Keep on top of spring
Tips and tasks for the week ahead in the garden.
Watch that rhubarb
Keep watch on your rhubarb. By now, it’ll have thrown out its leaves and they’ll be expanding at speed as the gnarly roots below haul nutrients from the ground and combine them with their own reserves to make the elephantine leaves that rhubarb is recognised for.
Check plants, with an eye for the thickened stems that will carry rhubarb flowers and seeds, if you let them. Don’t.
Rhubarb is desired for its leaf stems and those are best crunchy and sweet. Letting rhubarb go to flower will toughen and reduce those sought-after stems and exhaust your plants. Snap them off when you see them, and watch for replacements over the following days.
Try dropping those flower stems back around the base of the plant to return the minerals and nutrients that went into their construction to the plant.
A side-dressing of weathered animal manure fertiliser helps rhubarb plants to grow luscious and succulent stems, as will generous dousings of liquid seaweed.
Watch those cuttings
If you’re the kind of gardener who multiplies their wealth by taking cuttings from favourite plants during autumn and winter, now is the time to attend to their needs and guard against the disappointment that comes from cuttings that have become dried out.
Spring can be very dry, depending on where you are in New Zealand, and for those who in the arid zones, inattention at this time of the year could lead to catastrophe.
It’s touch and go if your delicate new roots are confined to a small container filled with potting mix, and most plants do not recover well from desiccation.
Water frequently and thoroughly; some potting mixes appear to be saturated, on the surface at least, but remain dry past the depth of 2cm. I always check that the water has permeated right to the bottom of the mix, though that’s not always easy to do. Lifting the pot and looking helps. Guessing sometimes fails.
The advantage with cuttings taken during the winter is that, as hardwood or semi-hardwood slips, they have no leaves, or only a few, so misting is unnecessary. Softwood cuttings, on the other hand, with their fresh and delicate leaves, require an atmosphere of moisture to prevent wilting and failure.
When the cuttings you’re nurturing have struck roots and have a good bunch of leaves to service those roots, you can begin to add a liquid feed to their menu. These new plants will thrive on the nutrients supplied by teas made from comfrey or seaweed, provided they are not delivered too strongly. Weak is safest.
Bolting kale
The kale that grew through winter will be bolting now, stretching skyward and producing their pretty yellow flowers.
If you don’t want kale seed to re-sow later in the year, pull up your lengthening plants and consign them to the compost heap or feed your hens, which love those flowers with a passion.
Seed savers, though, should leave enough plants to ensure a good volume of seeds for the next season and take care to protect them from the wind, being knocked over, or lost to weeds.
There are plenty of beneficial insects too that flourish thanks to flowers from veges such as kale that have been left to continue their cycles, rather than being cut for the sake of neatness.