January 2024

“His heart danced upon her movement like a cork upon a tide.”

James Joyce

It’s a cool rainy day here in Gisborne, which makes a nice change from the recent heat – around 30 degrees for the last week or so. My tomatoes have been ripening quickly, and I have an embarrassment of cucumbers. Friends have had produce pressed on them at every opportunity. Not literally of course. That would be a waste of tomatoes. What about that tomato festival in Spain – La Tomatina – where more than one hundred metric tonnes of tomatoes are thrown in the street? Think of all the tomato sauce that could make. Goodness, now I’m wondering how much tomato sauce Kiwis consume in a year [quick google search] … about 4kgs per person according to one stats site. I’m a big fan of tomato sauce. Dr Darling teases me about it, asking if I have enough on my food. He only has a small squirt which is incomprehensible to me. It’s another vegetable, get it down you, I tell him.

It would also be a waste of cucumbers too, and I’m a little dubious about pressing cucumbers on people after my stepson said (looking at the size of the one I pressed into his hands) that the cucumber would make his wife’s eyes water. I became boggled at the thought of what she might be going to do with the cucumber that would make her eyes water but decided it was best not to ask. There are some things parents don’t need to know.

I started this post with the weather because a strange thing has happened to the capsicums in the glasshouse and it turned out to be related to the weather. Have a look at the photo below:

These are not the beauties I’m used to growing. They’re perfectly ok inside, and I couldn’t see anything untoward on the leaves or stems. As you know, I have an auto spray going, so I didn’t think it could be insect damage. There are lots of things that can go wrong with capsicums, but a google search didn’t turn up anything that looked remotely like this. Even though I’ve grown capsicums for years, I’ve not seen this before. I turned to my glasshouse FaceBook groups to ask the hive mind (the best use of social media imho). Within a few minutes, someone (thank you Glen) responded. I now have a name for this: corking. Apparently it happens when the inside grows faster than the outside – these striations are stretch marks. It can happen on tomatoes too – and in fact my tomatoes have been affected – they split. The problem is too much water.

There’s a timer on the soak hoses in the glasshouse and up until November last year I had it programmed for a 20 minute soak once a day. In November, after eating some of the Sweet 100s and finding them tasteless (which alerted me to the fact that I was watering them too much), I changed the programme to 30 minutes every third day. We’ve had some heavy rain in the months the capsicums have been growing. Since they, like everything else in the glasshouse, are planted in the ground, and the water level comes up to the grass when it rains heavily, the plants get wet feet. I think with the heavy rain, and too much watering it was – well I was going to write “it was a perfect storm” but that would be blaming the weather too much, and it’s probably more my fault than nature’s. I have Many Other Fine Qualities as you know.

The marvellous thing is that Now I Know. I love learning something new, especially about the garden.

Meanwhile, in the same bed as these California bell capsicums (which are on three year-old plants), I have King Sweetie capsicum plants which I’ve grown from seed – two of them (the rest of the plants are growing outside). I planted the seeds in punnets in the glasshouse back in August. I’ve never seen the seeds for sale, so grow these peppers from ones I buy at the supermarket. There’s always the risk that they won’t grow to be the same as their parent but so far, over quite a few years growing them like this, they’ve always turned out true. The King Sweeties haven’t been affected by my over-watering. That means the California bells were affected by the weather. I’m building a case here to get myself out of trouble.

To be thorough, I asked Dr Darling half an hour ago to check the programme on the timer. Just when I thought things were looking better for me, he came in to tell me that I had two programmes running on the timer in the capsicum bed which meant the bed was getting watered once a day every day, and twice every third day. I take back everything I said about him back in November. He is a Very Fine and Valuable Husband. Given this scenario, it’s a wonder the King Sweeties haven’t corked. He may have saved the day.

December 2023

^{Pak choi growing beautifully in the glasshouse}

I’m sitting here writing this on what is turning out to be the hottest day of the year – the penultimate day of the year as it happens. It’s 32 degrees out there in the shade. Lucky for us we have aircon. With solar panels on the roof, it doesn’t cost us anything to run it. Of course it cost us heaps to install the panels, but I think it won’t be long before they’ve paid for themselves if they haven’t already.

Out in the glasshouse, with its shade cover, it’s not too bad actually. You’d think it would be terribly hot, but in fact the cover works so well, with all the windows and the front door open, it keeps to a reasonably pleasant temperature. Of course you’d have to be mad (or English) to be sitting in there with a cup of tea. It’s not that mild. Dr Darling is half English, but with the other half of him Dutch, he has a bit of common sense. However, he has been working outside all morning so you can see the English side does have its effects. You would also see the effects of the English side if you could see our lawn. It’s in his DNA I reckon. Not a daisy to be seen. Just a green sward (I had to look that word up – I was right in what I thought it meant, but when you don’t use a word often it looks a bit alien and you can’t be certain of its meaning).

