Category Archives: Gardening Blog

Some of you may have noticed some new signs around the Mt. Vic garden beds. They, say things like ‘Brassicas’ and ‘Green Crop’. These signs are the first steps in a new crop rotation system we are putting into place in the garden! What is crop rotation, you might ask. Well, crop rotation refers to the practice of moving crops around your garden instead of growing the same plants in one location year after year. There are two main reasons to rotate crops in your garden. The first is to discourage soil-borne pathogens and pests that attack and weaken plants. Basically, every plant is host to specific pathogens, and these pathogens build up in the soil over time. By rotating plants you remove the pathogens’ host and eventually they will die.

The second reason is to avoid the depletion of soil nutrients and minerals. If plants that require similar nutrients and minerals are planted in the same location the soil can become exhausted and the plants won’t be as healthy. Different plants also add certain nutrients and minerals back into the soil, so rotation also nutritionally improves soil in addition to preventing nutrient and mineral depletion. A classic example is planting tomatoes after any type of legume, like broad beans. Legumes add nitrogen to the soil, while tomatoes are heavy nitrogen feeders, so planting legumes prepares the soil for the nitrogen demands of tomatoes. A third, less commonly identified reason to rotate crops is to create deeper, better aerated soils due to root penetration.

There are a few different crop rotation systems, but any one of them will be beneficial for your soil and your plants. Most recommend avoiding planting the same crop in one location for two to three years. One system divides plant based on botanical classification, i.e. Cucurbit family (cucumber, squashes, melon), Nightshade family (tomato, potato, egglant, peppers), etc. Another divides plants more broadly into three main types based on their nutrient demands; ‘light feeding’ root crops (potatoes, kumara, carrots) and herbs, ‘heavy feeding’ leafy and fruiting crops (tomatoes, brassicas) and ‘soil building’ peas, beans and other legumes. At Innermost we have divided beds into brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, etc.), nitrogen fixers and light feeders (legumes, salad, herbs, etc.), root crops (also light feeders), heavy feeders and green crops that are used to condition the soil (like lupins, mustards and grains). As we rotate these different crop types through the garden the signs will move with the, so keep your eyes out for moving signs!

If you don’t have enough space in your own garden for a full crop rotation, don’t worry. Just try to avoid planting the one crop in the same location year after year, and make sure that you replenish the soil with plenty of compost between plantings. If you would like more information on crop rotation most gardening books have at least a short section devoted to the subject, and their are many resources online, like the one below. Happy gardening!

Crop rotation article from the NZ Herald: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10640992

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March and April are months of harvest and of restocking the garden to get it ready for the colder months ahead. Most gardens will still be harvesting the end of the summer season crops any last beans, zucchini’s & potatoes and summer leafy greens will be enjoyed now

Garden Maintenance:

• You can keep your tomatoes in till they look pretty much dead and the tomatoes will continue to ripen. You need  to trim back any dead leaves on your tomatoes and any excess foliage that is preventing sun getting on your tomatoes (make sure you leave some leaves though!)  For any that don’t ripen making green tomato pickle is a tasty option.
• It is also a good idea to trim back the excess foliage on your pumpkins too, you want the plants energy to concentrate on the fruit now and not on continuing to produce leaves and flowers.

Compost:

• It is also a time you will be making a lot of compost, the end of your summer crops all need to be composted and to be sure you create a healthy compost you need a 40/60 carbon/nitrogen or brown to green ratio. Carbon is always hard to find in urban areas.  You can collect brown leaves, dry your lawn clippings, use brown cardboard/ paper bags, buy straw, collect untreated saw dust Best used in small quantities and with other carbons)  or go to your local coffee roaster and ask if they have coffee husks, these are a caramel, light, great smelling  husk which make a great urban carbon. To help build up the nutrient content of your compost and ensure you are growing healthy soil add seaweed, comfrey leaves and/or compost additives from your garden store.
• Put any extra compost into your garden beds before you plant your winter crops.

Planting:

• To give plants enough time to grow and for them to grow large enough before the weather gets cold and sunlight hours are reduced it is important to get your winter crop in the garden in the next two months. All the winter vege can be planted now. Broad beans, celery, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, kale, lettuce, parsley, silverbeet, chard, Miner’s lettuce, mesclun, endive, cress, rocket and Chinese greens.

