Anita's Garden
Volume 1, Issue 6
It’s Labour Weekend!
It’s finally here! This is the time of the year gardeners
most look forward to. NOW is the time to plant all your
favourite summer veggies!
Plant nursery at Anita’s
Garden
Great news - I’m open over the entire Labour
weekend! Your one stop shop for everything you need
for the summer garden. For a list of available stock at
the plant nursery, please see page 2 of this newsletter.
In my experience, it’s still a little early to plant
cucumbers, melon, okra, gourds and other heat-loving
plants, so these seedlings will follow soon. Please be
patient and keep an eye out for updates in my
newsletter and on Neighbourly. Thank you.
Trays of lettuce seedlings available at the plant nursery. See p 2.
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
2 Plant nursery at Anita’s Garden
4 Top 5 gardening tasks for the week
5 Anita’s top tips for start ups: Part II
7 Growing guide: Zucchini
9 Growing guide: Sunflowers
Anita's Garden 1
20 October 2017
Editorial
Welcome to the sixth issue of my monthly newsletter
filled with news fresh from Anita’s Garden.
The plant nursery at Anita’s Garden is open all of
Labour Weekend. For a list of available stock and
prices, please see page 2.
To stay up to date with what is happening around
Anita’s Garden and follow my journey as a new
business owner, please follow my blog:
http://anitasgarden.weebly.com/blog
For gardening advice, ideas and inspiration, check
back on my website regularly and follow me on my
social media accounts:
Webpage: http://anitasgarden.weebly.com/
Facebook: Anita’s Garden
Twitter: https://twitter.com/anitakundu
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anitakundu.nz/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anita-kundu-
850100141/
Pinterest: https://nz.pinterest.com/anitakundunz/
Snapchat: anitasgarden
Mailing List
To receive this newsletter direct to your inbox, please
email me at anitakundu.nz@gmail.com so I can add
you to my mailing list.
Feedback
Send your feedback, news, photos and recipes to me via
email at anitakundu.nz@gmail.com and I will feature your
letter in a future issue of Anita’s Garden newsletter.
Plants for sale at Anita’s Garden
A note from Anita Veggie punnets - $2 each

I’m delighted to announce that I now have the following
plants for sale in my boutique nursery at Anita’s Garden.
Pick up is in Manukau, Auckland. Please email me at
anitakundu.nz@gmail.com or text me on 021 02762091
if you wish to purchase any plants so we can arrange a
time for you to come over. Thank you.
Trays of seedlings - $8 each
Contains lots and lots of seedlings. Includes a re-usable
seedling tray (very handy to have around the garden!) or
return to me later for a $2 rebate towards your next
purchase of a tray of seedlings from Anita’s Garden!
I have the following trays of seedlings available for sale:
o Frilly green lettuce (cut and come again
variety)
o Red lettuce (cut and come again variety)
o Lamb’s lettuce
o Purple kohlrabi
o Asparagus – one year old crowns (just two
more years until you can harvest them!)
o Silverbeet
o Sweetcorn (yellow)
o Catgrass (ideal for cats to lie on and eat)
Each punnet contains 4 or 6 seedlings. While they
are small, they will grow quickly. Great value!
I have the following veggie punnets available for
sale. You can mix and match to have a variety.
o Frilly green lettuce (cut and come again)
o Red lettuce (cut and come again)
o Purple Kohlrabi
o Asparagus – one year old crowns (just two
more years until you can harvest them!)
o Capsicum Californian Early Wonder
o Capsicum Colour Salad Selection
o Capsicum Early Red
o Capsicum Orange Sweetie (Mini)
o Capsicum Jingle Bells
o Capsicum Giant Bell
o Capsicum Long Italian
o Capsicum Yellow
o Capsicum Hot Mix
o Capsicum Long Perennial
o Capsicum Long Sweet Red
o Capsicum Purple Beauty
o Chilli Habanero Gambia Orange
o Chilli Topepo Rosso

