Vege patch to-do list
This month’s moon calendar, and edible crops to sow and tend now.
• I am going to plant a lockdown tree.
As I write this, the country is under level 2 restrictions, but by the time you read this, it‘s possible we might be about to put the levels behind us once and for all. When that happens, I think I will plant a tree. Planting a tree is a great way to mark something – the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, or, in this case, the shared experience we have been through. As regular readers know,
I love preserving so I am going to plant a ‘Seville‘ orange. Too bitter to eat raw, it makes the most sublime marmalade. And in years to come that tree should grow and produce fruit and I will be able to pick that and share it with my fellow marmalade makers, and preserve it myself and possibly post about it on Instagram. But the tree will also be a reminder – not only of what we have been through, but what we are capable of. Bareroot deciduous fruit trees (plums, peaches, apples, pears, apricots and quinces) should be available at your garden centre now. Bareroot trees are cheaper, and much easier to transport and plant. But you don’t want to leave them without much soil around the roots for long, so plant as soon as possible after you get them home or heel them into a bed or border somewhere while you decide on their permanent home. Remember, put the work in when you plant a tree. Prepare the ground, dig the hole deep enough, get the site right.
It will pay off in spades (joke!) over the years to come. Anyone else plan to plant a living lockdown memorial? Let me know on mailbox@nzgardener.co.nz. I’d love to hear about it.
• Show the fruit trees you have love.
In the excitement of planting something new, don‘t neglect the fruit trees you have in already. Cover subtropical and tropical fruits such as citrus, passionfruit, avocados and bananas with frost cloth overnight on the nights when frost is likely. With smaller trees, bang a few stakes around the tree to make a frame and throw the cloth over that – you want the tree to be entirely covered, but you don‘t want the frost cloth to touch the leaves. The frost cloth should touch the ground, and ideally weigh it down at the bottom to keep the warm air around the tree. Fertilise fruit trees in spring and summer, and keep watering them if the winter is dry, especially citrus in pots.
• It’s pretty cold and wet out there.
But there‘s still a few things you can sow and grow in the edible garden this month. Peas and broad beans will germinate in very cold soil, and you can start trays of lettuce, rocket, silverbeet, spinach, kailan, bok choy, tat soi, wong bok and choy sum. Keep them undercover in your tunnelhouse ideally in the south, but they should all germinate outside in warmer parts of the country if you keep them in a sheltered spot. You can shift the seedlings into the garden when they are established enough to survive the winter conditions or, if you live in a very cold place, just pot on into a containers so you can keep growing them undercover. In warmer parts you could chance a few rows of radishes, carrots, swedes and turnips now, and you can plant asparagus and onion seedlings. Jo McCarroll