Gareth Carter: A vege garden checklist to keep you busy over the festive season

It's not too late to plant tomatoes. Photo / Supplied

As we are in the middle of the festive season, take time to enjoy the garden, hopefully between rain showers. I certainly cannot remember a wetter spring season than the one we have just had.

Looking around the city, the growth on trees, gardens and lawns is simply immense in recent weeks. We can only wonder and wait to see whether we will get dry as we head into January.

The seasons roll on and I have put together this checklist for the vegetable garden.

Tomatoes: If you haven’t yet planted many heat-loving summer vegetables, there is still time. For those who planted early, your plants are now probably fruiting. The high humidity this season increases the risk of blight, mildew and other fungal diseases. Protect plants with sprays of Growsafe Certified Organic Freeflo Copper or Yates Liquid Copper. The insect psyllid is also active — spray with Yates Mavrik or Wallys Silicon Cell Strengthener. Note Mavrik and Copper can be mixed and applied together.

Capsicums and chillis: These plants love the heat and will grow and produce quickly in a hot position during the summer months. Find a full-sun location out of the wind to grow these low-fuss vegetables. Feed with tomato food for good results.

Sow seeds: Those that can be sown directly into the soil now include carrots, corn, butter beans, dwarf beans, climbing beans and radishes. Continue with successive plantings of other vegetables including lettuce varieties, celery, spinach and silverbeet, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower. Seeds of these sown in trays now will be ready for planting out in February and will make a good mid-autumn harvest in late March/early April.

Cucumbers: These are warm-season vegetables that love the hot weather. If you haven’t got any growing then plant one now, they will grow quickly in the current hot spell. The flavour when they are fresh picked from your garden surpasses those that can be bought in the stores. Plant climbing types spaced 40cm apart, and bush and trailing types on the ground about 75cm apart, firm in then water. Grow them in a sheltered site in fertile rich soil that is well drained, but moisture retentive. The roots must not be allowed to dry out. Feeding with Tui Tomato Food or Ican Organic Vegetable Food gives good results. Cucumbers grow very successfully in pots. I grow mine in 35-litre tubs using Tui Vegetable Mix as the potting medium and supplement with liquid fertiliser Ican Fast Food and slow release. In pots they are best staked and tied up regularly. They have no frost tolerance and most are damaged at air temperatures below 10C.

Pumpkins: They can take up a lot of room if left to run unchecked. Planting them in an empty area where you have unused space usually results in a bountiful harvest come autumn. The rambling nature of the plant growth can be excessive for a smaller garden. A good method of growing pumpkins for smaller gardens is to trim the stems at the fourth leaf. The plant will still crop well but will not take up so much room. They are best planted prior to New Year otherwise they may not crop before the cooler autumn weather arrives. Crown pumpkin is a popular and reliable variety that produces oval grey pumpkins with sweet dry, textured, bright-orange flesh. It stores well and is particularly good roasted, for use in stir fry and of course the traditional pumpkin soup. Butternut is a pumpkin-like vegetable that produces 1-2kg of cream-coloured pear-shaped fruit and bright-orange flesh. Harvest when stems start to shrivel in autumn. It can be used in a wide variety of hot dishes and may be blanched and frozen for later use.

Leeks: They are traditionally planted between Christmas and New Year (a bit like the tradition of planting tomatoes at Labour Weekend). While planting is definitely not limited to this time, planting during December and early January tends to produce larger, more-robust plants than those planted later. Leeks are hardy vegetables that have very few pests/diseases that affect them. The bigger the leek, the more flavoured it is. Leeks are best planted in free-draining, organically rich soil. Apply generous amounts of lime to the soil a few weeks before planting if possible. Plants can be purchased in stores or grown from seeds. Seedlings grown in trays can be transplanted easily but leave them until they have grown to 20cm high. When transplanting, trim 8cm off the shoots and about 2cm off the roots before planting out. This is usually not necessary on seedlings brought from garden centres, as they are already prepared. Dropping more than one leek per hole is fine, but the leeks will be smaller. Alternatively, the plants can be thinned as if growing carrots and the thinnings can be added to soups and salads. To achieve pure white leeks, draw soil (not wet) up around the stems, being careful not to get soil caught between the leaves. Cardboard cylinders (toilet roll tubes) dropped over maturing plants, leaving leaves exposed, achieve the same result. Keep leeks weed free as they hate competing for light and moisture. Leeks can be safely left in the ground until needed or alternatively, dig up the crop and place them in a container filled with soil (cover the stems, leaving the leaves free), and store until needed.

Brussels sprouts: This vegetable is adored by some and detested by others. Brussels sprouts are one winter vegetable that needs to go in really early to get good height on the plants before the growth stops in cooler weather. The number of sprouts you get is almost 100 per cent determined by the length of the stem so planting in January is ideal. Like its brassica cousins broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage, Brussels sprouts will perform best in rich fertile soil. The addition of well-rotted animal manures, mushroom compost or soil conditioners such as Yates Dynamic Lifter or Tui Sheep Pellets will do much to enhance the soil structure and fertility and you will have a good chance to harvest a decent crop. They, like leeks, prefer an alkaline soil so the addition of lime prior to planting is beneficial. The biggest pest to Brussels sprouts is the white cabbage butterfly and caterpillar, which can be easily treated by the use of derris dust or a spray with Yates Mavrik or Yates Success Ultra. A non-spray alternative is to completely enclose the plants with a fine-meshed Bug Netting so the butterflies cannot reach the plants to lay eggs, thus preventing caterpillars from gaining access to the plants. Companion plants said to deter white cabbage butterfly and keep the caterpillars away from brassicas include oregano, mint, hyssop, thyme and rosemary. Planting sage and dill with your brassicas is said to improve their growth, and growing with chamomile is said to improve the flavour.

When planting any of these vegetables, prepare the soil with Ican Real Blood & Bone and then feed monthly with Ican Organic Vegetable Food. If the growth is slow, fertilise with liquid fertiliser such as Ican Fast Food once a week.

For more gardening information go to www.springvalegardencentre.co.nz

Gareth Carter is general manager of Springvale Garden Centre.