Editorial

Jo McCarroll’s three cardinal rules for vegetable growing.

L“There is no spot of ground, however arid, bare or ugly, that cannot be tamed into such a state as may give an impression of beauty and delight.” – Gertrude Jekyll

ater this month we will publish the second in a series of special editions which we are putting out to mark NZ Gardener’s 75th year in print. NZ Gardener’s How to Grow Veges is a collection of the very best advice on growing edible crops, curated from our extensive archives.

Some of the advice within that archive has, I would be the first to admit, dated rather badly. So we no longer recommend Jasminum polyanthum as a marvellous do-er under New Zealand conditions, or suggest you employ DDT to control white butterflies. But as I have mentioned previously (when we released the first special edition in this series, NZ Gardener’s How to Grow Flowers, back in May) there is also much advice that remains completely practical and useful to a gardener today. So I decided to distil the advice of yesteryear into three key pieces of wisdom which I say you would do well to heed in the here and now if you want to harvest bumper crops from your own plot.

1. Don’t try and fight nature.

Specifically grow what suits the climate and condition in which you live and don’t sow or plant anything too early. In 1973, a NZ Gardener writer gave this very wise piece of advice. “Perhaps one of the commonest misjudgments in growing vegetables is to plant or sow too early in the season. It is very easy to be misled by a day or so of fine mild weather in late winter, but the soil will still be cold and winter itself may well return.” I say that myself (at least!) twice a year in this very magazine!

It is always tempting to rush into the garden at the first sign of spring but heat-loving crops planted while the nights and the soil are still cold will shiver and sulk, and quickly be overtaken but ones planted under more optimal conditions. You will always – always! – get the best results in the garden by working with nature rather than against it.

2. Preventing pests and diseases is easier than trying to cure them. As regular readers will already know, I am a great believer in this maxim. Using techniques such as physical barriers and crop rotation to prevent pests or diseases getting a foothold at your place and keeping plants as healthy and robust as possible so they are less vulnerable to any that happen to show up is easier (by far) than treating a disease or getting on top of a pest population. And that is a point made, again and again, in NZ Gardener’s back issues when gardeners in the 1940s, 50s and 60s were using cloches or nets to keep pests off crops, using crop rotation to stop diseases building up in their soil and lavishing care on their edible gardens in the sure knowledge that a healthy plant is the best defence. 3. Soil is the foundation of success in the vegetable garden.

In another issue from nearly 50 years ago, a writer pointed out that vegetables required a well-drained, deep, fertile soil. “This is one of the least appreciated factors in home gardening and is vital for successful vegetable cultivation. New Zealand has a very mixed assortment of soil conditions and most section holders have to accept the situation as they find it.” Effectively you get the soil you are given, but every soil can be improved and time spent on your soil is never wasted.

So there you have it. The three basic tenets of successful vegetable gardening. But there’s a bit more in the special edition itself of course. If you want a copy yourself, it will be on sale on November 18 for $15.90 – look on the magazine stand at your supermarket or newsagent; or you can buy it before that date on mags4gifts.co.nz for the special pre-order price of $11.90.

Have a great November in the garden everyone!