HOW many readers have lost tomatoes by planting too early? Melbourne Cup Day is upon us and it is worth the risk of planting tomatoes. 

We still need to be ever vigilant, with recent overnight temperatures close to zero.

Looking at the veggie calendar, it’s time to get serious for fresh summer salads. It is important to have prepared the ground some time ago so that fresh manures are not in too-high concentrations. If you are still using chemical fertilisers, ensure they are not in contact with the roots of the seedlings or they may cause severe burning and those delicate plants will die. You cannot blame the snails all the time!

With the ground rapidly warming, most veggies will take off. French Beans can now be sown in a warm site, only in full sun. As with most seeds, do not plant the whole packet at the one time. Sow a few each week over several weeks for a continuous supply.

You will need to consider different soils for the various veggies. For example, beetroot dislikes an acid soil and can be grown either from seed or seedlings. Similarly leeks, lettuce and onions like the same soil as beetroot, ie a well-limed soil. Onions need to go in without delay as seedlings, but feed with a low-nitrogen fertiliser.

ALL fertilisers show an NPK rating, with N=Nitrogen, P=Phosphorus and K=Potassium. Very simply, nitrogen provides plenty of top green growth, essential for lettuce, English spinach or all plants that produce their crop above ground. Phosphorus encourages root growth, ie carrots, beetroot, onions and radish. Potassium promotes flowers, essential for melons, marrows, cucumbers and sweet corn or where the fruit develops from flower pollination. Getting the balance right can be tricky, but do not lose too much sleep over it. For those with back problems or to make it harder for the snails, raised Colorbond veggie beds are the answer (available through tankworks.com.au).

PEAS do best in new soil. Radish are for successive sowing of seed as they grow very quickly, great for children to grow in their own dedicated veggie plot. Starting children into gardening early is summed up by this anonymous quotation: “The love of gardening is a seed that, once sown, never dies”. How true.

All root crops need a rich, deeply dug soil. Often the problem with misshapen carrots is that they hit the deep-down hard soil deep that has not been adequately prepared.

SO your tomatoes are starting to grow, even though you forgot to cover them occasionally. I suggest you buy a copy of Allen Gilbert’s “Tomatoes for everyone” (about $25). Its 142 pages are fully illustrated in colour, with every problem you are likely to come up against – and still have the best crop in the street! And for further information on growing veggies, do buy the latest edition of “The Canberra Gardener” available from most bookshops. This is written by members of the Horticultural Society of Canberra especially for our local climate.

JUST published is an inspiring book on vegetable growing, olive production, how to really grow tomatoes, grapes for wine and fruit trees. Titled “Growing Honest Food” by Gabriella Gomersall-Hubbard (Hyland House, hardback, full colour, 224 pages, rrp $39.95), it is the story of Tina and Tony Siciliano, originally from Varapodi in Italy.

After migrating here in the ‘50s and working hard all their lives they decided to retire to 1.2 hectares, 17 kilometres from Melbourne and create an “Oasis of Italian Tradition in the Suburbs”.

Once they built their new home in 1981, they started the most amazing garden, as you will see once you look at this book, with its mouth-watering recipes. Lovers of Italian food, and that pretty well means everyone, will delight in their story, living proof that a venture such as this provides a healthy lifestyle and can also be profitable.