I was going to show you some photos of the Sweet 100 tomato in the glasshouse, but if you read the last few posts, you’ll know the plant is like a triffid, and you’ll have seen the photos already. I’ve pruned it back many times so that it doesn’t climb through the auto vents. I’ve taken out a lot of the laterals, some of which were growing over the path to the point that I felt like Dr Livingstone hacking my way through the jungle just to get down to the other end of the glasshouse. Some strong laterals have sprouted from near the base of the plant. I’ve let them grow, supporting them. They’ll need to take the place of the main runners which I have already had to cut the ends off to stem the Tomato Tide. An alternative action would be to drop the tomato and wind its trunk across the ground – I’ve done this before and it does work.

I’ve dropped the outside tomatoes (above) which are about 3 metres tall now. The reason I’ve dropped these is that when Dr Darling and I went to the Christmas street party a couple of weeks ago, one of our neighbours asked if those were tomatoes she could see sprawling over the top of our 2 metre tall fence. I hotly denied they were, but she was onto me. She threatened to drill holes in the fence to steal some. She also asked about all the blueberry bushes in the blueberry cage, but I told her there wasn’t a single berry on them this year. I’m not sure how she figured out that I wasn’t being completely honest. It might have been the asides from another neighbour who is over here almost daily, helping us with some building work. He’s a chef as well as a builder, and knows his tomatoes from his blueberries. He teased our neighbour that I was also growing pot, in between the tomatoes. This made her more determined to cut holes in the fence. What can you do with such people? My strategy is to drop the tomatoes as soon as they get to the top of the fence. She’s such a good neighbour though, I don’t think I need to do anything to protect the blueberries (of which there are thousands, although not ripe yet). However, we do have a security system and I would immediately be alerted if someone was on the property while I wasn’t looking (take note Jo). Since we live in Gisborne, and nothing is more than a 5 to 10 minute drive from home, I reckon I could get back quickly enough to stop anyone tucking in to reap the harvest of all our hard work. Fingers crossed.

^{Bottles of worm wee in the glasshouse}

What I did want to tell you about is what I use to fertilise the capsicums and tomatoes in the glasshouse (and the outside ones too) at this time of year. In a 9 litre watering can I mix 1 litre of worm wee with some Yates tomato fertiliser and then fill it with water. I feed the capsicums and tomatoes once a week.

We have a worm farm. Dr Darling loves this worm farm and rushes out to feed the worms every time the small bowl we use to collect their food (vegetable peelings, apple cores etc) fills up. I can’t help thinking about the “all hail Jay” scene in the Men In Black movie. What goes through their minds when he lifts the lid of their home? The light rushes in and food comes tumbling from above. Do they think Dr Darling is a god?

That’s all from me for this year. Thank you so much for reading my posts, and commenting too. This blog started off as a way of me recording what I was up to during the year in the glasshouse as a guide for my own future work. It’s ended up being a bit of fun for me to write, and I hope for you to read. Happy New Year to you.

November 2023

Keep calm and dry on.

I know, I know. It’s December and you’re getting the November post. It’s because, well, … reasons. One of those reasons involved travelling back home to Gisborne from Napier after a big rain event (road closed due to slips, detours etc). Gisborne people are calling it “the Rain With No Name” (wait a moment, that IS a name). I guess we’re used to cyclones with names like Bola, Hale, and Gabrielle. It’s useful to have some moniker with which to refer to weather events so that you can do a kind of Monty Python thing: First Man: “I remember Cyclone Hale when 100mm rain fell in the Gisborne ranges”. Second Man: “Luxury. In Cyclone Gabrielle we had 400mm in 24 hours.” Third Man: “You were lucky. Back in ’88 in Bola more than 900mm of rain fell over 72 hours.”

What happens in the glasshouse when it rains so much is that the plants get wet feet … er … roots. Well, you know what I mean. Before we left, I could see the rain was coming (not because of any miraculous prescience on my part, but rather from Met Service app on my phone). I turned off the auto-drip hoses in the glasshouse. Just as well. We had about 68mm on 25 November. Our friends told us it was bucketing down (we were living it up in Napier). The water table would have been level with our grass, and therefore level with the bottom of our raised beds. I was a bit worried about my Sweet 100.

No one likes having wet feet. Or roots I imagine. One year, after one long rainy week of Sundays, the tomatoes I had in the glasshouse died. I was about to write “curled up their toes” but then I thought better of it, having managed (vain hope) to get away from the feet for roots metaphor. Never mind. Dr Darling always says “the world is all the better for a metaphor.”

I’m glad to report that after The Rain With No Name, my self-seeded Sweet 100 is alive and well.

