Advice. Ideas.

Inspiration

Anita’s Garden
Volume 3, Issue 33 5 March 2021

Useful Links Editorial

Webpage

Blog Welcome to the thirty-third issue of  Corn—Judging by the brown on

my newsletter for Volume 3. the kernels, our plants were at-
Newsletter back issues tacked by a pest or disease
I hope you are all well, especially in
Facebook light of the recent Level 3 Lockdown  Okra—My plants died in our
in Auckland as of Sunday and the greenhouse after I potted them
Instagram
move to Level 2 for other parts of the up into individual pots.
Twitter country. It would seem that we are
 Eggplants and chillies—Ours
not quite out of the woods yet.
Linkedin have not been very productive
It’s officially autumn! I can’t believe this year but I think it’s largely
Pinterest summer is over. As mentioned in my because I was so late in planting
article on page 3, now is the perfect them out due to being so busy in
time to take stock of your summer spring.
Contact me garden and make a note of what was
I’ve put together a task list for March
successful and what wasn’t. Here’s
on page 3. Here’s what I’ve been doing
 Feedback my own list.
around the garden lately.
 Newsletter input Successes
 Harvesting pumpkins, squash
(tips, recipes, gar-
 Spaghetti squash—Normally and melons
den photos etc)
this is a dismal failure and I’m
lucky to get just one from the  Sowing carrots in 35 litre con-
 To be added to my
many plants I sow, but this tainers (after removing the capsi-
mailing list
year we harvested 25 spaghetti cums which were previously in
anitakundu.nz@gmail.com squash from our vines! them). I reuse the potting mix
and add a little blood and bone
 Fruit—the orchard was posi- and superphosphate fertiliser to
tively pumping out fruit this help the formation of strong
season! We have had a splen- roots.
Inside this issue:
did supply of fruit, including
berries (strawberries, blueber-  Potting up seedlings for autumn
ries, raspberries, boysenberries and winter into seedling trays for
2 and blackberries), peaches, ap- planting out later on
P ot te r ing aro u nd
Anita’s Garden ples, passionfruit, figs, guavas  Planting out seedlings for au-
and feijoas. I think liquid feed-
tumn and winter
ing weekly helped immensely.
Top 5 gardening tasks 2 Useful links
for the week Failures
 Italian Seeds Pronto
 Rockmelon—I planted our seed-
News 2 lings very late, just after the  Awapuni
longest day, when the straw-
berry plants finished producing  Bulbs Direct
and came out. I think it was
March in the garden 3 too late. Next time I’ll plant Kind regards,
them in late November/early Anita Kundu
December.
PAGE 2
Pottering around Anita’s Garden
We’ve been enjoying so many dif-
ferent fruits from our garden late-
ly —feijoas, guavas, peaches and
passionfruit. Here’s a picture of a
fruit platter that we have been
having lately after dinner.
The peach is a delicious dwarf
white-fleshed variety called Rose
Chiffon which we planted in con-
tainers.
Top 5 gardening tasks for the week
1. Harvest melons
If you planted your melons back in
November and December, chances
are that they are ripe now, so
check to see if they’re ready to be
harvested.
2. Harvest pumpkins and
squash
Most pumpkins and squash plant-
ed in October should be ready for
News
I’m so excited that Italian Seeds
Pronto have brought back carrots
to their range! Choose from Nan-
tese di Chioggia (a mid-early deep
orange variety), Parisier Market (a
small round French carrot that I
have successfully grown in pots in
the past), Chantenay (a medium
sized, stubby, bright orange carrot)
and Jaune du Doubs (a lovely yel-
low carrot)
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N
We harvested our first watermelon
of the season earlier in the week
and it was delicious! I raised all
my plants from seed and planted
them out on 10 December. I was
ultra-cautious not to put them out
too early as the weather can still
be very temperamental in late
spring.
harvesting as well.
3. Plant celery
Now that it’s a bit cooler, you can
plant out celery seedlings. Spray
them with liquid copper every 7-14
days to help prevent rust.
4. Order spring bulbs
If you haven’t already done so,
place your order for spring bulbs
Bulbs Direct have a lovely selec-
tion of anemones for this spring.
My favourites are Blue Poppy and
The Bride, which I plant every
year without fail. They looked
lovely in bouquets of spring flow-
ers last season. If you’re after dou-
ble-flowering anemones, you can’t
beat St Brigid Mixed, at just $18
for 100 corms. This is guaranteed
to give you a beautiful display.
V O LU M E 3 , I S S U E 3 3
Most days we have been harvest-
ing a trug full of feijoas. We plant-
ed our trees around four years ago.
We have the following varieties—
Unique (a little bit older, maybe 5
years old), Wiki Tu (not fruiting
yet as it’s a late variety), Kaiteri,
Kakariki and Golden Goose
(maybe just two years old and
which I picked up from the clear-
ance plants stand at Bunnings for
just $1).
now to avoid missing out on popu-
