What to plant now: 'As a home gardener it is the time to sow your seeds'

Farming is the utmost expression of optimism – nature charges ahead despite all the goings on of the human world, and you better keep up. There are really no alternatives. It is a time of manic activity around our farm.

While the growing season in our part of the New South Wales northern rivers region ticks on throughout the entire year, interspersed with green manure rotation, there’s a key indicator we need to start seeding our spring and summer crops. That sign comes from wild native raspberries (Rubus rosifolius). Now, the first canes are establishing on last year’s dieback wood, heralding their humble blossoms. The ground temperature is warming up, and daylight hours are long enough to sustain new growth.

Rebecca Barnes from Playing with Fire, a company that specialises in Australian native foods, ascribes to the Indigenous counting of seasons (six rather than four). She tells me there are eight kinds of indigenous raspberry in Australia, and they also occur naturally in other parts of the world. In our area alone, I have spotted three of these distant relatives to the cultivated European varieties, rosy berries growing randomly anywhere and everywhere there has been interrupted soil.

Related: Homegrown lettuce: a weed that keeps on giving

By the time their glistening, crimson, thimble-sized fruit has set, we must ensure our first generation of tomatoes, squashes, melons, cucumbers, peppers, eggplants and warm herbaceous crops have germinated. They need to have sprouted and firmly sent out their first roots, either in the seed trays or directly into the prepared beds.

To fulfil our spring and summer orders, we will be seeding and planting these crops continuously, to stretch them out until March. At that time, we keep harvesting them according to the Roman calendar of mid-to-late winter. We still are harvesting eggplants from last summer’s crop.

As a home gardener, now is the time to sow your seeds. I know there have been shortages of seeds from online suppliers in the past few months, however I have been doing some hunting and found various seed companies who still have plenty left. Go out of your comfort zone and grow species and varieties that sound unfamiliar. You may find unexpected delight in learning how to use and eat them.

Many local nurseries have seedlings now too, so you may wish to get a little leg up and grow from these. At the farm we start from seed, so we can specialise in the crops we select for. I’ve also found that by starting them off onsite, especially in direct sowing, you establish a root system that is vigorous through its lifespan, as it does not have to deal with trauma by being transplanted.

Should you be transplanting, the optimal time to do so from a seed tray is during the seedling stage, after it has developed three or four true leaves. When a plant is at the cotyledon stage of emerging, they are still too delicate.

Prepare your pots, beds or growing areas well by having a nice layer of new compost, a little blood and bone, rock minerals and mulch. The soil should have a lush dampness when you transplant, to give your crop the best chance at survival. Initially watering to maintain that dampness – until the roots have established – is important, but watch out for watering at night if there is still the potential of frost in your area, or you may find yourself starting from ground zero all over again.

Here are some things you may want to start seeding or accumulating now for your summer table.

Nightshades

Tomatoes, all sizes and colours: The varieties available now are truly staggering. How do you choose? Just jump in and try as many as you can. Don’t seed them out all at once though. Do a lot every couple of weeks to get tomatoes through until next winter.

Eggplants: These are a great adaptable crop to any cuisine. Have you tried growing Thai apple eggplants? Delicious and easy.

Peppers: Capsicums, chillies – there are literally thousands of varieties here, not just red and green anymore.

Potatoes: Yes they are a nightshade, and are available in a myriad of shades now.

Physalis: Tomatillos, cape gooseberries, and ground cherries all fall under this category.

Tamarillos, naranjilla and pepinos: These I’ve heard do well even as far south as Tasmania and fare well in shorter summers.

Papaya and bananas

These are both herbaceous plants and while they are not an obvious choice in many home gardens, they do grow very fast and if you plant one now you may even get fruit before summer’s end.

Both are extremely useful for creating biomass and are a very ecological planting for the garden, creating wonderful support for other plants around them – like a natural trellis for passionfruit.

Vining plants that do well over fences and walls

Passionfruit, chokos, pumpkins, grapes, muscadines, melons, cucumbers, kiwifruit, climbing berries. Plant them and watch your fence-line turn into a living ecosystem.

Roots, rhizomes and aromatics

Turmerics, gingers, galangals, cardamoms, sweet potatoes – stick them in now.

The herbs that I found to do well in our sweltering summers are all the different basils – there are more than 20 varieties available commercially – each with its own flavour profile. The other herbs I like to grow are bronze fennel, coriander, mints, salvias, thymes (so many varieties here too!), rosemary, lemongrass and tarragon.

Cucurbits

I’ve written before that pumpkins and melons have a territorial nature and love to wander. No reason not to, really. Except when their amorous nature wants to take over another plant completely. That’s when it’s time to retrain the tendrils, which is quite easy. Don’t be afraid to prune an established plant to direct it somewhere else and encourage new growth.

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Now is also a great time for your trees in pots too. If you’ve never had citrus before, it’s a great time to start.

Lastly, don’t forget the companion plants, they will not only give you some lush blooms to admire, but will also invite more pollinators to your growing area.