Vegetables

In warmer districts, where no more frosts are expected, runner and butter beans can be sown. In most gardens, it is better to delay growing these tender vegetables outdoors and to get seed started under cover. This is also true of sweet corn and outdoor tomatoes.

From the time they germinate, runner beans, such as Scarlet Runner, take 90 days to mature, while dwarf or butter beans will produce crops in 60 days. The latter are generally recommended for smaller gardens, but a few runner beans can be grown anywhere they can climb.

If sowing them in their permanent position, put runner bean seeds about 5cm apart around a bean teepee or against the netting or trellis they are to climb.

Pinching out the tips to make bushier plants is a waste of effort, as it reduces the crop. Like climbing types, butter bean seeds should be set 5cm apart, with 60cm between rows.

Plant out cabbages, cauliflower, lettuces, parsley and silverbeet, and check that autumnsown broad beans have adequate support.

Sow spinach and orach where they are to mature. Orach (Atriplex hortensis), or red mountain spinach, is a lowgrowing, purpleleaved vegetable, cooked like spinach.

Sow white turnips, spring onions and quickmaturing mini beetroot, such as Bonny Baby. Small beetroot plants can be transplanted to fill gaps.

Maincrop beetroot can be sown next month.

Turnips and beetroot should not be grown in soil where traces of animal manure remain, as this causes the roots to fork. Maincrop potatoes Rua, Moonlight, Red Rascal (the improved form of Desiree), Red King, Heather, Iwa and Agria, for example, can be planted now in areas that experience hot summers. In cooler districts, wait until next month.