As you can see above, it’s heading for the sky. I’ve hacked it back a couple of times, taken out its laterals, pinched out its tops, but it’s still taller than me and shooting up like Jack’s beanstalk. I’ve picked about 20 to 30 tomatoes so far, all of them a bit tasteless. It’s my own fault because I’ve been watering it too much, the irony of which won’t escape you. The control box that schedules the watering is a Gardena one. I usually ask Dr Darling to change it and he would like me to think he is able to do this without looking at the manual. The truth is that he’d rather spend an hour working it out than look at any instructions – so be it. Having learned a thing or two after living with him for over 30 years, I leave him to it. However, a couple of weeks ago I decided to work it out myself. I don’t know what came over me, but it was possibly one of those times when I tell myself that if Dr Darling wasn’t here (a truly terrible thought), I’d have to nut (whatever it is) out on my own, so push myself a little. These are heady times my friends!

Long story short, I did nut it out (after leafing through 52 languages in the instruction manual), and managed to change the watering schedule to every third day. Sweet, I thought, or rather hoped the ensuing tomatoes would be. I took my success as irrefutable evidence of activity in my little grey cells. I’m learning Korean* and eating blueberries every day too – anything to ward off cognitive decline (it’s clearly working). But I digress. Back to the glasshouse. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

At the start of this post I put a photo of some herbs drying in the glasshouse. It’s an excellent place to dry them. That’s because it’s really dry (*cough) and warm. Lots of people talk about high humidity in their glasshouses, but we don’t seem to have that problem. At the moment, when you walk into the glasshouse, it smells deliciously of lemon verbena, basil, and oregano. (It also smells of citrusy pyrethrum auto-spray – I don’t know what on earth possessed me to buy this flavour. I think, standing in the supermarket, I reasoned that if I could smell the spray I could be certain it was working, not needing new batteries or a new canister). I picked the herbs at their most vigorous and will put them in jars to use in my cooking (basil and oregano) and to make tea (lemon verbena) for the rest of the year. I dry our walnuts in the glasshouse too, but they won’t be ready until Autumn.

We finally put up our shade cloth. It’s only held down by a few bungee cords this year because when we came to put it up, we couldn’t find the big bag of bungee cords that came with it from Edenlite. We spent over an hour looking for it. I mean how many places could it be? We don’t live in a palace. I even looked under the beds. Has it been stolen (but who on earth would steal a bag of black bungee cords? They’re cheap as chips at Bunnings)? Is it evidence of cognitive decline (not with all those blueberries surely)? Is it in a Safe Place (must be, but where)? Why isn’t it in the glasshouse or the garden shed, garage, or garden annex? Aigoo.*

Luckily we had enough other bungee cords to do the job, and even in The Rain With No Name, the shade stayed put. Before we put it up, the plants were almost cooking, it was so hot. Now it’s perfectly temperate. Just the thing with the hot, dry summer we’re supposed to be getting. Fingers crossed.

October 2023

“Peas are the most gentle, mild-mannered, and amiable of vegetables.” Jane Grigson

Everyone loves peas, right? And the most delicious of all the peas have to be sugar snaps. They’re a cross between peas and snow peas, and sweeter than both. Snow peas have sweet pods, but they don’t have peas inside the pods (well they do, but they’re beensy). Peas don’t have the sweet pods. Put the best of the two together and you get sweet pods and sweet peas inside the pods. TMI? Apologies. I’m a little excited because right now there are squillions of them inside the glasshouse. A couple of the plants are nearly as tall as me (< > 1.7M) and they’re covered, not only with pods, but also with flowers. We’re going to be munching on them for quite a while.

Earlier this week we came back from a trip to visit my friend and her partner near Mangakino (more about this below). Before we went I picked all the pods I could find and we ate them for dinner in a stir-fry. When we returned we found at least 50 pods ready to be picked. We were only away for 5 days. Dr Darling picked a colander full for dinner the night we returned, and I steamed them for a few minutes. They were unbelievably sweet. Absolutely delicious. Today we had a guest over for lunch and I made a salad. I went to the glasshouse to pick some bits and pieces (kale, lettuce, red capsicums and, of course, sugar snaps). There was so much to pick I had to carry them back in a pocket I made by lifting the bottom of my t-shirt. At my age you’d expect I’d have something classy like a trug, but the habits of a lifetime are difficult to change.

_{The last of the capsicums – intensely sweet.}

We used to carry all sorts of bounty in our t-shirts when we were kids, especially fruit. My parents had a wonderful garden which had a large vegetable plot and fruit trees dotted around the property. My mother even had a separate bed for asparagus at one stage. We would be sent out to pick things. We were also sent out after school to scour the long grass by the roadside to find a particular sort of grass our budgies liked to eat. We didn’t need to be sent out to gather things at the beach. Shells and beautiful treasures went into our t-shirt baskets.

On to the present day and a few kilometres from Mangakino. My friend and her partner (who’s also a friend) haven’t been in their house for very long. Since buying it they’ve done some impressive landscaping, planting hundreds of shrubs and grasses. However, the jewel in the crown ( as far as my friend is concerned) is their brand new glasshouse. It’s bigger than ours (not that it’s a competition of course), and it has frosted glass. They won’t need to put a shade cover up in summer (ok, I’m a little jealous). Inside, my friend has lots of pots filled with vegetables, and lots of seedling trays too. It’s pretty cold and exposed where the house is, so it’s going to be difficult to grow tender plants outside. There’s also the ongoing problem of pukeko and possums, not to mention the rabbits we saw while we were there. I think they’ll be very pleased they put up the glasshouse (my friends, not the rabbits).

