Weekend gardener
Edibles Ornamentals Books of the week
Sow courgette and pumpkin seeds in trays under cover but hold off planting them and tomatoes, aubergines and peppers for at least another fortnight in all but the warmest districts – till the ground dries up and warms a little, air temperatures lift, and the weather is a bit more settled.
In the meantime, make sure the beds are ready for them by ensuring they are clear of weeds and mix in plenty of organic matter, preferably compost or sheep pellets. Pile it on top if you’re a fan of the no-dig method of gardening.
Tomatoes like a sunny spot with good airflow – to help combat fungal diseases that can beset them.
Courgettes, aubergines, peppers and pumpkins are also sun lovers, while generally, leafy crops will cope with a bit of shade.
Each year garden centres and farmer’s markets and the like seem to stock more and more varieties – an almost overwhelming choice, and it pays to have a rough idea of your preferences.
Failing that, buy several different types.
Netting might be needed over strawberries to stop birds picking off the fruit as it ripens. A firm hand pruning fuchsias will encourage an abundance of blooms.
Prune flowering shrubs and trees once flowering is finished.
Remove dead flowers from tulips to stop them setting seed – it can take up to 30 per cent of the bulb’s energy – which could be better employed growing the bulb and its offsets.
As they reproduce readily and reliably from seed, the likes of sparaxis, freesia and muscari (sailor boys) should be removed. Rather allow them to naturalise.
All bulbs’ leaves should not be removed for at least eight weeks after flowering as bulb regeneration is through photosynthesis through the leaves. Generally, when the leaves go yellow it is okay to remove them. However, this is only done for appearances, it serves no other purpose than to make the garden look tidier.
Feed spring-flowering bulbs with a liquid fertiliser, or mulch around them with compost.
Lightly rake lawns to remove old plant debris and alleviate the stifling effects of thatching. Half Wild by Pip Smith (Allen and Unwin) $33
I don’t look at the blurbs of books I’m reviewing until after I’ve finished reading them, because I want the book to unfold with only the information the author wants me to have. For Half Wild, this was a good decision; and I recommend this strategy. But it leaves me with the problem of how not to give the game away.
So let me try this: Half Wild is Australian author Pip Smith’s first novel. It is set in Australia and Aotearoa a century or so ago, and contains some seriously excellent writing: ‘‘She’d look at you with her eyes all misted over, as if someone was having a bath inside her head.’’
Tally Ho, known to her parents as Nina, is a young Kiwi-Italian tomboy in Wellington in the late 19th century. She skips school to run wild with her friends, rebelling against the gendered expectations of girls: ‘‘Everything was tiny and breakable, because being a lady was about not breaking things, and the winner was the person who couldn’t break the tiniest thing.’’
Smith is also a poet, bookseller, songwriter, and actor; and you can feel these roles in her writing. She poses and then evades questions of what ‘really’ happened and who people ‘really’ are: ‘‘ ‘the truth’ was a room with the blinds down and the lights out. You could only see if you pulled the blinds up… but then… It would become something else entirely.’’
At around the halfway mark my interest began to wane as the story wandered too far away from the main characters. But its central conceit – which I’m tying myself in knots to not spoil here – is strong enough, and Smith’s writing is consistently skilful that the reader’s effort is rewarded.
– Elizabeth Heritage Junk Food Japan: Addictive Food from Kurobuta by Scott Hallsworth (Bloomsbury) $53 When Hallsworth’s first Kurobuta pop-up came to my native London it quickly became my favourite post-payday haunt for its instantly recognisable, authentic Japanese comfort food with a bold, brazen twist. Here the Australian chef continues to showcase his encyclopaedic knowledge of the cuisine and penchant for bending the rules. A classic curry calls for ribs instead of poultry; the humble chicken katsu is extravagantly topped with an umami-overloaded French butter; raw tuna meets truffle oil and tortilla in his famous sashimi pizza.
Everything about this book is passionate, playful and intense. Laugh-out-loud anecdotes and educational facts headline each recipe (often accompanied with a liberal sprinkling of the f-word).
However, this book demands commitment. Many recipes are quite time-consuming and require a certain degree of skill. Be ready to make a lot of condiments and remember that getting hold of exotic ingredients might prove tricky. But, for adventurous Japanese fusion aficionados, it’s totally worth it. – Janan Jay