Corn grows well in Whanganui. Photo / Supplied
With warmer weather now arriving many vegetables can be planted to give you your own homegrown fresh produce in the coming months.
The traditional spring planting season of October has well passed us and frequent cold snaps and well above-average rainfalls have made plantings more difficult for cold-sensitive plants – there is still time to plant now.
Tomatoes, capsicums, cucumbers, corn, and pumpkins are best planted prior to New Year otherwise they may not crop before the cooler autumn weather arrives next year.
Seeds that can be sown directly into the soil now include; carrots, corn, butter beans, dwarf beans and radishes.
Continue with successive plantings of other vegetables including lettuce varieties, celery, spinach and silver beet, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower.
Some summer vegetables to plant now are:
Cucumbers
Cucumbers are a warm-season vegetable that loves the hot weather. If you haven’t got any growing then plant one now, they will grow quickly in the warmer weather. The flavour of these when they are freshly picked from your garden surpasses those that can be bought in the stores.
Plant climbing types are spaced 40cm apart and bush and trailing types on the ground are about 75cm apart, firm in the 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” gives good results. Cucumbers grow very successfully in pots, I grow mine in 35-litre tubs and use “Tui Vegetable Mix” as the potting medium and supplement with liquid fertiliser “Ican Fast Food”. In pots they are best staked and tied up regularly, growing up an obelisk or teepee is ideal.
Pumpkins
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.
The rambling nature of the plant growth can be excessive for growing in a smaller garden. However, 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.
Butternut is a pumpkin-like vegetable which 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.
Tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes in salads and eaten fresh, large tomatoes sliced into sandwiches with cucumber and ham, medium-sized tomatoes cut into quarters and served with dinner, tomatoes sliced on crackers with cracked pepper and cheese. How do you like your tomatoes?
There are many varieties of tomatoes now readily available they come in all sorts of colours; yellow, purple, black, orange, green, striped and of course red.
There are plenty of options to choose to grow and plenty of ways that you can grow tomato plants at home. Each person that has grown tomatoes a few times seems to develop their own style and method of growing that suits them and their property.
Tomatoes grow best in warm temperatures in a full sun position, sheltered from the wind. The plants perform best if they are rotated with other vegetable crops to prevent a build-up of soil-borne pests and diseases.
They should not be grown in the same patch of ground year after year. This can be a problem in small gardens and greenhouses. If pests and diseases are not a major problem and the soil is boosted with regular applications of compost and fertiliser then rotation may not be necessary. Tomatoes are also grown very successfully in containers and this is another popular option.
Prepare the soil by working in “Tui Vegetable Mix” or other such products. Mix in the soil at least 30cm deep since tomatoes develop a deep-root system in this range and are gross feeders. Work in tomato fertiliser before planting; tomatoes need high levels of phosphate, but low levels of nitrogen. Dressings of feeds such as; “Tui Tomato Fertiliser” during the growing season are most beneficial. The use of slow-releasing “Jobes Tomato Spikes” I have found very effective for the ongoing feeding of tomatoes, capsicums and cucumbers in pots and containers.
Beans
Beans come in both dwarf bush form and as a climber.
Dwarf beans form a self-supporting bushy plant growing approximately 25cm tall and wide. They are quick to reach harvest and ready for eating around 7-8 weeks from sowing. A highly recommended top-producing bean variety is the in the “Ican Chefs Best Seed Range” called “Supreme”. It is high yielding, with strong disease resistance and has straight 14cm long beans set high on the plant for easy picking. The pods are distinctively glossy, very fleshy and have excellent flavour. The bean “Supreme” comes ready over a 2-3 week period so making a number of sowings every three weeks will give a consecutive harvest through the summer months. As a small growing plant, they are an ideal vegetable to grow in containers if you are limited for space, as well as in the garden.
Climbing Beans form a larger plant and need some support. A structure of approximately 1.8-2m high is recommended with trellis, wires or string being ideal for the tendrils to climb around. Climbing beans take about 10-12 weeks to start cropping from sowing but will keep flowering and producing beans for as long as the temperatures remain warm. Some climbing bean varieties will form a tuberous root system that if left in the soil will regrow in future years. To leave your root systems to grow again the next year, the vines should be cut off above ground level as the plants die off in the autumn rather than being pulled out roots and all.
Corn
Corn is an easy-to-grow and productive crop that grows well in Whanganui. Seeds should be sown now directly into the soil or use seedlings from the garden centre; these will be ready for harvest between late February and during March. Corn is a heavy-feeding plant. Before planting I recommend mixing “Ican Organic Vegetable Food” into the soil and then side dress again regularly as the plants are growing. Corn is best planted in blocks rather than rows as this significantly improves the rate of pollination.
Lettuce and radish
The base of any salad is lettuce. It is so easy to grow, planting in pots or in the garden a few plants will grow fresh goodness for your kitchen. To ensure a continuous summer harvest make regular plantings of lettuce every few weeks. Adding a few radish seeds alongside each time you replant your lettuces is another fast-growing addition to the summer salad. Radishes can be sown and harvested in six weeks.
Happy Gardening!
For more gardening information visit www.springvalegardencentre.co.nz
* Gareth Carter is the general manager of Springvale Garden Centre.
'We want to take a very detailed specific look at what Whanganui needs' – Chris Bishop.