Derek’s Garden Diary

By Derek Onley

Due to popular demand, and a certain amount of bullying by the editors
[it was gentle, we promise!], "Blueskin News" is pleased to announce
the return of Derek's Garden Diary.

Three years ago, when writing about the December garden, I wrote about
the need to water and mulch well. Decembers aren't always like that.
Sometimes they are wet, mildewy, damp and cool and if the end of this
November is anything to go by, 2011 may well be like this. However,
though the weather may change, other things don't change much and
boring old gardeners do much the same thing every bloody year.

You should by now have much of your summer garden, carrots, parsnips
and broccoli for example, planted and growing well. But it's often not
until the first week of December that I bother to plant green and
yellow bush beans, the ones that come up to knee high – plant them any
earlier and they just sit there looking miserable. And you can still
plant out seedlings of runner beans, zucchinis and their flying
saucer-like cousins (scallopinis). You can also keep planting carrots
and spring onions all through December as long as you water them well.

But even though we are barely out of spring you need to start thinking
about your late autumn, winter, and even your following spring garden,
to supply you with food until the spring of 2012. If you've got a
small garden like me this is always a problem; there is never enough
space left to plant rows of leek seeds, seedlings of purple sprouting
broccoli (for next spring), cauliflowers, ordinary green sprouting
broccoli, cabbages, celery etc (for late autumn and winter). All of
those brassicas and the celery seeds are best planted into little pots
on the window sill, if for no other reason than to solve the shortage
of space. It gives you time to pull out and eat some of the other
things that are getting in the way.

Some of the vegetable varieties I have found work well in my Waitati
garden are:
• Lebanese zucchinis, as well as the standard dark green/black ones -
yellow ones often go mildewy at the flower end.
• Slenderette green bush beans work really well and so do varieties of
Golden Wax yellow beans.
• Romanesco (pointy-headed) broccoli grows well during summer. For
late autumn and into winter you are better off with the standard
larger green-headed broccoli like De Ciccio.
• And if you have any space left after that you can always chuck in a
few more spring onions, quick growing greens like mibuna and mizuna
and a reasonably heat tolerant lettuce like Royal Oak Leaf or
Mervielle de Quatre Saisons.

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