Potted vegetables - $1.50 each o Chilli Chenzo

o Chilli Cayenne
Plants are in 10 cm pots, ready to plant into your garden! o Chilli Sweet Banana
o Rockmelon Hale’s Best o Chilli Jalapeno
o Pumpkin Butternut o Chilli Cayenetta
o Pumpkin Whangaparoa o Chilli Bell shaped
o Pumpkin Blue Hubbard o Chilli Piccante Calabrese
o Pumpkin Grey Crown o Chilli Pequin St Croix
o Pumpkin Musquee de Provence o Chilli Long Sweet Red
o Pumpkin Marina di Chioggia o Eggplant Prosperosa
o Pumpkin Queensland Blue o Eggplant Tonda Bianca
o Pumpkin Tonda Padana o Eggplant Purple Comet F1
o Kamo Kamo Kumi Kumi o Eggplant Florence Round Purple
o Spaghetti Squash o Eggplant Black Beauty
o Zucchini Fiorentino o Eggplant Tsakoniki
o Zucchini Mixed o Eggplant White Star
o Zucchini Partenon (green) o Eggplant Asian Bride F1
o Zucchini Amanda (green) o Tomato Principe Borghese
o Zucchini Solar Flare (yellow) o Tomato Red Cherry
o Zucchini Nero di Milano (dark green) o Tomato NZ Heritage Mix

Anita's Garden 2

.
Plants for sale at Anita’s Garden (cont from page 2)

o Tomato Olga’s Golden Chicken

o Tomato Mortgage Lifter
o Tomato Kiwi
o Tomato Moneymaker
o Tomato Orange Beefsteak
o Tomato Marmande
o Tomato Honeybee
o Tomato Big Beef
o Tomato Costoluto
o Tomato Tommy Toe Tray of Silverbeet seedlings
o Tomato Henry’s Dwarf Bush
o Tomato Tangela
o Tomato Grosse Lisse
o Tomato Patio
o Tomato Heirloom Mix
o Tomato Bloody Butcher
o Tomato Black Zebra

Over the coming weeks, I will have cucumbers,

melons, okra, gourds and much more. Please be Potted pumpkin seedlings
patient. It’s still quite temperamental outside so it’s best
to wait a few more weeks before planting these
seedlings out into the garden.

