In this series of posts, I will continue to explore common problems with raising seedlings and plants. In yesterday’s blog, I covered the topic of death. In this post, I am going to focus on damage, in particular the issues of breakage, pests and disease. I can’t cover everything, so I will focus on common problems in our garden. It’s best that I stick to writing about things that are within my experience.
Damage Seedlings and plants can be damaged in a number of ways, including:
In my next post, I will cover two final issues on this topic – poor crops and a complete failure to crop at all. Today’s photo is of my Loving Memory roses which are now flowering. I grew them from cuttings from our original standard rose. I dipped the cuttings in Yates Clonex rooting gel, which helped improve the strike rate. There is also a Margaret Merrill rose I grew from a cutting which is in bloom, too.
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Awhile ago, I posted a blog about problems which may arise when raising plants from seed. In this post, I’m going to discuss common problems with seedlings and plants, including disease, damage, death and failure to crop. I know this makes for a rather depressing read but by understanding what went wrong, hopefully you might be able to avoid making the same mistakes in future. I’ve had my own share of failures in the garden over the years. These things happen. It doesn’t necessarily make you a bad gardener, so don’t give up!
There is a lot of ground to cover, so in this post I will focus on death. Death
Today’s photo is of our two containers of Endive “Escarole” from Franchi Seeds. This is the first time that I have grown endive but I have eaten it when I lived in France. The lovely owner of Italian Seeds Pronto, Gillian Hurley-Gordon, included a free packet when I placed my last seed order. Admittedly it is bitter, but it’s very good for you! We have been adding it to salads with other leafy greens such as rocket, mesclun and cut-and-come again lettuce. In yesterday’s post, I explained how I started reflecting on ways that I could simplify our garden in future. It has become very large and while I am able to cope at the moment, I don’t take it for granted that it will always be this way.
Some strategies for making less work for yourself around the garden include:
Still want a big garden? Here are a couple of ideas:
Today’s photo is of some veggies I harvested this morning, including our first zucchini of the season! The varieties are Zephyr and Cocozelle from Kings Seeds. Do you ever feel like you’re in way over your head? As I once read in the NZ Gardener magazine, large gardens are lovely but they are a lot of work. Planning what you’re going to grow, ordering/purchasing gardening supplies, sowing seeds, raising seedlings, preparing the soil, planting, spraying, weeding, liquid feeding, harvesting and utilising produce all entail a great deal of work. When problems such as diseases and pests arise, even more time is required to conduct research and find a solution. I have a love/hate relationship with the garden and there are times when I really wish I had never dug up our front lawn. For now, I can manage. I am doing what I love and I love what I do. However, I’m very aware that circumstances can change. At the moment, our goal is to be self-sufficient, hence having created an urban homestead. But this might not always be the goal. If my health deteriorates, I may not be able to maintain such a big, productive garden. Getting help, either paid or voluntary through a scheme such as Wwoof may be an option, but in this post I’m going to explore strategies for coping on your own. Because there is a lot to cover, I’m going to divide this topic into two posts.
