Advice. Ideas.
Inspiration
Anita’s Garden
Volume 2, Issue 2
Useful Links Editorial
Webpage
Welcome to the second issue of my
Blog
newsletter Anita’s Garden for 2019.
Newsletter back issues
Advertising
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To begin, I have some exciting news.
Instagram As of last Friday, Anita’s Garden will
feature in the Websites and Blogs sec-
Twitter tion of the New Zealand Gardener’s
weekly e-zine Get Growing, which
Linkedin many of you will be familiar with. As
Pinterest you will be aware, advertising can be
expensive, especially for a not-for-
profit community-based enterprise
such as mine. Thank you to the lovely
Contact me team at Get Growing who have made
this possible. A big thank you also to
 Feedback my friend Leah Bowsher, who togeth-
er with her husband Harry runs the
 Newsletter input
Tauranga Bay Holiday Park, where
(tips, recipes, gar-
our bach is located. Leah has kindly
den photos etc)
allowed me to place business cards
and brochures in the camp shop.
 To be added to my
mailing list
New readers
anitakundu.nz@gmail.com
There have been many people who
joined the newsletter mailing list in
the past week. Welcome to our group!
For those of you who have stumbled
Inside this issue: upon the newsletter by chance and
enjoyed reading it, please email me at
anitakundu.nz@gmail.com and put
“subscribe” in the subject field so you
P ot te r ing aro u nd 2
Anita’s Garden receive future issues direct to your
inbox.
Plant nursery
Top 5 gardening tasks 2 transfer. A number of customers in
for the week The plant nursery will re-open in
spring. I know that many of you will
be anxious to get your gardens under-
Tips for growing fruit 2 way but I haven’t started propagating
trees
plants yet as it is still too cold. Unfor-
tunately, there is nothing to be gained
How to grow plants in 3
from starting this early and plants
will end up dying from cool tempera-
containers
tures. In the meantime, I have been
spending some time reflecting on how
I will run the plant nursery this year.
2 August 2019
I’d like to take on board feedback re-
ceived from customers and improve on
the way things were done in 2017.
In last week’s column, I mentioned
that prices will be higher than in 2017
to take into account inflation, as the
cost of seed raising materials has in-
creased since then. I also asked that
you please bring your own boxes and
recyclable bags when visiting the
nursery, as I am unable to provide box-
es for everyone and we are trying to
move away from using plastic bags.
I’d like to touch on two further matters
this week, opening hours and pay-
ments. What will remain the same is
that Anita’s Garden will not be a drop-
in nursery. Visits are by prior ap-
pointment only. This is because I
manage everything —admin, market-
ing, blogging, writing my newsletter,
caring for our garden and my plant
nursery—by myself. I am simply una-
ble to be on call during set opening
hours. I will also continue to close the
nursery one day a week so I can have a
day off. Spring is a very busy time for
gardeners but I need some time to re-
charge my batteries. In 2017, I took
Tuesdays off and I will advise if this
will continue to be the case this year in
due course. Previously, Anita’s Gar-
den operated on a cash-only basis,
with the exception of mail orders,
where payment was made via bank
the nursery requested that I provide
Eftpos facilities to facilitate payments.
I am looking into this and will see
what I can do. In the meantime, if any
of you can recommend the best mer-
chant, I would be very grateful.
Thank you for your continued support.
Anita Kundu
PAGE 2
Pottering around Anita’s Garden: Orchard
Apple tree
Mark Christensen from the Herit-
age Food Crops Research Trust
kindly gave me a dwarf Monty’s
Surprise “Remarkable” tree
Mandarins
Our Flying Dragon dwarf manda-
rin tree has been cropping heavily.
Banana tree
Our Misi Luki tree has fruit on it!
Top 5 gardening tasks for the week
1. Plant deciduous fruit
trees
Winter is the best time to plant
peaches, nectarines, pears and
plums, when they are dormant
2. Prune roses
It’s best to prune your roses in
winter, while they’re dormant. In
Auckland, our roses are never com-
pletely bare, but I do this in Au-
Tips for growing fruit trees
Whether you live on a farm, life-
style block, urban section like ours
or even in an apartment with a
balcony, it’s possible to have fruit
trees at home. Here are some tips
to help you set up your own mini-
orchard.
 Go for dwarf varieties that
can easily be grown in con-
tainers (see page 3 for tips
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N V O LU M E 2 , I S S U E 2
Pineapple
Lemons
Two years ago, someone gave me
After a small harvest last year
some pineapple plants. Her father
because I pruned the tree in late
used to grow them as a hobby but
summer, our Meyer Lemon tree
was giving away his collection be-
has produced the heaviest crop
cause he was moving to a retire-
ever. We have been having an
ment village. I planted the four
abundance of large, juicy yellow
plants in separate pots. The big-
lemons like never before. This is
gest one fruited in the first year,
no doubt due to the Kolush Manu-
producing a small fruit but two of
ka and Seaweed
the plants died. The biggest one
Mulch I spread
keep growing and eventually be-
around the tree,
came two plants, to my surprise. I
which Palmers
don’t really know a lot about grow-
kindly gave me
ing pineapples or the bromeliad
back in 2017. I
family, which they are a part of. It
highly recommend
made sense to divide the two
this product. It
plants, which I did with a wwoofer
currently retails at
who was staying with us recently.
Palmers Garden
I hope I did the right thing. The
Centres for
plants appear alive, a good sign.
$15.99.
gust when they have fewer leaves now to secure rare
varieties, such as the
3. Spray roses and fruit dahlia Café au Lait,
trees with lime sulphur which was kindly
given to me by Bulbs
Acting now will help prevent a
number of fungal diseases in sum- Direct last year.
mer, including black spot and 5. Feed asparagus
brown rot.
Nourish your asparagus crowns by
4. Order dahlia and gladioli sprinkling a little bulb food over
the soil. By spring, you should be
Order new season summer bulbs
harvesting strong, healthy spears.
on growing plants in pots)  Prune fruit trees in winter.
Dwarf trees don’t need to be
 Give them full sun pruned
 Some require a pollinator  Spray fruit trees with Liq-
uid Copper (organic) in
 Feed trees every three to six
spring to prevent fungal
months. Use slow release
diseases such as brown rot.
fertiliser for potted plants
Better yet, start your spray-
and bagged granular ferti-
ing regime in winter with
liser for trees planted in the
lime sulphur (see above).
ground
 V O LU M E 2 , I S S U E 2 A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N PAGE 3

