In My Edible Tropical Winter Garden, July 2026

"Gardens shouldn't be static, but a place for change and evolution" by Tim Pilgrim - Landscape Designer

 It's winter in the North Queensland Tropics, and it's our favourite time of the year to grow vegetables, in fact it's the only time to grow actual vegetables, except for eggplant(aubergines), some spinach,  chillies, and whatever else we feel brave enough to persevere with in Summer. You might have had other successes, and I'd love to hear about them if you have.

We've recently removed a couple of gardens to reduce our gardening workload and also a couple of the raised gardens collapsed due to the wood rotting and other factors, so we have needed to become quite creative with where we are now planting our seedlings and seeds.

We recently purchased seedling punnets of silverbeet, mignonette lettuces, assorted lettuces, and tomatoes. Mr HRK has done a wonderful job planting the two tomato bushes, which are Heirloom varieties called Mortgage Lifter and "Periforme Abruzzo." We have high hopes for these tomato bushes, if we can keep the predators at bay, as last year Mortgage Lifter produced some really delicious tomatoes. I have some of those seeds in my seed bank, but we were a bit late this year to plant them because of travel.  Periforme Abruzzo is new to us. We've planted the tomato bushes in a raised garden with some lettuces, chives, and my remaining sweet basil bush. 

We ran out of space, and so we planted the silverbeet in pots, first photo below, and they are doing very well. I'll use some of the leaves in salads, stir frys and other dishes, and let a few of the plants reach their full potential. So far they are bug free, so fingers crossed they stay that way. We don't spray our leafy vegetables, or any of our vegetables.

Mignonette lettuces are a favourite of mine to grow. My Mum also preferred them because before you know it, there are leaves large enough to pick for a salad, and they just keep producing. When there are only two of us at home, they are the perfect lettuce to grow and don't go to seed as quickly as some of the other varieties. Below our garden wall in the courtyard, there are two rectangular container pots, which we have previously grown desert roses and other heat resistant ornamental shrubs, however it has always been quite challenging growing plants in these pots. So Mr. HRK filled them with fresh garden soil, installed a sprinkler system, and we've planted a variety of lettuces in there. Fred the frog is carefully watching over the pots. Location and the soil quality are everything. Other silverbeet we've planted in a different location aren't growing as well, the bugs have found them, so I'll plant some chives in those gardens, which should act as a deterrent to the bugs. Alliums such as chives, leeks, green shallots or scallions, will act as bug deterrents when planted with green leafy vegetables.

The concept of "companion  planting" has been talked about for a long time, and I try to embrace this method of planting various vegetables, herbs and alliums whenever I can. I've already mentioned planting chives, and other alliums with the leafy green vegetables to deter unwanted bugs and insects, without the necessity of spraying. However, if I find a grub on my lettuces, that's ok too, I would rather that than use sprays. 

Sometimes in a garden there are what I call "sacrificial plants". This applies when the insects for whatever reason are attracted to a particular plant or plants and leave other similar plants in different parts of the garden or gardens alone. I don't mind losing a couple of plants to the insects, if the little critters leave the rest of the plants alone.

Photos left to right: Mignonette lettuces (first larger photo), a variety of lettuces including cos being guarded by Fred the Frog, below are the silverbeet which are growing slowly, and bottom left to right is our garden wall, the tomatoes growing with their companions of chives, mignonette lettuces, and a basil bush. The red lettuce in the planter box (last photo) should be more bug resistant than the others just because red lettuces seem to be, which is why I often prefer to grow some red lettuce varieties as well.

This is a flourishing tropical native plant, the Pandan. It's sometimes called the vanilla of South East Asia. I've finally found a spot in the garden that this somewhat temperamental tropical plant approves of.  Well any plant would surely approve of having it's own dedicated space in a raised garden.

Mr. HRK loves his strawberry plants, and now we seem to have finally found a garden where they are growing well, and are flowering.  The plants in the rectangular pot below are Japanese strawberries and we have another variety, not sure what they are called,  but they are going gangbusters. The strawberry runners were gifted to us by lovely pickleball friends. A random Coriander plant has also grown in this garden, which I'm very happy about.  There's also a pot of garlic chives on the right doing it's own thing.

I'm having visions of picking enough strawberries to make a batch of strawberry jam, it pays to dream.

I can't imagine my garden without  a selection of fresh herbs growing. I've recently added to my herb collection. Rosemary is a herb of necessity and grows very well here. I have a few bushes now, following successful striking in water of a few cuttings I was given. 