• With your staple plants like lettuces, silverbeet, celery and others you use frequently, planting a small crop in March and another later in April will create a constant supply, if you want to have these throughout winter successive planting every two weeks will enable this.
  • You can direct sow: Broad beans, coriander, rocket, carrots, beetroot, parsnip, green crops
  • Sow into trays:  winter brassicas, parsley, celery, silverbeet and salad greens.

• The great thing about winter gardens is that they require a lot less maintenance as it cools plant growth slows down (which is why it is important to get your plants in now), insects are less active and you generally don’t need to water.  If your garden doesn’t get much sun over winter or if you are using a crop rotation planting a “green crop” of Lupin, Mustard or Peas is a great way to improve the soil, whilst doing very little.

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This information is provided from http://www.piginthemud.com. Tim Packer one of the Innermost Member has recently published them on line, they have a Creative Commons copy right and are easy to down load. There is a heap of practical advice in them. This is information specifically on Comfrey, a plant every community garden has a bundle of, if for no other reason than once you’ve planted them they just keep coming ba

Comfrey has a series of taproots that extend deep down into the soil comfrey is able to extract and accumulate large quantities of potassium (around 7%) and to a lesser extent phosphorous (around 1%), calcium (around 3%), magnesium and other trace elements.

The comfrey leaves act as storage bins for the cache of extracted minerals. The resulting proportions of minerals stored make for a well-balanced, readily available form of fertiliser that’s ideal for many of our most popular crops such as potatoes,onions, tomatoes and citrus fruit.

The comfrey leaves themselves have so little fiber and so much protein, resulting in a carbon to nitrogen ratio of 14:1, that they will break down rapidly when harvested.

For this reason comfrey has been referred to as `Instant Compost’

I like this term because it gets you thinking of comfrey as an instant compost source and the ways in which you can use that compost.

Comfrey leaves are commonly applied as a layer in the build process of compost piles, as an `activator’, employed to fuel the composting process.

Kay Baxter’s book, The Koanga Gardening Guide has a liquid fertiliser recipe based on comfrey. In a barrel pack it with comfrey leaves and then fill it up with water. Stir it daily and once the green leaves have disintegrated remove the fibrous stalks with a garden fork. The resulting liquid fertiliser is perfect for tomatoes and indeed many of your other gross feeders undiluted.

My own liquid fertiliser set up is fairly rudimentary but it works. I like to keep two on the go; one prepared a week before the other. This means during spring and summer I always have access to liquid fertiliser. Using Kay’s recipe I prepare mine in large plastic rubbish bins chalking the date prepared on each so I have an idea of when I can use them.

Stir it daily and after about a week you’ll notice a putrid smell coming from the liquid. This is a sign that the proteins from the comfrey leaves are beginning to break down. Continue stirring daily and after approximately 10 days, once the leaves have disintegrated, I extract my liquid fertliser from the rubbish bin with a nine-litre bucket and pour it wholesale over my garden beds. The remaining fibre, left at the bottom of the rubbish bin, is cycled through the compost heap.

Sometimes I find it just as convenient to work raw comfrey leaves in where I need it. I hand cut my comfrey with a machete and then run over the leaves with a lawn mower so I end up with an easily applied mulch amendment. If you do this be careful to cut well above the base of the leaf otherwise you may inadvertently end up transplanting sections of the crown root and you’ll end up with comfrey popping up all over the place.

Comfrey Orgins:

Common comfrey (Symphytum officinale) comes to us from the hedgerows of Europe and has a long and rich history more so as a medicinal herb than for its application in agriculture.

Perdanius Dioscorides, a Greek physician who practiced in ancient Rome during thetime of Nero, made the first documented record of a medicinal herb known as`Knitbone’ over 2000 years ago in Materia Medica, the precursor to all modern pharmacopeias, used as part of a poultice to close up wounds and as a tea in treating `bloodspitters’ and `hernias’

Over the years comfrey has been spoken of as an `old women’s remedy’ attributedwith a slew of astonishing cures of various maladies of the digestive system and in accelerating healing for wounds and broken bones, hence the name Knitbone.

I believe its healing qualities are largely attributed to a substance found in the roots and terminal buds of comfrey called Allantoin. Allantoin, first discovered in the allantois (part of a developing mammal embryo) and also excreted by maggots asthey debride wounds, is a cell proliferant.

We have comfrey planted at both gardens and use it to make liquid fertiliser using the recipe and we layer it in the compost over Summer. Its a great plant to have around, you just really do need to be sure its got a reasonable amount of space and that it can grow there for a while as it will keep coming back every if you try to dig it out.

