Kitchen Garden Forum

I assume that vegetables in Australia/New Zealand are sown in "our" autumn and mature throughout "our" winter. If we plant seed from those countries in, say, October and keep the temperature up, will they grow as though they're in Oz? Or is there more to it?

No

Only if you plant them upside down.

And you must use kangaroo dung our manure wont do it for them

Robo - funny!!

Westi

Alan: is that a positive No or a negative No? Next question - how do I tell if a lettuce seed is upside down? Dung - no worries, I have a supply from the Wallabies at Leonardslee Gardens.
I suppose I asked for all this from you lot Ta!

JohnN wrote:Alan: is that a positive No or a negative No?

Yes! (positive YES or negative YES)

The serious reply is that seeds need appropriate conditions to germinate and the resulting seedling needs minimum light and temperature for the plant.

One can force germination and growth with artificial light and temperature.

Creating daylight conditions and heat would be more expensive than importing and is probably why the import trade flourishes. Didn't the Dutch take this forcing to it's limits ? And parts of Spain massive glasshouse areas to extent even their season.

Maybe as LED lighting gets less expensive some growers will give it a try inside heated poly tunnels, then we'll have people living close by having to cope with all night lit up areas of farm land.

An interesting concept though.

I have some australian tomato seeds...but they died in our winter