A Canberra gardening guide for Christmas and New Year

Summer days and holidays in sight: what to do with the garden? It is a hard decision to leave a garden for a beach holiday when the sun is shining brightly and with such power. This year has certainly been one with extremes. The hot days and nights of November have helped us harvest tomatoes well before Christmas Day. The fastest maturing varieties that we have grown have been the Gold Nugget, Break O'Day and Olomovic. The capsicum plants that we keep in pots over winter are now in flower and back in the garden. They are flowering profusely and some early fruit have appeared.

So we have been busy with planting and mulching. Summer time is a very good time to involve young family members with planting and harvesting. Our two-year-old granddaughter Isabelle has helped plant out corn, beans, zucchinis and cucumbers. The seeds are big enough for her to hold. She has been very keen on digging the planting holes and then patting the soil down afterwards. She has also helped with the vital work of mulching the plants, although I think she liked it most when the wind was blowing and some of the chaff would be blown into the sky.

Having completed much of our summer plantings, it may be time for a holiday. Many vegetables can get by for a few days if they have received a good watering and are well mulched.

Check any garden beds that had been mulched in the early days of spring. The pea straw, lucerne or sugar cane mulch may be breaking down by now, especially with all the recent rains, so take the time to add a generous, supplementary layer of mulch. This will mean that a good friend or neighbour will only need to come by twice a week to do some watering. Of course, if you have set up a fully automated timer

If you have been growing vegetables from seed and have some still in punnets, try to find some time now to transplant them into the garden. This will allow them to be well grounded and establish their root systems before you go on holidays. If you have any delicate plants, rig up shade covers to keep

For those who will be staying around, this is a central time for new plantings. This is the month when you are planting for three seasons of the new year. There is time to get quick-growing vegetables up and running for when school returns at the end of January. There is still time to get mid-length vegetables into the ground for a bumper autumn harvest. And the time is fast approaching for planting out seeds of several slower-growing winter vegetables.

Quick-growing summer vegetables include radish, rocket, open leaf lettuce, mesclun and kale. Plant into seed-raising trays and you will have seedlings of these vegetables to transplant close to New Year. Coriander is one of the fastest growing herbs and is so versatile, being used in many Asian

Vegetables that will produce their crops in just two months (8-9 weeks) include bush beans, cucumbers, zucchinis and silver beet. They are easy to plant and not too difficult to tend. There are some wonderful cucumbers available. As well as the standard Lebanese cucumber, the Muncher is of similar size with tender burpless flesh. Green Gem, Straight 8 and Marketmore produce fine-grained cucumbers to 20-centimetres. Cucumber seeds will germinate in 8-10 days.

A favourite zucchini is the Cocozelle. It is a heirloom variety that originated in Naples and it produces a long, cylindrical fruit which is pale green with dark green stripes. It is very flavoursome and produces a sizeable crop. There is also the yellow and the golden-skinned zucchinis which will add colour when you are cooking for friends.

This is also a good time to be planting out beetroot, carrots and sweet corn for a March harvest. All these vegetables are to be sown directly into prepared garden beds. Remember to keep the ground moist and covered for carrots, as they can take up to three weeks to germinate.

Strawberry and loganberry parfait

500g strawberries
loganberries
½ cup brown sugar
400ml natural yoghurt
½ cup light sour cream (optional)

Hull the strawberries and halve large ones. Place the strawberries and loganberries in a medium-sized bowl and sprinkle the brown sugar over them.

Combine the yoghurt and sour cream in a small bowl. Spoon alternate layers of the berries and yoghurt mixture into chilled parfait glasses. Decorate with extra strawberries and serve.

This week in the garden

• Plant a row of open leaf lettuce, rocket, mizuna and mesclun for summer salads. Plant out some

Pinch out laterals with your tomatoes and keep tying them up to the support stakes each 40-50 centimetres.

Provide stake support for the capsicum and eggplant bushes, as their fruit begin to set and grow.

• Consider planting golden nugget pumpkins, as they are space savers and quick growers.

• Mulch all new garden beds with a generous amount of lucerne hay, sugar cane or pea straw mulch.

• Harvest onions a week after turning the drying stems over. Allow the onions to fully dry in a shady,

• Water small seedlings each morning and evening to prevent them dying from lack of moisture.

• Keep checking apple trees and removing any fruit that has signs of codling moth entry.

• Remove excess small fruit from all fruit trees, especially pear and apple trees. Provide support for

Owen Pidgeon runs the Loriendale Organic Orchard near Hall