Gardening – All set for winter

I gave up growing garlic after fungal rust decimated crops several years in a row. This year I’m determined to beat it using a combination of techniques. Firstly, I’ve planted two varieties to see if one is more suited to our climate than the other. I’ve added lots of mature compost and fertilised heavily with sheep pellets, blood and bone, gypsum, dolomite and sulphate of potash before planting. Then another sprinkle of pellets once the shoots emerge, before covering the soil with a mulch of seagrass.

Once summer arrives, I’ll cover the crop with an open-sided plastic rain cover (cloches on stilts) to keep the leaves dry during the critical rust period before harvest. Finally, I’ve purchased some sulphur spray to apply whenever high humidity or persistent rain increases the risk of rust. Fingers crossed all this does the trick!

Another crop I haven’t grown for years in shallots. I’ve grown these from seed, using cell trays with several seedlings per cell. These can be planted without separating, as shallots are quite happy to grow in a cluster. I’ve prepared the beds the same way as for garlic, but they shouldn’t need the sulphur sprays and rain cover as they are much more resistant to rust than garlic.

Leeks and spring onions are other members of this family that are ideal for planting now and are also relatively resistant to rust. I’ve grown the leeks from seed as single plants in each cell, as they need more room to get big thick stems. The spring onions are from self-sown seedlings; Angela lets some go to seed every year and shakes the seed head over any area where she wants the onions to grow. As a result, we are never short of spring onions.

Likewise, NZ spinach, mustard, bok choi, calendula and chives all self-seed easily and we have hundreds of seedlings throughout winter to choose from. They are weeded out where they are not wanted and left to grow on where they are wanted, or just as a space filler if the area isn’t needed for something else.

A garden that was heavily fertilised for summer brassicas has been raked over and sown with carrot seed before the last heavy rain. They’re now popping up and will provide a good winter crop of crunchy, juicy carrots. I don’t feed them as the residual fertiliser from the brassica crop will be enough for carrots.

The other vacant beds are being planted in a mix of brassicas, lettuce, spinach and peas, both of which grow well through our mild northern winters. We collected the delightfully named Drunken Woman lettuce seed last season. This is an Italian looseleaf heirloom variety named for its ruffled, slightly messy leaves with a bit of a blush to them. It’s our favourite variety of lettuce to grow year-round and the strike rate from our own seed is excellent. With all these crops, we’re all set for winter.