A Great Day - we have bees!

I am very happy that we finally have bees on our land.  My clever father in law has been making boxes for a beekeeper as he himself has been interested for a long time and is learning all about them.  So we are the lucky recipients.  Had the day in the garden yesterday and as I walked back I was delighted to see bees sitting on the dandelion flowers and enjoying the borage I have planted under the fruit trees.

Crop Rotation Poster

Here is an image of the Crop Rotation Poster. Sorry I haven't posted this sooner but still finding my way round the new technology.  Which reminds me - I will have some easy pay options coming soon. In the meantime if you want me to post you one of these gorgeous and useful wall charts email me at pcw@countryhousenz.co.nz with your address, number you want and I give you my bank account details for payment.   Happy Gardening!

Crop Rotation Poster: Notes for October for your Family Vegetable Garden.

The Crop Rotation poster is a great reminder for what to grow where and when in your family vege garden.  As it is in note form because that’s all I can fit on the poster, here is this months extended version of what to do in your garden.

October is a great time of year in the garden where the sap is not only rising in the plants around us but also in our inner gardener. Resist the urge to plant before the soil is warm enough though. The weather can still be changeable with frosts likely.  Sow seed under cover in a warm spot if in doubt. Towards the end of this month is better for some plants but plenty to get on with in the first few weeks.  If your family has made a list of what they want to eat, get them started on sowing and growing now for the summer harvest.

Bed 1/ Group 1.

 This bed has been set aside for legumes such as beans and peas. In my plan I have also added sweetcorn for a couple of reasons. One is that I couldn’t fit them in with the other heat loving plants in group 3 and because they like nitrogen I put them in with the legumes. The other reason is that they have been traditionally grown by some Native American Indian tribes with climbing beans for centuries.  The corn provides the support for the beans to climb up and the beans add the nitrogen to the soil for the corn to take up. They also add pumpkins which cover any bare ground in between. It is called the Three Sisters method and I love the idea of the garden working together like this.

 All of these plants like it warm with rich soil so if you haven’t already done so dig over the bed again adding plenty of compost or manure, blood and bone, lime and potash.  Leave till later in the month in the south for planting but start off your seeds in trays under cover. I am planting out my sweetcorn plants then pushing a climbing bean seed in beside it. This should give the corn time to get going before the beans want to use it as a support network. 

Most other types of beans (French, bush, dwarf etc) prefer soils to reach a temperature of 15 degrees  before they will germinate which is why it’s a good idea to sow in pots indoors while waiting for it to warm up.  Remember that runner beans should go in a dedicated spot as they are perennial –which means they will come back year after year. A climbing frame of some sort at the back of each border bed is a good idea.  If this is your first year of the crop cycle then use the back of the border bed 1, Sow your Scarlet Runner seed and leave in place for the next few years.  The good thing about this is that when those new runner beans start to emerge from the soil then you will know that the soil is warm enough to plant your other beans. In the main bed I suggest you plant dwarf French beans as you won’t need climbing frames.

In the rest of the bed you can keep liquid feeding broad beans.  All beans and peas will need plenty of moisture to them and will appreciate a good liquid feed at least every fortnight.  In some warmer areas you should be starting to harvest these. Watch for black fly pests. A good companion plant for broad beans is what is variously known as “poached egg plant”,  Meadowfoam or

Limnanthes douglasii.  Hover flies love this plant and will eat any neighbouring blackfly while they are visiting. I have ordered my seeds from Kings Seeds (NZ) Ltd. 

http://kingsseeds.co.nz/shop/Flowers.html

Peas sown earlier on should be growing well.  Make sure they have some good support structures to climb up or plant some rows of dwarf peas. Keep sowing every couple of weeks to ensure a good succession. It is traditional in NZ to have at least enough peas planted to get enough for a meal on Christmas Day. Grandparents and little ones then have the fun of shelling peas together in time for the big feast.   Peas and children go together well though so if you are doing this with the family, peas are a must.  Include snow peas for their delicious nutty crunch in summer salads.

Bed 2/Group 4.

Group 4 will be your root crops, tubers and alliums.  Which means potatoes potatoes potatoes.  I know they do take up a bit of room but it is still worthwhile to have a row or two of new potatoes as well as some delicious main crop for later. Potatoes are sub tropical and don’t like frost so protect any new growth from frost.  Plant seed potatoes 15 cm deep, spaced at about 40cm apart.  I follow Kay Baxter from the Koanga Institute who advises digging a trench and lining the bottom with comfrey leaves. It also means that I have to wait for the comfrey to grow!  (which it is now under my fruit trees).

Garlic – bulbs are forming at this time of the year so keep up the liquid fertilizer at least every 2 weeks. You can side dress with blood & bone. Keep the water up and mulch.

On the other side of the garden bed to where you have potatoes give the soil a final dig over to prepare for parsnips, beetroot and carrots, turnips, Swedes or kumara if up north.  This is because these crops like a little lime but potatoes don’t.  The soil will need to be friable so the roots can go straight down and don’t add any fresh manure which can lead to club root.

