Moved up north? How to start sub-tropical gardening | Gardening 101 | Gardening Australia

For those who have moved north in recent years and are still grappling with the warmer conditions, Jerry offers a class in Sub-tropical Gardening 101. Subscribe 🔔 ab.co/GA-subscribe
The weather:
Just because you’ve moved to the warm sub-tropics, doesn’t mean you’ll no longer get frosts! And while there’s plenty of sunshine, summer rainfall can be patchy and erratic.
There are two main seasons: warm and cool.
* Warm runs from December to March and it’s generally wetter. Rainfall can be short and heavy.
* The cool season runs from May to November and that’s generally drier, with lower temperatures and less humidity.
Soil: Jerry recommends adding compost to the soil whenever sowing or planting to help combat these seasonal shifts. And always cover the soil with mulch to capture and store seasonal downfalls. Jerry uses chopped sugar cane.
Starchy staples - potatoes can rot or wither in Brisbane, so Jerry grows yams, arrowroot, sweet potatoes and bananas instead.
He recommends sweet potato and an easy plant for beginners; plant in a raised bed for good drainage, then feed monthly and water sparingly. Watch for grasshoppers and lift all your crop at harvest to avoid leaving food for weavils. Crop rotation avoids reinfestation, too. Plant in spring for harvest after 3-4 months. Don’t forget the new shoots are edible, too!
Leafy greens can go to seed quickly in the heat. They do best in the cool season but sowing for succession harvests helps, too. Jerry grows a range of greens, including Ethiopian cabbage, leeks, sweet leaf, kings salad, and herbs.
A good starter for beginners is celtuce, which tastes like a cross between celery and lettuce. As well as using the leaves, the stems can be peeled, sliced and stir-fried.
Fruit trees - Jerry says you need at least one exotic sub-tropical fruit and his pick is the papaya. You can eat the ripe fruit, make a lovely green papaya salad, the seed relieves constipation and the chopped leaves have a peppery taste. Treat as short-term perennials and replace every 2-3 years. To avoid fruit fly, pick the fruit green and ripen it indoors.
Tomatoes - in the subtropics the seed should be sown in March for planting in April or May because they grow better in the dry season. This also helps avoid fruit fly attack - until late September, at least. Grow cherry tomatoes to reduce the risk of caterpillar attack.
Frangipani - a sub-tropical must-have. Don’t limit yourself to the old-fashioned white flowers - there are hundreds of cultivars that will grow in the sub tropics, so enjoy them and the different fragrances they bring. They need full sun and excellent drainage. Feed with a slow-release fertiliser that’s high in phosphorous and potassium twice a year: in spring and summer.
Featured plants:
Winged yam (Dioscorea alata)
Banana (Musa cv.)
Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas cv.)
Bok choy (Brassica rapa cv.)
Ethopian cabbage (Brassica carinata)
Leek (Allium ampeloprasum cv.)
* Sweet leaf (Breynia androgyna)
* Kings salad (Cosmos caudatus)
Rice Paddy Herb (Limnophila aromatica)
Fish Mint (Houttuynia cordata)
*La Lot (Piper sarmentosum)
Celtuce (Lactuca sativa cv.)
*Papaya (Carica papaya cv.)
Tomato ‘Grosse Lisse’ (Solanum lycopersicum cv.)
Frangipani (Plumeria cv.)
* Always check species before planting; they may be environmental weeds in your area.
Filmed in Turrbal & Yuggera Country in Brisbane, Qld
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[@katebirs]

Love this side of Jerry. 😂

[@reallifefuntopia8273]

59 years in Melbourne and I'm still loving it!! Spend winters in QLD for the best of BOTH. ☕✈🍹

[@clubgus07]

Jerry, I absolutely agree and you got have Croton or 2 or 3 outside as welll that's a Brisbane Must!! and the Mushroom Plant is also a Sub Tropical favourite for me. cheers for the tips more Sub Tropical tiips videos and less of those of the video for those down south Gardening Australia 🤣😆

[@Mike_in_Thailand]

I too moved north from the Hunter Valley, but several thousand kilometers further north to Thailand. It's a totally new ball game here too...what, you have to grow tomatoes in winter? Tropical and sub-tropical gardening is well worth the effort though, too many bananas to eat, papaya growing like weeds, mangos aplenty...but I've put lettuce in the too hard basket! It just bolts every time. ☹

[@MrsBadger]

Great gardening advice 😊

[@awesomeideas8950]

You are making me jealous!

[@myunknownland9272]

Don't enjoy summer in Queensland. Love Melbourne. Thinking of moving back as I have some family in Melbourne and I miss them all. Xo

[@LifeHomeandGardenwithAnaRica]

Thank you for great tips and idea, Such a beautiful plants in the sub tropic.

[@melusine826]

Yep! 40 years in the south and 30 of those in canberra. Had half a winter and a summer up here and loving it. Still too chilly for me where I am in the mountains, but summers been nice

[@huggy-Bear]

What a great intro by Jezz!

[@antonioalves-sb2ee]

Top 10, lindo!

[@dheypatacsil2276]

Wow😘😘😘

[@Michael-ln7us]

Brisbane is getting much too busy and popular now I'm off further north.

[@MarkArcher-qv4lu]

Don’t blame you.Donna

[@Richorob]

Great vid mate! 👍🏻

[@intuitivediane]

Funnily enough I move back south after 20 years 😂😂😂😂

[@3506Dodge]

Australia has "bitterly cold" commutes? I always thought of it as another California.

[@lisadolan689]

ALL Frangipanis have rust in fnq. I hate the look and damage rust does. Rust killed my passion for Frangipanis 🥺

[@Hipstove]

I am living here. Have to fight against hundreds of black hairy caterpillars off my walls each day. But the spiders in the last a couple of days helped a bit. The frogs are so loud at night you literally have to put on airplane ear plugs to sleep. But it is quite nice to have water dragons sitting next to you and a frogmouth nodding off outside your window everyday.

[@MarkArcher-qv4lu]

Stop being a moaning Lisa

[@Hipstove]

@@MarkArcher-qv4lu -:)

[@melusine826]

All my leafy greens keep getting eaten😢 help!

[@introtwerp]

Since when is London and Edinburgh subtropical truly

[@vwbusguy]

Buuuugggggggsss