Beginner's Guide To Growing Winter Vegetables

As vegies hit the final growing stretch, they'll be hungry and thirsty, so it's important to ensure the plants are well fed and watered. Fast-acting fertilisers are ideal at this time of year, providing nutrients quickly to help promote maximum growth. Yates Thrive Natural Vegie & Herb Liquid Plant Food contains a combination of fast-acting fertilisers plus more than 50% organic ingredients to nurture the soil.

Dilute one to two capfuls of Yates Thrive Natural Vegie & Herb Liquid Plant Food in a nine litre watering can and apply around the root zone everyone to two weeks. Also check the moisture levels in your soil (or potting mix) by gently digging around in the top few centimetres of soil with your fingers. You'll be able to feel if the soil is dry and dusty and needs watering, or whether it's moist and you can leave watering and check again in a few days time.

Common insect pests on winter vegies include caterpillars and aphids. Caterpillars can chew through leaves and also into broccoli and cauliflower heads.To control caterpillars, spray plants each week with Yates Nature's Way^® Caterpillar Killer (Dipel). Based on beneficial bacteria, it's approved for use in organic gardening and will only affect caterpillars.

Aphids are tiny sap sucking green, grey, brown or black insects that  cluster  under leaves and amongst stems. Often present in large numbers, they deplete plants, can cause leaf yellowing  and  distortion and significantly impact your harvest. To control aphids, spray plants with Yates Nature's Way Vegie & Herb Spray.

It's an insecticidal soap that controls soft-bodied insects like aphids, as well as whitefly, mites and thrips. An added bonus is that it's approved for use in organic gardening.

Snails and slugs love devouring tender new vegie seedlings but can also damage more mature vegies, including sliming their way into broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage heads. Protect your vegies with a light scattering of Yates Snail & Slug Bait around the plants.

During winter, warm climate gardeners can also sow and grow cabbages, capsicum, cucumbers, pumpkins, silverbeet, sweetcorn, tomatoes, zucchini and beans, so there are plenty of options to keep your vegie patch packed!

Before sowing seed or planting seedlings, enrich the soil first with some handfuls of Yates Dynamic Lifter® Soil Improver & Plant Fertiliser. It adds rich organic matter to the soil which helps improve soil structure, encourages earthworms and beneficial microorganisms and provides gentle slow release organic nutrients to the vegies as they establish.

If you haven't planted any winter vegies yet, don't despair as there are still lots of tasty options! You can still sow broad beans throughout Australia in winter (early winter in warm areas), Yates Baby Beets, Yates Carrot All Seasons, Yates Lettuce Baby Combo, Yates Radish Confetti Mix, Yates Spring Onion, and lots of different Yates Peas, including Sugarsnap, Telephone and Snow Peas. Plus your local garden centre will have seedlings to choose from too. So sow and grow now and reap the delicious benefits in the months to come.

A multi-purpose spray that can be used on beans, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbages, cauliflowers, peas and tomatoes to control common insect pests like aphids, caterpillars, bugs, whiteflies and thrips is Baythroid^® Advanced Garden Insect Pest Killer Ready to Use. It's an easy to use spray that requires no mixing or measuring, so it's great for beginner and busy gardeners. It will also kill and protect plants from aphids and mealybugs for up to 21 days, so it's a wonderful way to keep your winter vegies healthy.