lar varieties. You can’t beat Bulbs
Direct for their huge range, high
quality and friendly and efficient
service.
5. Sow coriander
Coriander is a herb that does well
in cooler temperatures. It’s best
sown direct to the ground or you
can grow it in containers.
If you’re thinking of doing a large
planting of native trees, Awapuni
have just the thing for you! Get
100 natives for $490 + freight. Get
50 natives for $260 + freight.
Choose from Ake Ake, Cabbage
Tree, Carex Green Grass, Kanuka,
Manuka and the Native Combo.
Coming soon at Awapuni—
pansies.
 V O LU M E 3 , I S S U E 3 3
March in the garden
Sumer is officially over and au-
tumn has finally descended upon
us. Now is a good time to take
stock of the summer garden and
make a note of what went well and
what didn’t. List varieties that
performed well and which you
would like to see in the garden
again. On the same token, note
those that performed poorly and
are not worth growing again.
Here’s a list of tasks to do around
the garden this month.
Harvest melons, squash and
pumpkins
To avoid rot, Awapuni recom-
mends cleaning pumpkins and
drying carefully. Make sure you
store them in a safe place as ro-
dents love to nibble on them!
Label dahlias
Make sure you label your dahlias
so you know what variety they are
when you lift them at the end of
autumn. I use flagging tape with
marker pen noting the variety and
tie it around the base of the dahlia,
so it stays with the tuber when it
is lifted.
Plant jonquils
Now is the perfect time to plant
erlicheer and other jonquils. I like
to use bulb baskets to plant my
bulbs in. It makes it easier to find
them when you lift them at the
end of the season and avoids them
from being damaged in the pro-
cess.
Plant autumn and winter seed-
lings
Now is the perfect time to plant
your autumn and winter garden.
Sow and plant beetroot, broad
beans, broccoli, cabbage (Chinese,
red and green), carrots, cauliflow-
er, celery, fennel, kohlrabi, kale,
lettuce, meslcun, pak choi, pars-
nips, radish, rocket, silverbeet and
spinach. You can sow coriander,
dill, and parsley direct now.
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N
Sow peas in punnets
Peas are best sown direct in April
(and spring) but if you struggle to
grow them this way, you can sow
them in punnets for transplanting
next month. I’m going to do a bit
of both to cover myself.
Feed banana trees
If your banana tree is anything
like ours, it will be throwing out
flowers. To encourage the develop-
ment of further flowers and the
growth of fruit, feed with a granu-
lar fertiliser and a water soluble
plant food formulated specifically
for citrus and fruit trees.
Plant tamarillos, passionfruit
and rhubarb
Now that it’s a bit cooler, now is a
good time to put in any new
plants. Make sure you stake ta-
marillo plants at the time of plant-
ing to avoid damaging the roots
later on. While they may be small
now, they do grow quite large!
Save seeds from your plants
A neighbour once
told me that he al- “Sumer is officially over
lowed one plant and autumn has finally
from each of his descended upon us. Now
crops to go to seed, is a good time to take stock
from which he of the summer garden and
would diligently make a note of what went
save seeds at the well and what didn’t”
end of the season.
If you’re wanting to
save seeds from your sunflowers,
pop a paper bag or pillowcase over
them to prevent the birds from
eating them. Allow seeds to dry
thoroughly before labelling and
storing them.
Preserve and freeze excess
fruit
Don’t let surplus fruit go to waste.
After you’ve shared excess with
family, friends and neighbours,
you may want to spend some time
preserving some for use during the
cooler months. We have been busy
freezing feijoa pulp for using in
PAGE 3
green smoothies.
Set aside seed garlic for plant-
ing
Save the best and biggest cloves
from your homegrown garlic stock
for replanting from April-June.
Prune passionfruit vines
Now that they have finished fruit-
ing, now is a good time to prune
your passionfruit vines.
Order spring bulbs
For a dazzling display of flowers in
late winter and spring, order some
spring bulbs. I highly recommend
the mail order company Bulbs Di-
rect, who I have been purchasing
bulbs from for many years now. In
particular, their range of tulips is
incredible and I was very happy
with mine last season.
Recycle plastic plant labels
If your garden is anything like
mine, as you remove all your sum-
mer veggies you’ll find that you
are left with a lot of plastic plant
labels. Don’t
throw them
away! They can
be wiped clean
with some Jif (I
tried many
household clean-
ers and this was
the best one) for
reusing next sea-
son.
Remove spent summer bedding
annuals
By now your display of marigolds
is probably past its best. Remove
them and pop in some fresh annu-
als for winter. My top choices are
pansies and viola. Awapuni have
a great range. They already have
a few viola on their website and
pansies will be following soon.
Have a good weekend
Happy gardening!