While we were staying, my friend and I were cooking dinner one night. She mentioned she’d like some lettuce from the glasshouse. Her partner was right next to her, but swiftly moved into the sitting room. I noticed this, and volunteered to pick the necessary. This was a noble gesture on my part, because it was cold and raining outside, but I love my friend and, you know, you do whatever it takes for the ones you love. Anyway, I’ve learned that it’s no use planting things in the garden if you don’t make the effort to go out and pick them. The trick of course is to pick them during the afternoon, and not wait until it’s nearly dark. I teased her partner later when he was telling my friend how much he loved her. I said that if he really loved her he would have gone out to the glasshouse in the rain. He’s as quick as a wink and had some cheeky reply about not knowing what a lettuce looked like. I can assure you, dear reader, that at his age it would be a very odd thing indeed if he didn’t know. Despite being nearly as mischief as Dr Darling, he has Many Other Fine Qualities.

Back to our patch in Gisborne, I can report that everything is growing well. It’s very hot in the glasshouse now. I have the windows and doors open all the time, including overnight most nights. We’re going to have to put the shade cover over the top very soon. I noticed the cucumber seedlings are getting burned, and all the seedlings (King Sweetie capsicums, kale, broccoli, cucumbers, and zucchinis) wilt super quick if I don’t keep them watered.

The self-sown Sweet 100 tomato is now at roof level barely six weeks since it sprouted (see below). It has fruit on it, and huge laterals strong-arming their way across the space. Dr Darling asked me what I was going to plant in the rest of the centre bed, but I know it’s only a matter of time before the tomato takes over the centre of the glasshouse completely. It looks as if there’s space for a lot more, but the Day of the Triffids is coming. But then so are hundreds of sweet little tomatoes that will keep coming all winter long. It’s a good trade off IMHO.

There’s still a lot of talk on Facebook (here and here) about the proliferation of whiteflies, ants and aphids in people’s glasshouses. I keep posting comments to share the solution that worked for me, which is to use an auto-pyrethrum spray. You get these from the supermarket. I did a post about this back in May 2021. My friend asked me about the harm to us humans to be eating vegetables from the glasshouse that have been subject to this spray. I think if we wash our harvest carefully, very little harm will be done to our bodies. It’s not organic, but there’s no way I’m going to go to all the trouble of growing my veggies from seed, nurturing them carefully, only to let the bugs have them. No way José. Not on my watch. As the Koreans say on the K-dramas I love to watch, “hwaiting!”

September 2023

At spring’s grand entrance, even the pollen throws a confetti party.

It’s the first month of spring in the southern hemisphere and it’s warming up here. Most days I’ve been opening the glasshouse doors. I can tell when this needs doing without having to leave the comfort of the house. If the auto-vents in the roof of the glasshouse are wide open, it’s hot inside. The burning question is, should I clean the glass on the outside? Every remotely horizontal surface outside is blanketed in yellow pine pollen, including the glasshouse roof.

The more observant among you (keep eating those blueberries) will notice that the glass on the panels at the far end of the glasshouse are clean. I can explain. We have an attachment for our water-blaster like a dinner plate that lets you clean a wide area at a time. Dr Darling has a particular (or should I say peculiar?) attachment to that attachment (well that’s awkward) and once he starts using it, he wants to water-blast The World. One weekend he took the water-blaster out to clean the concrete paths. Earlier that day we’d discussed the dilemma of whether or not to clean the glasshouse roof. We decided not to, because most summers we have to put up our glasshouse cover/shade cloth to stop the plants inside cooking. We thought that maybe maybe maybe the pollen on the glass would save us the effort of putting the cover up. Anyway, there he was this particular weekend, not so long ago, busy with the water-blaster, starting with the path next to the glasshouse. At some time during this task, he must have been seized by a strange compulsion to raise the aforementioned attachment to the roof.

I have developed a spidey-sense when it comes to keeping an eye on what he’s up to outside (it’s developed based on experience due to his history of, for example, pruning trees at ground-level), and became aware that he was taking a suspiciously long time to clean the path. Isn’t it interesting what unconscious algorithms our brains are able to run? Size of path x experience water-blasting = estimated length of time needed to clean it (<> half an hour). Beset with tingling, I went to the window and peered outside with my eyes narrowed. Sure enough, there he was with the water-blaster cleaning the roof of the glasshouse. I snuck out there pdq and reminded him we’d decided not to do that. He grinned like a boy. It’s very difficult to stay cross with him when he looks like that. And as you know, he has Many Other Fine Qualities, something I remind myself of fairly often.

