May 2015 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

Autumn is here; the days are shortening, the nights are chilly and gone is the time to sow many seeds or plant many seedlings as the plants will not reach a big enough leaf size to keep developing through winter, resulting in either stunted vegetables or plants that bolt to seed as soon as spring comes. However, there is still time to plant garlic and to sow broad beans, onions, some salad leaves and many Asian greens. Check the guide below for details.

Luckily, the cooler weather heralds the start of the end of the cabbage moth laying eggs on our brassicas although I did notice a few new holes on my Chinese cabbages today. Autumn is a wonderful time for harvesting mushrooms, kale, French sorrel, salad leaves, early broccoli, rainbow chard, the last of our summer vegetables and a myriad of fabulous apples. Many kitchens are bulging at the seams with preserves, Bring on winter and cosy nights by the fire with some home-made cassis and quince paste served with a delicious cheese!

Wood Ash

One product all who have fires can harvest in autumn and winter is wood ash. This fluffy, gritty, alkaline substance is sometimes a challenge to manage but here are some uses I put it to:

1.   As the best cleaner for firebox glass (dampen a piece of screwed-up newspaper and dip it into the ash then rub onto the glass for instant success!)

2.   In place of lime in the garden (sprinkle over the soil and dig in before planting garlic, brassicas and most veg this time of the year. I throw buckets of it thinly around under all my fruit trees now and through winter, then mulch with thick straw.)

3.   In spring and summer to kill pear and cherry slugs (also found on quinces). (Throw fine ash over all leaf surfaces whenever you see the pear and cherry slugs. This will dry them out.)

4.   Algae and moss deterrent in lawns and useful for slippery surfaces.

5.   As a chook dust bath. (Provide them with a place to bathe in dry ashes as it helps kill bugs. Useful for wet weather when their regular dusting areas may be damp)

6.   As a light fertiliser for alkaline-loving plants as wood ash can contain 10-25% calcium, 1-4% magnesium, 5-15% potassium and 1-3% phosphorus.

7.   Mixed with compost to raise the pH of the compost and your soil.

Cuttings

Now is the perfect time for softwood cuttings for deciduous plants like grape vines, glory vines and black currants as well as for rosemary, Chilean guavas and other evergreen edibles. Cut lengths of new grape vine growth to include 4 buds. Put into a damp, light, potting mix deep enough for 2 buds to go below the soil and two above. A cheap potting mix with no added nutrients is best. With rosemary and other evergreens, strip the leaves off the bottom 2/3 of a cutting and place into potting mix. You can put several in a pot. Cover with a plastic bag secure with a rubber band. Leave in a sheltered place and keep just damp, not wet, until spring. Check for root growth and pot up to grow on further or leave longer. Don’t let them get too hot or dry out.

Winter pruning

I listen to the radio quite a bit, mostly online via my smart phone which I plug into my speakers so I can hear it all over the house. I love technology and make use of it a lot. Today my home phoneline died and I lost the internet. Tragedy! Then I learnt how to tether my smartphone and make a mobile wifi hotspot which meant I could send this garden guide to The Classifiieds, even without ADSL. I am pretty proud of that and have a lovely bloke at Internode to thank for telling me how to go about doing it. The show must go on!

I can always find something to learn about on the radio via podcasts and the cloud, when local radio is reduced to sport or celebrities. I sometimes even listen to live BBC2 garden talkback, which is thoroughly delightful, even when the seasons are upside down.

Somewhere online last week I listened to someone talking about when to prune things, not for our own benefit, but for the benefit of the birds. It is no good attracting birds to your garden if you start having a mad spring pruning session and cut down everywhere the birds might want to nest! For the sake of birdlife, it is best to prune after the young have left the nest, which varies from species to species but pruning is most often best carried out late summer to early winter.

I seem to have an autumn pruning bug right now, running my shears over everything from lavender to pear trees and natives as well. They are fed straight into my Australian-made, heavy duty mulcher and the resultant bags of green mulch then spread on paths or used in making compost. A couple of weeks ago I pruned 3 wattles pretty hard, to let the afternoon winter light into my windows. The mulchings were layered with straw and horse manure the same day and within 3 days the heap was so hot I could not put my hand into it!

If this all sounds like too much hard work, grab yourself a bottle of linseed, mix it half with turps, sit in the sunshine and rub an oiled cloth over the handles of all your garden tools. Unbelievably relaxing!

Sow in the garden now	Plant Now
Broad beans Bok Choy Mustard greens esp. frilly Miners’ lettuce Corn salad (mache) Shungiku (edible, Japanese Chrysanthemum) Radishes Salad and spring onions Coriander Chervil Sow in the hothouse to plant out: Lettuces Kales Broccoli raab Sow to stay in the hothouse or frost-free area: Sugar snap peas	Leek bulbils Garlic cloves Large Seedlings Flower bulbs Plant and grow in the hothouse: Celery (loves it there over winter), 1 or 2 of lots of things, so you can pop out there and pick things without having to put your boots on, in winter…. Lettuce, spinach, Viet. Mint, Lemon Grass, Chervil, Frilly Kale (small variety) for salads, Shungiku, sugar snap peas.