LAST QUARTER FEB 3rd
Garden
- If you don’t already have a good garden plan then do it NOW. Use The Koanga Garden Planner if you need help to create a plan that gives you the vege you want to eat in an efficient regenerative way
- If you do have a plan then check it carefully now to ensure you get all the seeds needed for Feb planting ready
- Prepare beds, prick out and transplant seedlings as they are ready, for late and autumn crops
- Ensures all transplanted brassicas are covered with row crop cover or frost cloth to ensure the white butterflies don’t get to them and also to keep out of the high mid Summer heat. They love the cooler more shaded situation and with no white butterflies you will never have seen better plants
- Continue watering
- Continue tomato/ pepper maintenance
- Weed and aerate the surface of newly planted beds –
- Prepare ground for Autumn flowering annuals
- Harvest main crop garlic if not already out garlic, dry then clean and select your mother seed for next year
Perennials
- Same as rest of month, have a rest from this section now
Forest Garden
- Summer pruning can be done now on stone fruit after fruit comes off
- Plan now for next season’s plantings. Get a copy of Design Your Own Orchard and the Koanga Design Your Own Forest Garden Booklet. These two will give you all the knowledge and skills to do your own design and planning to create something that is capable of regeneration of your backyard ecosystem and your health on every level.
- The Koanga Fruit Tree catalogue and also Forest Garden Support tree lists go live on the Koanga website in early February each year
- Summer prune stone fruit
- Watch for branches breaking under the weight of a heavy crop, may need to thin or stake up or tie up branches
- You will have loads of plums now, a good time to make vinegar., and bottle juice ( steam juicer)
- Chooks, ducks and geese all eat waste fruit
NEW MOON FEB 10th
Garden
- Bird protection ( see Koanga Garden Guide, ) on all Summer grain beds eg millet, amaranth, quinoa
- Collect, dry, freeze and store any vege and flower seeds
- Harvest onions and shallots, dry, then select mother seed and store separately
- Plant seed now for cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts, lettuce, peas,, celery, coriander, daikon, turnips, and parsley. This planting is really important to avoid big gaps in May and June
- Harvest shellout or dried beans when the sun is out and it is hot, do not leave on plants in rain for days at this point, if they need further drying place on sheet in greenhouse etc and when pods are crunchy stomp on them to release seeds and store seeds
- Weeding and aeration
- Plant beds that have a gap before the next crop with fast growing green manure crops such as mustard, buckwheat and phacelia.. check Koanga Garden Planner and do your homework, to ensure you have no gaps next year
- Plant a wide range of flowers for autumn and spring flowering such as calendula, chamomile, stocks , hollyhocks, Sweet William, Chinese forget me nots, columbine
- Continue to store and process excess crops for future use ( Change of Heart for recipes) lactic pickled gherkins, Bread and Butter pickles, fermented tomato sauce, fermented pepper sauces, fermented beans, beet kvass, series on Traditional Food storage and Preservation in the Health an Wellbeing Masterclass
Perennials
- keep moist but have a break in this department!
Temperate Forest Garden
- bud development happening now as energy comes back up from root zone
- Watch moisture levels in the soil carefully, especially under young fruit trees and citrus, feijoas and kiwifruit which all have very shallow feeder roots. Water stress now could mean bad cicada damage and pear slug damage.
- Bird protection on trees with ripe fruit
- Tree roots are very active NOW finding the nutrients they will need to set next years fruit
FIRST QUARTER FEB 17th
Garden
- Plant empty beds carbon crops. Check Joanga Garden Planner, but I suggest if you are building soil and soil fertility then plant in carbon crops that are also legumes, and fork in 2.5cm of Ramial wood chip into the top 5cm of garden bed soil to use the cooler months to build your soil and fertility as well as moisture holding capacity and enormous fungal networks which hold the structure in your soil and enable you to become no dig and actually have it work!
- Carbon crops that are legumes are blue lupins’ and Crimson clover.. these are my favourite two
- The crops planted now will provide the most carbon next spring
- Foliar feed, or soil drench if required three days before the full moon
Temperate Forest garden
- watch moisture levels everywhere
FULL MOON FEB 25th
Garden
- Plant root vegetables such as carrots, beetroot, parsnips, turnips and swedes
- Liquid feed tomatoes, peppers and eggplants with liquid comfrey
- harvest the last of potatoes and store in breathable bags ( hessian is good) bags, or boxes in dark as cool as you can find place. .
- Plant empty beds in carbon crops. Check Garden Planner, but I suggest if you are building soil and soil fertility then plant in carbon crops that are also legumes, and fork in 2.5cm of Ramial wood chip into the top 5cm of garden bed soil to use the cooler months to build your soil and fertility as well as moisture holding capacity and enormous fungal networks which hold the structure in your soil and enable you to become no dig and actually have it work!
Perennials
- take a break
Temperate Forest Garden
- Plant spring bulbs in groups in orchard ground cover