There are 6 other journals and a whole lot of information accessible on Tim site. If you have a moment check it out: http://www.piginthemud.com/

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Now is the time to plant your seeds: Capsicums, chilli’s, tomatoes, leeks, cabbages, lettuces and salad greens, basil, coriander, spring onions are all goodies for October.

Seedling need sunshine so grow them in a sunny spot. When you plant your seeds into seed trays it can be a good idea to put damp newspaper over the top of them until the seed sprouts. (you need to check each day as you will stunt the plant if the newspaper is still over the top when it starts growing.) The important thing is to keep your seed trays damp, a small amount of water each day is ideal.

When the seedlings are large enough to plant out 4-6 weeks later, it is a good idea to soak them for 10-20 minutes in a seaweed tea or we sometimes use biofeed compost tea, this help them to get over their ‘transplant’ shock, and gives them some extra nutrients for strong growth.

Vegetables need a minimum of 6 hours of sun and 8- 10 is ideal so chose a sunny spot to plant them.

To prepare the bed for a spring planting it’s a good idea to dig it lightly to aerate it after winter and mulch it with fresh compost. If you don’t have a compost bin at home, now is the time to start one. The compost from all your food scraps is invaluable for your vegetables once it’s been composted down. This is a great way to recycle.

When you plant your seedlings it is important to ‘firm’ them in, that means making sure the soil you place back around the stem is tightly compacted down. This help the seedling to have a better foundation and enables it to grow strong roots quickly.

As the weather is always topsy turvey at this time of year, putting the cut off tops of large juice or milk bottles over them, works like a mini glasshouse and concentrates the sun that they receive. With milk bottles you can cut the top of the handle and put a stick down through it to stop the bottle blowing away. You need to lift these when you are watering to ensure that they still get water regularly.

If you only have space for some containers the vegetables that do best in containers are: Tomatoes, eggplants, capsicums, beans, salad greens and herbs.

To grow Capsicums, eggplants, and chillis successfully in Wellington these really need to be under a cloche throughout their growing life as they need a lot of heat to grow well. If you have a small tunnel house to grow these and lots of sunshine you can get some great crops from these. We have been making tunnel houses out of bamboo and recycled plastic from the Sustainability Trust – check out our facebook page for images.

Carrots, beetroot, radishes, pumpkins, zucchinis and potatoes can be directly sown into your garden in Spring, we have had more success with this in early November when it is a bit warmer.

Happy Gardening. With a little bit of attention it is amazing how much food you can grow in just a small amount of space. Have fun and enjoy eating all your fresh veges!

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We had a great fruit tree planting event on Sunday, the sun shone as we tended to our new trees and people wandered through the park to say hello and tell us what a great job we were doing.

The trees are part of the ‘edible park’ we are creating on the northern field. We are putting in a large open circle area with seating around it over the summer. The trees we planted yesterday arc out from this central circle. They face the north east and we have planted them to step up in height so that all the trees get sunlight. On the edge of the circle we have citrus trees: lemons, limes and mandarins, as these are smaller trees we planted them closer together, with about 2.5m spacing, behind the citrus we have apples spaced at 3m and behind that the bigger trees, plums and nashi’s spaced at 4m. It is really exciting to get some trees up on the site as these will provide plenty of fruit for the community to share in over the next few years.

We dug the holes a few weeks ago, they needed to be quite deep so we could get all the underground goodness that we could into them. In each hole we put seaweed, compost, topsoil and fertilisers. It is said that trees need 84 elements to be healthy and that seaweed can provide the bulk of these. The extra nutrients we added were agri lime for calcium, rock solid fertiliser for amongst other things for phosphate and silica, paramagnetic dust and then a plant accessible nitrogen fertiliser.

All of the nutrients we gave the plants are important. In very simple terms some of the key ones we added are:

Calcium: Its role in plants is similar to that in people, it helps them grow and promotes good structure.

Phosphate: Stimulates good root development in the plant.

Silica: Promotes strength in the leaves and stems of the plant and helps fruit to last longer off the tree

Nitrogen: Amongst other things helps plants use the carbohydrates available in the soil to gain the energy, it is important for good plant formation and functioning. Though nitrogen is often present in our soils providing it in a form that is easily useable by the plant
is important.

