Summer

Plants: Lemon verbena / Mint / Chilli / Bean / Basil / Parsley / Cucumber / Eggplant / Tomato / Zucchini

Recipes: Lemon, zucchini and rosemary bread / Gin and cucumber popsicles / Tomato ketchup / Parsley salt / Lemon verbena and raspberry cordial / Chilli and orange oil / Garlic and parsley butter / Basil and strawberry kombucha / Smoky baba ghanoush / Garlic pickled green beans / Cucumber and ginger smoothie / Choc mint mousse

In our household, summer is a three-month-long celebration of life. The sky is bright, the sun is hot and the garden is alive. Long days at the beach roll into balmy nights spent in the garden with good friends and good food. We’re busy harvesting honey from our beehive, picking our prolific cucumbers, tomatoes and basil, and regularly watering our plants.

If you spent springtime in the garden, hopefully by summer you’re enjoying a full harvest of garden goodies. Maybe you’ve already traded a crate of colourful heirloom radishes? If you’ve just decided to get your garden in order now, that’s great – check that you’ve got good sun for optimum growth. As you’ll be planting winter crops in late summer/autumn, they will need plenty of light as the days get shorter and the sun gets lower in the sky. Check that your garden gets at least six hours of sun in winter by using an app or other source of local knowledge. You might need to raise pots higher, grow on a roof, rethink your plant choices or take over the footpath strip – whatever you need to do to chase the sun in winter.

Your herbs and edible flowers will probably be in bloom, attracting lots of beneficial insects including bees. A vegie garden mixed with herbs and flowers has the benefit of diversity, which will keep your plants happy. So continue to plant herbs and flowers, such as nasturtium, borage, perennial basil, echinacea, cosmos, agastache, salvia and heliotrope. It’s easy to buy a packet of mixed flower seeds and simply sprinkle these into spare pots or other garden areas. In addition to helping the garden, you’ll have an attractive flower supply for most of the year.