I have recently started reflecting on where plants in our garden are originally from, because people often ask me the same question about myself. Most of our flowers, fruits, veggies and herbs in the garden are from other countries. I have started writing a series of blog posts to explore some of our favourite flowers and edibles we have grown over the years which are from overseas. In this post, I would like to cover plants we have grown in our garden that originate from North America. Sunflowers Every summer, I look forward to growing sunflowers in our garden. When I first started gardening a decade ago, I grew the very tall ornamental branching varieties which attract bees and help to pollinate veggies. In the past few years, I have become increasingly interested in flower farming, so I started growing sunflowers which are bred for the cut flower industry. These flowers produce only a single stem with one head. They are also pollenless. Usually, varieties suitable for picking tend to be hybrids. If you save seeds from your plants, they might not necessarily come true to type. The seeds also tend to be a lot more expensive than ornamental sunflowers. You can usually pick up a packet of these seeds for a few dollars from garden centres. Here are some cutting varieties I grew last summer. Rudbeckia Two years ago, I discovered rudbeckia, which are a rather charming flower in the same family as sunflowers. I purchased a packet of seeds on special from a large NZ mail order supplier called Kings Seeds. Every month, they have discounted seeds on their website, reduced by 40%. At $2.37 for a packet of seeds, I felt that I didn’t have anything to lose by giving it a try. I scattered the seeds in some punnets filled with seed raising mix and covered them with a light layer of the same product. I did this in mid-December. I left the seeds to germinate inside our greenhouse, but placed the punnets inside a plastic Sistema crate. I left the crate open during the day but covered it with a lid at night for extra warmth, as it can still be quite temperamental even at the start of summer. I kept the punnets moist by spraying them with the hose on the mist setting. Once the seedlings germinated and grew a bit, I moved them into our patio to grow a bit more before transplanting them into seedling trays, which you can see in the picture below. Once the plants were large enough, I planted them in plastic troughs outside once our marigolds finished flowering. By that time, it was late summer and the plants flowered in autumn. Blueberries When I set up our mini orchard in 2017, I planted quite a few different blueberry varieties in large containers. Prior to that, when I first started gardening, I did pick up a couple of blueberry plants on clearance at the garden centre and planted them in the ground, but they ended up dying. My theory is that the soil was too alkaline for their liking. Blueberries thrive in acidic soil. There are certainly things you can do to change the soil conditions where they are planted, such as adding pine needles. But this is of course an on-going task as any matter added to the ground will gradually decompose and fresh material will need to be added. For that reason, I wanted an alternative. In the past, Mitre 10 (a NZ hardware store with a garden centre) held a garden club evening around October. On one occasion, a sales rep from Tui, a large gardening company which makes a range of products, attended and gave a talk. He said that blueberries can be grown in containers filled with an acidic mixture called Pot Power, which is made by Tui. After having a chat to him after his talk, I decided to plant our blueberries this way and they have all done really well. The plants are much smaller and less productive than if grown in the ground under the right conditions, but are well-suited to an urban homestead like ours, where space is limited and the soil conditions are not naturally ideal. Pumpkins Every summer, I enjoy growing pumpkins. Here is a picture of the pumpkin Atlantic Giant, which I grew one year. It is an ornamental pumpkin that is used for entering pumpkin growing competitions. They are not as common here as in the US, which is a shame because I think they are fun and a great thing for young people to get involved in. There are so many temptations for youth, including recreational drugs and binge drinking, which aren’t good for your health. Pumpkin growing competitions are an example of good, wholesome fun that the whole family can be involved in. Contests bring together all the growers as part of a community, which is also nice. Modern society can be very individualistic. People can sometimes feel a bit isolated and lonely. I have recently written a blog post containing some tips for growing pumpkins, which you can read here.
Miners lettuce Every spring, I sow miners lettuce. As the name suggests, it was consumed by miners to prevent scurvy. It has a lovely flavour. You can pick the leaves as they become ready. As the weather warms up towards the beginning of summer, the plants start going to seed.
