Winter garden

At the start of winter I had a few things still thriving in my kitchen garden including purple capsicum (which I've discovered I'm not really fond of), and fennel (which I adore - I've made tomato and fennel soup from this crop).

I'm sad to say that here in mid-winter my garden isn't nearly as full, and I have more than one bald patch of a bed, and more than a few weeds.  There is one raised bed that I am quite happy with though - full of greenery include mizuna and two types of kale.  Kale is incredibly trendy at the moment. It's supposed to be a superfood, full of vitamins and nutrients that do wonders for your health.  Sounds great to me.  If only I had more ideas of what to do with it.  

Borlotti Beans

Borlotti have to be my favourite beans.  I love them in stews and soups, but mostly I love them for how pretty they are.  The pods are a beautiful colour and peeling them open, once fully developed, reveals beans that look like jewels or little birds eggs.  

Really they should be treated as an ornamental plant.  The shrubs that they grown on are small and require no support (no bean poles necessary), and they're not the sort of beans that produce all season long.  These are strictly one crop per plant, and you need to grow many plants to make a decent meal's worth of beans.

The below are Borlotto Firetongue Beans.  It took patience and experience to figure out that the beans inside are ready when the outer shell starts to shrivel and look ugly.  If you pick these too soon the beans will be underdeveloped - green and starchy.  You'll notice that I am holding a mix of beans that are ready, and beans that could have done with a little more time.  At any rate, they were all delicious once mixed into my meatball soup.

  

Seed Saving

My Sunset Runner Beans were exceptional, and I definitely want to grow them again next year.  Rather than paying for more seeds I am going to try saving seeds from this year's crop.   I have read that the best way to do this is to wait for the pods to dry on the vine, before harvesting and splitting the pods to gather the seeds.  Here's hoping it works.

Ginger

I've recently started a demanding new job and, as is want to happen, other areas of my life have taken a back seat for the moment.  This includes my home and garden.  Home renovation projects have been put on hold and I've been a bit remiss in my planting schedule, so I've gone from summer feast to autumn famine.  About the only thing thriving in my garden at the moment is ginger.  Not that that's such a bad thing.  There have been a few bugs going around my office (including one colleague who was hospitialised with meningitis) so my immune system could do with all the help it can get.  I need to fish out some ginger from my planter for asian-inspired soups, ginger tea, pickled ginger for japanese dishes and possibly some baking, if I can find the time.

The mass of ginger you see below came from one tiny cutting given to me by a friend.  Ginger gets out of control very quickly, which is why I have it in a planter instead of in the ground.  I love the way ginger plants look - so tropical - but don't want them popping up everywhere.  This planter is in the sun in an out-of-the-way spot and rarely gets water.  No fuss required.  And when it comes time to harvest some, I'll just cut off a chunk of the root and put the rest of the plant back.  Ginger is nothing if not resiliant.

Grapes

My parents dropped by for a visit this week and when they arrived they yelled out to me to come to the car to collect a surprise present - a crate full of grapes from their vine at home.  My husband is well known for his homemade wine.  So far he has made the most delicious fruit wine from homegrown or gifted fruit.  We've had feijoa, strawberry, grapefruit, grapefruit and mint and plum (my personal favourite).  Until now we have not made grape wine, so this will be an interesting experiment.  I spent last night washing and plucking grapes from bunches and then we crushed them in a stock pot (with a potato masher by the way, and not our feet!).  The juice is drained from the pulp and water and yeast is added.  The mix is now fermenting in a glass carboy and will be bubbling away for a few weeks until it is ready to bottle.  We didn't really have enough grapes for a decent batch of wine, so we're not expecting something toast-worthy.  I just hope that my parents have a bumper crop of grapes next year so that we can try again.. with enough left over to eat.  They were delicious!

Potatoes

Potatoes are probably the easiest thing in the world to grow.  They take no maintenance, aside from the very occassional bit of watering if it gets really dry (this summer I haven't had to water my potatoes at all).  They can be a good tool for breaking up clay soil.  And digging them up feels a bit like uncovering treasure.  Last weekend I left the fun to my husband while I took the snaps below.

