Earlier today, some further thoughts on climate change and gardening in summer in New Zealand came to me. As ideas come to me, I would like to continue my thread on this subject. So far, I have written the following posts on the subject of climate change and gardening in New Zealand, which you can read by following the links. If you live overseas and your summers are short with cool temperatures, you may find this information helpful, too.
Before I share some further tips, I just wanted to make the point that I don’t think that we can assume that next summer will be like this year. After all, in recent years we have had droughts that were so severe that the council imposed watering restrictions and a hose ban. The amount of rain we have had this summer in Auckland is not normal. It is usually very dry and we are lucky if it rains at all. But over the past five years or so, in our garden at least, I have noticed a trend towards summer starting later, temperatures being cooler and the summer season is shorter. It is very hard to predict the future unless you have a crystal ball. That’s why I think a middle ground approach might be prudent, which I have set out below. Taking a middle ground approach As I have mentioned before, In our garden, we had a lot of failures over summer, which included melons (which did not grow at all), cucumbers (there was perhaps too much rain), large tomatoes (they take a long time to ripen and there wasn’t a lot of sun) and exotic veggies such as snake beans, Malabar spinach, okra, chillies and eggplants (temperatures were not warm enough for them to grow and thrive). Some things did well though, including zucchini, dwarf beans and cherry tomatoes. When sowing seeds and purchasing plants in spring later this year, it is a good idea to plant a bit of everything just to be on the safe side. You never know, there might be a heat wave next year given how unpredictable the weather has been lately. That way, you won’t have wasted too much money and space in the garden. I was in this situation and so too were a lot of other gardeners, but that is only because we got used to a certain pattern in the climate and felt confident that we could grow certain things successfully as we had done in the past. Gone are those days, so perhaps we need to tentatively test the waters next summer. Grow brassicas in summer I would never normally consider growing brassicas such as cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli in summer because they tend to fare better in cooler conditions and the dreaded white butterfly is a problem when it’s warm. But if future summers are going to be anything like the one we had in Auckland this year, it may be worth considering instead of planting exotic veggies such as snake beans, okra, superhot chillies and eggplant, which need very hot temperatures in order to grow and crop successfully. There are even some brassica seed varieties that are suitable for growing in summer, such as Sprouting Summer Purple Broccoli and Summer Green Broccoli, both of which are available from Kings Seeds. There is also the Cauliflower All the Year Round, also available from Kings Seeds. To protect plants from the white butterfly, you can use a powder called derris dust. It is available as organic if you prefer to garden that way. If you don’t want to use any pesticides in your garden, you can always plant your seedlings in rows with tunnel hoops at the end and drape fine netting over. I have done this in the past with kale seedlings planted out in early autumn, when it was still warm. I used some old net curtain fabric and it was successful in preventing the white butterfly from laying eggs which turn into caterpillars which munch holes in the plants. Grow potatoes instead of kumara Kumara (sweet potato) needs a very long hot growing season in order to crop successfully. Because summer seems to start later every year, this delays when you can plant out slips (the name for kumara seedlings), meaning that they won’t have as long a time in the ground to grow and develop. You could consider growing potatoes instead of kumara as they don’t usually need as long a growing season in order to mature. They also don’t need as warm temperatures in order to crop well. I recommend planting seed potatoes in October and early November at the latest, while there is still usually rain and the soil is cool, which helps the plants to develop. If you leave it too late, it becomes too hot and dry and the plants won’t develop and form tubers. Grow rhubarb If there’s one thing that fared very successfully in the garden during our challenging summer, it is rhubarb. Last year, I planted some seedlings that I grew from seed and the plants are absolutely enormous now, despite very heavy rain and cyclones over the summer. Don’t forget that the leaves are poisonous, so don’t eat them. Rhubarb is very versatile. We enjoy having it stewed with a bit of artificial sweetener over yoghurt. You can also use rhubarb in baking. Rhubarb crumble is a favourite for many people. Below is a photo of one of our rhubarb plants. I trimmed the leaves because they were so enormous and were hanging over the area where I intend to plant some flower seedlings tomorrow.
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I don’t think I have written an introductory blog post before, so I thought it might be a good idea to share a bit about who I am and why I love gardening so much.