Eggplant seedlings

Tray of Lamb’s Lettuce seedlings

Capsicum seedlings

Tray of Kohlrabi seedlings

Anita's Garden 3
Top 5 gardening tasks for the week
1. Sow sunflowers
Now is the time to start sowing sunflowers. It’s
hard for me to recommend my favourite variety
because I simply love them all! But for great cut
flowers on long stems, you can’t go past Sunrich
Irish Gold (Egmont Seeds). See my growing guide
on page 9 of this newsletter for more information.
You can also read my blog post here.
2. Sow cucumbers
I’m going to feature a growing guide to cucumbers
in next week’s issue, but you can start sowing
seeds now. This season I’m growing Iznik Mini F1,
Lebanese Paska F1 and Patio Snacker F1 (all from
Egmont Seeds). It’s advisable to wait around two
weeks after Labour Weekend before planting out
cucumbers, as I’ve found them to be more
temperamental than pumpkins and zucchini, which
can definitely be planted into the garden now. You
can read my blog post on cucumbers here.
Cucumbers from last year’s summer garden
Anita's Garden 4
3. Sow melons
Start sowing melon seeds now. Last year we had a
fantastic crop of melons, especially rock melon. This
year I’m excited to grow Western Express F1 from
Egmont Seeds. For more information about how to
grow melons, including how to pollinate them by
hand to increase the fruit yield, you can read my blog
post here.
4. Sow corn
Now is the time to sow sweetcorn. It’s such a fantastic
summer vegetable and kids just love fresh corn. For best
results, sow seed direct to the ground. For more advice on
how to grow sweetcorn, read my blog post here. Egmont
Seeds have the best range of corn seeds in New Zealand.
To order seeds, visit http://www.egmontseeds.co.nz/.
5. Pick the last of your spring flowers while you can
You might find that your spring flowers are coming to an
end. Walk around the garden and gather as many dutch
iris, freesias, anemones and daffodils as you can. Bring
them inside and place them in a vase for your family to
admire.
Anemone Blue Poppy from NZ Bulbs, still in bloom in the
garden!
Anita’s top tips for start ups - Part II
Mystified about how to set up and run a business? Join the
club! In this series of articles, I will discuss my top tips for
start ups. Some people like to keep all their cards close to
their chest and don’t give anything away for nothing. I’ve
never really been one of those people. I’m all for sharing
information, which was not always possible in my previous
profession as a lawyer due to client confidentiality. Law
can also be extremely competitive, especially in a large
commercial firm, so some people can be reluctant to help
their colleagues develop both as a practitioner and in their
professional career as a lawyer. During my journey as a
business owner thus far, so many people I’ve met along the
way have passed on some gems of advice which I have
gratefully received. I’m paying it forward, as a way of giving
back to the community that’s given me so much support.
There is a lot of ground to cover, so this is the second article
in a series on this subject. In Part I of my top tips for start
ups, I covered the subject of money. In this post, I will
outline 10 more principles related to creating and running a
business.
1. You don’t need a business plan
It’s fine for your business to evolve organically. Everyone’s
business evolves differently, a bit like career progression.
There are no precise steps you must follow in creating a start
up.
2. You don’t need business qualifications in order
to run a business
Don’t worry if like me, you don’t have a Commerce degree or
an MBA. Some of the most successful business owners I
know dropped out of school at a young age and don’t have
any formal qualifications whatsoever. Merv Snell of Gardn
Gro and Jonelle Douglas of Sticky Business, both family
friends of ours, are cases on point. Don’t get me wrong. I’m
a huge fan of education and spent many years at university,
training to become a lawyer. I have great respect for others
who have dedicated years of their life to tertiary study. Who
isn’t in awe of Oxbridge and the Ivy League institutions? But
sometimes the best education occurs outside the classroom.
3. Learn on the job
Linked to not needing business qualifications in order to
create and run a start up is the idea that you can and should
learn on the job. My new venture requires me to wear many
different hats. I have to be able to draw on a broad
knowledge base and skill set in order to run my business. I
don’t have a formal qualification in horticulture. I learnt about
gardening by reading books and magazines, conducting
research and experimenting in my garden. I had to work
hard to master a completely different subject. At times, I
Anita's Garden 5
have to play the role of a journalist in order to write
articles for my newsletter, even though I have no formal
journalism qualification. Running a business is
basically an exercise in PR, yet I did not study
Communications. You can’t study everything at
university. You need to also learn by doing and pick
things up along the way.
4. Collaborate, even with competitors
It’s very short sighted to see the competition as the
enemy. Collaboration is really important for business
owners, especially new businesses wanting to break
into an industry and make a name for themselves.
Collaboration is a term that comes up again and again
in a fantastic Facebook group I belong to called Girls in
Business (it’s a closed group so you’ll need to either
ask to join or be added by an existing member). But
what does collaboration mean? Put simply,
collaboration is where business owners work together
and support each other in their respective enterprises.
