Weather whiplash
I hope everyone had a lovely long weekend (if they got one). I was recovering from the flu, which was actually great because I left the house every time it was sunny and scarpered back in whenever the rain came back, a good routine.
The hail on Wednesday obliterated my tomatoes, as did a single snail (because they are quite small). One of the things I try to do is cover my bases, so I don’t put my seedlings all in the same place, usually in 2-4 places. So my peas, beetroot, curcubits are all happy but my tomatoes and flowers were battered. I am going to give in and buy a few from Bunnings, which is annoying because I was excited about the varieties I had planted, but more seeds will go in as well.
Remember that unless you want to be inundated with produce briefly and then not again, it is better to plant successionally- that is, plant a little bit every 2 weeks or so right up until Christmas. This will mean that your plants will mature at different times, so they will all be producing food over a longer period. Don’t you love living in the southern hemisphere, where everything is jammed into the first and last few months of the year!
I also got my first harvest of Broad beans, I am pleased as punch.
What I'm obsessing over this week
In the paid section, we are covering soils in some depth, so I have been thinking hard about what to recommend people add to soils in terms of organic matter. We always say ‘add seaweed’ and things like that, but it’s a bit different when you are standing there with a big dry bag of seaweed and wondering what to do next.
This page, The NPK Value of Everything, has been around for longer than I have, and it is now searchable, but what I preferred was the old days when it was an enormous chart/list.
The one consistent thing I can recommend is not to put in too much carbon on the top layer- it’s something we are all very tempted to do, because it is the primary part of most mulch. It attracts slugs and snails like you would not believe. People who I have seen show great success here have always added some nitrogen at the same time.
A hard and fast rule to work out if something is more carbon or nitrogen (aka ‘the browns (carbon) and greens (nitrogen)’) is to think about it successfully staying wet and a little bit in the sun for a weekend. If it would smell bad, it has more nitrogen than carbon. Try to add equal amounts of both to your compost heap, probably at the same time- I recommend leaving a bag of leaves beside the compost so you can empty it in alongside your food scraps.
Seaweed- yes, it’s really weird to put on, but just drape it around your plants. If you don’t add much in the way of solid bits to your garden, I would remove every single tiny stone! and then run over it with the lawn mower a bunch of times. But it is fine the way it is- I personally think that it will take a good 12 months before it breaks down, unless it is touching dirt and able to moisten up, so I mulch on top of it or just put it in a huge bucket with some water to make tea.
There are lots of ways to add nutrients to your garden, and it can be pretty fun. Just keep an eye on what you are throwing away in the way of biodegradable stuff and think about what would happen if you throw it on the garden. If it will attract rats or smell bad, put it in the compost instead. But if it will happily break down on its own it may be a good additive.
What staff learnt about this week
Our weekly focus was mowing extremely overgrown lawns. We’ve had some doozies lately and they take a soft touch! The first tactic is to rough it up with the weedeater so that it is no higher than about ankle height, and then a lot- a LOT- of going over and over with the lawn mower. Lawn mower on the highest setting, and then reduce to the middle setting. Taking it any lower will leave massive bald patches- although there will probably be a few anyway. Then return the next week and mow it again, because it will bounce back HARD.
Highlights: I edged a lawn properly (not just with a weedeater, which is what we usually do- it stops it from getting as bad as the one pictured)- and it looked fantastic.
The trick to these is jump on them till they go down- then kick them downward and across, pretty hard, if you are removing a lot of dirt. Get angry! If the edger goes off piste, just stomp down on the gappy bit once you are done and the dirt will refill the gap.
Lowlights: I think that anything is tolerable until you hit lots of rubbish in a lawn. Two this week have been belly-button high- something I had not actually seen before. And we found a whole tribe of rabbits living in one.
Previous lawn person gave up, about 6 weeks ago- you can see where they put down the mower eh!
Some garden tasks for this week
What are we planting? Well, now you can plant (plants that you put in once, for the full growing season in NZ)-
Beans
Capsicums and all peppers
Pumpkin
Plants you can plant successionally, so don’t put them all in, but put some in every few weeks till Christmas-
Tomatoes
Carrots
Lettuces and all leafy greens
Last chance to get in some coriander, before it gets too hot
Zucchini and cucumber
Basil and all herbs
Coriander and brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, for example) seem to bolt (go to seed, stop growing the way you’d like) if they have a substantial change in temperature during their lifetime. Coriander also doesn’t seem to be fond of growing in Summer, unless it is just left to self sow freely for generations. Honestly, I would just keep throwing seeds everywhere and seeing where it chooses to live- and then not weeding it out, just let it continuously grow.
For this reason I don’t like planting brassicas until late November, when the weather has calmed down and they can live their entire lives in roughly the same temperature. (I also don’t plant them until late Autumn at the other end, so they don’t go in the ground in the warm and then deal with the cold).
As I mentioned above, leave some gaps in your garden so you can sow successionally.
I would also recommend going through your seed packs and throwing any that are getting too old, out onto the garden somewhere. They will have expiry dates!
Let me know what you’re growing and how you get on!