Here is everything I know about growing potatoes:

• Different varieties are good for different kinds of eating e.g. mashing, boiling.  If you're buying seed potatoes from a garden centre, the labelling should let you know the variety.  Potatoes can be planted throughout spring and summer.
• If you 'chit' your seed potatoes before you plant them, you'll end up with a better crop.  Chitting is where you give your seed potatoes a bit of sun exposure to generate sprouting from your tuber.  Put your seed potatoes in a sunny spot (I line mine up on my back porch window ledge) until you get shoots (sturdy green and pink shoots, not the spindly white kind).
• If you're planting your taters in the ground, dig a big hole (say 30 - 40cms deep) and add a bit of compost then put in your seed potatoes, about 10 cms apart.  Cover with compost, mixed with soil.  The compost will give the plants the nutrients they need to generate potatoes.
• If you don't have enough room in your garden to plant in the ground, you can plant in bags or use old tyres.  The ones below I picked up from a garage where the owners were more than happy to have someone take old tyres off their hands, free of charge.  To grow taters in tyres put down your first tyre and add some compost.  Put your seed potatoes on top (they can be a bit close, about 5cms apart) and add another tyre then layer compost and soil on top.  When the green shoots grow tall enough to poke out the top of your second tyre, add a third tyre and cover with more soil and compost.  This will encourage a second layer of potatoes to grow out of the sides of your existing plants!  About three tyres tall as as much as you can hope for.
• Ironically, though sun will give your seed potatoes a good start, you definitely don't want sun exposure on your potatoes as they form or they will end up green and poisonous.  Make sure your gremlin potatoes aren't exposed to bright lights.
• Potatoes take about 3 months to grow.  The top of the plants will bloom with white flowers and then will die back.  When your flowers have wilted, you know they're ready to dig up.

Winter crop

I recently handed in my notice at work, and before I start my new job I will be taking the better part of a week off to do all those things that I never seem to get time to do, like see the dentist or finally get a battery for my watch (I've been meaning to do it for over a year).  I am also going to give my kitchen garden some much needed TLC, and have bought supplies in preparation.  I love shopping for seeds online at Kings as they make it so easy to discern what is able to be planted each season. Here is their autumn selection.  I have chosen radishes, beetroot, carrots, peas, spinach and kale.  I also bought some Lupin seeds, to give back some nutrients to my potato patch, but for some reason did not realise that I was ordering a whole kilo worth of seeds.  So if anyone needs any...

Borlotti Beans and Compost

This little section of my garden was a disaster a couple of years ago.  Dense clay soil made it difficult for anything to grow, so I began a rehabilitation programme which I have been using in other areas of the garden.  The first step was to plant potatoes, surrounded in compost.  As the potatoes grow they help to break up the clay, making it easier to break down further with a spade when it comes time to dig up potatoes.  After my potato harvest I planted broad beans, for the root nodules nitrogen fixing properties, and after that harvest I dug through the stalks for the same reason.  The stalks did not break down as well as I had hoped.  In future I will be chopping these up into smaller segments before digging them through the soil.  My final effort to repair the garden was to make stacks of compost on top, made of kitchen scraps (no citrus - worms hate it, and no meat scraps of course), grass clippings and a bit of shredded paper.  Turning the compost piles regularly the first few days helped speed up the process of it breaking down and the end result was a beautiful fine-grained compost.

This is the first crop I have grown since I finished my Clay Rehab.  They're borlotti beans, and so far they are going gangbusters.  It's a bit late in the season and hopefully they mature before the first frosts set in, but I'm really pleased with how far this bit of garden has come.

Tomatoes

This afternoon I was chatting with a friend over a cup of coffee and the topic of gardening came up.  I bemoaned the fact that it's been a terrible year for tomatoes, and that I had to pull out some of my plants for fear that the mould they exhibited (mould brought on by all the freakish heavy rain we've had) would spread to the other plants.  Coming home I decided to do some harvesting for my supper and the snaps below are of this afternoon's yield.  My favourites are the fat black krims and the super sweet sungold cherry tomatoes.  I love the end of summer when the tomato plants are at the end of their life and might look manky, but smell at their most amazing and best of all are hiding gems. 