Last summer we didn’t put up the cover. It rained and rained and rained (you were there, you know what I’m talking about). It was the worst summer I can remember. But this year the Met Service is predicting an El Niño weather pattern, and that means a drought here on the East Coast. I think we will need the cover, pollen or not. Dr Darling has just bought a 1,000 litre water tank – but that’s a story for another time.

Meanwhile inside the glasshouse the plants are taking off. Not literally of course, not even the rocket. That would be strange. Plants are going to seed much quicker than they have for months.

The tomatoes I’ve grown from seed in pots need planting out. I possibly should have done this already, but I caught the ‘flu and haven’t been up to much for the last three weeks. I’m not doing stress about this though, because there’s lots of talk from Kiwi gardeners at this time of year about whether or not we should wait for Labour Weekend (21st October this year) to plant out frost-tender plants. However, here in Gisborne we have such a mild climate that I can usually get away with planting out much earlier if I want to, and am feeling up to it. I still have a month up my sleeve, so to speak.

The sugar snaps are developing pods. This is very exciting (I should get out more). But wait, there are reasons I’m excited. I have a recipe for laksa in which sugar snap pods take a starring role. When you watch as many K-dramas as I do, you’ll understand the drive to create dishes with noodles.

I can see from the two glasshouse growers’ pages I follow on FaceBook that lots of people are struggling with powdery mildew right now. Aphids and whiteflies too. I don’t have any of these going on in the glasshouse, and haven’t for a couple of years now. People are blaming the humidity, but I don’t think that’s the sole reason.

Ever since I started using an auto-pyrethrum spray back in May 2021 (read about it here), I haven’t had bugs or fungi of any sort. My tentative thinking about the lack of fungi in the years between then and now has been that the whiteflies/aphids/ants were tracking the fungal spores around the plants. If the bugs aren’t there, the spores can’t get distributed so efficiently. That tentative thinking has solidified into being almost certain. I’m not a white male, so I can’t step into full certainty of course, and anyway, I know fungal spores are disseminated by other means (wind, contact with other plants, contaminated garden tools).

In a glasshouse the environment is somewhat controlled. Still air means plants aren’t moving around as much, which kind of argues against ventilation which everyone swears is absolutely essential. I can only go on what works for me, and the auto-spray seems to control everything regardless of ventilation or time of year. And it’s always good practice to keep your gardening tools clean. Even rakes deserve a spa day.

August 2023

Every slice of bell pepper is like a love note from nature, shaped like a heart.

Here we are, 11 days out from the beginning of spring. Most of the seeds I planted in the glasshouse last month have germinated – Early Girl tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, and King Sweetie capsicums. They’re all on the heat pad because it’s pretty cold here now, especially at night. We’ve had a few frosts.

The seeds that haven’t germinated (butternut pumpkins and zucchini) were planted in peat pots. I’m never sure about those peat pots. For one thing peat isn’t a renewable resource which means we shouldn’t be using it. For another, the pots seem to suck the moisture from the seed-raising mix at the expense of the seeds. You’re supposed to water them when the outsides are dry, but if you water them enough to make the outsides wet, you’re inviting your seeds to rot. If you don’t water them enough they shrivel up and die (the seeds not the pots which aren’t living things as far as I know). There must be a way of using them (the pots, not the seeds – gosh this is tricky to write about) that works, but I haven’t figured it out yet. I only have them because an elderly friend keeps buying them for me and I feel I have to use them. It’s one of her many small acts of love for me.

Better news is that the sugar snap peas I planted last month are starting to take off up the walls of the glasshouse. If they do as well as they did last time I planted them in there, we’ll have squillions of pods. My niece Felicia got a particular look in her eye when she came over while I had sugar snaps in the glasshouse last time, enquiring carefully about whether or not I needed someone to pick them for me. Only to help me out of course. A small act of love.

All the greens are doing spectacularly well – five different sorts of lettuce, rocket, kale and pak choi.

Best of all though, particularly at this time of year, are the capsicum plants. Peppers are about NZ$4 each at the moment. It is joy to the glasshouse owner’s heart to see such high prices (apologies to those who have to buy them). I grew our peppers from seed a few years ago now. They’ve hung on tenaciously in the glasshouse ever since. I cut them back at the end of last summer and they sprang away again in autumn. I was very tempted to cut them right out last month, but I could see tiny fruit on them. They are now covered in fruit mostly at the top of their 2 metre high trunks, and I’ve been picking the red ones. Even though the plants look scruffy, I don’t have the heart to chop them out. That’s my small act of love for our housekeeping money.

Another small act of love and tenacity is Dr Darling bringing me a cup of tea in bed in the morning while I read a few pages of my book. He’s done this for over 30 years. We sit there sipping our tea together, chatting about Life, the Universe and Everything, looking out the window at the huge trees in the park opposite our home. Right now the oaks and chestnuts are starting to green up. We like to hold hands. I’m not sure why, but we’re like that. And when I say, “it’s time we got up,” he holds on tighter. I’m not sure why, but he’s like that. It’s one of his Fine Qualities.

