3 gardening jobs for the weekend
Tips and tasks for the week ahead in the garden
BRING ON THE BRASSICAS
In warmer districts it’s not too late to sow kales, collard greens and other leafy brassicas. Most will start producing useable leaves within eight weeks.
For large-headed broccoli and caulis, seedlings are now a safer bet, but you might still get away with sowing the faster and more forgiving sprouting varieties.
Side-sprouting broccolis produce an initial small head, then lateral or side buds over weeks or even months. Anything that crops over an extended season represents good value.
Worth trying for similar reasons are cauli greens. Although technically a sprouting broccoli, this variety produces masses of small, white side shoots that look and taste like cauli, all rustically framed with scrappy sweet leaves.
Italian cooks have long favoured sidesprouting broccolis, as they’re generally crisper, sweeter and prettier on the plate. They are particularly good tossed through steaming hot orecchiette along with toasted pine nuts, pancetta, chilli and good black olives.
BE A FRIEND TO FUNGI
As autumn has progressed in all its damp glory, wild mushrooms of many kinds have appeared in our gardens.
A question often asked by those of a fungivoral disposition is: ‘‘Can I eat it?’’
The answer is almost always a resounding no, and even if it might be yes, you really shouldn’t. The number of edible mushrooms worldwide is but a drop in the ocean compared to those that are that are not.
A mushroom is a fruiting body and as such most fungi have quite a vested interest in protecting themselves. Having evolved side by side with hungry animals for millions of years a number have developed perfectly targeted chemical deterrents, many of the ultimate kind.
When ingested, even minuscule quantities of some very common species are enough to ruin your day and quite possibly your life – so take no chances.
Fungi of the kind that produce large fruiting bodies, however – the sort we call mushrooms and toadstools – do great work at breaking down organic matter, particularly wood in the form of fallen branches, stumps and dead tree roots. The buried root mass of a felled tree can sustain colonies of fungi for many years, even decades, all the while releasing nutrients back into the soil.
So while you should never eat any unknown mushrooms, don’t destroy them on site either. They play as vital a role in your garden as earthworms or honey bees and deserve the same degree
of respect and compassion.
PUT ASPARAGUS TO BED
Asparagus beds should now be yellowing-off and entering dormancy – especially if the frost or snow found them last week.
Some growers simply lay the tops flat over the rows and leave them to rot down until they mound-up the plants in preparation for spring.
Bringing in new soil or compost for mounding beds each year can be a laborious and expensive process. A far cheaper alternative is to lay down straw at least 30 centimetres deep. This will settle over the winter and, if applied now, can be sprinkled with a thin layer of soil or compost and used as a growing medium for winter lettuce.
Clear it out as soon as the first spears appear in spring. Asparagus is hungry stuff and in no way appreciates competition.
Information courtesy of Get Growing and NZ Gardener magazine. Sign up at getgrowing.co.nz for more hints, tips, recipes and fruit and vege growing advice.