An example of collaboration includes promoting another
reputable business or person in the same industry on
your social media accounts. Chances are, they will do
the same and it’s a great way of increasing your
number of followers. Don’t forget that even though the
field of law can be fiercely competitive, lawyers also
need to collaborate. Partners in different departments
often share the same clients and advise on different
aspects of large cases and transactions, which can be
complex and require input from specialists in different
areas. Also, different offices of a firm may end up
representing the same clients, who also have branches
across the globe. Be community minded. Reach out to
others in the same industry and partner, work together
and support each other.
5. Business development is an on-going task
Don’t expect to ever get on top of business
development. Building a business is an on-going
process. Your work will never be finished!
6. Contacts are key
As with the legal profession, in business, contacts are
key. Network! It’s a great way to market yourself and
your business. Whenever I visit garden centres, I
always stop to chat to the staff. Over the years, we’ve
gotten to know each other very well and know each
other by name. This made it much easier for me to
approach these businesses and become their brand
ambassador.
Anita’s top tips for start ups - Part II (cont from page 5)
Contacts can be formed in unexpected ways. Networking
doesn’t only occur when you swap business cards at a
conference. In my personal opinion, the closest connections
are formed over time and require a bit more effort. After a
somewhat disappointing experience at a store I regularly
shop at, I got in touch with the manager via the website and
highlighted the issues arising during my encounter. The next
day, he followed up with a telephone call. He apologised and
said that he had rectified the issues immediately. That
weekend, he came over to our house with complimentary
products which I had sought during my visit but had been
unable to purchase. If that isn’t great customer service, I
don’t know what is. I must have just had a freakish
experience, because since then every shopping experience
there has been a good one. The manager has become a
close contact and we always stop and chat when we run into
each other in the store. I am so impressed with both him and
the business more generally. I will be promoting that
business in future through my blog and social media
accounts.
7. Rome wasn’t built in a day
So my cousin and her husband once told me when they
heard about my start up. They’re right. By nature, we’re
impatient creatures. We expect to have achieved our key
milestones months, if not years ago. Empires weren’t
created overnight. The Greeks and Romans toiled away for
quite some time. Good things take time. Be patient. It can
take some time to see the fruits of your labour. Think baby
steps. Which brings me to my next point below.
8. Baby steps
Linked to the old adage that Rome wasn’t built in a day,
remember to take things one step at a time. Remember that
everything you do is a potential building block, a stepping
stone to something else. Nothing is ever a waste, especially
not education.
I’ll use authoring a book as an analogy. As a friend of mine
once posted on his timeline on Facebook, everyone wants to
write a book, get rich and become famous overnight. But
realistically, who will buy a book written by someone who
isn’t very well known? If writing a book is your goal, you
need to concentrate on creating a target audience first.
Furthermore, sitting infront of a Word document and writing a
novel is a daunting prospect, to me at least. You need to
break it down into bite sized pieces. To start, you might want
to consider starting a blog like me as a way of practising
your writing. But before all that, it helps if you can write well
to engage your readers. The ability to write well takes years
and years of dedication as a student. Reading very broadly
Anita's Garden 6
also helps a lot, as well as learning other languages. I
found that studying French enriched my understanding
of the English language.
While we’re on the subject, in my opinion, a blog is
better than a book. In recent years, I’ve found myself
not really enjoying reading books, as I have in the past.
Books often contain boring bits. I’ve ended up skipping
pages or even chapters, rather than reading from
beginning to end. Times have changed and I don’t
think people read as much as they used to. Whitcoulls,
New Zealand’s largest book chain, nearly went into
receivership a few years ago. By contrast, blog posts
are short, sharp and sweet. Reading them is therefore
easier to fit into a busy schedule. You can read a blog
on your phone, which is convenient if you’re constantly
on the move like me. You can also be selective and
only dip into the topics that really interest you.
9. Go with the flow
Linked to taking things a day at a time is the concept of
going with the flow. Sometimes, events can occur
unexpectedly and life doesn’t always go according to
plan. Like me, you may find that your career evolves in
a peculiar way. Don’t try to swim against the tide.
Sometimes you can’t go directly from A to B. This
reminds me of a case I read when I was in law school,
where a judge commented that the beauty of the
common law is that it is a maze and not a motorway.
Applying this idea to life, sometimes you might have to
take a more circuitous route when working towards a
goal. This brings us back to baby steps or building
blocks.
10. Beware the law!
Businesses don’t operate in a vacuum. Don’t forget
that everything we do, whether in our personal or
