September in the Family Vegetable Garden

September.

September can actually be a bit of a hard month for those wanting to eat all year round from the garden. You are coming to the end of the winter stores of root crops and about to sow and plant the new season’s crops.  Mind you I still have plenty of preserved blackboy peaches and jams etc, but the promise of spring makes us think of delicious tender new season produce – and we have had enough of those hearty soups, baked or mashed potatoes and casseroles that got us through winter. We want something a little lighter (including our hips) and fresher but perhaps are not quite ready for full on salads.  Risottos and pastas sound good. Asparagus if you are growing it or lucky enough to have a grower nearby is the star and we look forward to our first taste. Young broad beans and peas also go well in risottos.

Hopefully you will have got a head start on the sowing in August but you can start or keep sowing many veges from now. This does not include beans though – still too cold. Same with curcubits  such ascourgette/zucchini, pumpkins and cucumbers at least in the south.  If  it is warm or you have a hothouse then by all means start sowing seed. Planting in pots or trays gives you a bit more control over direct sowing but some seeds are better sown direct. Carrots, parsnips, beetroot can all go in direct. Remember to harden off your indoor sown plants well though before putting them out into the garden.  Start by putting outside during the day in a sheltered spot and bringing back inside at night.

Now that you are feeling more like being out in the garden – so will the weeds. If you can keep on top of them now, they won’t get on top of you later.  Old sayings like “prevention is better than a cure” or “a stitch in time save nine” have real meaning in the garden.  A weekly going over the beds with a hoe or by hand will not take long and will also be very satisfying.  If you leave the weeds however, and they take hold then the fun goes out if of it all and growing becomes a chore.  This applies especially if you are a young gardener – keep the joy going by keeping up the weeding and hoeing!  I just made that up but I think it works!

Garden Notes for the Family Vegetable Garden - AUGUST

It’s still winter with the promise of more cold conditions to come so don’t be fooled by the occasional warm springlike days we will get this month. They do get the sap rising in both gardener and garden alike though so it is okay to get excited about the new season.  The more you can tend your soil at this end of the season the more successful your vegetable beds will be.   Get in and dig over your beds, removing any perennial weeds such as dock and couch, add plenty of manure and compost, dig in green crops, turn over winter mulches, add blood and bone and depending on what you plan to grow, some lime.  Leave the beds to settle and for the earthworms and all the microorganisms in a healthy soil to do their work.  Check the Crop Rotation plan for specific treatment of each bed for the season. 

In the meantime get yourself prepared for when spring fever hits in force. Clean and tidy your potting shed. Recycle your old seed trays by washing in a 1/10 bleach solution. Clean and sharpen tools, buy some seed raising mix and get your seeds ready for planting. You still have time to order online from Kings Seeds or just purchase from your local nursery. Get the whole family to work out the plan of what to eat and when and make your plan.  My useful backyard vege garden poster will be very helpful with this.

Potatoes are the veges I start thinking about this month and you can now set out seed for chitting.  That’s just an old fashioned way of saying “sprouting” and in effect you are pre-sprouting the tuber to get a jump on the season.  Warm up the ground from now on with frost cloth or black polythene or whatever you have available while you wait until the weather warms up a bit. Potatoes are subtropical so don’t like frost at all which is why they are not usually planted until threat of frost has passed.   I use old egg cartons and put the end with the “eye” looking up at the top then pop in a warm light place to get them started.

The other stars of the month will be broad beans and peas.  Broad beans, unlike the French or bush varieties, prefer cool soil and will germinate at low temperatures so you can put them in now.  As I am moving into Year 2 of the crop rotation cycle this new planting will be going into Bed 2 into the bed where I last had my root crops. This means that you will still have beans in Bed 1 that you sowed in autumn. They will still be working their nitrogen magic so leave them unless you grew them for a green crop, in which case now’s the time to chop them off and dig into the top layer of soil.  If you are planning on eating them then keep up the feeding.  Pinch out the tops to encourage bushing.  Add the tips to winter salads. 

Jobs for this Month

Sow. Globe artichoke, beetroot, broccoli, cabbage, cauli, silverbeet, spinach, turnip – all can be sown in trays in a warm sheltered position. Sow broad beans, peas, coriander direct into ground. Sow indoors; artichoke, celery, lettuce, leeks. Sow herbs like coriander, parsley and thyme.

Plant: Garlic can still go in.  

Cultivate: Weed and fertilise around growing plants.

Harvest: Silverbeet, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, leeks, parsnips, winter lettuce and mizuna.

