Down to earth: Kumara growing
Autumn, the season of plenty! I hope you’re all enjoying the abundance of your efforts this season. Now the trick is preserving what won’t keep.
There are some crops worth giving a try (as they often cost a lot) even though they need more care. Kumara (or sweet potato) is such a crop but can yield well and is fun to dig up at the end of the season. Here’s some tips for harvesting and for growing it next season.
Leave kumara in the ground for as long as possible. Harvest when tops die off or before the first frost.
Harvest with care as they break easily. Leave the tubers in the sun to cure for few days and then further in the hot water cupboard (high humidity) for another week. Curing is important or they’re likely to rot.
Store in boxes with hay, straw or newspaper between each layer so tubers aren’t touching. Put boxes in a cool, dry, rodent-proof place.
Eat damaged or discoloured tubers as they usually rot.
Practice crop rotation to avoid soil-borne rots/pests.
Order sprouts from your garden shop early- they are usually available early November (after risk of frost is past).
Select a garden bed in a hot spot and add lots of rich compost. Add wood ash, blood and bone or fishmeal.Mulch with seaweed. In heavy soils add sand to help warming. Raised beds or ridges also help growth.
It’s important that there is a hard pan about 25cm into the soil. Kumara tubers form when they hit this pan.
If you don’t have a suitable bed or room then try containers such as washing machine tubs, old baths or tyre towers.
Plant sprouts 30cm apart in rows, two rows per bed. Water well.
Liquid fertilise with comfrey weekly. Keep moist.
When the runners grow, lift them so they don’t root at the nodes. You want them to set tubers at the main root.
Other crops like potatoes and yams (oca) can be grown in a similar way. Harvesting is fun, especially with the kids.
Fruit care
Harvest fruit. Remove diseased or insect-infested fruits.
Sow orchard understorey plants and plant spring bulbs.
Feed orchard with dolomite lime, rock phosphate, manure and woody compost.
Water fruits and keep all fruits well mulched.
Complete pruning, especially stonefruit. Prune old canes of berryfruit and tie new canes. Trim blueberries and Chilean cranberries, especially dead wood and leggy growth.
Watch for silverleaf. Remove tree if it’s really bad. Otherwise prune out affected branches. Treat cuts with trichoderma. Insert bio dowels into trunk asap.
Tip figs when fruit buds form for better fruiting.
Put bands of corrugated cardboard around fruit tree trunks. Remove and burn fortnightly to limit moth caterpillars. Barrier paste on the band helps trap them.
Prepare new strawberry beds. Replace old plants.
Spray fruits with liquid seaweed as a tonic.
Also spray citrus with all-purpose oil for scale insect, thrips or aphid (or use garlic and pyrethrum).
Prune citrus when harvesting.
Prune grape shoots back to two leaves past fruit.
Herb care:
Harvest herb seed.
Sow seed of rosemary, thyme and chives.
Plant parsley.
Transplant rooted cuttings from last year. Take cuttings of rosemary, sage, lavender etc.
Water, weed and mulch.
Vegetable care
Prepare garlic beds.
Sow green manure crops like lupin, rye, corn and mustard into beds free of winter plantings.
Harvest pumpkins and melons when tendrils and stalks brown off. Collect dry beans for seed.
Save seed from best salads, silverbeet, leeks etc.
Keep weeding and make lots of compost.
Prepare ground for broad beans. Sow. Add lime and compost.
Plant winter brassicas in a fertile bed. Apply Bt.
Sow/plant salads and winter greens, eg corn salad.
Liquid fertilise in the morning once a week.
Sow/plant lots of flowers to attract beneficial insects.
Hothouse: Liquid fertilise weekly. Replace yellow sticky cards/bands for white fly. Keep well ventilated. Spray diluted milk solution vs powdery mildew.
For transplanting: All seeds 27th April. Leafy greens (summer spinach, spinach beet, lettuce, endive, chinese cabbage and cabbages) and red onions (also 22nd April). Broccoli and cauliflower. Flowers, eg snapdragon.
Sow direct: All seeds 27th April. Mesclun salad. Peas, radish, spring onions, spring carrots, swede and turnip (also 25th – 28th April). Flowers, eg heartease.
Plant: – 18th April. Salad greens, silverbeet/chard, spinach, and cabbages. Flowers, eg anemone bulbs.
General garden care
Collect water in drums for irrigation.
Prune trees and shrubs after flowering, including roses.
Make lots of compost. Turn heaps.
Collect leaves for leaf mould compost ring.
Last chance to make comfrey liquid fertiliser before spring.
Collect seaweed/seagrass.
Mulch citrus and ornamentals with grass clippings.
Sol Morgan, GroWise Consultancy