Celery and leek seed can be sown now for planting in December.

Bed3/Group3. Heat Loving fruiting plants.

This is the bed for your heat loving plants so you will be busy later in the month with Labour Weekend being the traditional time for planting out tomatoes, courgettes, cucumber, pumpkins, capsicums, eggplants etc. You can still sow seed indoors in a warm spot ready for planting out when the soil is warm enough.  In the south it might be worth buying in 2-3 grafted plants as they seem to get a headstart on the others for the shorter growing season. However if you are lucky enough to have a hothouse then get your home-sown seedlings in by all means. I am putting my tomatoes in the border bed so can only fit 3-4 which should be enough. If it is warm enough to grow them, try putting the cucumbers behind to grow up the netting fence. Pumpkins can go in the corners of the border bed and spread along in front of the tomatoes. 

Marigolds are good companion plants for this bed. Any gaps plant heat loving herbs such as basil. The rest of the bed will soon be taken up with courgettes, capsicums etc.

Bed 4/ Group 2.  Leafy Greens and Brassicas.

Plant and sow lettuces every few weeks to ensure a good supply over the summer. Plant out silverbeet, spinach, cauliflower and cabbages. Asian greens such as Pak Choy will grow quickly now. Sow other brassicas to get ready for later planting.  Keep up the liquid feeding of growing plants.

Happy gardening!

October in the Family Vegetable Garden.

Looking ahead to a “Labour” Weekend in the garden

October is probably one of the busiest months of the year for the garden especially towards the end of the month with Labour weekend being the great traditional NZ planting weekend. You can start sowing seeds well before then to be ready for the big weekend. As you sow your first lot of seeds, kick off your succession planting cycle by purchasing some punnets of well grown plants from your local garden centre or store and get them into the ground.   

Succession planting is the practice of staggering your sowing or planting over the growing season. We do this for a number of reasons, but mainly so that you don’t have your crops all ripening at once. You want to avoid that in the family vegetable garden especially with crops you can’t store or preserve.  A good rule of thumb is to sow or plant every 4-5 weeks or so.  If you have raised plants in trays, sow the next lot of seed the same day you plant out your seedlings.

Some of the more tender crops you can start under glass or indoors in a warm space in early spring.  This is important here in the south to make the most of our growing season. Tomatoes for example are easy to grow from seed but you need to get in early or they will not ripen before the autumn days start to cool on us.

Jobs for this Month

Sow: Peas, beetroot, swedes, turnips,  lettuce, carrots, parsnips, parsley, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauli, leeks, silverbeet.

Sow under cover in a warm space: tomatoes, capsicum, pumpkin, courgettes, cucumber, celery, sweet corn, beans

Plant: Punnets of brassicas, celery, peas, leeks, silverbeet, lettuce, potatoes, asparagus.

Cultivate: Keep any weeds at bay with regular hoeing and mulching. Liquid feed growing plants at least fortnightly especially your garlic crop.

Harvest: Broad beans, silverbeet, asparagus, lettuce etc

Garden Notes for the Family Vegetable Garden: September.

 The New Year in the Kitchen Garden

Spring has officially arrived and with it the start of the gardener’s New Year.  Time to get sowing and planting. Just watch out though – spring may be in the air but it won’t necessarily have made it into the soil yet.  In the meantime start seeds under cover so you will be ready to plant when the conditions are right.  

This is a good time to get your garden beds planned for good crop rotation. There are lots of good reasons to follow this age old practice. Grouping families of plants together in one bed with similar cultivation needs means it is easier for you to prepare the beds to suit that crop.  It also breaks the cycles of pests and diseases that can occur if you plant the same crop in the same place year after year. If you kept doing that you would also deplete the soil of the nutrients that family of plants needs.  Different plants access food from different depths of the soil. Tap roots for example will dig deep and access nutrition that say shallow rooted plants like tomatoes or lettuces won’t.   An easy crop rotation plan to follow will be to divide your main annual beds into four  and every year move the crop to the next bed in a clockwise way

1.Legumes: Peas and Beans	4. Root Crops: eg carrots Potatoes, onions
2.Leafy:eg Lettuces, Brassicas, silverbeet	3. Fruiting & Heat loving eg tomatoes, pumpkins

 If you are starting out in your garden and want a good basic garden plan including crop rotation check out the Crop Rotation Poster advertised above. 

Jobs for this Month

Sow direct into warm spot: carrots, parsnips, beetroot (early crop) potatoes, onions, lettuce, peas, parsley. Brussels sprouts

Sow indoors in trays for planting out later: leeks, celery, corn, beans, pumpkin, marrow, cucumber,

Plant: Potatoes, cabbages, caulis, lettuces, parsley, silverbeet

Cultivate: Any crops that have come through winter such as broad beans, brassicas, silverbeet and garlic will all benefit from a weekly application of liquid feed.  Keep asparagus plots clear of weeds and start applying liquid fertiliser once new growth appears. If your rhubarb is putting up seed heads cut them off. Keep hoeing soil between rows to keep weeds down of mulch between rows.