Prepare: Beds for asparagus plants, rhubarb and your potting bench for spring sowing.

Flowers; I like to mix up flowers with veges particularly the cheerful ones that attract beneficial insects. That way you get a gorgeous looking garden and make the lives of the little creatures so necessary to good natural gardening so important.   This time of the year you can sow Zinnia, marigolds, calendula, pansies, poppies, cosmos.

Herbs; Parsley, coriander, tansey,

Pruning: time to prune roses and hydrangeas.

Chitting Potatoes

Now is the time of year out thoughts turn towards potatoes - that marvellous crop so beloved of our culture.  There are so many varieties, so many delicious ways of eating and they are easy to grow.  I know they can take up a lot of space but there's room in most gardens for a row of delicious gourmet new potatoes and you can always create a bed somewhere else for others. I know some people think that potatoes are cheap and plentiful but its not always easy to get a well flavoured disease free spud when you want one. It's sometimes a lottery opening a sack purchased from the supermarket and hoping you get a good one.  As usual - if you grow them yourself then you will know what has gone in them and on them.  

If you only have room for some "earlies" and want them for Christmas then you will need to get them into the ground by the beginning of September. Which means preparing the seed now.  For early crops I love Cliffs Kidney and Jersey Benne but there are many to choose from. I've got some weird looking knobbly Pink Firs on the go. Make sure you label them though so you know what you are planting!

Chitting. 

The word "chitting" comes from the early English word that means children - the words "kitten" and "cub" have the same root.  You may have had some potatoes at the bottom of the pantry put out long shoots - it is just showing that they are getting ready to produce new plants.  It really means to sprout, and its about preparing your seed potatoes for planting. 

Its a good idea to purchase your seed from the store as they are guaranteed disease free but plenty of people choose clean disease free seed from their own crop.  This is how old varieties have survived over the years.  Put the seed potatoes into egg trays with the eyes looking up  and then pop in a warm dry light place (but not direct sunlight)for them to start sprouting. I also use wooden trays lined with straw for bigger crops.  If lots of 'eyes' have sprouted rub some off leaving 2-3 strong ones.  Get them in the ground before they get too lanky though. 

In the meantime you can also get a head start on the season by warming up the ground where your plants are going to go.  Lay down black polythene, frost cloth, a cloche, an old window - anything that is going to warm up the soil.   If you have a plastic or glasshouse then you can get them in the ground sooner as well - but I will be waiting for a few weeks yet. 

Farewell to a Gardening Aunty.

Well July is nearly over and I have not checked in this month - sorry everyone.  It's been a big month taken up with family and some travel up north.  

Farewell to a Gardening Aunt. 

We had the privilege of sitting with a dear Great Aunt, known as Aunty Michelle to many,  as she passed away well into her 80's this month. It was only a massive stroke that stopped her in her tracks - up to that point she was a vibrant, funny, busy and hardworking woman and it was no fun for her or us to see her stricken down and no longer able to look after herself.  Like many of her era she was a legend in the work department.  She was brought up during the Depression years in the Gorge Rd area, east of Invercargill and photos of the early days show a raw bleak landscape.  The whole family worked and worked hard. 

In later years she never married and so made it her business to spend time with her siblings and their families so got to know all her nieces and nephews and in turn our children.  She made us all feel listened to and special and was always ready with a funny story. 

I remember when she used to come and visit me in my big rural property in North West Auckland. At one time we had some young blokes employed on a work scheme to do some orchard and garden work.  Even in her 70's she worked them into the ground. It greatly amused her to work over a garden bed and watch out to the corner of her eye 3 young men do a fraction of the output she could. And she worked well after knock off time. And more recently she would regularly visit my parents in Hampden and woe betide any cup left on the table or weed daring to pop it's head above the ground. The cup would be whisked away, washed dried and back in the cupboard. The weed would have its head off in a flash.  She did follow the "scorched earth" school of gardening though so Mum would try to get in and get the garden tidied before Aunty Michelle arrived.  She loved bright colours and flowers so I have cuttings of some of her red geraniums to go in and remind us of her. 

She helped me through some hard times and I know I was not the only one. She was vitally interested in every baby, child and young person in her extended family. And in the last few weeks we met some of her friends - many from her early days in Dunedin and Southland her were her friends to the end - and heard more stories about this amazing woman.  Dear Michelle - we will never forget you.  RIP Michelle Mary Kemp 1929-2014
(The photo shows her reading us a funny story and then having a laugh!  Go Aunty!)