July 2023

Words: Mrs Darling

Being in the middle of winter, but feeling like spring is coming, is like being stuck in a traffic jam, but your favourite song is playing on the radio.

We’re just past the middle of winter (23 July). It’s been a beautiful day, even quite warm once the sun was high enough in the sky. I put out three loads of washing then spent the rest of the day in the glasshouse. It was so warm in there the auto-vents were wide open. I had my iPods in, listening to a playlist of my favourite songs and really feeling as if spring was just around the corner. Well it’s a bit further down the road than that. But not too far – it’s actually only 5 weeks away. At my age that’ll flash by in a nanosecond.

So far this winter, we haven’t had a frost at our place. Not having one all winter has never happened in the more than 30 years we’ve lived here, so it doesn’t surprise me to find out (Met Service app on my phone) that it’s going to get pretty close to a frost tonight – down to 4 degrees C. That’s cold enough for the heater in the glasshouse to turn itself on which is a Very Good Thing because I need it to keep my plants reasonably snug. I’ve got seeds in punnets and pots and tender lettuces in the beds. The punnets and pots are all sitting on the heat pad though. I’ve planted tomatoes (Early Girl and Sweet 100s), cucumbers, butternut pumpkins, zucchinis and basil. I think the heat pad has a slightly warming effect on the glasshouse, but I can’t be sure. In any case, the seeds will be warm as.

In the picture above you can see a couple of tomato plants (back left). They’re self-seeded Sweet 100s from the legendary plant I pulled out last month. It produced thousands of tomatoes for 3 years and took over the entire glasshouse. I’ll plant these ones outside at Labour Weekend (21/22 October). They’ll be big and strong by then. I’ll put one Early Girl in the glasshouse, and the rest can also go outside.

My friend Colin “Bruiser” Smith sent me a photo of his tomato seedlings yesterday. They’re up to their second leaves. He’s probably a full month ahead of me. Not that it’s a competition, of course (*cough). I’d only really be competitive with him in my dreams. He had 80kgs of tomatoes in his freezer by the end of April, a lot of them grown in his glasshouse. Check out his marvellousness here when he did a guest post for me.

Last month I told you I’d planted some bean seeds, but none had germinated. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t come up at all. I was wrong (incredibly rare): they DID come up. That shows you how warm the soil is in the glasshouse because they need at least 15 degrees C to germinate. The beds in the glasshouse are slightly raised too and that makes a difference. Jo McCarroll, in the July issue of New Zealand Gardener magazine, wrote that she’d bought a soil thermometer and found the soil in her raised beds was 7 degrees C warmer than the ground, and the soil in her pots warmer still.

Yesterday I went to Mitre 10 with Dr Darling to buy a soil thermometer and came home with a pH- and moisture-probe instead. And some seedlings I hadn’t planned to buy (sugar snaps and lettuces – all now planted in the glasshouse). And some seeds for very pretty blue daisies. And some spraying oil.

The best part of going to Mitre 10 was checking out. On previous trips there Dr Darling would whip out his Airpoints card at the checkout, even if I was paying the bill, knowing I don’t carry mine. However, when I’d gone to Mitre 10 on my own a few days earlier (seeds, potting mix, punnets of irresistible seedlings), and the woman at the check out asked me if I had an Airpoints card, and I said “not with me, no”, she then asked if I had the Air NZ app on my phone. Well yes I did. She then showed me where to find the barcode for my Airpoints card on the app, scanned it, and sent me on my way. I could hardly wait for the next trip with Dr Darling. When we reached the checkout yesterday, and I was asked for my Airpoints card (I was paying), I saw him reach for his card wallet. With incredible speed (for someone my age), I found the app, brought up the barcode, and had it scanned. He was stunned, and I whooped with delight. Not that it’s a competition, of course. Because he’s such a good sport, he was delighted too, and we laughed all the way back to the car. I know what you’re thinking: that we probably need to get out more. You could be right.

Autumn 2023

Resistance is futile

Star Trek

It’s been a while since I last posted. I expect you wondered if I’d been abducted by aliens – perhaps by the Borg. With AI charming its way into our creative lives with increasing regularity, you may or may not be able to tell. It’s certainly made my life easier (using AI, not becoming a Borg). However, in the Crystal Palace, it’s nature that guides what’s possible. In autumn there’s a pull towards death and decay, but the glasshouse provides a means by which we can resist this. And it’s successful to some extent but sometimes resistance is futile.

Take, for example, my Sweet 100 tomato – a plant of exceptional fortitude having flourished in the glasshouse for nearly three years. It could be nicknamed My Sweet 1,000 because I have picked hundreds and hundreds of cherry tomatoes from it over this time. Its abundance is especially rewarding since I grew it from a seed. However, as Geoffrey Chaucer wrote, all good things must come to an end. The plant has been declining over the last few months, and nothing I did could save it. I cut it right back to being about a metre tall, just above some new growth. The top of the trunk (yes, trunk- see photo below) wept for over a week. I was astonished at how much water it was taking up, presumably thinking it had to nurture the plant as it had been, i.e. metres and metres long taking up the entire centre of the glasshouse from the ground to the roof, even trying on numerous occasions to escape through the roof vents. Once the weeping stopped, the new growth wilted and died. I had to face the fact that it was all over.