How to grow plants in containers

These days, sections have become Herbs suitable for containers Tips
smaller, leaving us with less space
for a garden. Even if you are lucky  Parsley  Choose the right sized con-
enough to live on a decent sized tainer for your plant. Don’t
 Oregano put a small plant in a large
section, you don’t necessarily need
to dig up your lawn like us. It’s  Sage container, thinking that it
possible to grow most plants in will “grow into it”. It’s bet-
containers, including veggies, flow-  Rosemary ter to re-pot once the plant
ers, herbs and fruit trees. It’s also outgrows its container
a lot easier to care for them.  Coriander
 Make sure that your con-
What can be used as a contain-  Chives tainer has holes at the bot-
er? tom for drainage.
 Mint
 Plastic buckets  Use a quality potting mix,
 Catnip not garden soil. I use con-
 Plastic pots tainer mix for fruit trees as
 Catmint
it contains water storage
 Troughs crystals which help conserve
Flowers for hanging baskets
moisture in summer. For
 Terracotta pots
 Petunias veggies, it’s fine to use a
 Outdoor cups and saucers cheaper mixture as they’ll
 Pansies only be in the container for
 Wine barrels a season
 Polyanthus
 Hanging baskets  Don’t forget to water plants
 Begonias
well as temperatures in-
Veggies suitable for containers crease
 Marigolds
 Lettuce  You can
Fruit trees suita-
ble for containers add a wetting
 Carrots
“It’s possible to grow agent such as
 Radish  Dwarf apples most plants in Saturaid or water
containers, including storage crystals
 Tomatoes  Dwarf bana- veggies, flowers, herbs to potted plants
nas in summertime to
and fruit trees”
 Eggplants help retain mois-
 Figs
ture
 Capsicum
 Dwarf stone fruit (peaches,
 Liquid feed plants weekly. I
 Chillies nectarines, apricots etc)
like using an organic sea-
 Cucumbers  Dwarf citrus (oranges, man- weed tonic such as Seasol
darins and lemons)
 Okra  Use a slow release fertiliser
 Pears (I recommend the to feed potted plants, not
Veggies that perform better in dwarf variety “Garden granular fertiliser which is
the ground Belle” from Waimea for plants in the ground

 Potatoes  Blueberries (stick to Rabbit-  Stake fruit trees grown in

eye varieties in warmer cli- containers as they may re-
 Kumara (sweet potato) quire some support
mates as they don’t require
 Zucchini a high number of chilling
 Keep on top of weeds. They
hours)
grow in containers too!
 Pumpkins
 Pineapples
 Pick fruit regularly as it
 Melons develops to encourage fur-
 Guavas
 Brassicas ther fruiting
 Rhubarb
 Beans