Get your garden growing now

The gardener inside every Pilbara resident is beginning to come out as the late summer heat slowly cools off.

It has been a stop-start season for green thumbs in the region to date with several false dawns where the weather has cooled off only to heat back up again and kill any progress made.

Onslow Community Garden president Geoff Herbert said with the change of weather plenty of vegetables such as tomatoes, Chinese cabbage, broccoli and silverbeet had recently been planted.

“We’re right on the cusp of the season turning so it is still a little bit hard because we’re getting some hot days still,” he said.

“We’re hoping it really cools off the next few weeks and it kicks off.

“All that rain recently was good, that gave us a good start and hopefully we get a bit more.”

Mr Herbert said community gardens were a good place to come and learn more about gardening before tackling your own projects, as well as providing the opportunity to socialise.

Handy Hands Karratha spokeswoman Marina Goldschmidt said the traditional growing time in the Pilbara was usually from Easter through to about September but this season had proved difficult.

“A lot of plants won’t last our summer so it’s a mad furious time now to get all your plants in,” she said.

“It’s the exact opposite to Perth’s season.

“We suggest seedlings because your growing time is very short. If you can get an established plant in you have a better chance of getting a crop before our lovely summer comes back.”

Ms Goldschmidt said it was important to feed fast-growing plants such as vegetables regularly without overdosing them.

“Especially vegetables and anything that grows quickly needs a lot of food so you can’t rely on just doing it once, you need to keep feeding through the season,” she said.

A busy bee will be hosted at the Onslow Community Garden early next month, and Mr Herbert said the garden’s pizza oven was producing the best pizzas in the Pilbara.