professional lives, is governed by the law. In business
dealings, contract law is important as you need to
honour any agreements. Be careful what you say
about others as you certainly don’t want to be sued for
defamation. Intellectual property is another important
field for business owners like me, who maintain an
active blog and write newsletters which impart a lot of
original information. Don’t forget that your work will
often be protected under the umbrella of copyright. It’s
sort of like the ICloud. Copyright normally arises
naturally in the course of your work. Unlike a
trademark, you don’t need to register copyright.
People will need your permission before they can
reproduce your work.
To read the original article, please click here.
Growing Guide: Zucchini
Zucchini (or courgettes as they are sometimes called) are
a staple vegetable in the summer garden. They are very
easy to grow. Almost too easy, most gardeners would
agree. Zucchini are somewhat taken for granted in the
garden. Indeed, the biggest problem you’ll probably have
is working out what to do with your abundance! In
previous years, we’ve always taken them for granted as a
guaranteed summer crop. Normally, we’re foisting them
off on our neighbours, friends and family by the bag full.
But by a freak of nature we were cursed with a terrible
season last summer and harvested very few zucchini as a
consequence. I’ve therefore decided to do a bit more
research into growing zucchini so I can work out where we
went wrong.
Despite being so easy to grow, zucchini are hideously
expensive in supermarkets, even in the summertime when
they are supposedly in season. Zucchini range between
$8-$10 per kilo and I simply can’t understand why this is
the case. Homegrown zucchini taste so much fresher and
nicer than store bought ones. I hope that with the help of
information in this guide, you’ll be able to grow some of
your own successfully this season.
Zucchini are very versatile in cooking. They don’t have a
lot of flavour in themselves, but are great paired with
herbs, spices and condiments such as olive oil and black
cracked pepper, which really brings out their taste.
Zucchini can be used in Italian dishes such as pizza, pasta
and parmigiana, added to stir fries and curries, served
grilled in sandwiches and antipasto platters or simply
thrown onto the BBQ.
Traditionally, zucchini can be planted outside in New
Zealand by Labour Weekend, which is a long weekend
with a public holiday falling on the Monday after the
weekend (like a Bank Holiday in England). Labour
Weekend usually falls towards the end of October. This
year, Labour Weekend starts on 21 October. While it’s
natural to want a head start on the season, my advice is to
not be in a rush to plant out seedlings. There is often a
dramatic difference between day and night time
temperatures at this time of the year and the weather can
still be quite temperamental. Young seedlings are
particularly tender. Once they’ve been hit by a sudden
cold snap or exposed to consistently low temperatures,
they never really recover. It’s therefore a good idea to
wait until the beginning of November to plant zucchini
seedlings into your garden, when temperatures are
warmer. This way, the seedlings you plant out will be a bit
more established and strong enough to survive any
setbacks along the way.
Anita's Garden 7
In saying that, it does depend on where you live. New
Zealand’s climate varies dramatically from region to
region and I do have to remember that not all of my
audience lives in Auckland or even New Zealand for that
matter. My personal gardening experiences are limited
to our urban homestead in the Auckland region, so
please take this into account when considering my
advice. On the same token, what grows well in my
environment may not necessarily thrive in your own
microclimate. So please don’t blame me if things go
wrong and varieties I’ve recommended don’t grow well in
your garden!
Sowing zucchini from seed
I wanted to write a guide to growing zucchini now
because you can start sowing zucchini under cover from
seed. It’s really easy to grow zucchini from seed and it
allows you to grow unusual varieties which aren’t found
in garden centres. It takes about six to eight weeks from
the time of the germination of a zucchini seed to produce
a plant that is large enough to transplant outside.
Zucchini can be started from seed indoors in October or
even earlier if you live in a more temperate zone and
have a hot house to protect them from the cold.
Zucchini seeds need warmth in order to germinate. I
germinate seeds in punnets or egg cartons filled with
seed raising mix from Gardn Gro. I like Gardn Gro’s
seed raising mix as it is very fine in texture, enabling
seeds to push through the mixture easily as they rise to
the surface. I place the punnets and egg cartons inside
plastic incubators which you can purchase from garden
centres. I then place the incubators on a heat pad
indoors and spray plants with water once daily or twice if
the seed raising mixture is very dry. If you don’t have a
heat pad you can also use your hot water cupboard
which will also provide seedlings with a warm
environment so they can germinate successfully.
Zucchini varieties
If you’re planning to grow zucchini from seed, you’ll find
that they come in an impressive array of shapes, colours
and sizes. Traditionally, zucchini are long and dark
green. There are a few different varieties on the market
in New Zealand. This season I’m growing Milano di
Nero (Franchi Seeds), Partenon (Egmont Seeds) and
Amanda F1 (Egmont Seeds). I’m also growing
Fiorentino (Franchi Seeds), which is a long, ribbed, light
green variety of zucchini.
Growing Guide: Zucchini (cont from page 7)