June in the Family Vegetable Garden

Winter is Officially Here. 
After a rather mild wet autumn, you may have noticed that winter has started to show up over much of the country!  Days are shorter and the winter solstice is coming up on the 21^st of June which is of course the traditional garlic planting day.  From now on we will be thinking ahead and preparing the beds for the new season when we rotate around to Year 2.  Avoid digging cold wet soils if possible. Your raised border beds will be warmer and less sodden so get a few plants into them for early spring eating.  Check out the pre-season preparation on your wall chart to know the conditions your crops will be happy with. 

Bed 1
This is the bed we have had our legumes and sweetcorn in this year but will be planting brassicas and leafy green veges (Group2) next. They will appreciate the nitrogen fixed by the beans and peas.  There will be a bit of a cross-over if you have sown broad beans for eating in autumn – leave those of course for spring eating. If you sowed broad beans as a green crop then dig them in now.  All green crops can be chopped up at about 15cms height and dug into the top layer of your soil. Add lime, manure, blood and bone and leave for a month or so and then you can start planting a few brassicas for spring. If your Bed1 border bed is raised then this should be warmer and well drained and you can get a head start on the season. Pop a few brassica plants in or even some of the winter type lettuces that prefer the cooler weather. 

Bed 2.
Bed 2, the top right hand bed, will be the new home for the beans and peas of Group 1. At the moment it is the home for your Year 1 winter root crops, and robust soup and stew plants such as celery and leeks.  Keep weed free and liquid feed your growing plants. Celery is best home grown if you are a juicer.  As a commercial crop it is one of the plants most sprayed and you really want to avoid this in the concentrated from of vegetable juice.  For your root crops, lift the last of your beetroot as it won’t like the frost. Store beetroot and carrots in a clamp or in sacks in your cool dry shed. Parsnips and Swedes are nicer to eat if frosted so you can use your ground like a larder – only harvest when you need to. As you harvest root crops prepare the ground for the legumes. If warm enough, try a green crop – maybe oats to add carbon. Otherwise dig in plenty of manure, wood ash, blood and bone and lime. Leave to weather until spring.  If you do have a bit of space free, sow a row of broad beans. 

Bed 3 
Bed 3 is the bottom right hand one in which all the heat loving plants such as tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins etc have been growing.  It should be empty by now with the frost  dealing to any plants still in – pumpkins will sweeten with a bit of frost so don’t worry too much about leaving them out for a bit. Harvest them and store in a cool dry place but keep checking on them for signs of rot.  Group 4 is a bit of a mixed bag in terms of cultivation but they pretty much all don’t like fresh manure or too much nitrogen -Which is why they are last on the crop rotation cycle.  Your tap rooted veges such as parsnips, carrots etc like really friable well cultivated soil –otherwise they won’t grow straight. So plan where they are to go and dig over well.  Potash and potassium is what you are looking for so wood ash, a bit of blood and bone and lime can all go in.  If you plant a green crop go for buckwheat, oats or barley which will break up the soil and add carbon. Seaweed will be a great for where you want to plant potatoes or beetroot. 
The star of the month will be garlic and shallots.  As they will be in the ground for the next 6 months, plant them in the Border Bed 3 where you can keep an eye on them.  Prepare the soil as in last month’s blog and plant anytime from now on. They will require plenty of manure as opposed to some of the root crops.  Try some onions at the same time. 

Potatoes are also a bit of an anomally in Group 4 as they are part of the Solonocae family – the same as tomatoes.  So if you are planning on planting a row of spud come spring, make sure it is not where you had the tomatoes the previous year. I got round this by planting my tomatoes in the raised border so if you are planting in the main bed you should be fine.  If you have the space, make a special bed somewhere else for your potatoes. 

Bed 4.
Bed 4 (the bottom right hand bed) will still have you winter brassicas in and as it will be some time before you need to think about rotating to the heat loving crops for Group 3, then just care for the plants you have now.  Keep up the liquid feed to slowly growing brassicas and harvest everything when ready.  Welcome winter salads.

Perennial Beds. 
Weed, mulch and feed.  Asparagus plants may start to show up in the shops this month. It may be a bit early to put them in but they will survive if you heel them into some damp sawdust and wait for the soil to warm up in Spring. Asparagus will love a seaweed mulch.   Lime and blood and bone will be good. Rhubarb will be dying down now but love good manure so if you haven’t done so already, give the plants a good weed and then mulch with a good manure and straw based mulch.  You can pot up new strawberry plants from the runners or last season’s plants.  Weed and feed last years plants and you should get another crop this year. 

