Silverbeet
(also known as Swiss Chard)
Silverbeet is the warrior of the garden plants. It’s easy to grow, almost impossible to kill and
if it goes to seed, you’ll get hundreds of self-sown (free) seedlings to transplant. To harvest,
cut off some of the bigger leaves and it keeps growing more.
This is a fantastic plant to feed your family some green goodness, especially during the
winter when there’s nothing much else growing in the garden.
1. It’s best to grow silverbeet from seed in a seed tray or small planter pots. Use your
own seed raising mix or buy some. The seed only wants to be covered by soil as
thick as itself, or it won’t be able to push through. Refer to our easy seed-sowing
technique.
2. Prep the bed. As a general rule, put a 2-4cm layer of compost over a bed before
planting out. You can also throw a handful of compost into the hole when planting
out.
3. When seedlings are 5-10cm high, plant out into your veggie garden. Leave 30cm
between plants. Water and mulch the plants with some straw to help conserve
moisture.
4. You can harvest leaves, young or old, by cutting them from the outer edges of the
plant. Remember to leave three or or four leaves as this will assist speedy continued
growth.
5. As the season goes on, you can put a handful or two of compost around the
silverbeet plants (commonly called side dressing) or water with a compost or
vermicast tea. This will keep you in silverbeet all summer and through the autumn.
6. Sow some seeds from February to give yourself a winter crop. These warriors will
fight off Jack Frost to keep on feeding you through the winter.
Recommend: Ford Hook Giant
Carrots
Carrots don’t want to be grown in your richest, most-composted garden bed. They will often
do well following another crop without composting the bed again. At the same time, they
won’t grow well in hard packed dry soils lacking in organic matter.
Soil temperature needs to be above 15 C. In early spring, raised beds will warm up earlier
than traditional beds. Using a large cloche for a week prior to sowing (preferably with some
sunny days in there) will help warm the ground.
1.
Fork the top 15-25 cm of soil to a fine tilth free of lumpy soil. If your soil is hard pack,
lightly mix in 2-3cm of compost. Leaf mould is good because it’s rich in organic
matter but not so rich in nitrogen which can cause forking and heavy top growth.
2.
Create some drill lines where you wish to sow your seed. You can use the end of a
hoe, a stick or the side corner edge of a wooden plank.
3.
Sow the seeds. Mix your carrot seed in an ice cream container with 3 cups of sand, 3
cups of fine compost or vermicast and 1 cup of vermiculite (optional). Mix it up
well...really well. Put this mix into your drill/indentation using a trowel, the ice cream
container or your hands. Rows should be 15cm apart min (depending on how big
your hoe is). A bigger spacing allows for other crops to go in between, classically
onions and carrots are companion plants.
4.
You don’t need to cover with seeds with soil, just pat down lightly and water. Cover
loosely with frost cloth or wind break, with stones in the corners to stop it blowing
away. This will stop the seeds from drying out in the wind and sunshine.
5.
Water every day until seeds germinate (unless it rains). Once they germinate, take
the cover off and reduce your watering. It’s better to water deeply and less often, we
want those roots to head down.
6.
When the seeds get up to 3- 4 cm, thin the seedlings to leave enough room for your
carrots to get big. You can leave it longer and pull them as very young carrots for
your salad. Keep thinning as needed.
7.
Pick your carrots as you desire, they can be eaten young, mature or over winter.
8.
Sow carrots in Jan/Feb for a winter crop. During winter, cover them with a deep
mulch of straw and dig as needed. This may not work if you suffer from permafrost.
Recommend: Nantes, Berlicum, Kuroda Improved, Touchon
Lettuces
Lettuces are easy to grow. They are so delicious and sweet straight from the garden, that
your salads will taste better than ever, plus you can save a lot of money if you eat them
regularly.
There is a huge variety of lettuces and mesculin mixes, some of which do better at different
times of year depending on light, heat and moisture levels. Lettuces can cope with light
frosts so are ideal for early spring growing.
1. Prep the bed with plenty of compost.
2. You can sow in pots and take care of the plants til ready to be transplanted. Either
cover seeds with gravel or sprinkle very lightly with more seed raising mix (water
frequently so the seed-raising mix doesn’t dry out).
3. Or you can direct sow when the soil is a bit warmer and most of the frosts have
passed. Sprinkle the seeds randomly over a patch, cover very lightly with fine soil
and water. This system allows you to thin small lettuces for your salads while
allowing the strongest plants to grow to maturity.
4. Water plants often. In spring and autumn lettuces will flourish with minimal care. In
the height of summer or one of the windy weeks, these fullas will love you if you give
them some shade and wind protection. Try some light wind break over a hoop, a
moveable shade frame or snuggle them next to a row of sunflowers protecting them
from the norwester and the sun. This can make the difference between great and
not-so-great lettuces.
5. You can pick the whole lettuce or harvest a few leaves from the outside edges of the
loose-leafed sorts and keep them growing.
6. There are varieties of lettuce that will grow through winter with the aid of a glass
house or tunnel house. They can cope with the freeze, thaw cycle and still produce
great lettuces. Try Cos varieties, Freckles and Merveille des Quatre Saisons.
Recommend: Freckles, Green Salad Bowl, Little Gem, Frills, Merveille des Quatre Saisons,
Little Gem and Mesclun mixes.
Beans
There are a wonderful array of beans you can grow from runner beans to dwarf beans and
through to broad beans. Heritage varieties have names which make you want to grow them
like Devils Defiance and Grandparent Takamatua Black!
