There is basically one word which sums up the key focus for gardening in February – Water. Whether this is because you haven’t had enough of it, or you are one of the many Australians who has had too much, February is an important month to deal with water.

Water is particularly important in cold and temperate climates in February. After a long, dry summer, or even patches of hot summer in these regions, plants that have lacked a good water supply are more susceptible to disease and worse, death. In tropical climates, particularly this year, water is not the issue but water getting down into the soil may still be problematic. February can be a good time for the application of a good soil wetting agent. If you are not a fan of soil wetting agents, use a pitchfork to aerate the soil. This is something that would be useful across the board and definitely will be needed for large, grassed areas. The hot summer sun bakes the soil, causing it to form a crust which reduces the ability for water to sink in. If you are watering your plants and just watching the water run away and not penetrate, you need to either aerate the soil or apply a soil wetting agent. ‘Wetta soil’ is one I have used and used with great effect.

Another good tip for February is to make sure you are regularly dead heading flowers such as roses and dahlias. If you encourage your plants to continue to bud through February they will flower for longer, where as if they are able to go to seed, there is less chance of solid flowering into the autumn months.

February is a month where plants can really start to suffer from disease. Even if plants have been well watered and the water is getting into the soil, bugs are very active during summer and February can easily become a month where they take over. Check over your plants and make sure if you find leaves or flowers with disease on them, clip them off and throw them out. Don’t compost these because the problem can spread to your soil through the compost. Check out your local nursery and see what plants they sell a good powder protection for. Roses are one plant that could do with a light rose powder covering to help them fight against aphids and cover tomatoes with tomato dust to ward off caterpillars.

Hopefully your summer vegetables are still growing strong but if they are looking a bit on the bad side you might like to consider starting to get your garden beds ready for the autumn vegetable crop. Remove dead veggies and compost them. Start cleaning up the garden beds, making sure they are well formed and if they are reticulated, check to see if it is still in fully functional order. More will be done here in March, these are just some early steps if your summer vegetables are finished.

The purpose of this series is to enable you to know more about how I became the gardener that I am today. I am not a ‘professional’ gardener, even though I do run a gardening business. By that I mean I have not been to university or TAFE and undertaken studies in horticulture or anything like that. I am simply someone who has had a lifelong passion to develop my green thumb. Why is this important? Because this blog is all about helping YOU develop the green thumb you have always desired. My story is a testament to the fact that I believe anyone CAN improve their gardening skill if they have enough dedication and desire to do so.

Today I want to talk about the area of gardening that I have more to do with than any other and that is vegetable gardening. Almost all my life I have been involved, whether actively or as a spectator (and therefore learning by watching), with vegetable gardening. My parents loved to grow vegetables in the back yard because it is a very cheap way of producing food!

My first memories of vegetable gardening are of a very productive bean crop that we had growing right up towards the back fence of my first house. I would have been around 5-6 years old and I remember how excited I was every few days to walk down the back with Mum or Dad and harvest the latest crop of beans. They seemed to grown without end. Every time we went out there we would find more beans to pick off. As a child it was so exciting to sit down to dinner at night and eat something that my family had grown!

I also remember quite strongly when we first (as far as I remember) grew pumpkins and how Mum had to learn how to tell when they were ready to be eaten. She would cut a little triangle in the side when we were pretty sure they were ready. I’ll be honest with you, to this day I still don’t actually know how that tells you if they are ready or not but it is a lasting memory for me.

In 1993 we moved to Albany and so grew our passion for vegetable gardening. In the last entry to this series, I wrote about My First Garden. One thing that was pretty much a constant in my first garden was tomato plants. At first this was because we planted them there and they thrived. Thereafter, they succeeded because tomatoes are fantastic self-seeders and so they would just continue to pop up here and there. We never complained! Some of the juiciest tomatoes I have ever eaten were grown in my little garden. I used to watch them from when they were very little right through to when I would have to get Dad to stake them for me so that they didn’t topple over under their own weight. It was grand.

Growing vegetables has taught me so much about gardening and the great thing about this is that you can do it to! Buying a few punnets of vegetables is quite inexpensive and you can then use these to hone your own gardening skills. If you can grow a healthy, productive vegetable garden then I believe you really can grow anything because the principles you learn from growing vegetables truly carry across to all forms of gardening. So, why not get out there and plant some vegetables today? Your dinner plate will likely appreciate it!