I used to be a lawyer but I developed schizophrenia in my early 30s, which changed my life. Prior to that, I worked for a large international law firm in London and Paris. I have since settled back home in Auckland, New Zealand. Unfortunately, my condition has made it impossible to continue working as a lawyer. It is very difficult to get a practising certificate from the law society with my condition, which is completely understandable given that it affects your memory and concentration. Something I started doing when I first became unwell is gardening, which I found to be excellent therapy. Working outdoors with nature simply made me feel so much better and took my mind off my problems. Over the past decade, I have developed a large edible and ornamental garden at my mother’s property. We have lots of fruit trees and I also grow vegetables and flowers. We have quite a few roses too. Over the past two years, I have gotten swept away by “dahlia mania” and now have a substantial collection of dahlia tubers. I spend a lot of time propagating my own seedlings from seed and raising them in my nursery. I have a greenhouse which helps a lot, especially in spring when it can be quite temperamental. Prior to the watering restrictions back when we had a drought and lockdowns, I used to sell veggie seedlings from home. More recently, I created a flower farm on our front lawn and started selling cut flowers on a small scale. Unfortunately, we had a lot of cyclones and floods over the summer which destroyed a lot of my flowers. For the past five years, I have written a free weekly newsletter filled with tips to help people learn the basics of gardening. I am also active on Facebook and Instagram. After a decade of gardening, I have decided to take a sabbatical this year so I can step back and think about where to from here as I have been feeling very disillusioned lately. Gardening in New Zealand is not quite what it used to be due to climate change and the growing number of pests and diseases which were not such an issue in the past. I have written blog posts on these subjects recently which you can read if you are interested. I still spend a couple of hours each day keeping the garden tidy. I also spend a bit of time developing my blog so I can share what I have learnt with others. Last year, New Zealand's largest mail order bulbs supplier Bulbs Direct (with whom I have a collaboration) kindly gave me a substantial discount on my spring bulbs order, enabling me to grow a whopping 49 different tulip varieties in winter. I have already featured the results of my tulip growing trial in a series of articles in my free weekly gardening newsletter, which is accessible on my website. I have held off writing a blog post until the new year, because I wanted the timing to coincide with the launch of Bulbs Direct's spring bulbs catalogue for 2023, when items are available for purchase and orders are being taken.
I will try my best to make this write up different to the articles in my newsletters because I don't want to simply reiterate what I have already written. For extensive coverage of all of the 49 varieties that I grew, including photos, I suggest that you refer to my newsletters if you are interested. The series starts with Volume 5, Issue 6 on 11 November 2022 and ends with Volume 5, Issue 14 on 6 January 2023. I planted all the tulip bulbs in mid-June, which is a bit later than normal. Usually I try to get all my spring bulbs into the ground by the end of May, but I was slightly delayed because the owner had Covid and had to self-isolate. He could only send out the bulbs after he had returned to work. It didn't actually matter (or indeed it was a good thing) because I think I had my best display of tulips ever last winter. The important thing was that the bulbs were pre-chilled, which Bulbs Direct kindly did for me free of charge. They will happily do that for other customers, too. Whether you need to chill your tulip bulbs prior to planting depends on where you live. As winters in Auckland are relatively mild, in order for them to flower well, tulip bulbs need to be chilled for around eight weeks prior to planting. If you don't do this, they will still probably flower, but the stems will be shorter. You can pop them in the veggie crisper section of the fridge, but it’s a good idea to pop an ethylene sachet in with them as any fruit and veggies stored in the fridge release a gas which may cause your bulbs not to flower. Because I had such a large order and planted over 600 tulips, they wouldn’t all fit in the fridge, which is why I was so grateful to Bulbs Direct for using their chiller and doing it for me. As bulbs contain all the essential nutrients in order to flower, all I did was add a little bulb fertiliser to the ground prior to planting. I used bulb baskets when planting my tulips. You don't have to do this, but it kept all the bulbs together, making it easier at the end of the season when I lifted them. In Auckland, tulips tend not to reflower that well the following season, so I treat them as an annual and purchase fresh bulbs every year. I have found that tulips can be planted quite close together. This means you can grow a lot of tulips even if you don’t have much space. Indeed they look much more dramatic and make more of an impact when planted close together when they flower. I was very careful with labelling all of the different varieties so I knew which was which when it came to cutting and photographing them. This proved to be a good idea as the single white varieties flowered around the same time and all looked the same to me. If you are keen on a continuous display of tulips, I suggest planting different varieties as they won’t all flower at the same time. Roughly speaking, tulips can be categorised into early, mid-season and late flowering varieties. Planting a mixture of single, peony and parrot