Advice. Ideas.
Inspiration
Anita’s Garden
Volume 2, Issue 5
Useful Links Editorial
Webpage
Welcome to the fifth issue of my
Blog
newsletter Anita’s Garden for 2019.
Newsletter back issues
I hope you have all had a good week.
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Spring is around the corner!
Instagram
As temperatures gradually increase
as we near the beginning of spring,
Twitter
have you noticed some plants in your
Linkedin garden running to seed? I have been
pulling out silverbeet and spinach
Pinterest which are past their best. It’s exciting
to make room for new seedlings,
which I will put in next month.
Contact me
It’s lovely to see the rows of potatoes
 Feedback that I planted back on the shortest
day doing so well. This year, all of
 Newsletter input our early varieties are in one place, by
(tips, recipes, gar- our lemon tree, and the main crop
den photos etc) were kept together in the main gar-
den. It won’t be long before mid-
 To be added to my September, when the earliest of our
mailing list early varieties, a row of Swift pota-
toes, will be ready for harvesting! I
anitakundu.nz@gmail.com
don’t think there’s anything more sat-
isfying than feeling around the edges
of the plants, bandicooting just
enough fresh potatoes for a meal. If
Inside this issue: you haven’t already purchased or
planted your seed potatoes, it’s still
not too late to source some from your
local garden centre. Having discov-
P ot te r ing aro u nd 2
Anita’s Garden ered just last year that it is possible to
grow potatoes during winter in our
Auckland garden, I tend to plant ours
Top 5 gardening tasks 2 early so they are out of the ground by
for the week November, so I have space for heat
loving plants such as pumpkins and
melons, which need lots of room to
Flourless banana and 2 sprawl.
rhubarb loaf
It’s still too early to be thinking about
growing beans yet but I’m excited to
be doing a growing trial of different
How to grow capsicums 3
and chillies varieties of dwarf and runner beans
this year. I must confess that I have
never had much luck growing beans,
23 August 2019
even though they’re not supposed to be
difficult to grow. I have found that I
often struggle with the basics when it
comes to gardening. I have already
ear-marked the site for my dwarf bean
trial and intend to use the area where
the early potatoes presently are. I’m
not sure whether I’ll have more luck
raising seeds in punnets and trans-
planting them later, or sowing direct,
so I’ll probably end up doing a bit of
both. There isn’t a lot of room for
climbing beans along our fence at the
back of our house, so I’m going to try
sowing them in troughs filled with pot-
ting mix which are placed against a
fence on the border with our other
neighbour. These are located in our
patio. In early winter, a wwoofer
helped me nail trellis to the fence to
provide some support.
Plants from Awapuni
I’m excited to announce that later this
week, Awapuni will be sending me a
box of plants for the garden, which I
am very grateful for. As they will be
arriving after this newsletter is circu-
lated, I will write more about them in
next week’s newsletter. As you are all
aware, my own nursery is very small
and I don’t have the equipment re-
quired to propagate seedlings during
the winter months. If you do need
plants, I strongly recommend ordering
them from Awapuni, which I do in the
off-season. They stock a great range,
are reasonably priced, are eco friendly
(they wrap plants in bundles of news-
paper rather than using plastic pun-
nets) and deliver direct to your door,
saving you from having to go to the
garden centre. To find out more, visit
https://awapuni.co.nz/.
Thank you for your continued support.
Anita Kundu
PAGE 2
Pottering around Anita’s Garden
I’m pleased to say that I have had
an extremely productive week.
Sowing more seeds indoors
The first lot of chilli and capsicum
seeds I sowed on the 3rd and 4th
of August have come off my heat
pad and have been moved into the
greenhouse. The varieties from
Egmont Seeds look particularly
healthy, including Sweet Classic,
Sweet Shishito, Indian Jawal and
Palladio. This has created some
room on the heat pad for me to
sow more seeds. I sowed more
long chillies, which I know are
popular with my customers in the
plant nursery. I also started sow-
ing tomatoes, another summer
favourite of ours. I am growing
five varieties from Franchi this
year: San Marzano Redorta,
Top 5 gardening tasks for the week
1. Divide and repot lilies
Now is a good time to focus on
your potted lilies. It’s a good idea
to divide them every few years and
top them up with fresh potting
mixture.
2. Spray fruit trees and ros-
es with copper
As temperatures increase, swap
lime sulphur for liquid copper
Flourless banana and rhubarb loaf recipe credit: Angela Casley
Makes 1 loaf
Ingredients
2 ripe bananas, mashed roughly
3 eggs, separated
2 tbsp honey
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup coconut
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 cup ground almonds
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N
Costoluto Fiorentino, Red Pear,
Red Cherry and Principe Borghe-
se. I am also growing a large
selection of tomatoes from Eg-
mont. I didn’t have enough
space to sow all of them, but
those that were sowed this week
include Dr Walters Special, Red
Pear (a very different tomato to
the Franchi variety above), Yel-
low Pear and Moneymaker.
Sowing more lettuce
doors
I’m pleased that the variety
Parella Rossa (Franchi Seeds),
sown on 5th August, has started
to emerge! I sowed the rest of
the packet, as well as some Degli
Ortolani and Romana Bionda
3. Plant rhubarb
If you don’t already have rhubarb
in your garden, consider putting in
some plants. It’s easy to grow and
makes a wonderful addition to
home baking (see below for a deli-
cious rhubarb recipe)
4. Tidy up the garden
Pull any plants that have run to
seed out like silverbeet and
3/4 cup chopped almonds
1 cup chopped rhubarb, plus 1/2
piece for the top
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to
170oC. Line a 1 litre
loaf tin with baking pa-
per
2. In a large bowl com-
bine the bananas, egg
yolks, honey, baking powder, coco-
nut, cinnamon and ginger.
