Stuff Digital Edition

COMPILED Time for your garden’s spring makeover

Make the most of soft soil by digging new garden beds now. Take the time to check on your potted plants and give them a bit of extra care if they need it.

BY BARBARA SMITH

Beat the hungry gap

There are slim pickings from my vege patch in mid-spring. The perennial spinach and celery have bolted in response to lengthening days and warmer temperatures. The sprouting broccoli is a mass of cheerful yellow flowers – food for the bees but not for me. I’ve lost enthusiasm for kale, although there are still tufts of small leaves left atop the tall bare stems.

Summer crops of tomatoes, cucumbers and beans are still a long way ahead. In the meantime I’m relying on containers planted with cut-andcome-again greens such as spinach, mesclun, loose-leaf lettuces and beetroot to fill the gap.

I’ve grown mine from seed planted every couple of weeks, but if you’re lucky enough to have access to seedlings you can get a head start by planting good-sized seedlings closer together than you would in the garden.

Put the container in a warm place where you can give it maximum attention – weekly liquid feeds, regular watering and a cover or cloche for protection from birds, cats and the weather. Picking a few leaves off each plant for a daily salad makes room for more leaves to grow.

Remember the flowers, leaf tips and tendrils of broad beans and peas are edible too – either fresh in a salad or tossed into a stir-fry. You’ll help keep the plants compact but don’t overdo it, or you’ll miss out on peas and beans later.

Dig new garden beds while it’s easy

Get cracking while soil is soft and easy to work. First, mow the grass so there’s less of it to deal with. Next, mark out your new garden using a string line if you want straight lines, or the hose if you want curves. Use a half-moon edger or a sharp spade to cut out the shape of your new bed, then slice off workable sized pieces of sod.

If your soil is soft and easy to lift, or if you like a physical challenge, break the sods up with a spade or fork into 2cm pieces, or hire a petrolpowered rotary hoe. Top your freshly tilled sods with as much organic material, such as compost, leaf litter and manure, as you can, and add gypsum if you have a heavy clay soil.

If grass grows through these layers, it should be relatively easy to pull out. You can also skim off the top layer of grass and compost it, or if you’re dealing with baddie weeds such as couch or onion weed, chuck them in a black plastic bag with a little water and let them rot down for six months, before composting them.

Alternatively, compost your sods, by chucking them, grass side down, in a pile in a corner of the garden. Add weeds (minus seed heads and perennial roots), grass clippings and old potting mix. Speed up the composting process and prevent weeds from growing in it, by covering your pile with black polythene or old carpet.

If you can’t be bothered digging, make a lawn lasagne, which is the permaculture method of sheet mulching. Wet your mowed lawn thoroughly the day before (the organisms that convert the layers into soil won’t work without water), then the next day, lay down a weed-suppressing layer of cardboard or newspaper (eight sheets thick), hose that down, then add layers of mulch, manure, compost and straw. Allow the lasagne to break down for around six weeks before planting directly into it. Plant small plants directly into the top level of soil and dig down and make a planting hole in the cardboard or newspaper for larger plants.

Give potted plants a spring makeover

I have far too many plants in pots. It’s the only way I can indulge my interest (addiction?) for plant collecting in a very small garden and pots do have some advantages. Potted plants are mobile. When orchids, crocuses or auriculas are in bloom they take their place centre stage where I can see them every day. When they’ve done their dash, they’re replaced by whatever is coming into bloom next.

I grow a lot of veges in pots too. In winter, the pots bask in the sun in front of the garage door. In summer they move to a spot near the tap for easy watering. Pots allow me to practice crop rotation. I can’t change the only place suitable for tomatoes, but I can change the soil in the pot that stands there. However, there are disadvantages. Potted plants need more maintenance and regular care. Spring is a good time to check if potted plants need any attention.

Do they need to move to a sunnier or shadier location? Are the drainage holes blocked? Lift pots off the ground on pot feet to improve drainage or use saucers to retain moisture in dry weather. Roots coming out the drainage hole are a sure sign the plant is root-bound and needs repotting. Plants with a flush of new growth and those with lacklustre yellow leaves need fertiliser – don’t overdo it. Regular doses of liquid fertiliser or slow-release pellets are better than a large dollop all in one go. Is the plant lopsided, growing towards the sun or away from the wind? Even up the growth by rotating the pot. Potting mix does not last forever. It gets compacted, the structure breaks down and the nutrients are depleted. Trees and shrubs that live in the same pot for many years need to have the mix refreshed every couple of years. If you can, scrape out some around the top and replace with fresh mix. Or get serious and knock the plant and mix out of the pot. Trim a couple of centimetres off all sides of the root ball then put back in the pot with fresh mix in the gap.

Repot and feed hippeastrums

New leaves are sprouting in the pots of hippeastrum bulbs that spent the winter on their sides (to keep them dry) in a shady place. To keep them growing strongly I tidy up the pots and add fertiliser.

I scrape out as much of the surplus soil as possible from the top of the pot then sprinkle in some bulb food or Nitrophoska and sheep pellets before topping up with a little fresh potting mix but don’t cover the ‘‘shoulders’’ of the bulbs.

I finish off with a layer of gravel or pumice. This does not deter snails, as is commonly stated on the internet, but conserves water, reduces soil splashing up onto the leaves and gives the pots a neat, traditional, uniform look.

Hippeastrums flower best when they are rootbound, so if you are

planting new bulbs don’t give them too big a pot. Keep the bulbs wellwatered from when the leaves first appear and throughout summer. Put in a warm, bright place. Slugs and snails will chew the leaves down to stumps. Even a few nibbles on a new leaf mean the plant will look damaged all season, so persevere with nightly snail hunts.

After flowering, cut off the flower spike. Leave in a partially sunny place, so the leaves continue to feed the bulb and nourish next year’s flowers.

Gardening by the maramataka

It is the month of Mahuru or Whiringa-a¯-nuku. The new moon or Whitireia as it is known in Taranaki (Whiro in some other regions) appeared on September 7, we are almost fully into the ko¯anga (spring). Ra¯kaunui, the full moon, occurred on the 14th.

The best days for early planting were September 21 and 22 in the north. In colder regions, delay planting until October.

Music

en-nz

2021-09-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/283115662102103

Stuff Limited