varieties can further extend your growing season. Generally speaking, tulips are sold in a minimum quantity of five bulbs. You can usually also get them in lots of 25 and 100 from mail order bulbs suppliers. If you require different quantities, you could always try checking with the supplier to see if they can accommodate you. Some mail order suppliers might offer special discounts for flower farmers, who require larger quantities of the same variety to sell commercially at the flower auction or to wholesalers. What I grew in the trial Single flowering varieties White: White Dynasty, Snowboard, Clearwater, Antarctica, White Dream Red: Lalibella, London, Red Rover, Ile de France, Strong Love Yellow: Friendship, Balroyal Honey, Yellow Flight, Strong Gold, Golden Parade and Camargue Orange: Ad Rem, Orange Babies, Orange Juice, Temples Favourite Pink: Pink Impression, Dynasty, Piet Veerman, Carola, Anaconda, Grand Style, Purk Purple: Alibi, Cum Laude, Saigon, Heydar Eliyev The Princess varieties Pretty Princess, Princess Irene Bicolour single varieties Dow Jones, Leen Van Der Mark, Karlijn, Flaming Kiss Parrot varieties Irene Parrot, Mascotte Peony varieties (double flowering tulips) Double Price, Verona, Columbus, Flash Point, Wyndham, Menton Unique, Renown Unique, Ridgedale, Red Princess, Orange Princess I would really like to develop this into a series of blog posts and cover the different varieties I grew in more detail. It may be of interest to other gardeners in New Zealand and even overseas, as some of these varieties may be available there, too. At the moment, there is a shortage of fresh veggies at the supermarket in New Zealand and prices are ridiculously, unbelievably expensive due to the difficult summer we have had, which included cyclones and floods. It is very depressing and affects pretty much everyone, as most people include fresh veggies in their diet. While I was in the produce section of the supermarket last Friday doing some shopping, I noticed that the other shoppers looked incredibly unhappy and you can’t blame them for feeling that way. For example, new seasons pumpkins are $14. At this time of the year (the beginning of autumn in NZ), they should normally be $3 as they are usually ready for harvesting now. I have included a photo above as evidence incase anyone overseas is reading my blog and thinks I am making up a story. What is even more worrying than the price is the fact that there were only half a dozen pumpkins at the biggest supermarket in my area. I don’t know whereabouts in the country they were grown but I have harvested twice as much as that from our suburban plot in Auckland (where sections are usually smaller than other parts of the country) and there are still quite a few more pumpkins on the vines which are not quite ready to be harvested. Commercial growers have a lot more space than me, not to mention knowledge (some gardening businesses have been in the family for several generations), qualifications, technology and personnel. I almost didn’t sow pumpkins in spring because mum was against the idea and said that they are cheap enough but in this instance she was wrong and she is really glad that I did grow them. I don’t do a cost-benefit analysis of the garden because it’s just a hobby, but our entire harvest outweighs the cost of the seeds many times over, even though we didn’t have what I would consider a great crop this season either. The recent blog posts I have written on the subject of climate change (you can read them here and here), (along with the topic of pests and diseases in New Zealand, which probably became worse because of climate change) have by far been the most difficult and depressing ones to date but I can’t hide from these subjects as they are very topical and affect home gardeners and commercial growers alike. Instead of complaining about a problem, I like to try and think of something to do about it, which is more constructive and positive. I thought it might be helpful to write a blog post with some thoughts I have on gardening as we move into autumn and winter in New Zealand. I hope that my blog post might even help people in other countries too, depending on the climate and what you can grow there, because gardening principles are generally universal and we can learn a lot from one another. Autumn harvest If you are lucky enough to have an autumn harvest inspite of the worst summer I can recall in Auckland, make sure you look after it! We are still picking Cobra runner beans, so I haven’t removed those plants yet as part of my annual autumn clean up. Check pumpkins regularly to see if they have died off the vine and are ready for harvesting. If you leave them in the garden, you run the risk of rats and mice nibbling at them as they tend to come out at this time of the year as it gets cooler. It’s a good idea to wipe any pumpkins that you have harvested with a damp cloth before leaving them to dry and storing them in a cool, airy place. In the off-chance that you have surplus despite these less than ideal conditions, I highly recommend freezing or bottling it if you can. People often laugh at homesteaders for doing this as it is very time consuming and decent preserving jars are quite expensive in NZ whereas tinned goods are usually plentiful and cheap, but it isn’t funny anymore and is actually a really good idea. I don’t really look at the price of tinned and frozen veggies as we try to eat out of the garden as much as possible, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the price of that increases, too. Planting a garden for autumn and winter There is no better time to have a veggie garden but the problem is that the conditions are less than ideal. While it hasn’t rained in Auckland for awhile and we haven’t had a cyclone or flooding since Cyclone Gabrielle, I have noticed that temperatures are constantly fluctuating. Yesterday