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It has been a shamelessly long time since I have written a blog post and I thought it was about time I resurrected the blog section of my website. Apart from the three month hiatus when my laptop was being repaired during the last lockdown, I have been very diligent at writing my weekly gardening newsletter. I really think that this would benefit from being supplemented by extra gardening tips and news about what is happening at Anita’s Garden. I will try to include the link to my recent blog posts in my newsletter, so readers can stay up to date. It feels like summer is over. Our Naked Ladies have started flowering, which for me is a sign that we have moved into autumn. It has been an interesting season with a mix of successes and failures. I would like to share them with you. Successes
Failures
Over the past week, I’ve been busy planting berries in the garden, in anticipation of summer when I hope we’ll be picking bright, juicy berries loaded with vitamin C and antioxidants. With a bit of planning, it is possible to harvest berries from November right through until April in Auckland. Considering the amount of room they require to grow and their potential yield, berries are a good fruit to grow in the garden and children just love them!
For the sake of completeness, I should begin by mentioning the blueberry plants that I planted in large containers in May. I planted the following varieties: Blue Magic, Blue Dawn, Sapphire Blue, Blast, Burst, Tasty Blue, Powder Blue and Climax. Blueberries grow perfectly happily in the ground but thrive in acidic soil. Unfortunately our soil tends to be on the alkaline side and I’ve never had any luck in growing them successfully in the ground, hence trying to grow them in containers this time around. I have been advised that the key to success is to use a good quality potting mix that contains peat. I used Tui Pot Power which is sold in 40L bags in garden centres and hardware stores in New Zealand. I used a range of spare containers I had, ranging from plastic pots to half wine barrels, approximately 30-40L in size. Since Pot Power contains long-lasting nutrients, it was not necessary for me to add an additional fertiliser to the berries. Just ensure that the containers you use have drainage holes at the bottom, to prevent them from becoming waterlogged over the winter months when it can rain constantly. I planted about 40 strawberry plants over the past week. The varieties were Camerosa and Pajero. The amazing thing is that I didn’t have to purchase a single one. Last spring, I bought 18 healthy runners from a top quality local garden centre and over the course of the summer, they multiplied prolifically. Each plant sent out what is known as ‘runners’, which stem from the parent plant and put down roots, becoming a plant in their own right. Once they are anchored down sufficiently into soil then you can snip and separate them from the parent plant. I happened to pot mine up so that I had room to plant other things in the garden over winter, with the intention of planting out the new runners in May. Unfortunately I fell behind schedule, as you can see from the fact that I only got around to doing this task in August. However it’s not too late – but get them in quickly though. Last year I only planted the store bought runners in August, yet we had a prolific supply for Christmas, which is when they are typically enjoyed in summer desserts such as the pavlova. At the time of planting strawberries, be sure to mix in plenty of compost and sheep pellets, as well as a little slow release fertiliser to aid their growth (I used tomato fertiliser which is fine to use with strawberries as both contain potassium which is essential to their flowering and eventual fruiting). I also planted a variety of brambles to extend our berry season, which typically starts with strawberries at the beginning of November and is followed by blueberries in the new year. Brambles include raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries and hybridberries. I decided to plant one of each in the garden. I planted a Raspberry called ‘Aspiring’, a Blackberry called ‘Black Satin’, a Boysenberry called ‘Starlight’ and a Hybridberry called ‘Thornless Jewel’. At the time of planting, be sure to add compost, sheep pellets and a fertiliser to kick-start their growth. I used a 2-year slow release fertiliser called Kings 24 Plus which comes from my local garden centre. Don't forget to cover your delicious berries with netting to protect them from birds who can't resist the sight of juicy, bright berries. Beware blackbirds in particular, who are always drawn to my strawberry patch! While some gardeners who plant berries are keen jam makers or rely on berries heavily in baking items such as muffins, we prefer to enjoy our berries fresh with a little ice-cream or yoghurt; either ordinary yoghurt or for a delectable treat, a dollop of coconut yoghurt. |
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