Here is everything I know about growing tomatoes:

• Infrastructure - On the day that I plant the seedlings, I create a framework to tie the tomato plants to as they grow.  You may not need to tie the seedlings in the first month or so, but it's best to do the staking early on as if you put posts in later you might damage the roots and kill the plants.  Bamboo is a cheap option (free for me) and if you choose some strong bamboo specimens and secure them tightly, they should last the summer.  I use electrical tape to bandage the tops of my A Frame together.
• Earth - You can't grow good tomatoes without really good loose soil, and soil needs replenishing every year for optimal nutrition.  Each spring I dig compost and vegetable mix through my raised beds about a week before planting seedlings.  If I remember to, I also feed the plants with a liquid fertiliser when the flowers first appear to give the plants a boost to help the fruit set.
• Sun - Tomatoes need a lot of sun so it's best to plant them where they will get the most light.  I have a few raised beds at the back of my section which have proven to be hopeless for growing tomatoes, and have learnt the hard way that your plants will dictate where they go - not the other way around.
• Water - Consistent watering is really important.  There has been a lot of rain this summer so I haven't had to go out much with the hose but I always do if it's been a couple of days between showers.  It's a fine balance between under and over watering, and I always water at the base of the plants and avoid watering the leaves to help prevent mould.
• Air - There are a couple of reasons for getting out the secateurs when it comes to tomatoes.  The first is weight - if the plants get too heavy they will break under their own weight, particularly once the fruit sets.  You can combat this by the odd bit of pruning, as well as securely tying branches to your frame as needed.  The second reason for pruning is to allow enough air through to help prevent mould.  When the plants get big I get rid of any unnecessary branches and remove the bottom branches altogether.  I always think of that game 'the floor is made of lava' - you don't want the leaves to touch the ground as there will be an increased chance of them getting some sort of fungal disease.  I know this sounds counter-intuitive (but plants grow out of the ground?  How can it be bad for them?!) but trust me on this one.

Sunset Runner Beans

I chose to grow Sunset Runner Beans this summer, for their salmon pink flowers.  They look great and hopefully will taste good too.

Harvest

Broad beans were finally ready to harvest, so I've shelled and frozen them all.  If I had a crystal ball it would show me a platter of antipasti.

Seedlings

Growing your own seedlings is incredibly sensible for two reasons - cost and diversity.  You can generally get about five times the number of plants out of a packet of seeds for the cost of a punnet of seedlings.  Also by sourcing seeds online, you have access to a greater range of plants than you would find at your local garden centre, with exotic and heirloom seeds readily available when ordered over the internet. 

I tend to grow at least three times as many seedlings as I actually need.  Partly to ensure that if some seeds fail, I have backups, but also to have the option to gift plants to friends and family.  A kindness given will find its way back to you, and my gardening kin have gifted me back many a plant.

The best tips I can give for growing seedlings is to grow them inside where the temperature is generally warmer - to give your seeds a really good kick start, as well as offering extra protection from slugs and snails.  I grow seeds in recycled takeaway coffee cups (or in the example below, leftover party cups) as they make less mess than plastic gardening containers and don't leak water all over the show.  Finding the right spot to germinate seeds is a matter of trial and error.  I really wanted to be able to grow mine on my kitchen windowsill to make it that much easier to water them, but the sunlight pattern in my kitchen doesn't quite suit.  I have had far more success germinating seedlings on my dining room windowsill.

Artichokes

I took this photo over the weekend.  Annoyingly, my garden is starting to produce radishes, broad beans and artichokes just as I am about to go on holiday.  I rescued this first ripe artichoke to gift to a friend who loves them, and hopefully there will be more by the time I come home.

I love artichoke plants.  They're so big and bushy and lush and green.  The edible flowers are great too, of course.  So many people I know are a bit intimidated by artichokes and how to eat them.  There are plenty of online tutorials, which show how to steam the flowers so that you can enjoy the ritual of pulling off the petals one by one, dipping them in sauce and scraping the fleshy part between your teeth.  It's all a bit fiddly for me and in the end I found the best way to approach artichokes was to wait until I had a bounty of flowers, boil them all at once and hack them to bits for the hearts.  I then preserved the cooked hearts in garlic, rosemary and olive oil and kept my jar of hearts in my fridge, ready for when I wanted to make anitpasti or salad.  This was my harvest from last year.  Nom! :

Subtropica

My other half won’t let me plant fruit trees on our front lawn.  If I had my way, it would be a thriving wee orchard with a box of bees stored to one side.  Instead, I wistfully walk through the fruit tree section at the garden centre, or browse online, and think of what might be.  

