July 2021

Dear Winter, I’m breaking up with you. I think it’s time I started seeing other seasons. Summer is hotter than you.

At last – some flowers on the zucchini in the glasshouse. They’re all male flowers so far, but it’s the female flowers that produce the fruit. I’m not worried though because I’ve noticed, every time I grow them, that this is the pattern: male flowers first. Tempting though it is, I’m not going to use this for a metaphor for anything, okay?

What’s amazing is that so far (fingers crossed) there’s no powdery mildew. And thanks to Colin Bruiser Smith there are no white flies either. I did notice a couple of the leaves looked chewed though (I’ve pulled them off so you will think everything in our glasshouse is perfect). It’s gotta be slugs. If you look very carefully you’ll see some Blitzem top left of the photo. I haven’t found any dead bodies but no more leaves have been chewed. I tell you, the garden is a battle zone.

Ah, Battlezone. Battlezone was my favourite video arcade game in the ’80s – I was good at it too. Those were the careless days of my youth when I lived in California, drank margaritas, ate at the Mexican Cantina’s happy hour most nights, and played Battlezone to my heart’s content on only a few quarters.

I don’t drink any more, and these days am more likely to spend my spare time doing a sudoku or a cryptic crossword. But I digress. Back to New Zealand and the glasshouse. Let’s talk about my tomato. It’s coming along beautifully. It’s a “sweet 100” and has tiny flower heads forming even as we speak. Colin, there’s not a white fly to be seen, and no mildew either. I wonder if there’s a connection? It’s the first winter I’ve not seen any powdery mildew and certainly the first winter the plants haven’t had white flies. Last winter was particularly bad, but not a skerrick this year. Does anyone reading this know? Let me know in the comments below.

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Those of you with good memories will know that there comes a time in winter when I start to think about salads. It’s still pretty cold outside (below 6 degrees most nights), but I can feel the stirrings (it could be sap or maybe it’s my blood pressure) of spring. Daffodils and freesias are looking gorgeous. I’ve been having tomato and cucumber on my lunchtime sandwiches. It’s not going to be long before I’m looking around the garden for some leaves to make a salad. Naturally I was going to plant some lettuce seeds, but when I went to Mitre 10 the other day I saw they had lots of lettuce seedlings. I couldn’t resist. I bought a punnet of “red sails” and a punnet of “buttercrunch”. They’re now planted in front of the sugar snap peas in the glasshouse along with the bok choy I grew from seed. With any luck the tomatoes, lettuces and sugar snaps will all come on at the same time and I’ll be as happy as a sand boy whose salad days have come.

Those of you with excellent memories will remember me talking with scorn about not wanting to eat cucumbers in winter. And yet I’ve been eating them daily on my sandwiches … and I’ve had to buy them. It’s not only hurt my pocket. Note to self, sow at least one cucumber in April to pick over the winter.

All the seeds I planted last month have germinated and most have been planted out either in the glasshouse or the main garden. My thoughts are now turning to flowers for the side borders. I’m back off to Mitre 10 to buy some more seed raising mix. The punnets will go on the heat pad in the glasshouse. Fingers crossed by this time next month I’ll be planting out zinnias, cosmos, and some pink Japanese anemones.

June 2021

Words: Mrs Darling

“Now is the winter of our discontent.”

William Shakespeare

Autumn was so mild this year that we didn’t think about taking the cover off our glasshouse until the very end of May. Those of you who are paying attention will have noticed that the title for this post is “June 2021.” No doubt you are wondering why I am bringing up something that happened in May. The thing is, I’d finished the May post way before we took the cover off. I felt it was important to tell you that we’d taken it off because you could be wondering when a good time to do this might be. Far be it from me to advise you, but in previous years we’ve taken it off much earlier. Maybe as early as the end of April. The Gisborne Herald reported that Gisborne had one of the warmest Junes for 30 years with a mean temperature of 12.2. (TMI? I thought so. Sorry.)

Heartbreaking as it is to confess this to you, things haven’t gone so well in the glasshouse this month. By things I mean the capsicums. A couple of them had been in for nearly two years, but they suddenly stopped growing. Their capsicums turned red, and there were lots and lots of them, but no new flowers came. They were also dusted with sooty mould and looked awful. In a fit of neatness (see the Law of Straightness), I decided to pull them all out. I’ve replaced them with celery and beetroot seedlings, and garlic.

Last month I planted some Sweet 100 tomato seeds, and zucchini seeds too. I saved the strongest seedlings to plant in the glasshouse. Have a look at how well the tomato’s doing. (Those ties are from Dr Darling’s old nightshirt which he couldn’t bear to throw away, despite it being so thin you could see through it. He doesn’t like waste. His time has come, that’s for sure.)

