What to do in the garden this week Check your gumboots
Lift, divide and replant lilies
In my garden, three lily bulbs planted more than 10 years ago have multiplied with abandon. Sunshine yellow lilies pop up in trails through the garden beds because every time I lift and replant them in a new spot some scales flake off and are left behind to grow and flower in a couple of years.
Lilies can be planted any time from May to November. As lily bulbs don’t have protective layers of skin that other bulbs do (think of onions and garlic) it is important they never dry out as they’ll lose vigour quickly if this happens. Lily bulbs are sold in a bag of sawdust to keep them moist. Plant them promptly so they don’t dry out.
Plant about 10cm deep in welldrained, humus-rich soil in full sunshine. Good drainage is important and mulching with compost will help keep them damp. Add some blood and bone to the planting hole and sprinkle with slow-release bulb fertiliser in late winter and early spring.
Lilies come in various heights – tall ones for the back of border (leave them undisturbed and they’ll grow into a clump that flowers better and better each year) to short patio tulips that are perfect for pots. There’s a wealth of colour variations too. The heavenly scent is a bonus, but if you’re a hay fever sufferer you can still enjoy the beauty of lilies by planting pollen-free, unscented Asiatic lilies.
Sprout beetroot and ku¯mara indoors
Many of us have grown kūmara vines from a tuber placed in a glass of water. As well as being fun, it’s a great way of growing an indoor leaf crop over winter.
Kūmara leaves are a popular green in parts of Asia, much like the closely related water spinach. The tender leaves can be dropped into soups and curries or steamed like spinach. Grow in a jar of water indoors, in a warm room. The tuber contains all the food the plant needs for many months. Harvest leaves and growing tips regularly to keep things succulent and bushy.
Beetroot tops can also be suspended above water (use toothpicks or balance in a hyacinth forcing glass or a tapering vase) to produce young leaves for salads and soups. Each top will have a short productive life, but it’s a good way of getting more bang for your buck. The leaves taste like silverbeet, so if you’re a regular beetroot eater, you need never be out of tasty leaves.
Sow crops that like a cool start
The likes of broad beans, peas, broccoli, cabbages, cauliflowers and kale can all be started from seed now. You can also plant all brassica and winter lettuce seedlings.
The temperature is cooling rapidly in May, so their growth will be slow but on the plus side those cooler conditions also mean fewer pests and diseases – although you should still watch out for slugs and snails, especially while seedlings are getting established.
Just remember, in regions where soil is already cold and/or waterlogged, seed sown direct might rot before it can germinate. Start these crops in trays instead and transplant when they are big enough to handle the outdoor life.
■ Seeds to sow in the north/frost-free areas: broad beans, broccoli, cabbages, carrots, cauliflowers, Chinese cabbages, kale, onions, peas, radishes, silverbeet, spinach and winter lettuces.
■ Seeds to sow in the south/cold inland areas: broad beans, broccoli, cabbages, cauliflowers, Chinese cabbages, kale, onions, peas, silverbeet, spinach, swedes and turnips.
■ Punnets/seedlings to plant in the north: broccoli, carrots, cauliflowers, celery, Chinese cabbages, kale, lettuces, silverbeet and spinach.
Punnets/seedlings to plant in the south: brassicas and silverbeet.
This week I put on a cardigan for the first time this year – a sure sign that Auckland’s endless summer is finally rolling on to autumn, and that winter’s rainy season is not too far away.
The wet winter months are when you learn what state your gumboots are really in. Eventually even the best gumboots will become cracked and leaky. Once this happens, they are completely useless because freezing, wet feet make gardening an utterly miserable business.
Don’t skimp on the replacements either. The cheaper boots are, the faster they will spring leaks and the thinner the rubber will be, meaning even if they don’t fill with water, your feet will freeze. Avoid buying boots covered in fluff and feathers if you plan on doing gardening!
Remember to store your gumboots upside-down to prevent them from filling with rain, and always give them a good bang before slipping your feet in. Boots are an extremely popular hiding place for spiders, and sometimes mice or even rats.
Be nice to scary bugs
There’s no need to be triggerhappy with pesticides. Admittedly there are a few creatures I wage war on – the ones that pinch my food like green vege bugs, snails and cabbage white butterfly caterpillars. But for the most part I recognise that garden critters have vital roles to play as decomposers, recyclers, predators or a food source for birds and other beasties.
Wētā abound in the climbers on my fences, though none has yet set up house in the luxurious wētā hotel I created for them. They eat plants (mostly natives) and dead or dying insects. They cannot sting though they might bite you if you poked them with a fingertip. They were here well before humans even existed – so be nice!
Centipedes don’t bother trifling with us humans, but they will make mincemeat of any insect small enough to subdue. They are, at ground level, what praying mantids are in the vege garden canopy – arch hunters of untold small pests – young crickets, caterpillars, tiny slugs and snails. They might give you the creeps but don’t squash them – they’re on your side when it comes to keeping pest pollutions in balance.
Chances are high – very, very high – that any cockroach you find in your garden is of the beneficial, composting kind. This includes a number of native species that do venture indoors on occasion but has almost zero interest in our food. It’s far happier out in the back garden where it chomps through decaying plant matter.
Far from spreading disease and spoiling pantry goods, such composting cockroaches help make nutrients tied up in dead plant matter available to living plant roots.
The two major pest species of cockroach in New Zealand (Blattella germanica and Periplaneta americana) are both winged at maturity and rarely seen outdoors. The squat, wingless and often dark-coloured composting kinds are retiring, useful and not known to spread disease.
Daddy long-legs spiders get a hard time of it. Given the chance, they do an amazing job of keeping our homes almost fly-free and we thank them with fly spray or death by vacuum cleaner nozzle.
All because their webs can be a bit untidy (true) and they’re so very, very poisonous (not true). Nobody knows for sure where the myth about their toxicity came from, but it is completely and utterly false. They don’t bite humans and even if they did, their venom is not toxic to us.