July:Planning Your New Season’s Vegetable Garden

Today is very cold and wet in the part of the country I live in so I am opting for an indoor day today. The ground is too wet to dig, the paths are too muddy and it’s too cold and miserable to be outside for too long. I’ve been out and fed the chooks making sure I have given them plenty to eat as its miserable for them too. The cat has had her breakfast and we have as well. Today I have the guilt free luxury of getting time to think and write.

A wet winters day is a good time to plan your new season vegetable garden. For me, the winter solstice and the short winter days it brings is the start of a new gardening year. Garlic is symbolic of that first planting to make for the summer harvest. For those of you following my Crop Rotation Poster, it’s the one where I rotate to the next bed. Garlic comes under Group 4, and they now move to the bed where I previously had Group 3 Heat Loving Vegetables. The frost has made sure the previous inhabitants have long gone; the pumpkins stored,tomatoes relished, excess courgettes and corn in the freezer and the bed dug over and made ready for the root crops to follow.

So now I take a look at my own copy of the Crop Rotation Poster and remind myself what goes where. It is a jolly useful tool and if you have’t got one yet then see the link below.

To start you off with your planning here are some of my suggestions.

1.      Plant what you like to eat

2.      Plants you can preserve and store for winter.

3.      Plants that will supplement and extend the family budget.

4.      Match your specific needs.

5.      Plants that bring joy

6.   Make sure the size of the garden matches the size of the time you have available.

1. Plant What You Like To Eat.

   Come up with a list of vegetables you and the family like to eat. There’s no sense in planting vegetables that no one is going to eat.  When the lockdowns were first announced and we were given 2 days to go into hiding, you may remember that all of the garden centres were ransacked for vegetable seedlings – with the notable exception of brussels sprouts. Oh dear. I know lots of people do love them but they are not high on my list of favourites.  So think about what you and your family like and plan to plant those. Don’t forget herbs - there are plenty of easy grow herbs that you will thank yourself for planting when you want to flavour your dinner and need a bit of parsely, sage, rosemary or thyme.

2. Plants You Can Store or Preserve.

A common trap for new gardeners is to sow or plant everything at once and you therefore end up with a summer glut. That means you have 6 cabbages mature all at the same time for example.  However, there are some vegetables that you can grow, eat when they are ready but also store or preserve in some way.   Pumpkin is a great one for this.  They taste better after storing and are very delicious to use for roasts and soups over winter. Beans, courgettes and corn can all be blanched and frozen.  Tomatoes can be made into sauces and bottled or frozen. Most can be made into pickles or relishes for the larder.   So you can never have too many tomatoes in my opinion. Root crops can be stored in a cool place or left in the ground.

3. Plants That Extend the Family Budget

Never think that you have to either be self-sufficient in your backyard vegetable garden or you might as well not bother.  If you are short on time or have minimal space, then think of things that are easy to grow and available when you need it.  Silverbeet, courgette, celery, parsley for example.  You are going to go a long way to helping extend the family budget if you have even a small vegetable patch and can pop down and pick some leaves to go with dinner.  Lettuce is a great example.  They will grow most of the year around and you could easily harvest enough leaves each day for a healthy homegrown salad. Think about how you can supplement the family budget by adding what you have grown. You have the added advantage of the extra health benefits that come from spray free food as well. 

4. Match Your Specific Needs.

Have you heard of the Celery Juice craze? If you follow Tony Robbins or other motivational gurus you’ve probably heard of the Medical Medium who advocates for the health benefits of celery juice.  Now I personally don’t think we need and off-world entity telling us to eat more vegetables – its nothing that our mothers and grandmothers haven’t already told us - but if you do enjoy vegetable juices then plan to plant them in your garden.  Celery can be very expensive out of season – plus it is traditionally one of most highly sprayed of commercial crops. If you are juicing for health, then you are going to want a good source of organic celery. So grow your own. Same for beetroot, kale or the other plants you like to juice.

5. Plant things that bring joy

Don’t just make your vegetable place a prosaic practical business end of the section. Add a few flowers for your own joy, and for all the beneficial insects. Butterflies and bees will love you for it.  So will your children.  If you have children (or grandchildren, or great grandchildren!), then one of the best things you can do for them is make the vegetable garden a happy place to be. I have always grown peas for that very reason.   They are not the best crop really for the home garden because you probably need a few acres to have enough to warrant growing, but if you have toddlers or young ones, nothing beats eating peas straight from the pods.   Let them have their own patches if you can and grow what they want.  I remember having my own childish imagination inspired by the petals of the Iceland poppy – so pop a few of those in for fairy frocks.

6. Match Size of Garden to Time Available.

Finally, you want to make sure you have the time to care for the garden you want to grow. Nothing beats the enthusiasm of the bright new gardener and if you love it you will make the time.  But watch out for making a rod for your own back.  There’s nothing worse than seeing the weeds taking over, the jobs piling up but you are tied up working long hours on your day job.  It can be heartbreaking.  So start with what you can manage and grow from there. There are ways to plan for and manage your time in the garden and I will be writing about that later, so I don’t want to discourage you from starting your garden but just be a little mindful. Your garden should be a place of nourishment for the soul just as much as for the body so make sure you don’t overload yourself.

June in the Kitchen Garden

June has arrived and with it the beginning of winter proper.  This is the month of the winter solstice where we experience the shortest day/night around the 21st of the month. We call it mid-winter but it’s really only the beginning of the 3 main winter months here in the southern part of the globe of June, July and August.  Of course if you live on the other side of the equator it is the summer months.