I planted one of the zucchinis in the glasshouse. However, I had two seedlings, and there isn’t room for two zucchinis inside. After worrying about it in the middle of the night, I decided to plant the spare outside under the shade of our cherimoya tree where it’s protected from the frost. The difference between the two is remarkable, and just goes to show how important heat is:

As I reported last month, I planted sugar snap pea seeds along one side of the glasshouse. They came up beautifully … and then we went away for a week. In that time two sparrows (some of you will know that sparrows are my nemesis) managed to find their way inside through the automatic vents in the roof – must have been one of those warm June days. We found them when we returned, dead. I was sad until I noticed they’d pooped all over our deck chairs, and everything else in the glasshouse. To add insult to injury, they’d eaten all my sugar snap pea seedlings down to their skeletons. They must have had a party, stayed too late, suddenly realised (that might be too anthropomorphic a word) the vents had closed and they couldn’t get out again. Or they couldn’t remember how they got in (bird brains). I screwed the vents closed, and planted some more seeds. *sigh

I don’t know about you, but I get a sort of Seed Fever sometimes. I plant seeds and get such a buzz from going out to the glasshouse each day to see if they’ve come up that I want to plant more. Seed Fever took me at the end of June. I planted basil seeds in a pot (to replace the languishing plants in the glasshouse which I’m keeping on despite how sad they look because I just know a recipe will call for fresh basil and I’ll be cursing that I didn’t keep at least a few leaves). I planted more King Sweetie capsicums to replace the plants I’ve just pulled out. And I planted bok choy seeds because I couldn’t find seedlings. The packet said to sow where you mean to grow them, and that could be why I couldn’t find seedlings, but I was feeling reckless and put them in punnets. Not sure how they’ll go as I haven’t grown them from seed before. Finally I planted some broad beans in punnets for planting out into the main garden. I’ve put the pot and the punnets on the heat pad and will be pootling out to the glasshouse with a grin on my face for my buzz every morning.

May 2020

There’s nothing wrong with Plan B. Play it right and no-one will even know it wasn’t your first choice.

Diana Peterfreund

I’m a victim of my own success. My tomatoes are spectacular. The Early Girls I planted way back in August last year – that’s right, nine months ago – are still reliably producing fruit, despite the psyllids whose poop looks like sugar crystals, the powdery mildew which attacks them at times, and the whiteflies which have visited them periodically over those nine months. Also going strong are the Black Krim and Pink Brandywine tomatoes.

But here’s the thing – last month I planted Pink Brandywine seeds thinking all these tomato plants would need replacing by now. I bought the seeds online from King’s Seeds during the lockdown. They must have been fresh-as because they shot up within days and headed for the glasshouse roof. I keep looking for signs the incumbents are fading, but so far they’re doing okay. Dr Darling has draped their main stems in zigzag loops across the the bed over the top of the chilies to give them more room at the top, and to stop them climbing out of the vents. It would be rude to rip them out and replace them. Oh well, I’m going to have to pot up those seedlings and wait – Plan B.

Meanwhile it’s started to get cold at night. We’ve already had a couple of frosts despite not being past the winter solstice – i.e. the shortest day of the year (around 21 June). The heater we (Dr Darling) installed last winter wouldn’t work when we (Dr Darling and our friendly electrician Pete McFadyen) tested it a couple of weeks ago. It was still under warranty so we (Dr Darling) took it back to Bunnings for a replacement. He’s installed the new one, and the thermostat turns it on when the temperature drops below about 5 or 6 degrees. Once the sun rises, the glasshouse heats up very quickly. Our house is toasty from running our heat pumps, but there’s nothing as cosy as sitting in the glasshouse. You get warm right through, feet and all.

What else is going on in the glasshouse, apart from the clink of cups and saucers (mugs and wedding rings actually)? I thought you’d never ask.

I pulled out the cucumbers a week ago – they were finally fading after a very long and productive career. We ate the last one sliced up in our pita pockets when my brother Dave and his wife Cheryl came to stay last weekend. Those of you who keep up with these posts (straight to heaven when you pop your clogs – I’ll put in a good word for you) will know that I’ve had a zucchini seedling ready to plant in its place, grown from seed in April. It’s in now, and it’s taken off. There are buds already (see below). My only worry is that it’s peaked too soon because it’s been in a pot too long. As my Dad used to say, “we’ll see.” He didn’t mean it quite in the same way as I’m meaning it here, but rather said it to us kids to pretend to defer decisions (when he had already made up his mind) in order to avoid arguments. It was very effective too. Dr Darling does something just like this. When I ask, ” have you [put the washing out/emptied the compost bucket/put the dishes on]?” he says, “not yet.” This implies that he hasn’t forgotten (which of course he has), and that he’s just about to get onto it (which he is, now that I’ve reminded him). He has Many Other Fine Qualities, as you know, and his answer always makes me laugh because I know what he’s up to. But I digress.

You’ll also remember that I planted some potatoes in pots in April. They were poking through the soil as I wrote last month’s post. Have a look at them now:

And here’s the difficulty with growing things in the glasshouse – there’s not enough direct sunlight, and plants become as leggy as Twiggy. Dr Darling turned the pots sideways yesterday so that we can walk down the path in the glasshouse. Neither of us is worried about the legginess (is that a word I wonder?), as long as there are potatoes to be had In Due Course. Maybe maybe maybe.

The eggplants are growing well – still only the two of them (Nigel’s mates) despite my efforts with a paintbrush tickling the flowers’ noses. One is nearly ready to pick (eggplant, not nose):

Once I’ve picked them both (the eggplants), and I’m certain there are no more coming on, I’m going to pull the plant out. I’ve warned it. We’ll see.

Still producing well are the chillies, and the King Sweetie capsicums. And we have a little forest of basil. Yum.

Lastly, we have wonderful bok choy and pak choy growing like grass (lawn grass, not Mary Jane – I don’t know how fast MJ grows). They are so good in the glasshouse – cut and come again and again and again. The NZ Gardener guide to planting by the moon says to get some seeds in for these on 1st and 2nd of June. I shall certainly be doing that.