The compost we used was made on the site last year, it had a lot of  white mycelium growth as we put a heap of branches and wood chips in it when we made it. This is great as more fungal compost is good for planting trees in.

All of the elements and minerals we added stimulate the soil biology this will promote the growth of healthy and nutritious fruit trees.

When we planted the trees we trimmed the roots – seems to wrong to do that but it enables the tree to grow more roots and for the roots to penetrate more fully into the ground, this way the tree makes a more complete attachment to the earth, it is possible to plant a tree and have its root grow round into them selves and form a ball, this
means it will be easily pushed over. To prevent this we trimmed the roots to about 10 cm. This will help the tree roots to grow out into the soil sorrounding it. We planted each tree with its largest root to the south as when trees grow they align themselves with the magnetic field in the earth, this means that the strongest root faces south, the trees will have done this in the nursery so by doing this we were putting it in facing the same way as it grew.

On September 18th time we will be planting an understory, lots of flowers and plants to further support the growth of our trees. September 3rd we will be getting the vege garden ready for the beginning of Spring. Be great to see you there.

For further tree planting info check
out this link: http://www.koanga.org.nz/articles/how-plant-fruit-trees

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I’ve just been given a bunch of Jerusalem Artichokes which we will plant in the garden in October, and harvest around March.  Not knowing much about them, I thought I’d look them up and found this article which I thought was a goodie:

Organic NZ Magazine – September/October 2007.

By Pam Blowers.

The Jerusalem artichoke is a brown-coloured, knobbly, white-fleshed tuber root vegetable from the daisy (Compositae) family. It is not related to Globe Artichoke.

In the USA it is known more commonly as Sunchoke, and in Italy as Girasola artiocco, the sunflower artichoke (girasola means to turn the sun).

Jerusalem artichokes are native to North America, and the earliest mention is in a report by the European explorer Samuel de Champlain when he discovered them growing in an American Indian vegetable garden in 1605. By 1612 they had become popular in Europe both as human and animal food.

The plants can easily be grown by burying a fresh tuber 10 to15cm deep, preferably in a small hill of soil to make harvesting easier. Cut the plant down once the leaves have decayed, not before or the tubers will cease growing.
To keep larger tubers forming, a new bed should be made every three years; the only problem is that every piece you leave behind will grow. This is isnt a problem if you keep pigs they because love rooting for them.

The planted tubers will sprout in spring, the new tubers forming just before flowering when the plants reach one to three metres in height. The yellow flowers are similar to a small sunflower.

Each plant can produce more than 75 tubers, with 200 having been recorded on a single plant.

Jerusalem artichokes can be grown on poor soil, but the tubers would be small. They are also not partial to clay, but will grow.

Sometimes for sale at growers’ markets, it is surprising that Jerusalem artichokes are not grown more often as a winter vegetable. A crop is always guaranteed, even in the shade, although larger tubers are produced when the soil is light and rich, making them easier to harvest, as the tubers tend to cling to the roots and become entwined. Cultivated types tend to grow close to the main root/rhizome while wild ones grow at the end of roots.

Jerusalem artichokes are highly suitable for diabetics because of the inulin (an oligosaccharide) content. This is a dietary fibre with a mild, sweet taste that doesn’t require the pancreas to produce insulin. Dietary fibre such as this swells in the colon and helps everything else move along. It also makes you feel fuller which is good if you have a weight problem.

Containing just 57 calories per half -cup, the tuber also contains an impressive 327mg of potassium, a good supply of iron, plus a variety of other minerals and vitamins.

The Jerusalem artichoke is extremely an versatile and nutritious vegetable which can also be used for livestock feed, fuel-grade alcohol (ethanol & butanol), and fructose production. The sugars from one acre can produce 1800 litres of alcohol.

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I’ve just completed a  bio dynamic’s course through Taruna college in the Hawkes Bay. It was a wonderful course and now I’m looking to slowly implement some of my new knowledge in the garden. The two new compost heaps up at Mt Victoria are the first step of this.

We have had a problem with people dumping their garden cuttings up at the Mt Victoria garden. This has become pretty unsightly and we need to clear it. The positive side of this however is that we have some of the material to make a hot compost. Now I’m a garden novice, I’m really learning on the job, so how I see it is we have two types of compost at Mt Victoria. The slow community compost where people drop off their food scraps. This is layered with grass clippings, coffee husks,  and other  dry materials  and seaweed when we can. Each box is filled to the top and then left to ‘compost’ – over time maybe 6-8 months, it decomposes, drops considerably and creates a rich organic matter.  This is what most people do when they are composting at home. You can tell the richness of the compost by putting a little in your fingers and rubbing it, ideally it will leave a dark stain on your finger. If it smells good – a bit like rich soil or like you are in the forest, then you are on the right track.

