BEAT THE ‘HUNGRY GAP’
There is a time in cold climate vegie gardens when the cupboard can be bare. This period, which falls at the very start of spring, is known as the “hungry gap” and happens because winter crops have been eaten and spring plantings have yet to take off.
In the northern hemisphere, where winters are much colder than ours, it was a time to turn to foraging for edible weeds. Wild asparagus and sorrel were two weeds on the menu in early spring.
Nowadays, with freight delivering fresh fruit and vegetables year round from warmer climates, and many growers producing in heated greenhouses, there is no shortage of fresh produce if the garden fails to deliver.
Some planning and planting now will bridge the gap. It may even be a time of bounty. Among the choices for early spring harvests are asparagus, English spinach, silverbeet, snow peas and broad beans (the edible shoots if the flowers are slow to form beans). All can be planted now.
Asparagus will not give you much to eat this year – or next – but it is an investment in the future. Once planted and allowed to grow unpicked for a year or two, asparagus produces spears each spring for decades.
If you have the room, dedicate a bed to asparagus. Look for dormant asparagus crowns in your nursery and start planting.
Far faster to provide food are the leafy vegies we generally call spinach – English spinach and silverbeet. These greens can be planted now (look for seedlings at the nursery to speed things up) to produce a harvest in two to three months. To keep harvesting, especially from English spinach, make successive plantings.
Looking good
As well as adding nourishment to your menu, silverbeet adds height, colour and interest to the vegetable garden in winter and spring if you invest in rainbow chard with stems of white, yellow, orange or ruby red.
Well cared for with regular water, liquid fertiliser and picking only the larger, older leaves from the outside of the clump, silverbeet stays productive for months.
Also happy to grow through even a cold winter are peas and broad beans. Of this group, snow peas are the most reliable for a fast crop.
Podded climbing peas can take a little longer to get going and may be shy to flower (and produce pea pods) if the weather is too cold, but they will reward you as soon as there are warmer sunny days.
Broad beans can be fast to grow but slow to form any actual beans. Seeds (or seedlings) planted now will grow, poised to form beans as soon as there is a break in the cold, frosty weather. As these plants are tall and brittle, they need support to help them through the winter storms.
Train tall growers up a trellis. Dwarf broad beans, which can still grow to a metre or so tall, can be well supported enclosed by a supportive fence made from garden twine and stakes that encircle the bed. Wayward plants within this support structure may need additional staking.
Broad beans can be harvested when pods are small, and cooked and eaten as young beans or leave them a few weeks longer to become large, plump and filled with beans.
The main key to a successful early spring harvest with all of these crops is to keep them growing strongly with weekly or fortnightly doses of liquid fertiliser.
If the area is cold and windswept, protect plants on the southern and western sides with a temporary screen made from plastic or shadecloth.