November top & flop CROPS
Lynda Hallinan’s regular round-up of the best & worst seasonal performers in her Hunua country garden.
STRAWBERRIES:
Although rabbits have had another crack at my berry beds, I have managed to keep them at bay with physical barriers. I've used 30cm high strips of salvaged steel reinforcing (the stuff laid in concrete) wired into a basic frame with plastic bird netting draped over the top. When my strawberries have finished producing their first flush of fruit, I'll move the frames over my brassicas and replace the bird netting with insect mesh to stop white butterflies making a meal of my cabbages.
BRONZE FENNEL:
Why is it that the crops you least like to eat also happen to be the ones that are the easiest to grow? Take the giant clump of bronze fennel at the front of my herb garden (pictured above). The reason it's so lush and healthy is because I've never eaten so much as a sprig of it. (Why did I plant it, you may ask? That's a good question.) At least leafy fennel has other uses; once it bolts to seed in summer, its golden umbelliferous flowers provide fodder for beneficial insects and are fabulous fillers for floral bouquets.
CORIANDER:
If you've never saved your own herb seeds before, start with coriander. This pungent Asian herb is notorious for prematurely bolting, but instead of pulling the plants out, let the seeds mature while you sow a second crop elsewhere. The seeds are ready to harvest when they are brown, and you only need a dozen or so plants to collect a large jar of seed to use as a dried spice, whole or ground, or to re-sow.
TUSCAN KALE:
Warty-leafed Italian cavolo nero (above) is such a good looking vegetable that it's well worth tucking into flower borders too. Last summer I experimented with a casual mixed border of Tuscan kale, 'Blue Vein' hostas, globe artichokes, euphorbias, delphiniums and larkspurs. Come winter, everything bar the kale went dormant, at which point my free-range chooks spied it and attacked, stripping every kale leaf within reach. All the mop-topped plants now look quite ridiculous, like tufted Dr Seuss-styled topiaries, but I haven't the heart to either eat them or pull them out.
NECTARINES:
I'm calling it now. We had such a wet start to spring that the purple foliage on my 'Mabel' trees unfurled all blistered with leaf curl. I don't like to use copper sprays (and, to be frank, my stonefruit trees are so tall I couldn't spray them effectively even if I wanted to) so I am already willing to bet that I'll lose every fruit to brown rot this season. Again.
ROTTEN ONIONS:
Have you ever wondered exactly how long a decent crop of 'Pukekohe Longkeeper' will keep in storage? Let me tell you: 267 days. In January, I was chuffed to dig 19kg of onions from a 2m x 2m bed. That was the first time I've ever grown enough to fulfil my family's needs for soups, stews, stir-fries and spaghetti bolognaise. In fact, that was more than enough: in mid-October the last basketful went soft and rotted. We'll have to eat more French onion soup next winter!