KEEP SOWING SPRING ONIONS

Spring onions are such an easy crop to grow and tend to do well for much of the year so it makes sense to plant or sow seeds regularly. A bunch of five spring onions in the shops will set you back around $3, yet a packet of seed for the same price will give you 600.

To grow your own, sow seeds direct in rows or blocks in a sunny spot, cover with soil, firm down gently and water in lightly using the fine mist setting on your hose.

Seeds will germinate in around 10 days and can be thinned to 2cm apart to give them space to spread out. If you miss this step (and I admit I often do), it just means you will be harvesting slightly thinner onions in bunches rather than pulling out big, fat individual plants. Either way, the taste is the same. Harvest before they flower as they can become a bit woody and keep well watered. Heat-stressed spring onion plants are highly susceptible to aphid infestations.

GROW RHUBARB AND FEED YOUR EXISTING PLANTS

While there may be some plants that thrive without any added fertiliser, rhubarb isn’t one of them and in my experience, it will take everything you can give.

Like asparagus, rhubarb is a longterm food crop and will go on providing stalks for many years once it gets established. Looking after it well in the first couple of years will ensure the crowns below are strong enough to allow for plentiful picking.

I’ve been growing rhubarb in two very large planters for a few years after scoring a few crowns from my mum’s 50-year-old redstemmed variety when she was dividing them and they’ve been happy in their new home here in Auckland. I keep mine well fed with regular applications of sheep pellets, fertiliser and castings and worm tea from my worm farm and keep the crowns mulched in summer (but not covering them completely in order to avoid rot).

Rhubarb is best planted during the cooler months of spring and autumn as it can struggle to establish in the heat of summer. If you don’t have access to crowns, your local garden centre will usually have single plants for sale or order a bundle of four plants online from www.Awapuni.co.nz.

Choose a sunny spot with welldrained, fertile soil, plant crowns 3-5cm deep and give them plenty of space to spread out. Rhubarb is a very large plant so it’s best given its own patch to grow in or at the very least, placed at the back of your garden so it’s out of the way.

Resist the urge to harvest any stalks during that first year. To pick, gently pull and twist the outer stalks rather than cutting or snapping them off which can lead to fungal problems.

SOW GREEN CROPS INTO EMPTY BEDS

If you’re pulling out spent summer crops with no plans to replant, it’s a good idea to sow green crops to help replenish the soil. Vegetable gardening is incredibly intensive and many nutrients are lost during the cycle of planting and harvesting during the spring and summer months. Green crops are a great source of organic matter and sown in late