V O LU M E 2 , I S S U E 5
Lentissima a Montare seeds, also
from Franchi (see below).
Repotting dwarf and calla
lillies
It has been years since I divided
and repotted my lilies. In some
troughs, there wasn’t enough pot-
ting mixture, in others, the bulbs
had disappeared. I spent Tuesday
afternoon working through each
one, repotting the bulbs.
out-
Starting kumara
There was a spare trough filled
with potting mixture leftover from
my exercise above, so I placed it in
our greenhouse and buried three
red kumara in the dirt. The idea
is to keep them moist and wait for
shoots to emerge for planting later.
spinach so you can replace them
with fresh seedlings next month.
5. Sow more early lettuce
Some varieties such as Degli Or-
tolani and Romana Bionda Len-
tissima a Montare, both from
Franchi Seeds, can be sowed in
A u g u s t . V i s i t
http://www.italianseedspronto.co
.nz to purchase seeds.
3. Beat the egg whites until light
and fluffy. Gently fold through the
ground almonds. Add the
two mixtures together.
Lastly fold through the nuts
and rhubarb gently. Pour
into the loaf tin. Sprinkle a
little cinnamon and place
piece of rhubarb on top.
Bake for 30 minutes or until
a skewer comes out clean.
4. Remove, cool and serve sliced.
 V O LU M E 2 , I S S U E 5
How to grow capsicums and chillies
Now is the perfect time to sow cap-
sicums and chillies. The main ad-
vantage to raising plants from
seed is that it allows you to grow a
greater variety than relying on
what is offered in garden centres.
It can also be more economical if
you are raising a lot of plants.
Seed raising tips
For comprehensive advice on how
to germinate seeds, please see the
article on page 3 of Issue 1 of my
newsletter. The key point is that
capsicums and chillies both re-
quire heat to germinate. It’s still
quite cold at this time of the year,
especially at night, so it’s worth
investing in a heat pad to aid ger-
mination. Otherwise, you can try
using your hotwater cupboard.
Before I explore the different vari-
eties of capsicums and chillies that
are available, I just wanted to
warn you that I am very sorry but
am unable to offer any Franchi
varieties in the plant nursery this
year. The reason for this is be-
cause Italian Seeds Pronto no
longer stock capsicums and chillies
due to increasing difficulties in
seed testing from MPI. I know that
some of you will be disappointed
by this news. Be assured though
that I endeavor to stock a variety
of other Franchi vegetables in the
plant nursery, as well as a terrific
variety of capsicums and chillies
from other seed suppliers.
Capsicums
I don’t give much thought to the
official distinction between capsi-
cums and chillies, preferring my
own way of differentiating between
the two. For me, capsicums are
always sweet, whereas chillies can
be either hot or sweet. Capsicums
come in a range of different colours
– green, red, yellow, orange and
purple.
I tend to classify capsicums into
two broad categories: (i) round,
bell-shaped ones similar to those
found in supermarkets and (ii)
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N PAGE 3
from each group, but the most pop-
ular kind in my plant nursery is
overwhelmingly long and hot! I
also do get asked for pointy Thai-
type chillies, so I endeavour to
stock them in my nursery as well,
all going well in the plant-raising
process of course.
This year, I am excited to try the
variety Sweet Shishito for the first
time, which was kindly given to
me by Egmont Seeds.
Some of our chillies from summer As with capsicums, chillies benefit
from being grown in full sun,
long, pointy Italian-style ones. whether in the ground or in a con-
Both kinds are extremely versatile tainer. I personally have better
and can be enjoyed in a number of luck growing capsicums and chil-
ways. We enjoy eating capsicum lies in containers than in the
raw in salads and added to ome- ground, so I grow all of mine in 35
lettes. Capsicums can also be litre black plastic pots. This has
stuffed and eaten as a vegetarian the added advantage of freeing up
or non-vegetarian dish. We have a ground space for plants that need
favourite recipe for stuffed peppers the depth, such as potatoes or a
with quinoa, feta and herbs, which large area to crawl, like pumpkins
is delicious. and melons.
This year, I am excited to try a Chillies can be harvested green or
new bell-shaped you can wait for
variety called Sweet them to change
Classic from Eg- colour. In gen-
“The key point is that
mont Seeds. I’ll eral, red chillies
capsicums and chillies
also be growing a are hotter than
range of long Ital- both require heat to
green chillies!
ian varieties, in- germinate ”
Keep an eye on
cluding Palladio, a your plants and
yellow pepper from harvest chillies
Egmont Seeds, which I grew last regularly in order to encourage
year. further fruiting.
Remember that capsicums need You’ll find that your capsicum and
full sun in order to do well. They chilli plants will both benefit from
can be grown either in the ground an application of granular fertilis-
or large containers. You’ll find er (or slow release fertiliser if
that capsicums will start out green growing them in containers), as
and gradually change colour with well as liquid feeding them with a
lots of sunshine. The default col- soluble plant food once a week.
our is red, but as mentioned above,
it is also possible to find other col- It shouldn’t be necessary to stake
ours such as yellow, orange and plants. We find that our plants
purple. continue fruiting into late autumn,
so don’t be in a hurry to pull them
Chillies out when it starts getting cooler.
I tend to classify chillies into two
varieties, hot and sweet. From Have a great weekend
there, they can be grouped into
long or round. I try and grow some Happy gardening!