In the garden: February and March

Early autumn is only a few sleeps away. For many areas it’s hard to imagine as the hot, dry weather continues. This time in the garden is an in-between phase. Summer vegetables are reaching their peak while others may be looking decidedly haggard. In southern areas leaves on deciduous trees are beginning to change and the days are getting shorter and the nights longer.

I love this time of the year as it is very bountiful and all your hard work of growing, weeding, watering and feeding is paying off with armfuls of freshly harvested produce. This is the time to dig potatoes and kumara, and snip pumpkins from the dry vines, leaving a 5cm long stalk. Peaches, plums, pears and apples are all ready to be harvested and eaten fresh or bottled for your winter squirrel store.

At the end of summer pest numbers are often at their maximum. Snails, caterpillars, aphids and white fly may be in large numbers.

Shield beetles may be particularly numerous. They are easy to notice, especially if you happen to squash one. They emit a foul odour which alerts their friends to nearby danger. But the first frosts will knock the pest population on its head – just another reason to embrace the changing seasons.

Powdery mildew is also a big problem this time of year. Avoid overhead watering, using buried seep hoses instead. Pull off any leaves which appear white with a fuzzy growth and burn them.

If your garden is being bombarded by squadrons of white cabbage butterflies, apply ‘No Caterpillers’ – a Kiwicare spray. This spray contains bacteria which only kills caterpillars, is certified organic and has no withholding period, meaning you don’t have to wait before it’s safe to harvest and eat your crops.

It is important to keep up the watering in the late summer months. The ground may well have become very dry under the mulch layer. To check, dig down through any mulch you may have on your garden and feel the soil in your hand. Ideally it should feel like a wrung-out but still damp sponge (husbands may have to ask their wives what that feels like!).

Harvesting now

Tomatoes

Hopefully you have enjoyed a bellyful of tomatoes over summer and have eaten so much that you are totally over them. Don’t despair, in the dark of winter you, like me, will again begin dreaming of the tomato season.

Harvest red tomatoes daily. Any fruit which is not fully red can be ripened on a sunny window sill.

Give any remaining plants a generous side dressing of compost to give them one last boost before the frost. Vacuum cleaner dust makes a great mulch and feed all in one. All those flakes of dead skin, animal hair and millions of dust mites actually make a real energy-boosting meal for tomato plants, feeding them all the trace elements they need. Empty your vacuum bags around each plant to feed them and provide a water-retaining mulch.

Another trick to get sluggish tomatoes to ripen is to hang banana skins on your tomato plants. The banana skins give off ethylene which is a gas the tomatoes need to ripen.

And if your tomato plants have wilted or lost leaves due to fungal diseases but still have trusses of green fruit on them, don’t despair. Pull the plant out and hang the entire plant, roots and all, upside down in a shed, a garage or under the eaves of the house. The fruit will ripen slowly and can then be picked.

Garlic

Harvest time has arrived for garlic. By now the leaves should have turned brown and be dry and wilted. Underneath the soil is where the action has been. The summer has provided warmth and the soil nutrients for the bulbs to develop into fat, round juicy balls.

It can be tricky to know when to harvest your garlic. The green leaves start to die from the bottom up. When the bottom four leaves are dead, it is time to dig up the bulbs. To check, you can dig up one. A mature bulb is large, round and has some brown skins around it.

Freshly harvested garlic is surprisingly fragile. Avoid knocking the bulbs as this can cause them to rot. Choose a warm, dry, sunny day for harvesting. Lift the bulbs gently with a garden fork and brush off any soil and trim the roots.

Garlic requires about a fortnight to cure for it to store over winter. I just bundle them up in groups of five or six using a piece of twine. You could get really clever and plait them like the French do. Store them hanging in an area with good air flow which does not get too hot, out of direct sunlight.

Planting now

Broad beans

Plant broad bean seeds directly into the soil. Luckily the seeds are large and easy to handle. There are dwarfing varieties to choose from which don’t require too much staking or alternatively be lazy like me and just plant the seeds close together at around 4cm. As the plants grow they will give each other support.

Broad beans have a bad rap, thanks to our grandmas serving them up as over-boiled grey wrinkly things. If you take the time to remove the outer thick grey skin, they taste like giant peas.

As the plants are growing, snip off the top growth and use in stir-fries and salads. The flowers are also edible but leave some on as they will produce the beans.

Broad beans are legumes. This means they store nitrogen. When the crop has finished, just dig the green stalks and leaves directly into the garden and they will nourish your soil.

Cavelo nero

Cavelo nero is part of the brassica family and is known by many aliases: Tuscan kale, palm leaf cabbage, black leaf kale or dinosaur kale. It is a wonderful winter crop that can be planted now.

Cavelo nero is a leafy cabbage which does not form a head but rather grows branching leaves which look a little like palm fronds. It almost becomes an architectural statement in your vegetable garden with its blue-green textural leaves.

Like all brassicas it likes rich soil with a side dressing of compost. Seedlings and seeds should be available at your local garden centre. After the first frosts, the leaves develop a lovely sweetness. Use the leaves in stir-fries, casseroles or fry and add to pasta dishes. If you have chooks they will love any old outer leaves.

Other crops to plant now

Auckland and north: French beans, broad beans, Chinese cabbage, parsnip, spinach, carrots, beetroot, Brussels sprouts, cos lettuce, cauliflower, celery, leeks, kale Central New Zealand: Beetroot, broad beans, parsnip, carrot, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, spring onion, leeks, kale.

Southern cool zone: Beetroot, broad beans, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, winter lettuce, kale.

Organic pest control

Pests are at their most prevalent at this time of year. Here are a few simple ways to get rid of them without having to resort to nasty chemicals.

For powdery mildew on your pumpkin, cucumber and courgette leaves: Mix up 2 cups of milk with 2 tablespoons of baking soda and dilute with fresh water to make 3 litres. Spray on the leaves and the soil around each affected plant.

For aphids, white fly and mites: Make up a witch’s brew by chopping one onion, three chillies and three cloves of garlic and boiling in 2 litres of water. Let this simmer for an hour with the lid on. Cool, strain, add a dash of washing up liquid and put in a spray bottle to spray on affected plants.

To protect young seedlings from slugs and snails: Cut up plastic fizzy drink bottles to make rings 8cm high. Push the rings over the plants and into the soil about 2cm. This will create a little barrier fence which the slugs and snails will not climb. If you have any horse hair, egg shells or coffee grounds, sprinkle this around the perimeter too as an extra deterrent.

Janet Luke is a writer, gardener and landscape architect. For more ideas on living sustainably in the city and to subscribe to her monthly e-newsletter, visit www.greenurbanliving.co.nz

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It’s one thing for an established farmer to live off their land, quite another for a city-dwelling mum of three lively sons to shun the supermarket. But holding grave concerns about chemical use and ethical issues surrounding modern food production, landscape gardener Janet Luke did just that – attempting to feed herself and her family from her average-sized urban Havelock North garden. In this, her second book, Janet takes readers on her self-sufficiency journey, outlining the trials and triumphs – and providing instruction and valuable insight – as she plants fruit trees and vegetables, and tends to goats, chickens, quail and rabbits, all the while drawing closer to her community. Backyard Bounty is available from www.greenurbanliving.co.nz or digitally via www.amazon.com.