Gardening aids
While keeping warm reading gardening mags or seed catalogues, you might want to check out the advertisements for those handy gardening aids that make it easier to grow a plentiful supply of produce. It’s also a great time to go through your garden tools and equipment, and oil or fix them ready for spring.
Here’s a list of garden aids that I use (or want!):
Some tools: Top of the list is my niwashi—such an excellent weeder and planting hand tool. Made by the same people is thegarden shark or kama, an excellent tool for cutting tall grasses or weeds and gathering with the other hand. It’s ideal for gathering materials for composting. Garden shears are great for cutting back plant material more easily than secateurs (www.gubba.co.nz). The U-Bar (tine fork) is an excellent tool for penetrating deep into the soil and aerating it, without having to turn it. It also helps lift couch grass out of the soil (www.koanga.co.nz).
Gathering aids: For the small, less messy jobs like gathering fruit and vegetables, nothing beats the locally made cane baskets and trugs. Otherwise try Tubtrugs®, which are colourful two-handled tubs. The cheapest option is the good old plastic bucket.
For weeding, garden bags are ideal. They come with handles and are specially designed to stand open while you fill them up. They are also made in New Zealand. Woolsacks are also great for the big loads (ask in Riwaka at the wool depot). And what would we do without a good wheelbarrow? I like the contractor or tradesman models, as they’re more durable. Green’s contractor wheelbarrows are also Kiwi-made. For larger materials like bales of hay, then a handcart is awesome (eg Stanley hand cart). For all those gardening extras like hand tools, scissors, twine, etc, garden pouches or a bucket organiser will help. It’s an apron that fits round a bucket and you put your hand tools and accessories in the side pockets.
Water devices: Watering cans are great when removing water from 200-litre water collection drums beside garden sheds, etc. The stainless steel watering cans look funky, and the spray rose lasts longer than plastic models. Cans enable spot-watering where hoses can’t reach, and are essential for liquid fertilising. Hand wands are good for spot-watering too, and multi-settings make them versatile. And they attract the kids to the garden! Hose reels are handy to get hoses out the way. An old cable reel or tyre rim attached to a post or shed is a cheap option.
Coverings: Cloches made of Microklima cloth and Kerilea hoops are my favourite covering for protection and warming.
Fruit care
Plant fruit trees/shrubs. Stake and tie. Protect from wind and animals.
Prune pipfruit (apples, pears etc).
Prune berryfruits.
Remove diseased or insect-infested fruits and leaves from around trees.
Cut understorey down and mulch around trees.
Mulch fruits with woody compost.
Feed orchard with dolomite lime, rock phosphate, manure, woody compost.
Prepare new strawberry beds, add compost, leaf mould, and mulch with pine needles.
Prune citrus when harvesting. Frost-protect young plants.
Divide rhubarb.
Spray everything with diluted seaweed solution. Copper spray on stone fruit vs brown rot, etc, or pipfruit vs black spot. Use dormant spray (lime sulphur and oil) vs scale, woolly apple aphid, mites, scabs, and powdery mildew.
Herb care:
Transplant rooted cuttings from last year. Take cuttings of rosemary, sage, lavender etc.
Weed and mulch.
Vegetable care
Walk around the garden reflecting on what worked what didn’t. Use a map of the garden to plan next year’s crops. Check out seed catalogues (Kings Seeds, Eco Seeds, Koanga seeds) or browse retail seed stands for ideas.
Plant garlic (soft neck) and shallots into prepared beds.
Prepare asparagus bed: dig a deep trench (up to 60cm deep). Add lots of rich organic material and make sure there are no weeds like couch. Add sand if your soil is heavy. Plant when crowns are available.
Keep weeding and make lots of compost. Turn to aid decomposition.
Keep developing fertile beds for brassica planting.
Mulch with seagrass.
Sow/plant salads and winter greens for ongoing supply, eg corn salad, miner’s lettuce, mizuna, rocket.
Sow/plant beneficial flowers, eg pansy.
Hothouse: Clean for better light. Plant with winter salads or green crops.
For transplanting: Leafy greens (winter spinach, lettuce, endive, Chinese cabbage and cabbages), red onions, broccoli, cauliflower. Flowers, eg primula.
Sow direct: Salads. Radish and spring onions (best 16-18 July). Broad beans (best 14-15 July). Flowers, eg aquilegia.
Plant: Now until 9 July. Onions, salad greens, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbages. Flowers, eg bulbs.
General garden care
Lime the lawn.
Take a soil test for garden and orchard areas (try www.hillslaboratories) and organise minerals to offset deficiencies.
Prune trees and shrubs after flowering, including roses.
Keep adding leaves to compost ring to create leaf mould.
Collect seaweed/seagrass and mulch.
Mulch citrus and ornamentals with grass clippings, leaves and woody compost.
Sol Morgan, GroWise Consultancy
