Advice. Ideas.

Inspiration

Anita’s Garden
Volume 2, Issue 16 8 November 2019

Useful Links Editorial

Webpage
Welcome to the sixteenth issue of my Herbs
Blog
newsletter Anita’s Garden for 2019.
 Parsley (Italian and triple
Newsletter back issues curled)
I hope you have all had a good week.
Facebook  Coriander
In this week’s column, I thought I
Instagram would outline some of the plants that
you might want to put into your sum-  Chives
Twitter mer garden, to help make sure noth-
 Thyme
ing gets overlooked!
Linkedin
 Sage
Vegetables
Pinterest
 Rosemary
 Tomatoes
 Dill
 Capsicums
Contact me
 Oregano
 Chillies
 Feedback
 Marjoram
 Eggplants
 Newsletter input
Flowers
(tips, recipes, gar-  Zucchini
den photos etc)  Marigolds
 Cucumbers
 To be added to my  Pansies
mailing list  Pumpkins
 Violas
anitakundu.nz@gmail.com  Squash (including Kamo Kamo)
 Dahlias
 Beans (dwarf and climbing)
 Gladioli
 Okra
Inside this issue:
 Begonias (tuberous and bed-
 Melons (watermelon, rock mel-
ding)
on and honeydew)
 Sunflowers
P ot te r ing aro u nd 2  Potatoes
Anita’s Garden
 Zinnias
 Kumara
 Petunias
Top 5 gardening tasks 2  Beetroot
for the week  Wildflowers
 Carrots
 Gerberas
Making your garden a 2  Parsnips
cat haven  Geraniums
 Lettuce
 Impatiens
 Spring onions
How to grow cucumbers 3
I hope you enjoyed this week’s column.
 Strawberries
Anita Kundu
 Celeriac
PAGE 2
Pottering around Anita’s Garden
More broad beans!
Every second day, I harvest broad
beans and this is perhaps our best
crop yet! Look at how many beans
are in just one of our harvests!
Top 5 gardening tasks for the week
1. Plant tomatoes
Don’t worry about Labour Week-
end, it’s better to wait until No-
vember to put in your tomatoes,
when the weather’s more stable.
2. Plant zucchini
Now is the perfect time to plant
zucchini seedlings.
3. Plant cucumbers
Making your garden a cat haven
Many gardeners complain of what
a nuisance cats can be in the gar-
den. This column isn’t about how
to control cats’ activity because I
don’t have much experience in the
area. Our cat Ginger respects and
loves the garden. Honestly, she
thinks it’s all for her and I think
that’s what attracted her to our
property in the first instance.
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N
Planting tomatoes
Over Labour Weekend, Eleanor, a
wwoofer from Scotland, helped me
plant 35 tomatoes in our garden.
These were a mix of Russian Red,
Beefsteak, Grosse Lisse, Roma and
Sweet 100. Unfortunately, not all
survived and I found myself hav-
ing to put in replacements for the
ones that died with the wwoofer
who is currently staying with us. I
planted Red Cherry from Franchi
Seeds and Sweet Hearts, a grape
tomato from Egmont Seeds. Let’s
hope that the good weather contin-
ues, with some rain as forecasted,
so all our plantings get off to a
strong start.
More gardening activity
Over the past week, I have been
Plant cucumbers in your garden.
They love to climb so try growing
them up a trellis or an obelisk, like
I do. For tips on growing cucum-
bers, see page 3 of this newsletter.
4. Plant more lettuce
Put in some more lettuce plants.
We can’t get enough of this staple
salad green! As it’s getting warm-
er, it might pay to plant your let-
tuce in partial shade if you can, so
I thought I’d briefly mention three
plants you may want to put in
your garden for your cat.
Cat grass
Cats seek out cat grass to lie and
play in it. Sow seeds fairly thickly.
I sow ours in seed raising trays
and Ginger fits nicely inside.
Cat mint
V O LU M E 2 , I S S U E 1 6
busy with the following tasks:
 Potting up seedlings
 Planting lettuce in contain-
ers
 Lifting bulb baskets
 Digging over garden beds in
preparation of planting
 Planting gladioli
 Sowing sunflowers
 Sowing radishes in buckets
 Planting corn (it didn’t sur-
vive so I will have to replace
it)
 Planting bok choy
it doesn’t go limp in the heat.
5. Liquid feed your plants!
Continue to liquid feed your plants
with a soluble plant food or sea-
weed tonic every week, to encour-
age flowering and fruiting. This
includes fruit trees and berries. I
did this last year and really no-