Harvest: Cabbages, broccoli, silverbeet, parsley, broad beans, asparagus.

Starting Out in Your Vege Garden: Choosing Your Site.

Choosing your site: Aspect, Shelter, Drainage and Close to the kitchen.

Aspect for us here in NZ means north facing – find the sunniest spot you can. Plants won’t thrive without the sun.

Full sun, shelter from strong cold winds and free-draining deep soil is the ideal for your garden.  You will want to avoid cold frost pockets and too much shade. Find a north facing spot and put up some shelter in the south end (for the southern hemisphere) to start with.  If you can “borrow” a neighbour’s fence that is a good start and even better if that is corrugated iron, brick or stone as those materials will absorb heat and radiate it back onto your plants.  My dream garden would be one of the old walled gardens in Britain – the stone walls provide shelter and thermal mass, releasing heat back into the garden at night and moderating the temperatures. They also provide shelter from the wind and somewhere for climbing plants to grow or for espaliered fruit trees.  So if you’re lucky enough to live in an area where there is lots of natural stone then go for it!

You do need to watch for patches of wind turbulence with solid walls though.  Shelter trees can be a better option as they break up the wind rather than stop it and move the turbulence elsewhere.  If you are going to plant a shelter hedge then why not choose a fruiting hedge. Try feijoa, blueberry, currant, rosemary, cranberry, guava.  These plants are obviously going to be permanent so you will still need to keep a couple of metres between them and your main vege patch to ensure the plants don’t rob your vegetables of nutrients.  You will see in my plan that I have put in a Feijoa hedge on the western end of my garden – it is evergreen and hardy and provides delicious fruit in early winter.

The prevailing wind for much of NZ is a westerly so shelter on that side is important – bearing in mind that you still want as much sunlight as possible. The permaculture model would be to have a semi circle of mixed shelter with the highest shelter at the back (southern end) graduating down to lower at the eastern and western ends.  Maybe a blueberry hedge on the western side and a fruiting currant down the east?  Or evergreen cranberry makes a great well behaved low growing evergreen hedge.  These hedges will take some time to grow so if you are able then get some shelter cloth in to provide the first few years of shelter.  Doesn’t look so good but it will provide the necessary shelter for your garden in the meantime.  Trellis is a good option as it can support shade cloth, it will break the wind without diminishing sunlight and provides great support for you climbing plants. Picket fences are gorgeous as well  – even if you only have it on two sides.  Then you can make a little gate with an archway for a rose to climb over……

Avoid the ubiquitous Leyland cypress though. If you can’t keep it well trimmed it could turn into a 25 metre high dark monster, sucking the life and light out of your garden as well any relationship you may have had with the neighbours.  Leave those for the farm paddocks where a commercial hedge trimmer can get in.  If you already have a hedge maybe of olearia or pittosporum as many seem to be where I live, then don’t pull it out. Keep nicely trimmed and count your blessings.

Drainage

Your soil will need to be free draining and ideally not too much of a clay pan base.  Deep topsoil is of course the ideal but if you are have the choice between that and the sun I would go for the sun and put in drains. A simple way to test your soil for it’s drainage is to dig a hole about 30 cm deep and fill with water. Give it 30 mins and if the water hasn’t drained out you have a problem. If it is really bad then get some expert advice and drainage laid. Otherwise raised beds will go a long way to help. You then also have the opportunity to build up the soil in those beds by adding compost, manure, carbon etc.

Close to the Kitchen.
Another name for this sort of gardening is the Kitchen Garden and in order to use it properly it needs to be near the kitchen.  We want to eat what we grow but we don’t want to have to pack a picnic to go fetch the veges. Site it close to the back door or kitchen door so you can pop out and collect what you need for your meal. Makes it easier to slip in a bit of weeding and cultivating as well.  If the best spot in the garden has now been taken up with a BBQ and out door dining, plan your garden around that. An earth pizza oven looks gorgeous set in a vege/herb garden with the added advantage of being able to pick your herbs or tomatoes to go straight on your pizza. And a spot to have a table and chairs to sit at with  your cup of tea and survey your beautiful and productive garden is priceless.

Continuing to hurtle headlong into last century....

Continuing to hurtle headlong into last century ------- turning back the (non-digital) clock continues in our household with the recent Trademe purchase of an Olivetti Studio 46 typewriter. I had bought some really gorgeous Donna Demente printed paper from her studio in Oamaru and it just seemed wrong to either handwrite or use the computer on it. So now got my typewriter. We are going off grid at some stage so all the low tech stuff is going to be useful again.

Looked on the internet and of course found there was  a site dedicated to this model. Seriously. Here is what they had to say about this practical work of art.