The below does not apply to broad beans which can be traditionally sown on Anzac day.
Bush (dwarf) beans should be planted 30cm apart, and sown more often as they often will
crop all at once. A pole bean (runners or climbers) will give a more continuous supply.
1. Prep the bed as we’ve mentioned before with plenty of compost. A trellis of some
sort is required if you are planting pole beans or runners, 1.5-2 m high. You can use
old mesh or fencing attached to posts, make a tepee, weave a trellis out of cut
hazlenut suckers, use a frame with string hanging down or plant by your corn or
sunflowers and have them climb up living poles.
2. You can sow into pots 3-4 weeks before the last frost. Usually the last frost is early
November, but we can get frosts at any time of year so sometimes a bit of frost
protection is needed. Harden off the plants, then plant them out once frosts are likely
to have finished.
3. Otherwise you can direct sow below the intended climbing route, towards the end of
October. Soak beans overnight before sowing. Keep on eye on the sky and give
them some frost protection if needed.
4. Traditionally once sown and watered, no more watering is done til the seedling is up.
Just keep an eye on moisture levels if the norwesters are hounding your patch! You
may need to ignore tradition if the soil is drying out.
5. As the seedling grows it may need a little help to get going on its intended route to
the stars. Every now and again point it or wrap it gently star bound.
6. Mulch well and water a minimum of once a week, more if it’s dry.
7. Pick beans often. Don’t leave pods to fatten up or the plant will stop producing.
8. Beans are a legume, this means as they grow and give you goodies, they are adding
nitrogen to the soil, fertilising it for free.
Recommend: Blue Lake Runner, King of the Blues, any type of dwarf beans
Tomatoes
Tomatoes: stripped ones, yellow ones, pink ones, green ones, small ones, giant ones there are so many varieties out there, including a fantastic selection of heritage varieties.
Tomatoes are split into two groups: determinate and indeterminate varieties. Think of
determinate varieties as a bush needing minimal support. The majority of tomatoes grown
in a tunnel or glass house are indeterminate varieties which need staking and keep fruiting
throughout the season. Those grown outside are often the bush determinate style which
tend to produce tomatoes all at the same time. Phew got all that?
Tomatoes are easy to grow. Of all the plants in our fantastic, five these will need the most
attention but it’s worth it, because there’s nothing like a sun-ripened, freshly picked tomato
out of the garden.
1. Sow seeds indoors early, because you want to get your tomato plants to a good size
and give them a head-start before they go into the garden.
2. Prep the ground with lots and lots of compost. Big feeders = big crops!
3. Choose when to plant out your tomato seedlings. Traditional Wanaka wisdom is to
plant tomatoes out at Labour weekend or when the snow is off Mt Roy – whichever
comes first. That will work for a tunnel/glass house or if you have a sheltered
Wanaka garden, but if your garden is prone to later frosts (eg Albert Town or Hawea
Flat) hold off planting outside for a few more weeks until frosts have passed.
4. When planting tomatoes, I dig a good sized hole and place more compost into the
hole. Plant the tomato up to its first set of leaves (picking these gently off). This will
give you instantly deep roots.
5. You can begin with watering from above. But as your tomatoes get bigger, it’s better
to use a ground-type watering to keep your plants healthy and happy. Water a little
and often.This avoids fruit swelling too quickly and splitting.
6. Indeterminate tomatoes need to be supported with a huge stake or long twine
hanging down from the ceiling. As these plants grow you need to keep a central by
pinching out the new side shoots. Break off the shoots as they emerge at a 45
degree angle between the leaf stalk and main leader.
7. As you will see, you have to do this often. If you don’t you end up with lots of triffidlike arms all trying to grow more tomatoes. Multiply these arms and the arms coming
out of the arms and the …....... and very quickly you are in a land of chaos with many
many TINY tomatoes that won’t ripen.
8. Depending on the height of your roof, at about 1.5m high you can allow an extra
leader to develop (requiring another twine from the roof to support it). This will allow
you to increase crop size utilising vertical space.
9. Then when they’re as tall as you can cope with, cut the top off to stop the plant
growing up any more.
7. Tomatoes are often described as ‘gross feeders’. This means that they need feeding.
The more you feed them, the more bountiful the crop. Liquid feeds you could use
include compost, comfrey, manure, vermicast and seaweed teas. Ideally give the
plants a feed once a week.
8. Pick tomatoes as they ripen on the vine.
9. Tap the vines every time you get near them. This will aid pollination rates and adds
to the strength of plant.
10. Pop some cardboard around and underneath low-hanging tomatoes. This will stop
tomatoes touching the soil from rotting.
11. Plant some basil around the base of your plants. Basil is a companion plant which is
supposed to make your tomatoes taste sweeter. Not sure if it makes a difference, but
they’re delicious to eat together.
12. Pick off leaves up to the first truss of tomatoes. Sometimes the plant looks a bit
naked, but it allows for better airflow, ripening and concentration on fruit growing.
13. As the season draws to a close and you still have tomatoes on the vines, pull out
the whole or part of the vine and leave in a warm light place in a polystyrene box. Or
pick the tomatoes and keep them in your kitchen, where they should ripen up slowly.
Green tomato chutneys are delish!
Of course you don’t have to go to such lengths with liquid fertilisers and companion plants.
These are just measures to help you achieve nirvanic tomatoes.
Recommend inside: Aunt Ruby’s German Green, Black Cherry, Brandywine varieties
Recommend outside: Aunt Ruby’s German Green, Tigerella, Yellow Pear, Sub Artic Plenty