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.

Garden Notes for the Family Vegetable Garden in April

Jobs for this Month.  

As harvest comes to an end it is time to think ahead to the new season next spring when you will rotate you beds over to Year 2.  As you tidy up, compost and mulch beds that will stay fallow over winter, think about the needs of the crops you will plant next.  The beds that have had gross feeding tomatoes, capsicums, pumpkins for example, will need to be built up.  The root crops that follow on will prefer well broken up soil so bulky manures etc will need plenty of time to break down. Root crops prefer potassium and phosphorus so apply wood ash and seaweed, blood and bone and just a little lime except where you want potatoes. Green crops for this bed would be buckwheat for phosphorus and mustard if the soil needs sterilizing.   The legume beds can keep going with broad beans sown now for spring eating which will provide nitrogen for the new follow on crops after you have harvested the beans in spring.  

For crops already in the ground such as brassicas, leeks and celery, keep up the weeding, mulching and liquid feeding. Brassicas and onions planted now will “stand”over winter – which means that they will grow only slowly but take off once they detect the change in season and be ready for eating in late spring.

Sow: South:Broad Beans, onions (in trays or outdoors if warm). Brassica seeds sown now will take 4 months to mature. Lettuce. 

North: Broad Beans, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, Chinese cabbage, leeks, lettuce, onions, parsley, shallots, spinach. 

Plant: Cabbage, broccoli, cauli, kale, lettuce, silverbeet or spinach. 

Cultivate: Mound up soil around leeks. Keep well watered along with celery. Weed around asparagus.  Protect heads of cauli from the weather by covering with big leaves. Keep weeding and hoeing between plants to keep weeds down. 

Harvest: Beans, sweetcorn, pumpkins, main crop potatoes, carrots, parsnips, beetroot, spinach and silverbeet. 

Prepare: Sow green crops, make compost and mulch bare ground in preparation for winter weather and preparing beds for spring. 

How to save your own seeds.

As the nights draw in and the days and nights get a little cooler the natural cycle of the plants in our garden comes to an end.  Their sole goal in their short little lives is to reproduce – so the seed cycle is the final one. They literally “go to seed”.   Each plant has their own method of scattering that seed then they die, become compost and the cycle starts over. We can collect that seed to resow ourselves next Spring in a patch of our choosing, save it or share it with others.

Over the next month or two (March and April in Southern Hemisphere) we will be tidying up our gardens and getting the beds prepared for the garden season the following spring. Before you pull everything out keep an eye out for some really good produce. Your best bean producing vine, your most delicious tomato plant, really good potatoes, herbs, lettuces, silverbeet or whatever.  Mark them so that as they die down you can harvest seed from them.

Tomatoes – this is a good way to share rare varieties and keep the old types from disappearing.  Choose a fine example of the one you want to save the seed from, make sure it has well ripened, then squash it.  Put the seeds onto some paper towels to let the flesh dry away from them. When well dried out put the seeds into an envelope marked with the name of the variety and the date.

Beans.  Let the vines dry off and some of the pods dry.  Then pick and store a cool dry spot.  I never end up eating all the broad beans I grow so save a whole heap and use as my green crop about this time of the year.  You can dry beans to eat as well – use a bean that is designed for drying such as borlotti, and let dry on the vine. Once well dried off put into an airtight jar for use in the kitchen later.

Potatoes. Even though it is recommended to get fresh certified see potatoes each year, it is possible to keep good disease free tubers for the following year. We would only have some of our old varieties if people didn’t do this. Choose the best looking disease free obviously healthy potatoes from good plants.  Keep them in a cool dry spot in your shed over winter.

Lettuces and herbs  - cut off mature heads and shake into a paper bag. Keep in a named envelope. If you think you are going to miss the seeds or it looks like rain, you can tie a paper bag over plants you really want to save the seed from. Lots of flowers will provide seed for next year as well.  Either scatter or save until spring and sow in the usual way.