was an absolutely beautifully warm sunny day, whereas today is overcast, windy and freezing except for the early afternoon when it suddenly got really hot. This makes it hard to get tender seedlings established. You can imagine how much havoc another cyclone or flood would cause to young plants should that happen again. I had to think quite creatively to come up with some tips for veggie gardening in such challenging conditions. Raising seedlings Because temperatures are generally cooler than usual at this time of the year and they keep fluctuating, it’s a good idea to germinate and raise seedlings in a greenhouse, if you want to raise your own plants from seed. While plants purchased from the garden centre give you a head start, they have become really expensive and it is more economical to raise plants from seed, especially if you have a large garden. I haven’t been to the garden centre in awhile, but the last time I was there, there weren’t actually many seedlings because of all the cyclones and floods. I’m not sure if the situation has changed or if garden centres will order less in future because of the weather we had over summer. Because it’s not as warm as it usually is in March, I recommend placing any punnets containing seeds that you have sown inside a plastic crate (I use the brand Sistema) with a lid on it, so that it functions as a mini greenhouse within the greenhouse for extra warmth and protection. I did this to germinate flowers from seed back in December and January, with great success. Here is a picture of the stock, snapdragon and statice seedlings I raised using that technique. To be honest, I am not actually raising veggie seedlings myself, at least at this point in time because these seedlings need to be planted into the garden which will take up a lot of space. I can’t purchase plants from the garden centre either, because all our dahlias are still flowering and are taking up a lot of space. The foliage probably won’t die down until the end of autumn and I will lift and store them in late May or June, so it is too early to raise plants from seed for planting out then. What you can raise from seed or plant in the veggie garden now Here is a list of veggies that can be sown or planted now in most parts of New Zealand.
Container gardening Don’t forget that some veggies and varieties are suitable for growing in containers which is ideal if you’re short on space. The other advantage is that the soil temperature is usually a bit warmer than in the garden, so plants might have a better chance of survival. We enjoy growing lettuce in containers and harvesting the leaves as we need them. Here are some of our lettuce plants in plastic round bowls from spring. Growing undercover
If you are lucky enough to have a tunnel house, greenhouse or glass house, by all means use it! If you have space and are a keen gardener, or want to become a gardener, it is something worth looking into. You need not necessarily spend a fortune either. Today someone posted a photo of a glasshouse they had made very cheaply using recycled windows. If you have DIY skills, you might be able to do the same thing without spending much money or maybe even nothing at all if you are able to pick up bits and pieces for free. I have recently written a blog post about climate change which contains some ideas for gardening in cooler, shorter summers. I have some further thoughts on this subject which I’d like to share. While growing edibles in these conditions is admittedly more challenging, it can be done. Here are some concrete examples of things I have done in our own garden that have worked successfully over the past few years. Make the most of spring Depending on where you live, there’s a lot you can grow in spring, too so don’t worry if your summers aren’t that great. I always plant potatoes in September (the start of spring for us) and they are ready by November or December, depending on which variety I plant. My favourite early variety is called Liseta and matures in around 70-80 days. Unfortunately there were supply issues last year and it wasn’t available except through one supplier called Newton Seeds who had very limited stock available quite early, in April. I’m not sure if it will be available this year as it was such a bad summer that they might not have been able to propagate all of the varieties of seed potatoes successfully but if you’re keen on growing Liseta, keep an eye on their website. My favourite main variety is called Summer Delight and is in the Tui seed potato range, which is available at Mire 10 stores (a hardware chain in New Zealand) and through the mail order supplier Awapuni. You can plant brassicas (cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower) in spring for harvesting in early summer, which is a time when you’re typically planting seedlings and there aren’t a lot of things ready for harvesting. Mum read somewhere that if you leave broccoli in the ground after harvesting the main head, it will produce lots of side shoots which you can pick as they become ready. We did this last year and had lots of broccoli florets until mid-December, which is when our plants started going to seed. Broad beans also produce in spring, but they must be planted in autumn or winter so that the plants have enough time to grow, flower and produce beans. Laying down black plastic underneath pumpkins, squash and melons I could never grow melons successfully until I started laying black plastic underneath. I made holes in it to plant the seedlings. This idea was thanks to a gardener in Motueka that I met in a gardening group on Facebook and became good friends with. We have never met each other in person but still keep in touch. Kylie used to grow all different kinds of melons successfully and that was her secret (as well as hand pollinating the melons, which she taught me how to do to increase the yield). Since