Advice. Ideas.

Inspiration

Anita’s Garden
Volume 2, Issue 11 4 October 2019

Useful Links Editorial

Webpage
Welcome to the eleventh issue of my  Planting lettuce at fortnightly
Blog intervals so you have a continu-
newsletter Anita’s Garden for 2019.
ous supply in summer
Newsletter back issues
I hope you have all had a good week.
Facebook  Potting up seedlings as they
October checklist grow into larger punnets or pots
Instagram
Here is a checklist of tasks for this  Spraying fruit trees (including
Twitter month: passionfruit) with liquid copper
to prevent brown rot, leaf curl
Linkedin  Sowing seeds undercover. Oc-
and other fungal diseases. Liq-
tober is the perfect month for
Pinterest uid copper is an organic spray. I
getting cucurbits started—
like alternating between liquid
zucchini, pumpkins, squash
copper and copper oxychloride
and cucumbers.
Contact me  Spraying roses with liquid cop-
 Planting potatoes. For advice
per and copper oxychloride to
on growing potatoes, see page 3
 Feedback prevent brown spot
of my newsletter last week.
 Newsletter input  Spraying garlic for rust. I’m
 Sowing parsnips. This should
(tips, recipes, gar- going to continue spraying our
have been done in September.
den photos etc) garlic right up until harvest be-
If you missed out, you can still
cause we have had very bad rust
 To be added to my sow them now but don’t leave it
these past few seasons
mailing list any longer. See my guide to
growing parsnips on page 3 of  Covering strawberries with net-
anitakundu.nz@gmail.com Issue 9 of my newsletter. ting to keep birds out as berries
ripen
 Sowing carrots
 Watering the garden. It has
 Sowing radish
Inside this issue: been quite dry lately, so this has
 Sowing lettuce—miners lettuce, become necessary
lamb’s lettuce, cut and come
 Liquid feeding garlic and straw-
again lettuce, heading varie-
P ot te r ing aro u nd 2 berries with a water soluble
ties, mesclun and rocket
Anita’s Garden plant food
 Sowing microgreens. If you
 Giving citrus, fruit trees and
wait any longer, they will bolt
Top 5 gardening tasks 2 roses a feeding of granular food.
to seed very quickly as temper-
for the week Feed any potted fruit trees with
atures increase
a slow release fertiliser in pot-
 Sowing coriander, parsley and tles
Tips for growing beetroot 2
dill (remember to sow them
 Keeping on top of weeds
direct)
Thank you for your continued support.
 Planting celeriac. It may be
How to grow carrots 3
necessary to spray it for rust Anita Kundu
PAGE 2
Pottering around Anita’s Garden
Potatoes
I harvested more potatoes—Agria
and Summer Delight, which I
grew for the first time.
Top 5 gardening tasks for the week
1. Sow carrots
Now is a good time to sow carrots
if you want them with your Christ-
mas lunch.
2. Plant beetroot
Pop in a punnet or two of beetroot.
Awapuni sells very large seedlings
which will grow in no time at all
3. Sow radish
Tips for growing beetroot
 Beetroot can easily be grown
from seeds or seedlings in
spring and autumn.
 To sow beetroot, you can
either raise them in punnets
with a little seed raising mix
for transplanting later on or
you can sow seeds directly
where you want to grow
them.
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N
Planting beetroot
I planted four punnets of beetroot
seedlings.
Sowing carrots
I sowed four different varieties of
coloured carrots from Egmont
Seeds—Ruby, Purple, White and
Yellow.
Sowing radish
I sowed some radish seeds—
Gaudry and Ravanelli Colorati
from Franchi seeds, as well as
Amethyst from Egmont Seeds
Transplanting poppies
I carefully moved some self-seeded
poppies that were growing in the
wrong place to another location.
Radish can be sown in containers
or directly where you want it to
grow in the ground. Don’t use
compost or too much fertiliser or
you’ll end up with lots of leafy
growth and no roots!
4. Plant silverbeet and
spinach
Pop in some seedlings to replace
plants that have bolted to seed, as
I have been doing,
 Spend some time preparing
the soil beforehand. I avoid
using compost and too much
fertiliser otherwise you’ll
end up with lots of leafy
growth and no roots. I do
like adding a bit of blood
and bone and root booster
(superphosphate) to the soil
before planting.
 Space seeds or seedlings
V O LU M E 2 , I S S U E 1 1
Planting silverbeet
I planted a few punnets of silver-
beet and spinach seedlings to re-
place the plants which bolted to
seed.
Potting up seedlings
I potted up a variety of tomato
seedlings that were getting quite
big into six-cell punnets.
Liquid feeding