Obviously if we are storing all these seeds in our shed, then we need a shed with space to do our storing!  Pumpkins, corn for the hens, apples, carrots – there are lots of things that we can store for winter use.  Having lengths of wire netting suspended above head height is a good one. Only use disease free produce and check regularly.

I have a good supply of brown wage envelopes which are a nice size for seed saving.  Send me a stamped self-addressed envelope and I will post you back a half dozen. Send to K Mackay PO Box 115 Palmerston, Otago, 9443.

Backyard vegetable Gardening for February – Summer in the NZ Garden.

For those following the crop rotation plan on the poster, February is high summer for most parts of NZ, hot and humid in the north and hot and dry in Central Otago. By the end of the month the nights usually start to cool down and Autumn will be in the air.  Should be lots of harvesting going on and keeping up the watering is vital for growing crops.  I have been re-reading the excellent book by one of the fathers of gardening in this country, Prof Walker, in which he emphasizes the point that regular watering is vital for well-grown veges.  Plants can have their growth checked at 2 points – once when transplanted as seedlings and again if they dry out.  The general rule is that if it hasn’t rained for 3 days then water well in the evening. It is better to water deeply once every few days than sprinkle a bit every day.  Mulch is essential to keep the moisture in and the weeds down.

Bed 1.

In this first year of rotation I have sweetcorn with climbing beans going up, plus climbing beans on poles, dwarf beans and peas.  Keep picking beans so they will keep producing. Corn is ready when the tassels turn brown.  If you have beans growing up them then leave the stalks.  You can pull those out later in autumn to bury and turn into valuable carbon.  Liquid feed as they will be hungry.

Bed 2:

That old standby silverbeet should be doing well. It will be an early indicator of dryness - if the leaves are looking a little sad and wilted then give the bed a drink. Young brassicas for autumn and winter eating will be growing nicely. It may be getting a bit hot for lettuces – keep planting in small batches down the rows of brassicas – that will give them a little shade from the hot sun.  Keep up the water and grow them quickly and eat them every day!  They can get bitter if too long in the garden with not enough water. Keep planting and harvesting your asian greens and spinach.   

Bed 3. Summer in bed 3 is where a lot of action is taking place.  Tomatoes should be ripening nicely, courgettes, capsicum, aubergine, cucumber, basil  etc. Keep harvesting to keep everything fruiting. Pinch out the laterals on the tomatoes and keep stake well. Once your pumpkins have set 3-4 fruit pinch out the growing tips to allow those ones to grow. This mainly applies to southern parts of the country where autumn cooling may prevent late pumpkins from ripening.

Bed 4. If you have early potatoes in this bed then you probably have harvested most of them by now. You can have new potatoes over the whole growing season of course if you have a succession of planting – and they are lovely to have with your summer salads. Main crop potatoes such as agria will be still doing their thing under the ground. Water wisely – not too much in case they rot. In the rows left bare by the harvesting of early potatoes you can sow either a green crop of mustard to sterilize the soil or get in a punnet each of celery and leeks.  Dig over, add manure and a bit of lime.  Keep well watered though. Continue to sow carrots and beetroot in soil that is friable. No manure added for these root crops though.   Your earlier planted parsnips should be coming along for winter and will appreciate liquid feeding and adequate water.   

Bed 6.

I have asparagus in this bed. We collected seaweed after a recent storm and spread over the bed along with some manure. The ferns are waving in the breeze but don’t chop back until later in the autumn.  The outer edge of my bed is edged with lavender as it leads onto a central pathway so that is providing some interest. I have an artichoke standing sentinel beside the central entry into the main garden which is ready to eat.

In the opposite bed at the top of the garden we are eating strawberries. Have harvested the blackcurrants and added them to the jams and jellies we have been making. Recipe in earlier blog. Rhubarb will need plenty of water and manure to keep nice fat stalks but will be past its best.

Enjoy your garden.