then, I have never looked back and even managed to grow 38 rockmelons in part of a garden bed on our front lawn in 2017. Unfortunately it has become impossible for me to grow melons anymore due to climate change, as our summers start a lot later and have become considerably cooler and shorter. But I do also use black plastic for planting pumpkins and squash, which was recommended to me by a gardener called Cynthia who lives in Foxton. She always had an incredibly impressive harvest and that was her secret, too. I started doing the same thing and even grew a whopping 75 pumpkins and squash in 2016, including 25 enormous Big Chief Butternuts. Unfortunately this seed variety is no longer available in New Zealand. I know using black plastic isn’t good for the soil, but you can’t win in every way. If gardeners are really serious about improving their yield in such challenging conditions, it is worth at least considering. Plant compact, quick maturing varieties Cooler temperatures generally mean that things will take longer to grow. It therefore makes sense to plant compact, quick maturing varieties which will be ready for harvesting before the season ends and it starts becoming cooler in autumn. As I mentioned in my previous blog post about climate change and gardening in cooler and shorter summers, cherry tomatoes are a good choice as the fruit is smaller and they ripen more quickly than large varieties such as beefsteak. I also highly recommend growing cherry tomatoes that can be grown in containers rather than in the ground, as the plants are more compact and will produce fruit more quickly. My favourite cherry tomato varieties suitable for growing in containers are Tumbling Tom Red, Tumbling Tom Yellow and Topsy Tom, all of which are available from Egmont Seeds in New Zealand. If you live overseas, check for a local supplier. In winter and spring, I like growing mini cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage as they are more compact than their regular sized counterparts. They take up a lot less space and mature much faster. Some varieties even mature in around 60 days from the time of transplant, which is really good considering that regular sized brassicas can take twice as long as that to become ready for harvesting. Because they are so compact, you can plant the seedlings closer together so you can fit more seedlings in the area you are using to plant them. Here is an example of how closely mini brassicas can be planted next to each other. These are Ranfurly Mini cabbages, which is a variety that is available from Egmont Seeds in New Zealand. Plant dwarf varieties
Dwarf veggies generally tend to mature and produce faster than their taller counterparts. I highly recommend growing dwarf beans because they are incredibly easy to grow and extremely productive. Unlike climbing beans, they don’t require support. My favourite variety is called Golden Yellow Butter, which is available from the Egmont Seeds Commercial catalogue in New Zealand. It is also possible to get dwarf broad beans, which are shorter plants that also crop more quickly and can even be grown in containers. I have grown the variety Robin Hood in the past with great success. Last summer I decided to have a go at breeding my own dahlias for the first time. I had been growing named varieties for two seasons and saved seeds from my plants towards the end of autumn last year.
The flowers were open pollinated by bees. I didn't cover them with organza bags and hand-pollinate them. The advantage of doing it that way is that you can choose just two varieties you want to cross and the organza bags prevent the bees from interfering with that and continuing to cross-pollinate from other plants. The way I did it is more of a lucky dip but the advantage is you might get something even more interesting! The other way you could do it is to plant the varieties that you want to cross next to each other but not use organza bags. Let the bees do their work and hope for the best! This year I let mother nature do its work but if I am able to save seeds from my dahlias this season (and that's a pretty big if because there has been so much rain in Auckland that I'm not sure if the pods will contain viable seeds as they ideally need to be very dry when harvested) I might use organza bags and hand-pollinate varieties I'm keen on crossing. It's a lot of work but I won't be doing an edible garden next season which frees up some of my time. After a decade of gardening so intensively, I'm having a sabbatical! I would love a bit more time to myself to spend on my other hobbies, namely the gym, swimming and running. I won't be downing tools entirely though as I want to keep the garden tidy, which is always challenging as it has expanded so much over the years. It also enables me to concentrate on just a couple of activities, namely the daffodils in winter and dahlias in summer. I might even try to breed daffodils, which another gardener once suggested to me. Gardening certainly isn't boring and there are always new ways you can challenge yourself once you have learnt the basics. As for these seedlings, towards the end of autumn I will be lifting the tubers and storing them carefully over winter. All going well (ie no rotting and gall), I will plant them in late spring. I need to grow these on for three years to allow the characteristics of the plant to stabilise. If they're keepers, then I will give them a name which will be very exciting! I wasn't going to keep all my dahlia seedlings in the breeding programme as there are many of them and it's a lot of work storing and caring for dahlias over winter plus I do have lots of named varieties as well but I don't have the heart to cull them at this stage. But in time I will have to be more ruthless otherwise I'm going to run out of space in the garden! |
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