Beat the heat with these December gardening tips
December brings heat and humidity, but with smart planning your garden can thrive. Learn how to overcome summer challenges and keep your Sunshine Coast garden thriving.
Anne Gibson, The Micro Gardener, shares her subtropical gardening advice to help you manage pests, protect your crops and grow food suited to our Sunshine Coast climate.
Why summer is tough
As humidity and temperatures rise, pests, diseases and weeds multiply. Common problems include
- fruit flies, grasshoppers, aphids, ants, caterpillars, slugs, snails, whitefly, scale, leaf miners and citrus gall wasps
- fungal issues like powdery mildew, sooty mould and black spot
- weather extremes: hot, dry winds or heavy rain.
Tip: work early or late in the day when it’s cooler. Observe, water and maintain your garden in short sessions to avoid overwhelm.
Protect your crops
- build healthy soil – nutrient-rich soil grows resilient plants. Add compost, aged manure and liquid seaweed. Check pH and mulch well to retain moisture
- encourage beneficial insects – plant flowers and let herbs bloom to attract ladybirds, hoverflies and predatory wasps. Avoid chemicals that harm these helpers
- use crop covers – shade cloth, exclusion netting or fruit bags protect plants from pests and harsh weather
- grow in containers – pots are portable, easy to water and can be moved under cover during storms
Easy ways to maintain a garden bed over summer
If it’s all in the ‘too hard basket’ and you need a break, consider taking some garden zones out of play during summer.
- set and forget – add compost, manure and rock minerals to tired beds, then mulch thickly. Summer rain and heat will break it down for next season
- living ground covers – plant sweet potatoes or pumpkins to suppress weeds and provide food
- green manure crops – sow cover crops to enrich soil and reduce nematodes. Chop and turn in before flowering
Leafy greens and homegrown salad ingredients
Just when we crave salads, many of our favourite leafy greens are challenging to grow. Here are a few ideas:
- sow heat-tolerant pick ‘n’ pluck lettuce cultivars – try ‘Salad Bowl Green’, ‘Buttercrunch’, ‘Royal Oakleaf’ and other loose-leaf varieties. Grow in dappled light or under shade cloth
- pick young leaves – sweet potato tips, baby beetroot leaves and pumpkin shoots make great salad additions
- grow summer spinach varieties – Malabar, Brazilian, Warrigal Greens and others thrive in heat
- grow microgreens indoors – quick to grow on a kitchen bench, ready in 7–21 days
Garden tasks
- check fruit fly traps and re-bait after rain
- harvest regularly to prevent spoilage
- top up mulch and fertilise citrus trees
- add bird and bee baths for wildlife
- save seeds from resilient plants for next season
Helpful resources
For more info about any of these topics, visit The Micro Gardener website
- The Benefits of Moon Gardening – How to work with moon cycles
- List of 75+ Drought Tolerant Foods for Dry Climates
- Subtropical Planting Guide – What to Plant and When
- Garden Journal Planner and Workbook
- Guide to Understanding Microclimates in Your Garden
- Tips to Grow Food in Hot, Dry or Windy Weather
- 18 Top Tips for Gardening in Dry Climate Conditions
- 6 Tips for Abundant Edible Container Gardens
- Easy Food Gardening Guide for Beginners
- 9 Strategies to Help Combat Common Edible Garden Problems
- Top Tips for Wet Weather Gardening
- How to Restore Waterlogged Pot Plants
About the Microgardener
Anne Gibson is The Micro Gardener and each month she shares her wisdom to help everyone grow healthy, sustainable gardens in small spaces.
Follow Anne on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Substack
[email protected]
themicrogardener.com
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