What vegetables can you grow in summer?
Summer is the perfect time to add to your garden or create that dream vegetable garden that you have always wanted. The sun is shining, the days are longer and the urge to be outside is strong. However, you may not know which vegetables you can grow in summer. That’s where we come in. Here is our list of vegetables you can grow in the New Zealand summer.
Different seasons bring about the opportunity to grow a large range of different vegetables because of the temperature changes. Some vegetables grow in the cool season when the temperature is around 10-20 degrees C, while others grow in the intermediate season, when the temperature is around 15-25 degrees C.
Then there are the warm season vegetables. These are the summer vegetables which grow in 20 degree C and warmer. So, depending on how hot the summer weather is, you can grow warm season veggies and even some intermediate season veggies if the summer is on the cooler side.
Therefore, if you are starting a summer vegetable garden, you want to start with warm season veggies like cucumbers, zucchinis, pumpkins, potatoes, eggplants, capsicum, sweet corn, tomato, cucurbits, blueberries, chilli, coriander, courgette, squash, spinach, spring onion, beans and herbs like alyssum, basil, thyme, parsley, chives, as they will grow well in the summer season.
Then if you have room, you could plant intermediate season vegetables like carrots, celery, leeks, lettuce, silver beet and beetroot. Since these aren’t summer veggies, they may or may not survive, depending on how hot the weather is and how often you take care of them.
Tips for your vegetable garden:
Add mineral fertilisers to the soil before and during planting your veggies to make sure they have the highest source of nutrients and a higher chance of growing and surviving.
Water the plants enough, so that the veggies and soil never get a chance to dry out. Do not overwater the plant as it can cause drainage problem and cause your plant to die.
Grow different vegetables around each other, do not grow a huge amount of the same vegetables in the same spot. If you do this your soil will maintain its nutrients and decrease soil disease.
Clearing a spot for your garden
If you have piles of garden waste that needs to be removed or need our team to clear some bushes or overgrown weeds for a space for your garden, send us an email or call us for a quote.
Planting Calendar
If you want an in-depth list of when vegetables can be planted during the different seasons, click here for the tui planting calendar. This list breaks down the planting months by the three New Zealand regions and lets you know how long it will take the veggie to grow.
