot of space, so I am only fitting 3 in this space.
In my next row I have a row of lettuce, this is a red mignonette type called marvel of four seasons, again we started these about 6 weeks ago in our greenhouse, they look green now from being in our greenhouse but they’ll end up being a lovely blush bronze colour. I am spacing these quite closely. I tend to harvest full heads rather than the outer leaves so by the time the Broccoli really get going these will mostly be harvested. You could swap these out for Pak Choi, rocket or baby spinach.
Next up i am planting some dark red beetroot seeds, you could plant with seedlings here too but they are easy to get going with seed, it’s one of the only root veggies I’ll transplant. I am planting quite densely here so I can get a run of baby beets and then hopefully another harvest of a couple big ones. You could swap these out for Kohlrabi or radish.
The next row I am doing some spinach, this is a bloomsdale spinach which is a perfect baby spinach, these ones we started about 6 weeks ago in the green house and we could be harvesting from these now. I am planting them quite close together as well and they will probably be finished by the time we get to beet harvest. You could swap these out for Pak Choi, rocket or more lettuce if you like.
This final row is for carrots and radish. To plant these I’ll make a little trench sprinkle in the seeds and top it with a seed raising mix. I went with a standard Scarlet Nantes. Carrots can be tricky to get to germinate as they take a while and the opposite to the peas, once planted the need to remain moist, if at any chance they dry out they may fail to sprout, some people cover with shade cloth or even planks of timber to keep the moisture in the soil. I always like to check the weather forecast and if rain is coming it’s a good time to sow my carrot seeds. I always just have a watering can nearby so i can give them a sprinkling of water if I wander by.
If ever I have any space I need to fill I always love to have 'space fillers' on hand for these purposes. It's great to have something to pop in if things don't grow. These are things like herbs, flowers, spring onions, lettuce that can just be planted wherever. I had some spring onions going in the aquaponics so I’ve added those in and a little sweet alice which is one of my favourite beneficial flowers to grow.
That’s the bed planted out for July, to finish off I will just give it a good watering in with seaweed emulsion. Once the seeds germinate and get going I’ll apply a mulch to protect the soil. We will be harvesting our spinach as needed pretty much straight away and lettuce will only take a couple of weeks but depending on how things go this bed should be in full harvest mode by the end of September.
Getting Ready for Spring
Now thinking about what’s coming up for next month, a lot of the seeds I’ll be planting in August will be direct sown in the garden as we’ll transition to warm season so theres not a great deal to do in the green house - I’ll be planting corn or maybe a zucchini, beans and cucumbers straight into my prepared bed.
But I’ll get another lot of lettuce in, I am going with a standard Cos Paris Island, this will be the last chance for me to really grow headed varieties as when it heats up we go with loose leaf varieties as lettuce is prone to bolting early when it’s too hot so headed varieties will never form their heads.
I’ve also got some more spring onions, I am going with two varieties, One is actually a full size onion that I’ll be treating like a spring onion the Long tropea reds - they fully form like torpedo shaped red onion but they take forever to grow. I’ve also got some mystery spring onions, I am not sure what these are they just self seeded in my garden and I collected the seeds.
I’d normally do some Swiss chard now too, but I have a bunch I planted a few weeks ago that I’ll just repot into bigger pots.
Pak choi are great for space fillers, they grow super fast.
Flowers to plant ready for spring
I am also going to sow some flowers. I’ve got some Calendula, dianthus and my favourite beneficial sweet alice. I am also going to get some cosmos going. I normally throw flower seeds in direct but I wanted to have a good supply to throw in as space fillers.
Sow tomato seeds in July
July is also when I start my Tomatoes. These will be planted in the garden in September, and i’ll upgrade their pots as they grow until I am ready to get them in the ground. This year I am going in with 3 varieties of Cherry tomatoes, honey bee, black cherry and cherry roma, I am also getting in a black krim. In my one bed per month system I only have space for the one plant, but I’ll be growing the rest in pots. I find that with all the diseases we get here that can linger in the soil for years it’s sometimes easier to grow them in pots. The trick with starting these in the middle of winter is waiting for a few days of temperatures above 21 degrees celsius, we’ve just had a cool snap here so I am planting them a little later than I had hoped. You could invest in a heat pad, plant them inside or even buy a mini covered green house but I am OK with waiting.
That’s us sorted for our mid winter planting and preparing for late winter and early spring.
If you're in subtropical or temperate climates you can grab our free seed sowing chart for what to plant when here.