My friend Catherine sent me the link to this great  New Zealand company, Subtropica, who do mail order subtropical flora.  Their catalogue is great and I am coveting a cinnamon tree, chocolate pudding fruit tree (!), coffee, tea and pomegranate.   I am definitely going to hunt around for a sunny spot to sneak in a pineapple plant.  The below is a picture of a pineapple that was growing near the car park at work, so I know they grow in Auckland climates.

PINEAPPLE (Ananas bracteatus)

This hardy bromeliad will grow in nearly all NZ situations, and will produce sweet, juicy pineapples outdoors. A four year old clump can produce 10 or more pineapples. The flowers are spectacular as well. Plant in full sun or filtered light in well drained soil, dig in plenty of fertiliser and protect from severe frost. Suitable for container or open ground.

Broad Beans

My garden is still in a shameful state with very little planted.  In fact the only things growing in my vege patch are a few bulbs of celery and some radishes, which I doubt will come to much as I haven't been watering them.  One thing that is flourishing is the forest of broad beans I planted along the fence by my passionfruit vines.  They'll do my garden wonders in terms of a nitrogen lift, and the flowers have been attracting beneficial bees.  Best of all I get to use the young shoots at the top of each plant for stirfry (yum!), and by snipping the tops I'm also encouraging further growth.  Win - win.

Macrame

There is a very fine line between home-spun charm and tacky tat.  Sometimes I struggle with judging between the two.  I have been pondering putting some more greenery on my balcony and am not really a fan of the hanging-baskets-filled-with-pansies look.  This image makes me wonder if macrame isn't due for a revival.  It's heartening to know that I'm not the only one.

Strawberries

Spring is suddenly upon us. I ventured into my backyard yesterday and realised how much work I have to do. Composting and pruning aren't particularly fun but another early spring task that is a lot more bearable is reviving the strawberry patch. Even if a strawberry patch is populating itself with runner plants, it will need a top up every couple of years to ensure vigour. Usually I just throw in plants at random but I want to be a little more scientific this year and experiment with different breeds. I am devoting three tubs to Pajaro Strawberries. They are supposed to be a heavy cropper, favoured by commercial growers, so hopefully I will be drowning in strawberries by summer.  That is if the snails and birds don't get to them first!

King Seeds Catalogue

I received my annual King Seeds catalogue and am starting to get excited about spring arriving.  I've short listed seeds for summer and here are my picks for planting this year:

• Painted Lady Runner Bean
• Sunset Runner Bean
• Crosby's Egyptian Flat Beetroot
• Honey and Pearl Corn
• Crystal Apple Cucumber
• Lebanese Cucumber
• Purple Gem Eggplant
• Petit Provencal Peas
• Bulls Horn Pepper
• Watermelon Radish
• Black Cherry Tomato
• Sungold Tomato
• Black Krim Tomato
• Tigerella Tomato
• Honeybee Tomato
• Zephyr Zucchini
• Romanesco Zucchini

I'm also longing to grow watercress, but my other half isn't keen on the idea as growing watercress inevitably means growing mosquitos.

Beginnings

I haven't yet mastered winter gardening, more from lack of motivation than anything.  A muddy, icy puddle of a backyard doesn't exactly say 'come hither' and as everything takes so long to grow, gardening in winter can seem futile.  Instead I tend to focus on feeding the garden in preparation for spring.  Broad Beans are ideal for this.  They're a great filler to help supress weeds, the root nodules feed the soil with nitrogen, and come spring the white flowers attract swarms of beneficial bees.  Once the Broad Bean plants go into flower they stay in this state for weeks, to the point where you're ready to pull out the plants in frustration that nothing seems to be happening.  Persevere - they'll eventually pod, and once shelled the plants can be dug back into the soil for an extra nitrogen fix.  As for the beans - my favourite recipe so far is Broad Bean Hummus.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall waxes lyrical on Broad Beans