February top & flop CROPS

Lynda Hallinan’s regular report card on the best and worst seasonal harvests from her Hunua garden

GARLIC:

In late breaking news, I successfully swerved the summer plague of garlic rust spores. (“Late breaking” because I dug my garlic before Christmas but am only reporting it now, as publishing deadlines wait for no crop).

Of all the veges I grow, garlic is the one I value the most. I don’t like buying – let alone eating – imported garlic, so it’s a job well done if I can grow enough of my own.

That hasn’t happened for a few years, however, due to allium rust. This fungal disease, which shows up as spots and streaks of orange, strikes the foliage badly, making the leaves stop photosynthesising properly. This tends to happen early in the season, while the bulbs are still small, and causes them to stop swelling up.

Planting early seems to be the only effective organic way to avoid allium rust, so instead of waiting – as tradition dictates – until the shortest day in June, I planted my garlic very early, in April. The results speak for themselves: big, fat, rust-free bulbs. ‘TUMBLING TOMS’:

In late winter I potted up a pair of dwarf ‘Tumbling Tom’ tomato seedlings and grew them indoors on our north-facing stableblock windowsill. When they started flowering in November, I transplanted them into a garden bed so bees could pollinate them, and by the start of December I had trusses of ripe cherry tomatoes to pick, by far the earliest crop I’ve ever pulled off. I should have left them in pots though, as this hanging basket variety basically grows flat on the ground and looks ridiculous.

NASTURTIUMS:

As someone with little athletic ability, the only joy I got from school cross country races was sucking nectar out of the nasturtiums that grew wild on the roads we ran along. I’ve had a soft spot for them ever since.

I know many gardeners consider these sprawling groundcover plants a bit weedy, but there are well-behaved varieties and all look (and taste) good spilling over retaining walls or trailing out of the corners of raised beds. The baby leaves add a peppery bite to green salads; the flowers are edible and look lovely steeped in bottles of herbal vinegar; and of course the pods can be pickled as “poor man’s capers”.

My favourite nasturtiums for many years were the velvet red types (‘Top Flowering Mahogany’ and ‘Black Velvet‘ from Kings Seeds, and ‘Alaska Raspberrry‘ from Egmont Seeds). But I’ve also come to fancy the two-toned splotchy sorts like ‘Peach Melba’ (Kings Seeds) and, my new favourite, ‘Orchid Cream’ (Egmont Seeds). ‘Orchid Cream’, pictured above, emerges cream with a bold red throat but as the petals age, they blush red all over. It’s quite delightful.

So why are nasturtiums starring in my flop crops column? Because every time I’ve nipped off an ‘Orchid Cream’ nectar spur to sip its juice, I’ve ended up with a mouthful of ants! They love them as much as me.

LETTUCE:

Does anyone eat all the lettuce they grow? Does anyone eat half their lettuces? A quarter? I swear at least 80 per cent of mine bolts to seed in summer before we eat it.