Plant this month. June is a bit of a quiet month for planting, especially in the south, but the star is of course Garlic and shallots.  If you have warm sheltered spots try brassicas, broad beans and onions. Early potatoes can go out into trays for chitting. Good month for planning. 

Getting ready for Garlic and Kay Baxter

This week in the Backyard Vegetable Patch. 

It’s been a mixed bag for the whole country weather wise so far this season.  At the moment it is still warm and very very wet so the grass is still growing but the ground is  boggy. Take note of what is happening in your garden each month – as I have mentioned before it is really useful to have a 5 year diary to make notes in. This is a good way to get to know your garden and the microclimate you live in.

At the moment I still have sweet pea plants looking very lush and healthy on the fence.  These are ones that flowered late summer and into autumn but I am sure they should be well dried off by now.  Just watching them to see what is going to happen but then they will be a really useful addition to the compost. 

Corn stalks have well and truly dried off though. Yesterday I picked all the old left-over corn cobs and will store them on netting racks over winter to provide a bit of extra feed and entertainment for the hens.  I then pulled up the stalks and chopped into pieces with a sharp spade.  Dug a trench where they had been planted and put the old stalks on the bottom along with other suitable material for composting, a bit of blood and bone and sprinkle of lime. The old bean stalks that I had growing up in Indian style went in (after I had taken off the dried ones saved for seed). This is a good way to get the carbon back into the soil and is recommended by the late Prof Walker and also Kay Baxter of the Koanga Institute fame.  I have also planted a couple of rows of broad beans in the same bed – mostly as a green crop over winter but also to eat as a spring vegetable. 

When I swap to Year 2 of my Crop Rotation Garden Plan in spring, this will be the bed that I will next grow green leafy crops such as brassicas, silverbeet, spinach and salad vegetables. So that is what we are preparing for. Following this plan, you will actually have a bit of a cross over – autumn sown or planted brassicas will come to maturity in spring in Bed 4 (bottom left hand bed) and then we will plant new season’s ones in Bed 1. Autumn sown broad beans will still be in Bed 1 but we will plant new season’s ones in bed 2.  Hope this doesn’t sound confusing – it helps to have your copy of the poster handy. 

We are harvesting leeks, celery, carrots, beetroot, pumpkins, rhubarb(!), silverbeet, parsley, red cabbage.  Just the ones I can think of. Oh – and potatoes. I lost the name of the ones we are eating now – they are red skinned with white flesh and just delicious.  We have been treating them like a new potato and with Mothers Day just gone, enjoyed them for an outdoor lunch with a winter salad made of red cabbage, grated beetroot, grated carrot, celery, chopped apple and walnuts from out orchard. Followed by rhubarb pie made with my favourite short pastry (see recipe from my previous post)

Getting Ready to Grow Garlic. 

Next month will be the traditional time to plant garlic so now is the time to prepare the ground. I think I will plant mine in the Year 2 cycle of my plan though.  I could have gone either way but think that as most of the growing season will be in Year 2 and those beds are clear of the tomatoes etc from the previous Year 1 cycle, it makes sense to plant there. So that will be Bed 3 and I will grow them in the raised perimeter bed. Actually, as my garden is so new, this bed is not  raised yet – that will have to wait until we are living there – but I will build it up about the ground. I lost potatoes with the wet soil this year so don’t want to take chances with my precious garlic.  You will need well drained fertile soil. Dig over ground removing all weeds and adding compost, blood and bone and a bit of lime.  Leave for a couple of weeks and then plant your garlic. 

 Koanga Institute Fundraiser. 

Speaking of Kay Baxter, she is currently touring the country on a speaking mission to raise funds to purchase the block where they are doing a vital job of saving heritage plants and seeds. The block was leased and is now going on the market so Kay is urgently trying to raise funds to purchase this block.  Kay is one of the pioneers of saving heirloom plants and seeds in NZ and it is really important that we support this work.  To find out more go to  HYPERLINK "http://www.koanga.ort.nz/tour" www.koanga.ort.nz/tour or email  HYPERLINK "mailto:rachel@koanga.org.nz" rachel@koanga.org.nz. 

Here are some South Island Meeting dates. 

Christchurch June 3. 

Dunedin June 5. 

Preserving Black Boy Peaches

Preserving BlackBoy Peaches

This year I have been bottling fruit.  It took me many years before I got into it as I remember hot humid Februaries in North Auckland with Mum and Grandma slaving over a hot preserving pan getting the fruit all done for the winter. It seemed like an awful lot of hot sticky work. Of course I was happy enough to eat the fruits of their labour – we grew up with pudding every night – often preserved fruit and whipped cream.  No fatties then!

