Harvest your own peastraw

These glorious NZ Gardener sweet peas, left, flowered for months but I’m not sad that they’ve finally done their dash because I have plans for the shrivelled, dry stalks.

Once pulled from their frame, I put them through the shredder and use them as mulch. If you don’t have a shredder, it’s easy enough to roughly chop up the stalks with hedge clippers.

I leave the roots of sweet peas, edible peas and broad beans with their nitrogenfixing nodules in the ground to break down naturally and release nutrients back into the soil.

Also on the shredding pile are tall salvia stems, trailing rosemary and Six Hills Giant nepeta, which smell wonderful as they’re munched up.

A Moneymaker tomato and Blue

Lake runner beans have replaced the sweet peas on the frame.

PROTECT YOUR PEEPERS

When you are slip, slop, slapping before a gardening session in the sun, remember to put on sunglasses, too. Ultraviolet (UV) light is as damaging to the eyes as it is to the skin.

Too much exposure to UV can cause cataracts to develop much more quickly and there is also a possible link to age-related macular degeneration. Close-fitting, wrap around styles give your eyes the most protection from stray UV rays.

Reading or sunglasses give some protection from random twigs and do help remind you to avoid rubbing your eyes with dirty hands or gloves but use strengthened safety glasses for protection from flying debris when using power tools – mowers, shredders, hedge trimmers, weed eaters and so on.

In really dusty conditions or when dealing with plants with toxic sap (euphorbia, anthurium, oleander, poinsettia etc), protective goggles are even better.

Garden stakes are another hazard.

It’s really easy to impale yourself on a hidden plant prop when you’re reaching for a recalcitrant weed or an almost out-ofreach tomato.

Stake toppers can be as basic or as decorative as you like. Even an empty aluminium can upended on top of a metal or bamboo stake will do the job. Old tennis balls do the trick too. You can even turn them into cute bumble bees with the help of black pipe cleaners, stiff mesh and some googly eyes.

I prefer my toppers to be pretty as well as practical. I use ceramic eggs, and upturned terracotta pots.

FEED & WATER TOMATOES, STRAWBERRIES

Once tomatoes and strawberries start flowering, switch from using a generalpurpose fertiliser to one that is potassiumrich.

General-purpose fertilisers are high in nitrogen, which is great for getting fruiting plants off to a good start and for salad greens, but can result in lots of leafy growth at the expense of fruit, so use either a liquid or granular fertiliser for fruit and flowers, or feed all your fruiting crops – strawberries, beans, chillies, cucumbers, pumpkins, and so on – with a tomato-specific fertiliser.

Consistent watering is key with tomatoes. Aim to water them deeply a couple of times a week and every day or two if they’re in pots.

Water strawberries every couple of days, while the fruit is developing, then when you see the first hint of red, pull back on the watering to encourage firm, sweet fruit.

TICKLE YOUR POTATOES

Whether you call it bandicooting or tickling, looking for new potatoes is as exciting as a treasure hunt.

An old gardening rule of thumb was that potatoes were ready when the plants flowered and the foliage died down completely.

This doesn’t apply to all varieties, especially fast-maturing earlies which often don’t flower at all. The aptly named Rocket takes only 70 days from planting to harvest.

Other earlies take only 80–90 days to mature so those planted in August or

GET GROWING

This column is adapted from the weekly e-zine, get growing, from New Zealand Gardener magazine. For gardening advice delivered to your inbox every Friday, sign up for Get Growing at: getgrowing.co.nz

September will be ready soon.

If you’re not sure whether yours are ready, gently poke your fingers into the soil around the edge of a plant to see if there’s something for dinner.

New potatoes have fine skin that rubs off easily. They don’t store well and are best eaten as soon as possible.

Steam with a handful of fresh mint and serve with lashings of butter.