I retrieved my trusty spade from its hook and dug around the tomato trunk to uproot it. The roots were an impressive couple of meters in each direction, reaching from one end of the central raised bed to the other. Here’s a photo of the trunk and roots sitting on the grass with the spade next to them showing how long the roots were.

I’m still in mourning, although not so much that I haven’t bought some Early Girl seeds ready to plant to produce the next epic tomato. In the meantime, I’ve topped up the bed with home-made compost, worm castings, biochar and seaweed. Let’s hope that’s enough.

In the same bed there are lettuces, bok choy, and a couple of capsicums that are two metres tall. These capsicums are also nearly three years old. They haven’t been wildly productive, but they’ve been planted right next to My Sweet 1,000 all this time. After seeing the extensive roots on the tomato, I’m no longer surprised that I didn’t get more capsicums.

Other plants growing at the moment, and doing well, are rocket, kale, and some bunching red spring onions. I planted some beans, but not a single one has germinated. I’ll start them on the heat pad in a few weeks’ time and try again.

I’m chitting potatoes (see below) on one of the shelves. I may be being a bit previous in doing so. It’ll be months before I can plant them outside but I thought I might have a go at getting them started in pots under the shelter of the trees inside the vegetable garden cage. This cage (bought from Hunkin and worth every cent we paid for it) somehow prevents frost from damaging whatever’s planted inside it, even though it’s only a fine mesh.

I’m also using the glasshouse to dry the last of our walnut harvest. My youngest brother recently came to stay for a few days. I put him to work, sitting in the glasshouse, plugged into his Spotify playlist, cracking walnuts. He was out there for hours and cracked a lot of nuts, but our tree is so prolific that he would have needed hours more to finish them all. He also helped Dr Darling replace a broken pane in the roof of the glasshouse, and then he water-blasted the driveway. What a valuable sibling. Thanks Dave. x

All in all it’s been a wet autumn, following hard on the heels of the worst summer I can ever remember. La Nina is over now, and a return to El Nino is forecast. For us that means long hot summers. I can’t wait. I’ll be planting seeds in about 6 weeks’ time – tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicums, butternuts, and beans. At least I might be able to get a jump on spring. Fingers crossed.

November 2021

You say you love the rain but you open your umbrella.

William Shakespeare

Words: Mrs Darling

^{The gravel and paver path that runs between the raised beds.}

At the beginning of November, in Gisborne where we live, two months’ worth of rain fell in 36 hours. There was widespread flooding across the region. A state of emergency was declared. There was surface flooding at our place, with the water-table just above the grass for days.

To get out to see what was going on in the glasshouse we had to put on gumboots to splash across the back lawn. We only have one pair of gumboots between the two of us. They’re a little big for me since Dr Darling bought them for himself. They’re Red Bands, of course. They live just outside the back door under the cover of a little porch, but the rain was so fierce I had to bring them right up to the door to stop them getting wet inside.

Inside the glasshouse we have a little gravel path with paving stones running between the raised beds. This path was about a centimetre under water. For days. The beds, while raised, are sitting directly on the ground, so the water couldn’t drain away. And some of the plants didn’t like it. Within a couple of days my zucchini plant’s stem was rotted through. My sweet 100 tomato collapsed. I’d grown them both from seeds, and nurtured them through the winter. They were covered in fruit. They’re both plants from southern and central America that like dry heat and free-draining soil. Little wonder they popped their clogs.

However, some of the plants loved it. I could almost see the celery growing, and the lettuces were perkier than ever. The pak choi immediately went to seed, the celery started to bolt, and the onions decided to send up flower shoots. Luckily the capsicums survived, and so did the cucumber.

^{Cucumbers with red spring onions planted nearby.}

What to do? The answer I think is to build the beds higher than the water table gets when there’s lots of rain. Dr Darling says he’ll make the wooden frames around the beds higher, but he has a lot of projects on the go at the moment, so when this will happen is anyone’s guess. He has Many Other Fine Qualities, as you know. Meanwhile I’ve tossed in some mushroom compost to at least get the soil level higher. I bought another sweet 100 tomato and another zucchini. It’s too late this summer to start them again from seed, although by the end of January I’ll have seeds in so I can grow some in the glasshouse over the winter.

I felt sad that I’d lost the zucchini and the sweet 100, but after gardening for so many years I’ve learned to take these sorts of things in my stride. We are always dependent on the weather being favourable – even in our glasshouses where we can control so much. My philosophy is to control what you can, and let go of expectations. This is probably a good philosophy for life too. So much disappointment comes from our expectations.

