Another move and Covid. How quickly things change don’t they? From way south to – eventually – way north!
But at least I still have my Bay and Cherry Trees.
Here in my Northland house, I have a HUGE garden, but it is virtually all lawn, though I do have a very large deck, where I am currently enjoying the Spring sunshine. Which brings me back to my focus today.
Over the last little while, weather permitting, I have set up my garden – ON – the deck. Health is still my main concern, and in my mind growing my own food is a legitimate aspect of this concern. As a result, I have been doing plenty of research, which I will put in another blog. Today though I want to talk about growing the best vegetables and fruit for health. I am indulging myself if truth be told, as I am growing vegetables because I outright love them.
During the past few months I have bought two long, wooden planter boxes and one square box, also wooden, from a local man who kindly used slightly cheaper wood so that I could afford to pay for them. I am so pleased that my grape vine that I grew from a seedling given to me by a friend in the South Island, has survived the moves and repotting. It did grow two small grape clusters last year and I am hoping that it will do better this year. Especially as it is in a much better container, with much better soil. It has plenty of leaves so – fingers crossed.
There are a couple of vines in the middle of the back lawn, which my son-in-law has chopped today, giving me cuttings to grow into more grape vines, hopefully. We will be moving them along the fence line rather than straight out onto the lawn, which currently makes it awkward for mowing. Having the big section down has already given more light. I will work on the cuttings after lunch.
Anyway, with the first planter box, I grew peas, cauliflower and broccoli, also beetroot. With hindsight (20/20 of course), this was a mistake as my poor peas really struggled. Mainly due to the fact that I was unaware that peas do not do well with brassicas. So I lost them after only a few pods survived.
Once I had my second box, I was able to plant more vegetables for the summer. I am not really into lettuce, so have planted Brussel sprouts and broad beans, in that box. Also, as some of the potatoes in my pantry had started shooting, (I don’t eat a lot of potatoes on my new regime, even though they are one of my favourite vegetables), so I cut off the small end of the potato that was shooting and just stuck it in the soil. I now have two potatoes growing that could well give me new potatoes for
Christmas, and this morning I noticed that one of the other two (Agria) I dealt with the same way, has begun to grow as well.
I love the fact that this year, being finally settled into my new home and neighbourhood, I will have my own vegetables that I know won’t have been sprayed with insecticide or any other aid that the commercial growers use.
My broad beans are going NUTS!!! And already have small pods growing. (The tiny Wax eyes are also loving the flowers on there, lining up to have their turn at the pollen). Also, knowing they need some chills, (we have very little frost up here in the north) I have been making ice cubes to scatter around the Brussel sprout stems. Seems to have worked fine as I noticed a whole swag of baby sprouts at the top, leaf part of the plants. Yum, will make more for the smaller plants, see if it works for them too.
I think the beetroot is finally beginning to grow baby beets, so I have hope there too. And with the runner beans which are already climbing their way up the canes I put in for them. The Snow peas are beginning to shoot up too, YAY
As an afterthought, I bought a grafted tomato plant, which I managed to decapitate as I was putting it in the boot of the car when I was going home, is now growing vigorously after I took of all the shoots but the one lateral in the top leaf notch below where I chopped off the healthy top stem.
For some gardeners, everything they do seems successful, but there are certainly some out there, like me for instance, who with the best will in the world, are apt to bungle it. But, because we do, we work extra hard to overcome the tendency. To be on the safe side, I went to the small, local (I live in a village) garden centre and bought another tomato plant. Not nearly as large as my first one. Not grafted, but still growing well. As are the two Capsicum plants I bought with the grafted tomato. And to my delight, I have baby peppers growing on both plants.
What this all means is that I will have plenty of lovely vegetables to turn into even more lovely dishes, such as……….