While the Bedding Plants Association of Australia has launched an Oriental Combo™ mix of Asian vegetable seedlings in punnets. Their lettuce Combo mix has been a hit for a couple of years, so these probably will be too. I noticed Pak choi (green and white stem varieties), Won bok, Michihilli and what they call ‘Japanese Greens’ which look like Tatsoi to me. Most of which need to be planted in the cool of autumn or they will bolt to seed.

I can’t believe the number of calls I’ve taken on radio recently from folk with ‘Ponytail’ questions. This plant used to be named Nolina recurvata, however Beaucanea recurvata seems to be the current valid botanical name. The collection of them in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens is awesome, so if you start off with a potted specimen and you are thinking about planting it out into your garden, check them out in the Botanic Gardens first, on the southwestern corner of the lake near the Kiosk! I reckon one of them is 6 metres around the swollen base. Keep it in a pot maybe!

So what to plant right now in the heat of summer? Dwarf French beans are a winner but make sure they have plenty of air moving around them and full sum on 5cm high mounds. That way they will grow fast from seed, can be watered by flood irrigation and thrive to produce within 6 weeks and stay relatively free of whitefly.

Also most of the brassicas can still be planted from seed or seedlings, celery, globe artichokes, parsnips, silverbeet and spring onions plus more lettuce. Plant lettuce seedlings is almost an all year round mantra, but they do grow fast at this time of year and taste best grown fast with some nitrogen fertilizer.

Whiteflies seem to be prolific on the zucchini leaves at present, but they hardly diminish the yield, unlike dwarf beans, where the yield is dramatically reduced if you do nothing. I use the yellow stick traps tethered to a bamboo so they swing in the wind. If you have trouble locating them I have them on my website, posted anywhere for $9.50 a pack of 5.

What to plant right now? Well it’s still not too late for apple cucumber, believe it or not. My tip is a late Indian summer this year, so that even a late crop of ‘Mighty Red’ tomato seedlings will still be picking in early May.

You probably won’t find this advice in any gardening book, but potatoes planted now thrive through winter in this region to harvest in spring. All they need is a handful of superphosphate per linear metre over the mounds, but finding a supply of seed spuds may be your problem, unless you buy the greengrocers’ supply, which is fine. All that talk about hormone sprays on them to stop them sprouting is crap!

It’s time to plant some more spring onions of the ‘Lisbon White’ variety and also true bunching shallots, round leaf chives and Oriental garlic chives, with the flat leaves. More parsley and repot your pot bound mint, but stand them around the shady side of your house for the next 4 weeks, or they won’t make much growth. I’d use plenty of peat moss, copra substitute or neem copra in the potting mixture, which saves on having to water them so often. Also nothing smaller than a 25cn (10”) diameter pot for mint either, otherwise they don’t get enough root run to thrive.

I had an e-mail from a local reader concerned that there seem to be a lot of smallish fruit rats around at present and ‘was I aware?’ Well yes there certainly are and it’s not just in the hills, they are everywhere, feeding on the copious fruit drop that greets them. They are indeed Ratus ratus the common rat and small because they are this season’s youngsters.

I’ve found that control is best achieved by placing some Ratsak® each day into a one metre section of PVC down pipe and wiring it to a fence rail, or anyplace where you think rats on running. The PVC pipe keeps birds and pets from eating the baits. You need to top up the baits each day, because there is no effect for 6-7 days then the rat(s) die. It’s only the accumulated effect of the baits that causes them to haemorrhage inside. That’s why they don’t offer a threat to other creatures in the food chain.