The famous line from Ecclesiastes has many metaphorical applications, but it has very literal value in the garden. Sometimes when a plant is hard to grow it can just be down to daylength or temperature, not soil quality or the other things we try to get right. Things are perhaps a little more straightforward in cooler climates where you just need to ‘plant after last frost’, or catch the last warm days of Autumn to get winter crops established. In the subtropics the seasons are long and the planting times ambiguous.
I get my information from the seed packets and from a half dozen planting calendars, each with its own recommendations, but I think given the variability even in the region, it will come down to experience of when individual crops have done well in individual beds, but also from watching when volunteer seedlings sprout.
I wrote recently about tomatoes choosing their season, and was reminded again this week by my mustard greens. I have two types; ‘Osaka purple’ and ‘Mustard giant curled’. I had seeds of Osaka purple ready to go when we moved in late last May, but the first June sowing and follow-up attempts didn’t do well and I ended up with a couple of plants only. They did go to seed, though, and in April the old patch began to be dotted with seedlings, mixed in with some self-sown fennel.
Likewise, I had sown some ‘giant curled’ in late summer, and although the germination and survival were good, the leaves were intensely hot and the plants bolted to seed. As soon as the seeds fell in April, they germinated, and are now making a self-sown crop that I expect will be more salad-ready with the weaker sunlight and cooler days.
Another vegetable that I’m watching and learning about is beetroot. It can theoretically grow all year here, but the ones I sowed in the warm months limped through Summer. Some of those December sown seed just waited and have now germinated in April, so I’m guessing that my best season for beetroot is April till Spring, at least until I have my beds perfected (beets prefer rich soil and constant moisture).
Some people, especially in this region, plant by the moon, and if that floats your boat, go for it. But if you want to find published experiments that demonstrate it’s tosh, they are available. My lesson? Keep that garden diary up to date and keep watching the ground for the volunteers that show when a plant wants to grow on my plot.