Anyway – as we are now looking at ways to preserve our crops without freezing  I have got back into the bottling. The peach I love to preserve is the wonderful Black Boy Peach.  The history of this gorgeous fruit is a bit shrouded – it is prevalent in NZ but probably has other names elsewhere so difficult to track. My mother tells me that is was looked down on a bit in her day – not as posh as golden queens or other peaches. Perhaps its breeding was a bit suspect (crossed with a plum?) or its colouring was considered a tiny bit crass. However it is now coming into its own and here’s a few of the reasons why.

1. It is gorgeous. Cut in half and the colours are very beautiful.

2. It is freestone – the stones come away from the fruit 
3. You don’t need to peel it so much less fuss than some other peaches.
4. It tastes really good – enough tartness to give it a black doris plum flavour.
5. Looks gorgeous in the bottle.
6. The tree itself will grow true from seed here in NZ.
7. It doesn’t mind a cooler climate.
8. The tree is healthy and vigorous and doesn’t seem to be bothered too much with disease.

Our trees have been grown from peach stones and do very well.  One of the problems we do have is that they can fruit so prolifically that the tree can collapse under the weight of the fruit. It might need a little propping up towards the end of harvest and a little judicious thinning earlier on in the season may be in order.  As it does grow true from seed it’s a good one to plant in your hedgerow as extra food for yourself and others. We just plant the stones in pots of potting mixture.

Bottling.

Preserving by bottling is coming back into fashion like a lot of the so-called Nana arts. You can now get jars from big stores such as Bunnings and Mitre10. I have a mixed collection but my favourites are the old heavy Agee jars we got from a second-hand shop in Invercargill. The good thing about bottling is that you recycle your jars – no use once then throw away, so a good option for those of us mindful of waste. You can still buy Agee jars, the seals and the rings at the grocery store but of course you can get them from second hand shops, recycling stores and people moving house who don’t need them anymore. It the rings are rusty or the seals have been used then buy some more – you don’t want any health risks when it comes to feeding your family.

There are a number of methods of preserving fruit and any number of books out there so choose your favourite. I use the Open pan overflow method from the good old Edmonds Cookbook. (I still have my sauce and chocolate cake encrusted copy from the 80s.)

Sterilise your equipment. 
Put your clean washed preserving jars into the oven and turn up to 110 Celsius. When the light goes out and the temperature is reached turn the oven off and leave the jars in the oven. Put the seals and rings into a covered saucepan on an element and bring to boil to ensure they are sterilized. You can rinse out a clean teatowel in boiling water too to wipe around the lids of jars.

Prepare the bench.
Cover the bench beside the stove with newspaper and put a couple of wooden boards out ready for the hot jars. I use a big old enamel pie dish to catch the overflow of fruit.

Cooking the fruit. 

Using your biggest preserving pan, make up a syrup. You can choose what strength of syrup to use and I tend to make up a medium one which is 1 cup sugar to 2 cups water. A heavy syrup is 1:1cup and a light is 1:3. Don’t be afraid of sugar in this instance – it is a preserver. I am more wary of the false food modified corn syrup-type sugars you find in most commercial products than worry about proper cane based sugar used to preserve my own home grown fruit for the family. (If you want to know more read Michael Pollan’s  The Omnivore’s Dilemma – the first half on the corn industry in the USA is an eye-opener)
Fill the pan just over half full with the water and sugar and bring to the boil so the sugar dissolves.
Wash the fruit and cut in half with a good short bladed vegetable knife. The stones should come out freely.  When you have enough for a pan full, tip them all very carefully in at once.  You will have to bring back up to a boil and top up syrup if necessary to cover the fruit. This way they will all cook evenly.  I don’t like to overcook as I don’t want my fruit to break up. It’s sort of poaching them. About 10 mins. Poke a large piece of fruit to see if tender.

Filling the jars. 
Get some jars out and put on the wooden board. Using a clean teatowel put a jar into the overflow dish and pack the cooked fruit into the jar.  Once they are nearly full, top up with the hot syrup.  Then slide over one of the seals, wipe with cloth and then screw the band on tightly. Move that jar to the wooden board and leave to cool. Carry on with the other jars. It’s handy to have some half size jars available too as you never know how many you will need.
Cook the next batch of fruit and repeat until all finished.
The next day check that the seals have taken, wash the jars and shelve for winter eating.