There is also Striato D'Italia (Franchi Seeds), a dark green
variety with light green stripes and small ribbing. It is also
possible to find yellow varieties which are incredibly prolific
too. My favourite is Solar Flare F1 (Egmont Seeds). Used
together with green-skinned varieties, yellow zucchini add
a lovely burst of colour to dishes. Finally, you can also
grow round zucchini (for example, Courgette Rond de
Nice and Piccolo from Egmont Seeds) and scallopini,
which are round with scalloped edges as the name
suggests and come in a range of colours, including green,
white and yellow (for example, Zucchino Custard White
from Franchi Seeds and Patty Green Tint F1, Courgette
Scallop Mix and Sunburst F1 from Egmont Seeds). If
you’re having trouble getting your kids to eat vegetables,
they may find these novelties appealing.
To order seeds from the very extensive Egmont Seeds
range, visit http://www.egmontseeds.co.nz/.
To find stockists for Franchi Seeds or to order Franchi
seeds directly from the New Zealand distributor Italian
Seeds Pronto owned by Gillian Hurley-Gordon, visit
http://www.italianseedspronto.co.nz/.
How to care for zucchini seedlings
For new gardeners, those who don’t wish to start their
zucchini seedlings from seed or if you’ve simply left it too
late, plants are available for sale in nurseries from
September onwards. Palmers stock a great range of
zucchini seedlings. Awapuni also sell high quality, large
grade zucchini seedlings delivered direct to your door. If
you order 7 or more bundles of seedlings, delivery is free.
industry and promote their brands. You can achieve a
lot by working with other people in the same field (no
pun intended), as opposed to simply trying to compete
with them. To read my further thoughts on this issue,
please click here.
Whoever you decide to buy plants from, take care to
keep plants undercover until early October as zucchini
are frost sensitive. The weather can be temperamental
in spring and the nights are often still quite cool. From
then on, start “hardening them off”. This is the process
of exposing plants to the outdoors incrementally, for
example, for two hours in the middle of the day for the
first week, increasing to four hours per day for the next
week. Continue to bring the plants indoors at night. By
the third week of October, it should be safe to leave
plants outdoors overnight.
How to care for zucchini plants
Zucchini need at least 6 hours of sunshine per day, so
be sure to plant seedlings in the sunniest spot in your
garden. Before planting zucchini seedlings, take the
time to prepare the bed properly so plants receive
adequate nutrition. Dig the area over that you wish to
plant your seedlings in. Mix plenty of compost and some
sheep pellets into the ground. I highly recommend
Gardn Gro’s Wonder Nuggets, which are 100%
organic and function as an excellent fertiliser. Rake the
ground so that it is nice and level. Add some tomato
fertiliser to each plant’s hole at the time of planting, to
give plants a strong start to life.

