Advice. Ideas.

Inspiration

Anita’s Garden
Volume 2, Issue 10 27 September 2019

Useful Links Editorial

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Welcome to the tenth issue of my
Blog
newsletter Anita’s Garden for 2019.
Newsletter back issues
I hope you have all had a good week.
Facebook
Daylight saving
Instagram
Daylight saving begins this Sunday
Twitter 29 September. Don’t forget to put
your clocks forward one hour on Sun-
Linkedin day morning.
Pinterest I’m so excited that daylight saving is
finally here, after what seemed like
an endless winter. Daylight saving
means longer days, which I think all
Contact me
gardeners will be grateful for. With
 Feedback extended daylight, there will be even
more time available to spend in the
 Newsletter input garden. During summer, I particular-
(tips, recipes, gar- ly appreciate the longer days as the
den photos etc) best time to water the garden is in the
early morning or evening.
 To be added to my
mailing list September checklist
anitakundu.nz@gmail.com There’s just a couple of days left in
September and that means just a lit-
tle bit of time to do tasks that are best
done this month. September is a busy
month for gardeners—perhaps the
Inside this issue:
busiest month of the year—and there
are some tasks that really ought to be
done this month. Here is a checklist
P ot te r ing aro u nd 2 of things to do for you to run through:
Anita’s Garden
 Sowing seeds undercover. It’s
not too late to sow tomatoes,
Top 5 gardening tasks 2 chillies, capsicums and egg-
for the week plants but don’t wait any long-
er. It’s a good idea to get start-
ed in August but it will just
Tips for growing corian- 2 mean that your crop is ready a
der
month later, in late summer/
early autumn
How to grow potatoes 3  Planting potatoes. For advice
on growing potatoes, see page 3
of my newsletter this week.
 Sowing parsnips. For a guide to
growing parsnips, see page 3 of
last week’s newsletter.
 Sowing carrots
 Sowing miners lettuce (sow
seeds directly where you want
them to grow)
 Sowing radish
 Sowing microgreens. If you wait
any longer, they will bolt to seed
very quickly as temperatures
increase
 Sowing coriander, parsley and
dill (remember to sow them di-
rect)
 Planting celeriac. It may be
necessary to spray it for rust
 Spraying fruit trees (including
passionfruit) with liquid copper
to prevent brown rot, leaf curl
and other fungal diseases. Liq-
uid copper is an organic spray
 Spraying roses with liquid cop-
per to prevent brown spot
 Spraying garlic for rust. I’m
going to continue spraying our
garlic right up until harvest be-
cause we have had very bad rust
these past few seasons
 Covering strawberries with net-
ting to keep birds out as berries
ripen
 Watering the garden. It has
been quite dry lately, so this has
become necessary
Thank you for your continued support.
Anita Kundu
PAGE 2
Pottering around Anita’s Garden
Potatoes
I harvested more potatoes—
Liseta, Heather and Jersey Benne,
each from a 1 kg bag of seed pota-
toes.
Top 5 gardening tasks for the week
1. Plant potatoes
It’s not too late to have homegrown
spuds on the Xmas table but don’t
delay. Seed potatoes at garden
centres have probably already
sprouted, meaning that you can
pop them straight into the ground.
2. Plant celeriac
It’s hard to grow from seed so pop
in a punnet from your local garden
Tips for growing coriander
 September is a good month
to sow coriander as the soil
is still cool and there is
some rainfall. It is much
more difficult for seed to
germinate when it’s dry.
 Coriander seeds have a hard
coating so soak them over-
night prior to sowing to aid
germination
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N
Planting more potatoes
I planted 29 Liseta seed potatoes.
Sowing parsnips
I sowed Hollow Crown seed tape
and traditional loose seeds from
Egmont Seeds. For advice on how
to grow parsnips, please see page 3
of last week’s newsletter.
Sowing more seeds
I sowed more vegetable seeds—
celery, silverbeet, spinach, leeks
and spring onions in punnets for
transplanting later on.
Sowing herbs
I sowed more herbs in our herb
patch —coriander, dill and parsley.
centre
3. Sow herbs
Dill, coriander, parsley and chives
can all be sown now.
4. Sow lettuce
This year I’m excited to be growing
a few varieties from Franchi, in-
cluding Rocket Coltivata, Degli
Ortolani, Romana Bionda
 Coriander hates being
transplanted, so always sow
seed direct.
 Alternatively, you can start
with plants from the garden
centre. For some reason, I
have never had issues with
growing these despite them
having to be transplanted
into the garden
V O LU M E 2 , I S S U E 1 0
Planting beetroot
I continued to plant beetroot seed-
lings into 35 litre pots containing
old recycled potting mix from our
capsicums and chillies last year.
