Advice. Ideas.

Inspiration

Anita’s Garden
Volume 3, Issue 13 16 October 2020

Useful Links Editorial

Webpage

Blog Welcome to the thirteenth issue of You can plant:

my newsletter for Volume 3.  Dahlias
Newsletter back issues
I hope you have all had a good week.
Facebook  Lillies
Plant nursery
Instagram  Gladioli
To see a current stock list of plants
Twitter available for sale in the nursery,  Tuberous begonias

Linkedin
Pinterest
Contact me
 Feedback
 Newsletter input
(tips, recipes, gar-
den photos etc)
 To be added to my
mailing list
anitakundu.nz@gmail.com
Inside this issue:
P ot te r ing aro u nd 2
Anita’s Garden
Top 5 gardening tasks 2 
for the week
Herb of the week: Bor- 2 
age
please visit my website or see the  Avocado trees (in frost-free re-
pinned post on my Facebook page.
gions)
Seeds to sow
 Potatoes
Now is a good time to sow the follow-
Best to wait until November for:
ing:
 Sowing zinnias
 Zucchini
 Sowing beans (including boda
 Cucumbers
beans, soy beans and snake
beans)
 Pumpkins
 Squash  Sowing bitter melon, luffa,
gourds and okra
 Melons
 Planting melons outside
 Sunflowers
 Planting kumara
 Cosmos
 Planting petunias (my favourite
 Wildflowers is Night Sky), marigolds and
tropical impatiens
 Calendula
 Planting corn
 Lettuce
 Planting Malabar spinach
 Spinach
Useful links
 Silverbeet
Italian Seeds Pronto
 Spring onions
 Awapuni
 Carrots
Bulbs Direct
 Tomatoes (for planting in De-
cember) Have a great weekend.

