Harvesting gets into full swing this month, with main-crop potatoes, onions and garlic ready to lift and dry before being stored for winter use.
Courgettes and tomatoes are in full swing, as are butter and runner beans, which now may need to be covered at night, as Central Otago readers report frosts knocking tender crops.
Keep harvesting these reliable vegetables and make an effort to store them for winter when they can add variety as well as helping reduce food bills. Courgettes, stewed with onions, tomatoes and garlic, can be packed into suitable containers and frozen; or made into summery soups and zucchini loaves, also for the freezer.
Grapes are ripening and early apples are ready to be picked.
Almost a year ago (ODT, 08.04.22), I wrote about rising food prices and the need for self-sufficiency.
The ongoing effects of Cyclone Gabrielle has just made the situation worse. The Countdown supermarket chain has just advised customers that bagged salads, coleslaw and lettuce are in short supply because a lot come from the Gisborne region. Kūmara could also be affected, because of harvesting difficulties in the Kaipara area and most of us saw photos of the Pukekohe onions washed off paddocks and piled against fences.
Garden centres may see a run on vegetable plants and seed if my recent observations of empty shelves is any indication, another reason for getting into gear now.
I make no apologies for banging on about the need for self-sufficiency, particularly as there is no sign of GST being removed from food. Even one or two silverbeet plants can help the budget and ensure some greens over winter.
There is still time to sow seed of fast-maturing Asian vegetables, such as pak choi and tatsoi for winter. Choose a cooler spot and keep young plants moist, so they don’t “bolt” (go to seed) in hot autumn weather.
Silverbeet can also be sown now for winter use, as can kale. ‘‘Scarlet’’ is a frilly-leafed purple kale available in punnets of plants, as are green varieties. Lettuce suitable for overwintering, such as ‘‘Merveille des Quatre Saisons’’, can be sown now, too.
Brown onions, such as ‘‘Pukekohe Long Keeper’’, ‘‘Stuttgart Long Keeper’’ and ‘‘Italian Long Keeper’’, do best in the South if seed is sown from now until May. They are fiddly to weed and thin when tiny, so are best grown in seed trays and planted out when 5cm-10cm tall into rich, well-drained ground.
From now until Anzac Day is the accepted time to sow broad beans.
If you don’t have space in the vegetable garden, ‘‘Hughey’’ can be popped into a corner of a flower bed, where its pretty crimson flowers can be admired.
Green manure can be sown in any empty beds for digging in later to enrich the soil.
Celery, cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli can still be planted, as can leek seedlings, although the latter will tend to be much smaller than those grown earlier in the season.
Garlic and shallots can be planted from now until the ground is too wet or frozen to work. These are both members of the onion family, so should not be planted in the same place where any of their rellies have been grown the previous couple of seasons.
Asparagus and rhubarb crowns, and strawberries can be planted from now until late winter. Prepare the ground with lots of nourishment for these perennial crops.