Before you do anything drastic like putting your garden all back into lawn, consider whether you simply need a break. I don’t mean a trip to Rarotonga, but rather a gardening holiday. A few years ago, a lovely lady called Louise Knight who I became acquainted with through veggie gardening groups on Facebook paid me a visit. Louise lives on a 10 acre block in Fielding and did exactly that one summer. She grew only very simple veggies, such as spinach. Louise got the idea from Rob Hammington, another seasoned gardener and friend of ours who lives in the Waikato. Both have been gardening for over 20 years and felt they needed time out to focus on other things. When they returned the following season, they had renewed their passion, energy and vision for the garden. At the time Louise dropped by, I wasn’t really at the same stage as her and Rob. Over the years, I got more and more hooked on gardening and the garden kept expanding. I know it’s sensible to not take on more than you can manage, but as I’ve said before, it’s very easy to get carried away when you become so passionate about something. In recent months, I’ve felt close to breaking point. I’m a perfectionist and have really high standards. But gardening (at least on a home scale rather than commercial operation) should be enjoyable, not something that makes you irritable or eventually pushes you over the edge. I’ve had a very productive winter garden, followed by a very busy spring caring for the existing garden (which keeps on producing) and preparing for the summer. To be honest, I feel quite burnt out and don’t want every year to be like this one. That’s why I have been giving this issue serious consideration. Sometimes a gardening holiday isn’t enough. If you really feel that you can’t cope anymore or would simply like more free time, you might need a permanent change. Here are three options for downsizing your garden:
In tomorrow’s post, I will explore some concrete ways that you can simplify your garden, even if you still want a big one. Today’s photo is of our rockmelon patch. Over the past few days, I have started planting seedlings, making holes for each plant in the black plastic I laid down to keep the soil nice and warm. Collette, I didn’t measure the area but estimate it is around 4 x 2 m. I’ll probably be able to fit around 70 melons in this space as I tend to put plants quite close to each other. I’ve still got two rows left, which I hope to get around to completing some time during the week. I’ll also keep an eye out for any weak or dead plants and replace them with stronger ones from my nursery. For this reason, it’s never a good idea to put all your plants out at once! In an earlier post, I raised the question of how does one know what to do around the garden and when, but couldn’t explore this additional issue in depth in the same post. I thought it might make a good topic for today’s post. You may be a complete newbie to gardening and don’t know where to start. This is perfectly fine. Don’t forget we were all beginners once upon a time! Once you’ve been gardening for awhile, you accumulate knowledge and start to know what you should be doing at different times of the year. But even if you’re a seasoned gardener, you sometimes need to double-check the timing of sowing or planting flowers, veggies and herbs. Or you might want to grow something new (this happened to me this spring when I sowed a variety of flowers from Egmont which I had never grown before and had to research them carefully).
Here is a list of helpful resources so you’ll always know what to grow and when for your climate:
Today’s photo is of some tomatoes in hanging baskets, which I potted up today. I purchased these plants on clearance from Bunnings. I intended to get a few more Tumbling Tom plants as I only have two that I raised from seed (Egmont). As I walked into the garden centre, a staff member walked by with two terracotta pots containing fruiting plants with basil marked down to $5 each! One pot contained two plants, the other contained three. These were at a much more advanced stage than the ones I had intended to purchase and a lot cheaper too. I also have two lovely containers which can be reused and some basil which we will have tomorrow with (store bought) tomatoes for dinner. Today, I started planting my rockmelon seedlings into the area where I decided to grow them this year. I usually start planting melons outdoors around the 2nd or 3rd week of November. By this time of the year, night time temperatures are usually above 10 degrees, at least in Auckland. Any cooler and the plants probably won’t survive. These are the steps I took, which include some things I did beforehand:
I’ll check on the plants over the weekend to see whether they survive. If they’re still alive, I’ll fill the remaining two rows with plants. I still have some spares in my nursery to replace any that I lose along the way. It always pays to have some back ups. I don’t like planting everything out at once incase I lose them all! If you would like to grow rockmelons this year but your own seedlings failed to germinate or grow successfully, it’s still not too late to head on down to your local garden centre and purchase some plants. I usually purchase some potted melons every year as a contingency incase my own ones don’t grow, but for the first time I haven’t had to do that. Having the greenhouse to keep my plants nice and snug while the weather was still temperamental definitely helped (thanks Uncle Tony for helping to construct it for us!). Today’s photo is of our prolific strawberry harvest. It’s like that every day, thanks to those plants from the commercial grower in Katikati. I think liquid feeding them every week with Yates Thrive Berry Liquid Fertiliser also helps. I’ll definitely be ordering more next year! I’ll post a picture of the rockmelons once they’ve had a chance to settle in a bit. Today has been another busy, productive day in the garden. It was beautiful and sunny. I had a very early start at 6.30 am, because I didn’t go to the gym this morning. I have the running race in the evening. I always finish at around 2 pm on Thursdays so I have enough time to shower, change and rest before taking the train into the city. I powered through the following tasks in 6 hours:
Today’s photo is of our Zephyr zucchini, which has started to develop fruit! Ever wondered where the day went? Feel that you never quite manage to get everything done? Time is so precious and it disappears so quickly. This feeling is natural in life, whether you’re a gardener or not. The good news is that with a bit of effort, there are ways that you can maximise your productivity outdoors:
I hope these tips are helpful. Today’s photo is of my Beretta Piacentina pumpkin seedling (Kings Seeds), which has started to creep! Today was another productive day in the garden. It was very sunny. I managed to get 6 hours of work done, including the following tasks:
· I sprayed the plants on my heat pad with water (I do this twice daily as it gets very dry during the day in this kind of weather) · I planted more cucumbers around the obelisks to replace the ones I planted a few days ago that didn’t survive. The varieties I popped in today were Beth Alpha from Franchi and Apple from Yates. I discovered Beth Alpha last year. It’s a beautiful long green cucumber with extremely tender skin that you can eat, a bit like a telegraph cucumber. The Apple variety from Yates is an old favourite that we grow year after year. The great thing about Apple cucumbers is that you can’t buy them at the supermarket, making them a useful thing to have in the garden · I continued to plant tomatoes in the patch that contains tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini. In the photo, you can see how this part of the garden is shaping up. Because I had cleared the dying calendula yesterday, I could get straight onto the job of putting in more plants. It can be a bit tedious but sometimes it’s good to prepare for the following day in advance. That way, you can use time more productively. Before I could get stuck in, I set up the work station for planting tomatoes that I described in my post over the weekend, which contains everything I need for the task. I followed Simone’s advice and removed a tomato plant put in awhile ago which looked diseased and replaced it with a new plant. The varieties I planted today were Moneymaker, Potentate, Beefsteak, Grosse Lisse and Roma. All of these plants were purchased as seedlings from Kings Plant Barn during their sale in August. I constantly potted and re-potted them in September and October, so they had gotten quite big by now and were ready to go out. I also inspected my tomato seedlings grown from seeds kindly given to me from Egmont. By far the strongest growers were “Big Beef” and “Dr Walters Special”. I had a tray each containing potted plants of these two varieties. I also have a few each of “Heirloom Marriage Big Brandy” and “Heirloom Marriage Genuwine”, as well as some “Heirloom Red Pear” tomatoes. I planted one each of these varieties today (except for Red Pear, as the plants are still quite small and I want them to grow a bit more first) and will continue to plant more tomorrow. I also need to spend a bit of time sorting out my exotic varieties (more on this later!) and making sure I plant at least one of each. A little tip – for strong healthy plants, try to plant either early in the morning or in the evening, avoiding the hottest part of the day. · While sifting through my tomato seedlings I found another “Tumbling Tom Red” from Egmont, which I planted into another hanging basket. I was very pleased about this. Now we have two tomato plants in hanging baskets. Last year, we had six and they cropped so prolifically that even if we didn’t have other tomato plants in the garden, we still would have had more than enough for our needs · I planted more butternuts into the area which I have dedicated to them, making holes in the black plastic as I