Gardening Tips + Ideas

We’re celebrating the launch of our Organic Vegetable Gardening book this month and so are giving away three copies! The book is full of top tips on how to keep the bugs out of your garden without using nasty chemicals. To go in the draw to win a copy and a Friskars Featherlight Spade, just share your gardening tips in the comments box below.

It’s easy to believe spring is here but don’t rush into planting just yet as cool nights are still lingering and can harm tender young seedlings. Instead now is the time to start preparing your garden beds and planning what to grow this summer.

Use this time to do a last minute trip to a farm for cow manure or the beach for seaweed and dig it through your garden to give the soil an extra boost ready for this summer’s crops.

As the weekends are getting warmer we’re getting out into the garden and staring to reclaim the plots and dream about what we’d like to try this year. Have a think about what worked last year and what was not so good. Look through seed catalogues (go to www.kingsseeds.co.nz and www.koanga.org.nz to order your catalogues) and get inspired about what you are going to try in your veggie patch this year.

If you’ve never tried growing your veggies from seed, it’s time to get started. It’s really easy and incredibly cost effective; a packet of seeds usually costs around $3.50 for a couple of hundred seeds! You’ll end up with enough plants to share with friends and neighbours and what comes around goes around.

Sowing now will prepare you for Labour Weekend planting. From Labour Day on you can pretty much plant anything anywhere.

Right now (mid-Sept) you can get your beans, peas, beetroots, Jerusalem artichokes, potatoes and salad greens under way outdoors, and you can start sowing seeds of most things - but hold off planting out into garden beds summery treats such as tomatoes, eggplants and chillies until Labour Weekend. They are available in the garden centre but really unless you have a greenhouse it’s a little early.

In colder climates you will also need to keep your seed trays in the greenhouse or on a sunny window sill. In mild areas you can keep the seed raising trays in a warm, frost free part of your garden.

You will need:

• Your seeds
• Seed raising trays
• Seed raising mix (we recommend Daltons seed raising mix)
• Ice block sticks and a permanent marker for labels
• A spray bottle to mist the seeds with water

Fill the seed raising trays with seed raising mix and pat down firmly. Follow the instructions on the seed packets for spacing of the seed. Some seeds are best planted straight into the garden (such as beans, carrots and beetroot) so follow the advice on the packet, or in our book.

Cover the seed with a sprinkling of seed raising mix and pat down gently. Give them a good water with the spray bottle and make sure you keep them well watered.

Warmth and water are the two most important ingredients to get your seeds started. All the food they need is self-contained, so until they form true leaves (those that follow the first two) this is all you need to focus on.

Soon you will be revelling in hundreds of little seedlings to show off to visiting friends!

We all know how good spinach is for us, it’s packed full of iron and is simply delicious but it is also one of the most trouble free garden crops.

All you need to do to prepare the soil is plenty of compost and access to a reliable source of water.

This green has many name sakes; there is New Zealand spinach, which is a native plant - its soft, fleshy foliage is great in salads and it grows like a trailing ground cover. Then there is spinach strawberry, which is a bizarre heirloom vegetable over 400 years old, it grows strawberry like edible fruits and the leaves can be cooked like spinach!

The true spinach varieties (try Spinach ‘Bloomsdale’, Spinach ‘Approach’ or Spinach ‘Summer Green’ from Kings Seeds) are easy to grow. To produce big, sweet plants load them up with generous applications of seed weed fertilizer and mulch to keep the water in.

Plant some spinach seedlings from your garden centre now as a good crop until the summer veggies start.

User Wice asks: How often should I repot my kaffir lime and my lemon trees. Both seem to develop yellow leaves within a season…. or should I just be feeding them more?

Citrus are what we call “gross feeders” meaning they are very hungry plants! They are great grown in pots but it means you need to be very particular about feeding them small amounts on a regular basis (monthly is more than enough) from September to March, don’t feed them in the winter as feeding will encourage new growth that can get damaged by cold snaps.

There are many citrus fertilizers available and in the ground all they need is an occasional handful of blood and bone around the drip line with some Epsom salts to provide magnesium to prevent yellowing of the leaves. In a pot you are better to use a handful of sheep pellets (with a teaspoon of Epsom salts) as blood and bone could burn your plant. Citrus also require plenty to drink so keep them well watered in summer. A good mulch will help to retain moisture in the soil.

To win a copy of Xanthe White’s new book Organic Vegetable Gardening and a Friskars Featherlight spade that’s light yet strong, just share your top gardening tip in the comments box below. Competition closes 29 September, 2009.