More on Sharing

 More on the blackcurrancy market. We just had a couple of rather ‘invigorating’ days away in the Catlins – visiting the same time as a southern blast of freezing weather straight from the Antarctic.  Stayed in a DOC camp in our tent listening to the howling wind and hail.  Put on all the clothes I brought with me. Being a sensible southerner that did include wool socks, merino top, windbreaker and knitted hat. Excellent summer break. We went for a great walk during a break in the weather and found this gorgeous roadside patch in Papatowhai. 

Free Veges  says the sign. Help yourself. They have also added the verse about beating swords into ploughshares - a message of peace. 

Great adventure though and thoroughly recommended. For those of you who don’t know, the Catlins are in the bottom south eastern coast of the South Island of NZ and have really been only recently discovered by the rest of the world.  The native forests are awesome – especially where they sweep down to the sea.  It’s the old stomping ground for my husband and his family as they holidayed regularly at Curio Bay. The Catlins are easy to get to. The town of Balclutha is only an hour south of Dunedin (less from Dunedin airport) and is where you turn towards the coast.

 More freezing sleeting cold summer adventures in the South…

Not far inland but further south near Wyndham, we visited a garden that has been on my radar since I started gardening as a young woman in the 1980’s and 90s.  Maple Glen. Go there. It is one of the most beautiful woodland gardens you will ever see anywhere in the world.

They have a plant nursery there too and I was able to purchase a couple of treasures for my new woodland garden. I am so thrilled that I can grow these treasures more successfully than I could in the humid north.  Maple Glen is open all year round so pick your favourite season and just go. Take a picnic. You could be some time. 

The Blackcurrancy Market

The Blackcurrancy Market.

I was quite delighted with my terrible pun about the Blackcurrancy Market in my notes about making black currant jelly and it made me think about the sharing of our produce and how that kind of currency contributes to natural balance in the world. We have just had a couple of days away and my neighbours kindly fed the hens for me – I was able to give them a jar of my jelly and the balance is maintained. A small thing I know - but important all the same.

As many of you know or are finding out, there is something deeply satisfying about preserving our produce and having enough not only to provide for our families over the winter but also to share with others.  It’s the age old cottager tradition which is making a real comeback. If you have an abundance of one thing then trade with the neighbours for their abundance.  When I was growing up you did not visit or go share a meal with someone without taking something along. A posy of flowers and herbs, a small pot of jam or preserves, some baking – what a treat.  It’s a very personal thing to bring something you have made. Let’s bring this tradition back.  

The good thing about preserving is that you can do lots of small batches so even if you are time poor, you can fit a batch of jam making in around your other work. A mix of small and medium jars means you have a small jar to give away.

Like the concept of terroir in wine or cheese making, the nuances of the season right down to the day are preserved in the flavour of that batch of jam.  Jam or jelly made at the beginning of the season may taste different to that made at the end. Soil, weather conditions during the growing season or at the time of harvest - all bring their subtle differences to the flavour of the end product.  So a succession of preserving days can mean a succession of individual tastes – some maybe never to be repeated! That’s one of the joys of the cottage gardener.

And if you are not yet able to make your own preserves then support your local farmers’ market or small scale businesses by buying their preserves.  You  can buy on line from small scale producers and so support our local Kiwi businesses.  Here are two I know who are marvelous examples of Professional Countrywomen.

Inch Valley Preserves is run by Maria Barta Hinkley and her husband on the edge of   Central Otago. Small batches of gorgeous product made with locally grown produce and available at various retail outlets or on line. Check her out at www.inchvalley.co.nz.

Totara Lowlands Cherries and Hazelnuts near Oamaru has recently been taken over by Liz Robins. She is not only growing the most marvelous cherries and hazelnuts but is preserving them in many delicious ways. Cherries preserved in Brandy. Yum. She has a range of preserves (not only cherries) and can make up gift baskets to order on line.  Check the range out www.totaralowlands.co.nz.  The site still has the names of the previous owners on it but the ordering system is still the same.