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 some plants we have grown in our garden that are thought to originate from Africa. Watermelon Years ago, I used to be able to grow watermelons (and other types of melons) successfully in our garden in Auckland. Sadly, this is no longer possible due to climate change as our summers start later every year, are shorter and temperatures are considerably cooler than in previous years. Here is a picture of a watermelon which I grew three years ago. It is a variety called Charleston Grey and was grown from seed. Okra We love okra and enjoy growing it every summer. Like snake beans, I plant okra in late December and it usually crops in late autumn (April and May for us). I have experimented and discovered that okra performs better when planted in containers. I use 9 litre black square pots filled with potting mix. Okra is self-pollinating and does not require help from bees. The plants produce a beautiful flower in the hibiscus family, which turns into an okra pod. Once plants start forming flowers, I recommend keeping an eye on them regularly so you can pick okra as soon as they are fully developed. If left on the plant for too long, they become quite tough to eat and are not very nice. Broad beans We enjoy growing broad beans in spring. They are incredibly easy to grow, delicious to eat and the plants are good for fixing nitrogen in the soil. We shell and freeze surplus broad beans. I recommend blanching them first for best results. Tropical impatiens I grew tropical impatiens from seed for the first time last spring. I sowed the seeds in a punnet filled with some seed raising mix and covered them with some more mixture lightly. I propagated them on my heat pad as temperatures can be quite cool in spring, especially at night. Once the plants had germinated, I moved them into our greenhouse to grow a bit more before potting them up into six cell punnets. Once they had outgrown them, I potted each plant into an individual 10cm plastic pot and left them in our patio to grow. In late summer, I potted each plant into a larger pot. As it started to get cooler towards the end of autumn, I moved the plants into our greenhouse as tropical impatiens are sensitive to the cold and I didn’t want to risk losing the plants, especially as I had put so much effort into caring for them. Here is a picture of the fourteen plants that originated from a packet containing approximately 20 seeds. The variety is called New Guinea Divine Mix and is available from Egmont Seeds in New Zealand. If you live overseas, check your local mail order seed suppliers to see if they have this variety.
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