There will still be beautiful cold clear days and still a bit of warmth in the air if there is no southerly or westerly air flow.  So still some days to get out into the garden – and some days to sit by the fire dreaming of your future garden.  I always like to have some flowers on the go to use on cakes or just to bring indoors to cheer up the grey days. I would never be without the self sown calendula with its bright sunshiney colours and shape.  I’ve just found a self-sown one in the garden that is exactly like the calendula (or marigold) we had in the garden when I was a kid! Funny what the memory selects to remember.

Its still a tidy up and prepping for the next season month with some cultivation of those vegies still growing.   Here in New Zealand we now have a national holiday to mark Matariki – the Māori name for the Pleiades star system rising in winter over the eastern horizon and indicating the time to finish harvesting the old season’s crops and turn attention to the new year. For those of you using the Crop Rotation Calendar, this is when I start rotating around to the next season.  I have a free template you can use if you want to start planning your new season garden now or just want to use it to keep tabs on your garden cultivation.   Click here to get your copy.

Garlic

Traditionally of course it is garlic planting time and this is the crop that kicks off my gardening New Year. You will be rotating your root crop bed (Group 4) to where you had the heat-loving (Group 3) fruiting plants – most of which will be long frosted and died back Clear back any foliage, dig out weeds and where you are going to plant garlic and onions, dig in plenty of manure and compost.   Note: Don’t compost the whole bed – leave the area where you will be planting tap roots such as carrot and parsip free from fresh bulky manure. A little bit of ash from the wood stove (as long as its chemical free of course) will provide potassium needed for these plants.

It’s the shortening of the day length and the chilling of the air that is going to trigger bulb growth and a good crop. I think everyone should grow a few rows of garlic at least. It doesn’t take up too much room and you can grow a year’s supply with some extra to give away or save for replanting.  This year I took some braids of last year’s crop up to Auckland and gave some back to my brother-in-law, Trent. They were ones I had grown from seed he had given me years ago.  I must check with him that he is going to plant some – just in case I lose mine and need another supplier!

 You can use some of your best and biggest corms from the last season, buy some in from specialist seed growers or from our local garden centres. When you are ready, mark out the rows and plant pointy end up about 5 cms deep and about 20 cms spacing. Mark your row and mulch. Make sure you can hoe easily down the rows for ongoing weed management.

Other Crops

It’s not all about the garlic though. There’s plenty of other jobs you can get up to on the days you can get outside – remembering to never dig over waterlogged beds. If you haven’t done so already, turn your attention to perennials such as rhubarb, asparagus and strawberries.  My rhubarb must have felt the mildness of May as it is only just dying down now and some that I replenished a month ago has produced new growth. If you are in warmer parts it will still be providing you with delicious stalks for a bit longer still. Pull off any dead or dying foliage, weed any sneaky weeds and then give a good dressing of manure and straw to take it through winter.  If it has been in the same space for more than 3 years then dig up, divide and replant into well manured deep soil then water well and mulch as described.

Similarly for asparagus, chop back old foliage, weed and mulch well with seaweed and straw. Prepare any new asparagus beds now ready for late winter or spring planting by weeding thoroughly, filling with manure and seaweed then backfilling with good soil.  Should be just right for planting in a month or two.  New strawberry plants can be replanted from now on.

Keep liquid feeding your green leafy crops, broad beans and celery and leeks.  Those last two along with stored root crops will provide the basis of your winter soups.  Keep planting a couple each of brassicas every 2 weeks or so to keep up a supply.  Remember you can still sow or plant winter greens such as rocket, meslun, corn salad, mustard and some lettuces. If you haven’t got a suitable warm well drained spot in the garden then plant in pots and pull inside when frosty.  Chop or pull leaves as needed – the  most nutritious way!  Herbs also can be potted up and brought closer to the house for ease of use.

Pruning season is coming up so get your tools ready by getting them cleaned and sharpened ready for a dry day to get to work on your fruiting plants.  So always something to do if you want to but always a good time to be inside and think about next season while eating the preserved produce of this last season’s harvest.

The Time Poor Gardener. (or the Fair-Weather Gardener)

For those of you short on time and who prefer to hibernate for winter, clear each bed in your garden and then check what the requirements are on the Crop Rotation Poster for the plants you plan to grow in each bed in spring.  Compost where it says compost, feed where it says feed and make sure you match the fertiliser to the crop you are planning on growing as per the advice under “what to do in Winter”.   Water well if needed, maybe chuck over some lawn clippings and then cover each bed with a sheet of plastic, weedmat or thick cardboard. By the time the sap has risen and your gardening blood has warmed up you will be ready to go come spring with a lovely new blank weed-free canvas!

Garden Jobs for June

Sow indoors; brassicas such as broccoli, cabbage, cauli and winter greens.

Plant: Garlic and Shallots, broad beans, green crops, flowers such as pansies and violas.   Plant brassica seedlings such as broccoli and cabbage, cauli and bok choy for spring eating.  Strawberry and rhubarb.

Cultivate: Use liquid manure to feed your leeks. Keep weeded and mounded up. Cut back asparagus fern, weed and mulch crowns. Split big clumps of rhubarb and replant. Keep weeds hoed, green crops sown and mulches laid.

Harvest: Silverbeet and spinach, broccoli, parsley, and any other herbs and vegetables you have growing in your garden.