I liquid fed the garlic and straw-
berries
Spraying
I sprayed the garlic, roses and
fruit trees to help prevent diseases
5. Weeding
It probably isn’t any gardener’s
favourite activity, but now that
we’re well into spring, it’s a good
idea to keep on top of weeds. This
task is best done by hand when
weeding around plants, in order to
avoid damaging the roots. You can
spread mulch around new plant-
ings to help keep weeds down in
future.
about a hand span apart to give
them enough space to grow
 Water seedlings well after
planting
 Keep weeds down around
the plants. As the plants
grow, you may want to
spread some mulch around
them to help discourage
weeds
 V O LU M E 2 , I S S U E 1 1
How to grow carrots
I always make room for growing
carrots in the garden. Some gar-
deners don’t bother growing car-
rots because they’re cheap enough
to buy, but once you have a taste of
homegrown carrots you’ll feel dif-
ferently! Carrots are a staple in
the kitchen. They’re extremely
nutritious and can be used in
many dishes and salads. Kids love
them, especially baby carrots. I’ve
put together a little growing guide
to help you grow carrots this sea-
son.
Growing carrots
The best time to sow carrots is in
spring and autumn, when the
ground is nice and moist. Carrots
can be grown either in the ground
or in containers, provided that
they are large enough and have
sufficient depth to accommodate
the roots as they grow downwards.
Things to bear in mind:
1. Always pick a sunny site.
As a root crop, carrots need
at least six hours of sun per
day.
2. Prepare the soil well.
Whether growing carrots in
containers or in the ground,
make sure you dig down-
wards deeply to ensure that
they don’t hit any lumps of
soil or rocks, which will
cause them to become
forked. It isn’t a good idea
to use compost or too much
fertilizer, otherwise you'll
end up with lots of leafy
growth at the expense of
nice, strong roots.
3. Always sow carrot seed di-
rectly where you want it to
grow, whether growing car-
rots in containers or in the
ground. Avoid those pun-
nets of carrots that you see
at the garden centre at all
costs! If you try and trans-
plant carrots, they will end
up becoming forked.
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N PAGE 3
Tips for growing carrots
1. Water your crop regularly,
especially as temperatures
increase. Carrots in con-
tainers will need watering
more frequently than those
in the ground.
2. Keep on top of weeds. Al-
ways weed by hand to avoid
damaging any carrots. It’s a
good idea to wait awhile
before weeding to avoid acci-
Some coloured carrots from a pre- dentally pulling out young
vious season carrot seedlings, especially
4. You can try using seed tape, if you’re new to growing car-
which is biodegradable and rots and you don’t know
breaks down in the soil after what they look like
planting. The carrot seeds
3. Liquid feed plants regularly
are spaced evenly, prevent- with a water soluble plant
ing the need for thinning
food or seaweed extract.
them out later (see below).
Egmont Seeds has the varie- 4. So far, I haven’t encoun-
ties Slenderette, All Seasons tered any diseases or prob-
and Manchester Table. lems with growing carrots
therefore I haven’t had to
5. As the seedlings grow, you’ll spray them.
probably find
that you need “Some gardeners don’t 5. Carrots
to thin them should be ready
bother growing carrots
out a bit as in 12-14 weeks
because they’re cheap
some seeds
enough to buy, but once 6. It’s a good
will be
spaced too you have a taste of idea to rotate the
closely to- homegrown carrots you’ll area where you
gether feel differently!” grow carrots to
avoid the build
6. Cover with a thin later of up of diseases in the soil.
dirt and water well.
How to prepare carrots
Varieties
Carrots can be enjoyed in many
Carrots come in a variety of ways. We enjoy eating baby car-
shapes, sizes and colours. rots raw with a bit of hummus.
Larger carrots can be eaten roast-
Egmont Seeds offer an incredible ed along with other veggies in a
range of carrots. Orange varieties roasted vegetable salad or as ac-
include All Seasons, Baby, Chante- companiment to a Sunday roast.
nay, Kuroda, Ladies Fingers, La- We also enjoy eating carrots raw
guna, Manchester Table, Resistaf- in a range of salads, including cole-
ly, Romance, Senior, Top weight slaw and carrot salad. We came
and Touchon. across a Martha Stewart recipe we
really like.
Coloured varieties in the Egmont
Seeds range include Rainbow
Mixed, Purple, Ruby, White and Have a great weekend
Yellow.
Happy gardening!