ticed a difference to the volume
and quality of our fruit.
Some (but not all) cats love the
smell of cat mint. Ginger isn’t too
fussed by it. She prefers catnip
(see below). I do have some cat-
mint in a container and it seems to
overwinter.
Catnip
Cats go crazy over catnip. Ginger
enjoys sniffing and nibbling on it
and it makes her so happy!
 V O LU M E 2 , I S S U E 1 6
How to grow cucumbers
I don’t think a summer garden
would be complete without cucum-
bers. There are so many different
varieties available. Crisp and
juicy, cucumbers make a wonder-
ful addition to salads and sand-
wiches.
Growing cucumbers from seed
Cucumbers are easy to grow from
seed, so I normally start them this
way. However, if you’re pressed
for time or don’t want to start
them from seed, you can purchase
plants from the garden centre.
Awapuni is a great place to pur-
chase plants from, because they
deliver direct to your door, saving
you valuable time. At this time of
the year, it’s best to sow seeds un-
dercover as they’re a heat-loving
plant and if temperatures are too
low, seed won’t germinate. I rec-
ommend using a heat pad. With
one, you shouldn’t have any trou-
ble getting seed to germinate. I
like using egg cartons to raise
seeds in rather than plastic pun-
nets. Once plants develop two
leaves, I usually pot them into in-
dividual pots.
Varieties
As mentioned above, there are
many different varieties of cucum-
bers on the market—apple, tele-
graph, long green, short green and
Lebanese, to name a few. This
year, I’m excited to be growing a
range of cucumbers from Egmont
Seeds—Martini, Paska, Manny,
Iznik, Louisa, Bella and Tasty
Green. I can report that all of
these varieties have germinated
and grown really well and I just
have to plant them out in the gar-
den. Another variety I strongly
recommend is Beth Alpha from
Franchi Seeds (distributed by Ital-
ian Seeds Pronto), which I grew
successfully last season. It is a
beautiful long, smooth green cu-
cumber with a lovely taste. If
you’re short on space and growing
cucumbers in pots, I highly recom-
mend Snacker from Egmont Seeds.
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N
Homegrown cucumbers
I grew it last year in 35 litre buck-
ets with an obelisk, with great re-
sults.
Tips for growing cucumbers
 Cucumbers need full sun (at
least six hours per day)
 Prepare the ground well
beforehand. I like to mix in
lots of compost, sheep pel-
lets and fertiliser prior to
planting.
3. Before plant-
ing, I like to “Crisp
soak each cucumbers
plant, wheth- wonderful addition to
er raised
salads and sandwiches”
from seed or
purchased
from the gar-
den centre, in some Seasol
diluted in a bucket of water.
This minimizes transplant
shock and ensures that
plants get off to a strong
start
4. I like to add a scoop of toma-
to fertilizer to each plant’s
hole prior to planting. Did
you know that tomato ferti-
lizer can be used for so
much more than just toma-
toes? It’s suitable for any
flowering and fruiting
plant—zucchini, cucumbers,
pumpkins, squash, melons
and strawberries.
5. Water well at the time of
PAGE 3
planting and thereafter. Try not
to get too much water on the
leaves, which can be susceptible to
powdery mildew
6. Liquid feed weekly with a
water soluble plant food
such as Thrive or a seaweed
tonic like Seasol
7. Don’t plant your cucumbers
too early. I normally wait
until November. By then,
night time temperatures
have increased as it can still
be quite cool in the evenings
in October
8. Pick cucumbers as they be-
come ready to encourage
further flowering and fruit-
ing.
9. Cucumbers should keep for
around two weeks. If you
have excess, you could share
them with family, friends,
colleagues and neighbours.
Some ideas for
using cucum-
bers
and j ui c y ,
make a  Tzatziki
 Raita
 Club sand-
wiches with
cream cheese, cucumber and
dill
 Bottled (gherkins)
 Pickled
 Greek salad with tomatoes,
cucumber, red onion, feta
cheese and olives
 Sliced cucumber drizzled
with some vinegar
 Raw as a snack and in lunch
boxes (especially for mini
cucumbers)
Have a great weekend
Happy gardening!