I plan to sell a variety of different zucchini seedlings in my

own boutique nursery later in the season. Keep an eye
out for details in my newsletter, on Neighbourly and my
Facebook page as to when they become available.
During October and November, I will also circulate
updated lists of available stock in my plant nursery to
subscribers of my free weekly gardening newsletter. To
be added to my mailing list and receive these notifications,
please email me at anitakundu.nz@gmail.com.

I’ll probably be selling seedlings a bit later than stores

because I’m merely a home gardener, germinating and
caring for seedlings in our patio at home without the help
of the horticultural technology that you would expect to
find in a commercial operation. Without a hot house, I
simply don’t have a head start on the season like large- Zucchini Solar Flare F1, Egmont Seeds
scale nurseries. To compensate for this, I do try and offer
Be sure to water plants every day, preferably early in the
seedling varieties which are unusual and can’t be found in
morning or in the evening. In November and December,
garden centres or online retailers. This is a good thing as plants are in their most active growing phase. Try not to
it enables me to collaborate with other businesses in the

Anita's Garden 8
Growing Guide: Zucchini
(Cont from page 8)
get too much water on the leaves, otherwise your plants
may develop powdery mildew. Liquid feed zucchini
weekly to encourage the growth of healthy leaves and the
formation of flowers, which will develop into fruit after they
have been pollinated.
Pollination of zucchini
Zucchini need to be pollinated in order to develop fruit.
As the flowers on zucchini plants are quite large, you’ll
find that bees will do all the work for you. Personally, I
wouldn’t bother going to the effort of pollinating them by
hand, unlike melons which benefit from hand-pollination,
which I covered in a previous blog post.
Harvesting your zucchini
It can take what seems like forever for your first zucchini
to be ready for picking but be patient! In early summer, it
will usually be cooler so it might take awhile for them to
grow to full size. You can pick zucchini at any stage. I
prefer to pick them when they are smaller because they
are sweeter and you can stay on top of your harvest,
which can sometimes get out of control. Some people
wait until their zucchini grow into marrows and serve them
stuffed with breadcrumbs and mince. It’s a good idea to
check your plants every day as they can swell up very
quickly. One summer I remember checking our plants in
the early morning and there were none ready to be
harvested. We went away to the beach for the day. By
the time we returned home in the evening I checked the
garden again and five enormous marrows had suddenly
developed!
Got a glut of zucchini that you can’t get through all at
once? Zucchini can be stored in the fridge for up to 2
weeks prior to consumption, or you can do what we do
and give them away to family, friends and neighbours.
Click here to read this article in my blog.
Gardening Questions and Answers
We are taking a break from our Gardening Questions and
Answers column as we enter the busiest time of the
gardening calendar. I’ve been flat out preparing growing
guides to help give everyone the information they need in
order to have a great growing season!
If you do have a gardening question, please contact me at
anitakundu.nz@gmail.com and I will feature the response
in a future issue of Anita’s Garden newsletter.
Anita's Garden 9
Growing Guide: Sunflowers
Unknown variety in the garden
Sunflowers are my all-time favourite flower and always
feature prominently in our summer garden. They are
very easy to grow and are a great way to attract bees
and butterflies to the garden.
I normally sow sunflower seeds from mid-October
onwards, when the risk of frosts has well and truly
passed but the ground is at the same time sufficiently
moist to aid germination. In saying that, it does
depend on where you live. New Zealand’s climate
varies dramatically from region to region and I do have
to remember that not all of my audience lives in
Auckland or even New Zealand for that matter. My
personal gardening experiences are limited to our
urban homestead in the Auckland region, so please
take this into account when considering my advice.
On the same token, what grows well in my
environment may not necessarily thrive in your own
microclimate. So please don’t blame me if things go
wrong and varieties I’ve recommended don’t grow well
in your garden!
Sowing sunflowers from seed
It’s really easy to grow sunflowers from seed and it
allows you to grow unusual varieties which aren’t
found in garden centres. It takes about 90 days until
maturity, usually around 60 or so days in the case of
dwarf varieties.
For the best results, sow sunflower seeds directly
where you want to grow them. Over the years, I have
tried raising sunflowers in punnets for transplanting
later, but I found that germination rates were very low.
If you’ve left it too late or don’t want to start them from
seed, look out for sunflower plants in garden centres
Growing Guide: Sunflowers (cont from page 9)
from October onwards. You can try your local Palmers
store.
Sunflower varieties
garden. Before sowing sunflower seeds, take the time to
prepare the bed properly so plants receive adequate
nutrition.

If you’re planning to grow sunflowers from seed, you’ll find

that they come in an impressive array of colours, sizes
and heights. Traditionally, sunflowers are bright yellow,
but they also come in pale yellow, red, bronze and
orange. Sunflowers are either dwarf, medium or tall in
height. The sunflower seeds I’m sowing this year were
saved from last year’s plants. However there are some
fantastic varieties of sunflower seeds on the market.
Popular dwarf varieties include Pacino Cola (Egmont
Seeds) and Dwarf Ballad F1 Hybrid (Egmont Seeds). A
lovely medium sized variety I have grown in the past is
Musicbox Mix (Egmont Seeds), which contains a lovely
variety of shades. For tall traditional yellow sunflowers,
you can’t go past Russian Giant (Egmont Seeds). The
best red variety I have grown is Moulin Rouge F1 Hybrid Moonwalker, Yates Seeds
(Egmont Seeds), which produces tall red and bronze
flowers on branching stems. The best sunflower for
picking is by far Sunrich Irish Gold (Egmont Seeds). I Dig the area over that you wish to plant your seedlings
have grown this variety in previous years and it produces in. Mix plenty of compost and some sheep pellets into
excellent cut flowers on long stems. the ground. I highly recommend Gardn Gro’s Wonder
Nuggets, which are 100% organic and function as an
excellent fertiliser. Rake the ground so that it is nice and
To order seeds from the very extensive Egmont Seeds level. Be sure to water plants every day, preferably early
range, visit http://www.egmontseeds.co.nz/. in the morning or in the evening. Liquid feed sunflowers
weekly to encourage the growth of healthy leaves and
the formation of flowers.

Sunflowers are an annual which means that they will

grow, set seed and die after one growing season. If you
are growing heirloom varieties, you can save seeds from
your plants so you will be able to sow those varieties
next season, as I have done.

Sunflower Sunrich Irish Gold (Egmont Seeds)

How to care for sunflower plants

Sunflowers need at least 6 hours of sunshine per day, so

be sure to plant seedlings in the sunniest spot in your

Anita's Garden 10
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