Season summary for my food garden in Ballarat (Victoria), Winter, 2024. This is mainly of relevance to food gardeners in the Ballarat area, but it might be a useful comparison for those living further afield.
Winter started cold but ended up very warm. While June’s maximum temperature was average the minimum temperature was 1 degree below average and a brief spell of extremely cold weather saw record low temperatures across South Eastern Australia. But July’s maximum temperature was a degree above average whilst August’s was a whopping 2.9 degrees above. While the overall maximum winter temperature was 1.3 degrees above the long term average the minimum temperature was pretty well average, largely due to the June cold snap.
It was a relatively dry winter with rainfall being just 69.1% of the long term average.
The official weather statistics for spring as recorded by the Bureau of Meteorology’s Ballarat airport site. Click HERE to see a higher resolution PDF of this weather chart.
vegetables
The Winter brassicas crop was good with great cabbages and large heads on the broccoli plants, thought the broccoli secondary pick was not as good as last year due to not putting in enough broccoli varieties (such as sprouting calabrese) that produce lots of side shoots. The Brussels sprouts were a little smaller than last year and plagued with aphids throughout the winter.
My main greenhouse produced the best winter crop ever. This was done with a combination of lettuces, peas, snow peas and staggered pots of baby spinach and rocket. The one drawback was that the greenhouse tomatoes finished a little early due to a frost inside the actual greenhouse. In a good year I get fruiting tomatoes in the greenhouse right through to the end of June,
The extreme cold spell we had in June caused a frost to occur inside my greenhouse. This has not happened in over ten years.
Little Gem lettuces, baby spinach, rocket and Pak choi growing in my main greenhouse. It was my best greenhouse winter crop ever, producing an abundant and uninterrupted harvest throughout the winter.
My broad bean plants as of 14th August. These were planted in the third week of April. Broad beans can also be planted in August but I have found April/May plantings of broad beans will mature much earlier than August plantings.
My onion crop went in on the 18th of August using seedlings that I had started in a styrofoam box in late April.
Overall the citrus crop has been good this Winter, an abundance of tangelos, mandarins, Washington Navel and Lane’s Late oranges has kept up a steady supply of citrus juice and will do so into November. The only citrus tree that had a lower than average crop was my Tahitian lime tree, it provided enough fresh limes but not enough to bottle.
My Tangelo tree produced and exceptionally good crop this winter. We will be squeezing these tangelos for fresh juice well into November.
chickens
My five hens averaged 4.4 eggs per day over the winter. Admittedly they are Hyline hens (a great cross breed variety) and they are still in their first year, but I think that is an extraordinary tally for winter. Well done girls!
No sign of pests or diseases recorded. Over the winter I dosed them against coccidiosis two times with Amprolium 200 Coccidiostat as a preventative. Coccidiosis is the most common threat to my hens due to contact with sparrows.
My Hyline hens scratching in the compost bins. Placing the compost bins in the chicken run is a good idea as the hen’s scratching’s help to break down the compost. The hens will also eat any weed seeds that end up in the bins.