With a hot compost however, all the materials are collected prior to making the heap and then they are layered, nitrogen/carbon/  other goody?/ nitrogen and the heap is completed in one go. (unless it rains like it did when we were making our first heap) surprisingly the materials need to be reasonably wet when the pile is compiled.  Just wet enough that when a small handful is squeezed tightly a few drips will come out. When we made our piles it had been raining and the materials where wet, however in the past I have soaked them overnight before making a pile, or run hose while making it. The basic ratio is 60% nitrogen/ protein/ green stuff to 40% carbon/ dry stuff.  I’m pretty sure this ratio applies to both the slow and the hot composts. In these heaps we used grass clippings as the green and dried gorse (cut down from our bank), coffee husks and dried leaves and garden waste as the dry matter. Ideally I would like to have put seaweed in the layers too, however, last week there just wasn’t the time to go and collect it.

Bio dynamic heaps use cow manure – this is considered to be the ‘animal influence’, really it is well composed grass clippings loaded with micro organism from inside the cow. However in the city access to cow manure is limited, so we sprinkled blood and bone through it. This brings in trace minerals not available in plant matter and helps to heat the pile. Using that stuff is something I’m a bit uncomfortable about, however it’s what we have in the mean time so I’m trying to turn a blind eye. We also added some hydrated lime into the heap this adds calcium to the heap and later soil.

The key to these heaps is the edges, one of the sayings is ‘look after the edges and the middle will look after itself. These heaps are tidy, the sides are as close to square as you can make them. Each layer is 5- 10 cm high, (in a small heap, they can be thicker in larger heaps) with the edges being shaped and compacted all the way up. I’m told that ideally you would put all the materials in a blender zip them up and then make a pile from that, the layering is a method of ensuring you get good ratios of materials and that they are well mixed through.

When the heap is completed, with a thickish layer of green stuff on the top, biodynamic preps are added. These are preps 502-507. This is a whole other area which hopefully I’ll go into in another blog. By composting these minerals we added and these preps rather than just adding to the soil the trace elements they supply are made more accessible for plants to uptake them and it ensures a more even application.

In about 3 day the heap will have risen in heat and in an ideal heap it will keep hot for a couple of weeks. Its pretty amazing, basically a huge number of micro-organisms become active and begin breaking down the pile.  If you are monitoring it – we have a compost thermometer, it is when the heap begins to cool that you turn it. With a smaller heap like these it might around 3 weeks. I’ll let you know.  It cools as the micro organisms run out of food, turning the heap remixes it and they get some more to eat. A heap can be turned a few times to speed up the process, each time the temperature will rise again, but always less than the time before.

Here is a photo guide to making a heap: http://ooooby.ning.com/profiles/blogs/biodynamic-compost-bed-a-step

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This year we are experimenting with planting garlic in mid to late May. The rule of thumb is the shortest day, but from the advice and research we have done, May seems like a good time to plant Garlic in Wellington. Guess I’ll let you know around Xmas how it goes.

The Tuesday gardeners at Newtown planted the first batch on the 10^th. Which was probably a bit too early but it fitted into what we were doing and decided to try. To do this we cleared and dug over the bed – we are usually no dig gardeners but garlic likes well aerated soil. We then dug in compost, we have brew of seaweed fertiliser on the go, so we poured some fertiliser in with this.

The garlic bulbs were planted with the bigger end, which attaches to the bulb, about 4-5 cm under the soil and about 15cm apart. They are planted at such a distance so that they can grow roots and not entwine themselves with their neighbours. We then mulched around the bulbs.

Garlic needs full sun,  well aerated soil, to get regular fertiliser whilst they are growing as they are ‘big feeders’ and to be mulched to keep weeds etc to a mimimum.

One of our concerns is the Wellington rain, the ground can get so sodden and the bulb will rot. I have heard of someone who plants her garlic in August to miss the really wet period. However all our beds are raised, we hope that this will keep the garlic well drained.

On Sunday 1-4, rain allowing, we will plant a crop of garlic at Mt Victoria using all the same techniques. If you are around we would love to have you come and help out.

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