^{Italian onions drying in the glasshouse.}

Since the flood I’ve pulled out the celery and the onions, and the bolting pak choi. Despite the air in the glasshouse being a bit humid most days, it’s hot, so it’s a good place to dry the onions. They smell absolutely delicious. I love these small onions – they’re sweet and not like the horticultural monstrosities you buy in the supermarket. You can chop one up to marinate in vinegar before popping them in a salad without the quantity overwhelming the dish.

Now the weather has warmed up, the lettuces in the glasshouse are growing very fast, and going to seed quickly too. Last summer I didn’t manage to keep up with planting more seeds to keep the supply going, but this summer I’ve vowed to do better. Consequently I’ve planted two punnets of lettuce seeds, some more pak choi, and two (only) kale seeds. Only two kale seeds because I’ve had kale triffids in the main garden taking up a lot of space when I’ve only needed a few leaves now and then. They taste awful, but are so very good for you, I want to keep them in our diet.

^{L to R: Outredgeous lettuce, cos lettuce, two kale and pak choi seedlings}

October 2021

The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies.

Tom Robbins: Jitterbug Perfume

Words by Mrs Darling

How I wish the spoon in this photo was a tablespoon. Sadly it’s only a teaspoon, and that tells you all you need to know about how (un)successful I was at growing beetroot in the glasshouse over winter. But. I’ve been waiting all this time to use the quote above from Tom Robbins, hoping there would be some bulging beetroot for the lead photo for this posting. I hope you appreciate that I’m sacrificing my reputation for being Green-Fingered in order to bring you that quote. I adore the book I took it from – Jitterbug Perfume. An absolute classic of sultry deliciousness, published in 1984. After reading it, you’ll never look at beetroot the same way again, and you’ll be glad of it.

First, some updates. The sweet 100 tomato in the glasshouse has been providing us with little red bursts of deliciousness. Since the tomatoes started to ripen, we have had a steady supply. The plant has started to get a bit leggy (see photo below) because the cover over the glasshouse has cut down the light inside. I’m thinking about nipping out its top and allowing it to bush up from its laterals instead of letting it grow along the inside of the roof. Shockingly I found some evidence of psyllids (sugar-crystal-like psyllid poop on the leaves), and feared the worst (that the autospray couldn’t keep them at bay). Then I heaved a sigh of relief when I discovered the batteries had died in the autospray. I have no idea how many days the spray was out of action. I must be more vigilant. I looked closely and found a few psyllids on the stalks, crushed them (very satisfying) and replaced the batteries. Goodnight nurse.

^{Sweet 100 reaching for the sky. Note the autospray on the bench.}

All the tomatoes I grew from seed are now safely out in the main garden. I had planned to keep one of the golden tomatoes I wrote about last month to plant in the glasshouse, but decided in the end that I’d save seed from the current plants to plant in January so that by the time winter comes next year I’ll have tomatoes in the glasshouse producing fruit all the way through. Part of my plan to Do Better.

Also planted out in the main garden are the buttercup pumpkins and one of the two cucumbers I grew from seed germinated in the glasshouse in August. Dr Darling built me some trellises to grow them up. They’re very sturdy, like everything else he builds. He has Many Fine Qualities, as you know.

^{L to R: cucumber, and 3 butternut pumpkins on the edge of the main garden – bricks in place to foil the blackbirds.}

The other cucumber is in the glasshouse, and of course it’s ahead of the one outside. I’ve placed a pot plant saucer under its first fruit to make sure it doesn’t rot. It’s growing astonishingly quickly now the weather’s warmed up. Yum.

The zucchini isn’t doing as well as I’d hoped. There are now a few spots of powdery mildew on the leaves (see below). This surprised me because there hasn’t been a skerrick of it all through the winter. I guess that troubles my hypothesis that the spores were being brought into the glasshouse by insects. Since there were no insects getting in or surviving even if they did over the winter, then ipso facto, there were no spores. However, some insects clearly did get in after my autospray batteries died. Maybe that’s why there’s mildew now. Also we have the glasshouse cover up so it’s not as hot inside as it was, and no direct sunshine either. Both heat and light discourage mildews.

The zucchini fruit aren’t as big as they were at the start of the plant’s growth. Altogether, it’s no longer thriving which is so disappointing.

What is doing spectacularly well is the celery. I put six plants in months ago, and they’ve really hit their straps now. They’re not the horticultural monstrosities we can buy from the supermarket (goodness knows what they feed them to get them so huge), but they’re perfectly adequate for use in a salad or any savoury dish.

Finally, I want to show you my broad beans. I germinated the seeds inside the glasshouse back in June and planted them out in the garden at the beginning of September. They’re growing against the fence in a bed with a frame that Dr Darling made. I have no worries about the broad beans pulling the frame over because the structure is so well-made. (He is going for the Husband of the Year Award – again). The beans are over one-and-a-half metres tall with the most beautiful red flowers. And now the bumble bees are back in force, we have broad beans coming along. I do love them. The broad beans, the bumble bees, and Dr Darling.

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