The seedlings from Awapuni which
are planted in two containers are
looking really good.
Planting celeriac
I planted twelve celeriac seedlings
in the area next to our parsnips.
Strawberries
We harvested our first three
strawberries over the weekend.
Mum and I covered our strawberry
patch with netting to keep the
birds out and secured it to tunnel
hoops with pegs.
Lentissima a Montare and the
lamb’s lettuce varieties D' Olan-
da A Seme Grosso and Verte De
Cambrai.
5. Sow microgreens
Now is the perfect time to sow mi-
crogreens while there’s still some
rainfall. I sow ours in a foil roast-
ing tray purchased from the super-
market.
 Coriander bolts to seed easi-
ly in warm weather, so try
to grow it in partial shade if
possible.
 Water regularly, especially
as temperatures increase in
spring.
 At the end of the season,
you can save seeds from
your plants for next year.
 V O LU M E 2 , I S S U E 1 0
How to grow potatoes
For me, the summer garden
wouldn’t be complete without the
humble spud. Potatoes are easy to
grow and have a high yield for the
space that they occupy. They are a
staple in the kitchen and can be
used in many dishes. The trend
nowadays is to avoid carbs but I
don’t think I could ever do away
with potatoes, especially when
they’ve been grown in our garden.
They are low in fat and highly nu-
tritious. With the help of this
guide, hopefully you will feel in-
spired to add potatoes to your gar-
den, too.
Growing potatoes
Although you may see cute con-
tainers for planting potatoes in, as
a root crop they do tend to fare
better in the ground. However if
you are short on space or live in a
townhouse or apartment, by all
means don’t feel deterred to give
growing them in containers a go.
Things to bear in mind:
1. Always start with certified
seed potatoes. This helps to
ensure your crop will be dis-
ease free and the potatoes
will be true to type.
2. Chit your potatoes, that is,
put them in a dark place (I
spread mine out in trays
and leave them under the
bed) to develop sprouts.
3. Pick a sunny site. Potatoes
need at least six hours of
sun per day.
4. Prepare the soil well. Pota-
toes are gross feeders so
work loads of compost,
sheep pellets and potato
fertilizer into the soil prior
to planting
5. Dig trenches for planting
your potatoes in. If you
want, you can line the
trenches with comfrey
leaves, which is said to help
prevent the potato worm.
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N
Always start with seed potatoes
5. Be careful not to knock off
any sprouts as you lay the
seed potatoes sprouts facing
upwards, in the trenches.
Whatever you do, don’t cut
your potatoes up to try and
increase your stock as it
quite literally opens them
up to diseases.
6. Cover with dirt and water
well.
Varieties
Potatoes can be di-
vided into two cate- “Potatoes are easy to
gories—early and grow and have a high
main crops. Early yield for the space that
potatoes are typical- they occupy”
ly ready between 60
to 90 days and are
waxy in texture.
They are best boiled and eaten
soon. They don’t store well as they
have soft skins. Examples of early
potatoes include Swift, Rocket,
Jersey Benne, Heather, Cliffs Kid-
ney, Marais Anchor, Llam Hardy,
Nadine and Liseta.
Main crop potatoes are usually
ready between 100 and 150 days
and are floury in texture. They
are best eaten baked or roasted
and store better than early varie-
ties. If you want to store your
main crop potatoes, wait until the
tops have died down before har-
vesting them. Examples of main
crop varieties include Agria, Rua,
Summer Delight and Moonlight.
PAGE 3
Tips for growing potatoes
1. Water your crop regularly.
2. Keep on top of weeds. Al-
ways weed by hand to avoid
damaging any potatoes.
Take care not to damage the
tops of the potatoes.
3. After they have surfaced,
sprinkle a little more potato
fertiliser around the plants.
4. So far, I haven’t encoun-
tered any diseases or prob-
lems with growing potatoes
therefore I haven’t had to
spray them. If you are wor-
ried about the TPP (Tomato
Potato Psyllid) do what I do
and grow your spuds in
spring so you avoid the heat
of summer. I always get my
spuds in the ground on the
shortest day and harvest
them around Labour Week-
end. This frees up space for
other crops,
5. It’s a good
idea to rotate the
area where you
grow potatoes to
avoid the build
up of diseases in
the soil. Don’t
plant tomatoes in
the area where
you grew potatoes to avoid
diseases.
How to prepare potatoes
Potatoes can be enjoyed in many
ways. We enjoy new early pota-
toes boiled with a bit of mint and
butter or in potato salad. For our
main crop, we enjoy roasting them
and eating them along with other
veggies in a roasted vegetable sal-
ad or as potato wedges to accompa-
ny homemade hamburgers. You
can also use them to make chips.
Have a great weekend
Happy gardening!