Yes, we know, organic vegetable gardening in your own home food garden is an activity that can be challenging. But it is really the simplest and most rewarding experience at the same time too. Isn’t it?
Just ask our favourite planting advisor, Gaye Boshoff.
Along with her husband, Pieter Boshoff, and her two children, Gaye runs Honeymoon Farm, a smallholding in the Harkerville forest between Plettenberg Bay and Knysna on the Western Cape Garden Route.
March signals the beginning of autumn in Mzansi and if you are in the chilly parts of the country, Boshoff advises you gear up and prep cold crops, including brassicas (cauliflower, broccoli, Brussel sprouts), garlic, and chamomile in the winter rainfall Western Cape.
“The biggest thing is your garlic planting now, you can plant it everywhere.”
Also read: Grow your own garlic
Those who have the fortune of experiencing subtropical weather all year round, you are lucky. You can get planting on a variety of crops including marrows, eggplant, peppers, pumpkins and squash.
Given the global pandemic, now more than ever vegetable gardening in your own home food garden has become the most rewarding hobby, Boshoff believes.
“I don’t think a lot of people can afford food at the moment, and your basic staples like potatoes are quite easy to grow.
“When you pick vegetables out of your garden, they’re just full of nutrition and healthier. Even if it is just a little spinach or some tomatoes, it’s much better than what you would buy in a shop.”
Do watch out if you are seed saving, though. You need to choose carefully what you adjacent to one another.
Boshoff cautions that, “broccoli and cauliflower are some of those vegetables that cross pollinate easily. If you want to collect the seeds afterwards, you will have a problem if you planted all those things. It creates like a weird vegetable. It won’t be a good seed.”
Also read: Food prices: No rest for poor mothers
Here is what you can plant in your home food garden this month:
Gauteng, you are good to go for:
- Spinach
- Radish
- Lettuce
- Onion
- Spinach
Mpumalanga, you are good to go for:
- Beetroot
- Eggplant
- Onion
- Radish
- Spinach
Western Cape, you are good to go for:
- Cabbage
- Carrot
- Celery
- Eggplant
- Lettuce
- Parsnip
- Potato
- Radish
- Spinach
Free State, you are good to go for:
- Beetroot
- Lettuce
- Onion
- Radish
- Spinach
Northern Cape, you are good to go for:
- Cabbage
- Carrot
- Cauliflower
- Lettuce
- Onions
- Potatoes
- Radish
KwaZulu-Natal, you are good to go for:
- Beetroot
- Cauliflower
- Carrot
- Celery
- Lettuce
- Onion
- Spinach
North West, you are good to go for:
- Beetroot
- Onion
- Radish
- Spinach
- Lettuce
Limpopo, you are good to go for:
- Beetroot
- Lettuce
- Onion
- Spinach
- Radish
Eastern Cape, you are good to go for:
- Bush beans
- Climbing beans
- Beetroot
- Broccoli
- Brussel sprouts
- Cabbage
- Carrot
- Cauliflower
- Celery
- Cucumber
- Eggplant
- Lettuce
- Onions
- Parsnip
- Peas
- Peppers
- Pumpkin
- Swiss Chard
- Radish
- Tomato