 Kohlrabi Kind regards,

How to grow melons 3

 Fennel Anita Kundu

 Microgreens
PAGE 2
Pottering around Anita’s Garden
Our hanging baskets filled with
pansies by the washing line are in
full bloom! I planted small seed-
lings into the baskets a couple of
months ago. Pansies are one of
my favourite winter annuals and
make great container plants. Now
is a good time to start thinking
about what you want to grow in
your hanging baskets over sum-
mer. Petunias, marigolds and be-
gonias are all good choices.
Top 5 gardening tasks for the week
1. Sow melons
For tips, see the article on page 3.
2. Sow borage
For growing advice, see the article
below.
3. Sow wildflowers
Wildflowers are helpful for attract-
ing bees, butterflies and beneficial
Herb of the week: Borage
Borage is also known as starflow-
er. It is an excellent bee-attracting
plant. The pretty blue flowers are
edible and can be used in salads.
They can also be used as a garnish
in drinks. Try freezing the flowers
in ice cubes for decoration. Young
leaves can be added to salads and
cooked like spinach. Borage leaves
can be used to make tea. Borage is
also grown for medicinal purposes.
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N V O LU M E 3 , I S S U E 1 3
In mid-August, I planted polyan-
thus in our hanging baskets on our
concrete slab at the front of our
house. They have also started Here’s a little throwback to our
flowering. I was particularly dwarf Rose Chiffon peach trees in
drawn to these polyanthus as they blossom during September. We
are mutli-coloured. I have never had one of these trees and enjoyed
seen blue polyanthus before and I the white fleshed peaches so much
adore blue flowers so I had to get that we decided to add another two
some! I’ll keep them in until No- trees to the garden. I got them
vember, after which time I’ll plant from Roger’s in Mangere, Auck-
cherry tomatoes in them. land.
outdoors incrementally. Start
insects to the garden. Prepare the
with an hour or two and build up
ground as you would prior to put-
to leaving them outside overnight.
ting in any kind of new plant. Mix
This is to avoid shocking them
in compost, sheep pellets and gen-
when they are planted in the gar-
eral fertiliser. Then sow wildflow-
den over Labour Weekend
er seeds direct and cover lightly
with soil. Water well, and keep 5. Sow sunflowers
moist.
You can sow sunflowers outside
4. Harden off plants now. I’ve found that sunflowers
tend to do best when sown direct
If you haven’t already started do-
to the ground.
ing so, expose your plants to the
The flowers and leaves can be used
to treat fevers, coughs and depres-
sion.
Plant or sow borage in spring. If
you start with a plant as I did,
you’ll find you never have to plant
it again. It self-seeds in the gar-
den every year. If you want, you
can sow borage seeds direct to the
ground. It is very easy to grow Borage flowering in our garden
from seed.
 V O LU M E 3 , I S S U E 1 3
How to grow melons
I love growing melons. They aren’t
the easiest thing to grow but when
you are successful, it is extremely
rewarding. The taste of home-
grown melon is far superior to the
taste of store-bought ones. Home-
grown melons are unbelievably
juicy and sweet.
The main types of melons we grow
are watermelon, rockmelon and
honeydew melon. But there are
also some interesting and unusual
melon varieties which are well
worth growing. One of them is
Zatta in the Franchi Seeds range
(distributed by Italian Seeds Pron-
to), which I grew successfully a
couple of years ago. Another
which I will be growing this year is
Inverno, also in the Franchi Seeds
range.
Tips for growing melons
 Melons can be started un-
dercover in October.
 A head pad (or your hot wa-
ter cupboard) will aid germi-
nation.
 Sprinkle a little seed raising
mix (not potting mix or gar-
den soil) into a punnet or
egg carton and sprinkle
seeds. Cover lightly.
 I like to keep my seedlings
in an incubator (mini green-
house) which sit on top of
my heat pad
 Make sure you keep seed-
lings moist. I mist mine
with a spray bottle twice a
day and wipe off the conden-
sation on the incubator lids.
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N
Homegrown rockmelons
6. Avoid shocking your plants.
When they come off the heat
pad, move them into your
greenhouse before gradually
exposing them to the out-
doors, an hour at a time, in
October. Eventually, build
up to leaving them outdoors
overnight.
7. Prick out melon seedlings
and pot them into individual
pots when they have devel-
oped two leaves and have
grown a bit.
8. Get into the habit of liquid
feeding your
plants weekly “The taste of homegrown
with a water melon is far superior to the
soluble plant taste of store-bought ones.
food or sea- Homegrown melons are
weed tonic if unbelievably juicy and
you’re gar- sweet.”
dening organ-
ically
9. Only plant your melons into
the garden when it’s warm
enough. Normally, this is
by the third week of Novem-
ber. Any sooner and the
plants will probably die
from the cold.
10. Plant your melons in full
sun.
12. Water your plants regularly.
Depending on where you
live, you may be on watering
restrictions, so this may
mean using a watering can
if you’re at Level 1
(Auckland at present).
PAGE 3
12. Female flowers need to be
pollinated in order to pro-
duce fruit so plant lots of
flowers nearby to attract
bees to the garden. Wild-
flowers and sunflowers are a
favourite! You can also pol-
linate the flowers by hand to
increase the fruit yield.
While this requires some
effort, it is well worth it in
the end.
13. Harvest melons when they
are ripe. Rockmelons will
die off the vine. They will
also give off a musky odour.
For watermelon, give it a
tap. If it’s ripe, it should
make a hollow sound. Also
look at the underside of the
watermelon. If it’s ready, it
should be a yellow colour.
Nutrition
Watermelon is made of mostly wa-
ter, but it is also high in vitamins
including A, B6 and D.
Ideas for eating watermelon
Our favourite
way is simply
fresh, but you can
get more creative.
 Salads
 Punch and
spritzer
 Ice cream and gelato
 Granita
 Sorbet
 Smoothies
 Juice
 Jam
 Mousse
 Fruit salad
 Ice blocks
Have a great weekend
Happy gardening!