Typical for the Sydney region summer we have had a huge variation in weather events from severe heat waves up near 40c to heavy rain fall and stinging hail storms. It’s been very good weather for germination of seeds with the significant soil heat and moisture levels so it’s time to get the older stored seeds for your collection out and try them. We usually get our first cold snaps around the end of April into May – so we still have almost 90 days of good growing time left in our summer. This means that you still can try out some of the crops you wanted to try but forgot about. You will likely get something from them if you protect them around the beginning of April onwards by planting them in pots and moving them inside or undercover or covering them with fleece or fine mesh cloth. Speaking of protection it’s time to assess what you got from your fruit trees and what the birds and marsupials got. You might consider bulding some structures or buying some protection bags for next year now so you don’t forget about them next season. The photos here are of a few interesting plants that are worth considering for your summer growing. KangKong aka Ipomoea aquatica is a very productive heat loving water plant that grows furiously during our summer but does not like the cold so you need to collect seeds in our regional climate and resow them each year. Kiku Chrysanthemum melons are a fairly rare Japanese heirloom that are small plants and fruit and therefore manageable in a small space and they only need about 90 days to maturity – so even from now are possible to grow to fruiting. It is also good with this current warm weather to get all your herbs up to date too – such as Tagetes like the species Lucida aka Mexican Taragon. Plants such as Perennial Buckwheat aka Fagopyrum cymosum will be at their peak growth right now and flowering to produce seed. This is one to be careful of in the garden as it will spread like crazy of you grow it in the ground and its best to stay with pots. It’s an interesting tasting seed and leaf and worth a trial at some stage in your food garden. Cardoons are an odd vegetable – very old and not grown very much now but a very popular meal in Roman times in Europe. Traditionally cooked by blanching the roots and leaf stem bases and then simmered in almond milk it is a tasty interesting side dish. And then there are solanum family of sun lovers like eggplants, tomatoes and in this case Tzimbalo aka Solanum caripense which is a small plant that produces grape sized fruits that taste like a cross between melon and tomato. It is believed to be the possible origin of the species Solanum muricatum the larger ‘Pepino’ fruit which is more productive and hardy in our climate.
This upcoming meeting we will be focussed again on the practical aspects of seed saving including harvesting, filtering/sieving and cleaning seeds along with packing and storage – and labelling. And as usual we will spend some time talking about the current seasonal planting and harvesting and swapping/packing seeds and swapping seedlings and cuttings between members.
It’s that time again!
This is just a quick reminder that the meeting for December 2025 of the Mid Blue Mountains SeedSavers is on at the Bullaburra Progress Hall this coming weekend.
Sunday 15 December 2026 from 10 am till Midday
Help celebrate the Blue Mountains Summer!
This meeting will be focussed on the practical aspects of seed saving including harvesting, filtering/sieving and cleaning seeds along with packing and storage.
Bring your plant material and seeds from this current season and we will discuss how to process them.
Come along and talk about growing things with like minded people.
Hope to see you there celebrating the current productive growing season!
The address for the Mid Blue Mountains Seedsavers website is:
https://midbluemountainsseedsavers.org/
We do now have a Facebook page as well:
https://www.facebook.com/Mid-Blue-Mountains-Seed-Savers-1629533990602860/
These regular notifications are sent out directly from the website if you subscribe to that email notification list.
Mid Blue Mountains Seed Savers 