Potted Italian herbs within easy reach from my kitchen have endless culinary possibilities. They are growing well on a very sunny bench that Mr. HRK constructed for me.

Sage (Salvia officinalis) top photo - This is one of the old favourites which thankfully hasn't been lost to us, probably because for centuries it was highly valued for its health-giving properties.  Sage and onion stuffing is a favourite, and I love using it in meat loaves, meat rissoles, a stuffed chook, and it pairs beautifully with leeks in tarts.

Rosemary - This is a ubiquitous Mediterranean herb which has beautiful blue flowers, that are loved by the bees. There are several varieties of rosemary, and I've only ever grown one variety here that has flowered, but I keep hoping for more flowers. In Croatia, Spain and France, during our travels I noticed that it flowers beautifully. This is a rosemary bush that I struck from a cutting, and is forming a hedge. I'm quite excited about this bush.  I have others growing in a pot (above photo) and in our front garden. Rosemary plants don't last forever, so I like to have a few of them.

I use rosemary a lot in my cooking, but I just love baking my Sourdough Rosemary Focaccia bread. When we were on our Croatian cruise just recently along the Dalmatian coast, the chef used rosemary frequently in the meals he cooked for us. He also used Dill a lot, which was delicious. I don't have any dill growing unfortunately. It needs to be planted early here in Autumn to ensure it reaches maturity before the Summer heat, when it becomes covered in white powdery mildew.

Oregano (photo it its blue pot) - This is a herb highly prized in Mediterranean cooking and is loved for its softer aromatic leaves. It has a wide variety of uses in many classic national dishes. As I'm sure you know, it's always included in Italian pizzas and spaghetti dishes. I prefer to grow it in a pot, because of its creeping root system, where I've found it can get lost in a garden amongst everything else and can look like a weed.

Mint - We've given mint a small dedicated garden of its own too, as it can become quite naughty but still nice if left to take over other gardens. I love it though, and it is at it's best in Winter here in the tropics, as the heat and humidity are not friends with Mint.

Parsley - I haven't featured Parsley this time, because my plant isn't feeling very photogenic at the moment. I always have some growing, and at the moment I have one plant in a pot which is just coming good after missing out on some watering while I was away recently. It's on my list to buy another plant, after all who can do without parsley?

Next week's project needs to be harvesting our Ginger crop. This is what ginger looks like when it's ready to be harvested. We will dehydrate quite a few clumps to make a very aromatic ginger spice. I'll make my annual supply of  Stem Ginger in Syrup, and we will freeze some ginger as well. Any other ideas? We aren't growing as much as we used to, but I always have plenty for our own use, and for gifting to friends as well. You can find a whole post on our previous ginger harvests, my recipe for Stem Ginger in Syrup, and others too, at this link.

We grow some golden Turmeric as well, in a very scattered way where it pops up randomly in our garden, and you can find how we have processed that batch at the same link.

Shallots - It's always useful in my sunniest garden spot, to have a straggly pot of shallots growing. The sunnier the better. They will transform in Summer to strong looking plants and I have more shallot seeds from my seed bank to plant. I know that these will flower well in summer, as they do each year. I collect the seeds from the flowers and replant them when they have dried out. I'm a firm believer that seeds resown from plants already growing in my garden, adapt to the same garden conditions much better than seedlings that I buy. Chillies, Basil, and Shallots seem to prove this theory year after year.

Trees

We have native and ornamental trees in our front and backyard, but we also have these trees which either bear fruit or aromatic leaves. In previous posts I've mentioned our Cumquat (Kumquat tree) bearer of fruit for my Cumquat (Kumquat) marmalade. It's been a slow process bringing this tree to a healthy state because of a neighbouring tree with an intrusive root system. That tree has now been removed, and we've noticed a huge difference in ours. A Bay Leaf tree is a wonderful thing to own, a potted Lemon Tree, bearer of very juicy lemons, a Kaffir Lime tree, and a vigorous Curry tree. There is also a Mandarin tree in our front garden. My wilting parsley bush wasn't to be left out and eventually found it's way into this photo, top right.

These tropical orchids in bloom at the moment don't fit the brief of this post, but they make me very happy as well.

I'd love to know if you live in the tropics and what else you are managing to grow in Winter in your garden. If you live in a colder climate and have a sunny windowsill or balcony in your home, it is possible to grow herbs in pots, I've seen it done and brings such a sense of achievement and convenience as well. 

Happy gardening and cooking wherever you live.

Warm wishes

Pauline