went. The varieties I planted were Chieftain (Kings), Big Chief (Kings), Babynut (Kings) and the Yates butternut. Of the ones I planted a fortnight ago, one died so I put a new plant in its place. Some of the others had dead leaves which mum cut back for me just a few days ago, but they seem to have come back to life as there’s new growth on them. I left six seedlings in my nursery as replacements incase I lose more plants along the way. They are smaller plants anyway and need to grow a bit more before they can be planted outside · Hardening off melons and eggplants – by the end of the day, I decided to leave the biggest plants outside overnight as the next step in their life. If they survive, I will be able to start planting them outside soon. Perhaps this will be a task for next week. What did everyone else get up to today? Hope your gardens are progressing nicely. I had a productive long day in the garden today. It was another seven hour day for me. Although Metservice had predicted showers and drizzles in Auckland, it turned out to be a sunny day without any rain. I managed to power through the following tasks:
· Sowing more beans on the heat pad – because I had such bad luck with the beans I sowed both outdoors and inside on the heat pad a fortnight ago, I sowed yet another round of beans. For climbing beans, I sowed “Blue Lake Runner” (Kings Seeds), “Stringless Scarlet” (Yates), “Scarlet Runner” (Yates) and a variety of beans given to me by the Heritage Food Crops Research Trust. I also sowed some dwarf varieties – “Top Crop” (Yates), “”Roquefort Dwarf” (Kings Seeds) and “Dwarf French Hiscock” (Egmont Seeds). This time, I decided to sow them directly into the incubator trays, which I filled with seed raising mix, rather than using plastic punnets to place on the trays as the germination rate with the ones I had sown this way was so poor. I managed to raise my bean seedlings successfully last year using this method, after a suggestion from a man who lives down the road who does it this way. Like me, he was also struggling to get beans to grow and is a huge fan of raising them indoors first, because they always end up being munched by slugs and snails. It does mean that the trays will need a good cleaning at the end of it, but healthy bean seedlings are a small price to pay given how much I struggle to grow them. · Planting three punnets of spring onions – I sowed the variety “Tokyo Long White” (Kings Seeds) on 18th September and they have been ready to be planted out for some time. Since the ground was still damp in the morning, I thought it would be the perfect time. They went into the large patch shaded by our neighbour’s willow tree · Sowing some more leeks – The ”Winter Giant” leeks (Kings Seeds) that I sowed on the 11th and 18th of September are coming along nicely. I sowed some more of these, as well as “Musselburgh” (McGregors) and Lungo Della Riviera (Kings Seeds). My plan is to plant the ones sown in September by December and save the second lot for planting in late summer/early autumn · Removing a dead nasturtium – I pulled out an old nasturtium in the garden by the willow tree, because it was past its prime. I have plenty of new seedlings coming along. These varieties are “Empress of India” and “Peach Melba” (Kings Seeds) · Weeding – I pulled out some weeds in between the spring onion and leek seedlings in the garden by the willow tree. I also weeded the strawberry patch and the area by the camellia trees infront of our house · Spraying – I sprayed all 28 standard roses (plus the ones grown from cuttings) with Yates Super Shield, the tamarillo with Yates Mavrick and our celery seedlings with Yates Liquid Copper · Planting chillies and capsicums – I planted the following capsicums in 35 litre containers: Palladio (Egmont), Double Up (Egmont), Belle Combo (purchased as a seedling from Kings Plant Barn) and Mama Mia Gialla x2 (Kings Seeds). I also planted some chillies (Carolina Reaper and Indian Jawal). These seeds were given to me in seed swaps. · Clearing some dying calendula – I pulled out some calendula which was on the way out in our tomato patch, to make room for some more plants which I hope to put in tomorrow Yes, our garden waste has accumulated once again, so I’ll need to spend some time sorting it out in the coming days. New developments are as follows: · Our passionfruit vines have fruit (I noticed this awhile ago but forgot to mention it) · We picked our first raspberry today · Our boysenberry “Thornless Jewel” (Incredible Edibles) is fruiting. They are very sour! · Some of our zucchini have flowers (but not “Zephyr” which went straight on to fruit without flowering first, which is very strange) The photo is of our dinner. We had frittata (potato, asparagus and red pepper, Anabel Langbein’s recipe), guacamole (also Anabel Langbein’s recipe), coleslaw and potato salad. In preparing these dishes, mum used lots of fresh veggies from our garden. It was so yummy! |
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