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.

Whiteflies

Words: Mrs Darling

“It’s them or us … “

It’s been a terrible year for whiteflies – for gardeners anyway. It’s been a great year for the whiteflies themselves. I’ve never seen so many of them. In post after post, people on social media have been asking what to do about them. Even my friend Tim from the Bay of Plenty complained to me about all the whiteflies on his veggies. Since his plants are the healthiest in the Bay, if not the world, I would say it’s a plague that has nothing to do with how we’re gardening, and everything to do with … well I don’t know what. The weather? Global warming? Ill winds? It’s a mystery.

The whiteflies in The Crystal Palace (CP = our glasshouse) have been having a 6 months-long party on every plant I have growing in there. The slightest bump against tomatoes, capsicums, or basil released a great cloud of fluttering white wings, a bit like thousands of snow geese lifting off the water.

I took to spraying them with my usual spray every weekend, but that only knocked some of them back. I couldn’t get into every nook and cranny of every plant in order to get rid of them completely. I could have gone for something systemic, but with fruit all over the plants I worried about the effects on our bodies. Meanwhile the plants were suffering and failing to thrive. What to do? Like everyone else, I was scratching my head.

I follow a Facebook page for glasshouse owners in New Zealand called “NZ Greenhouse Gardeners”. By the height of summer there were regular posts by people facing off against white walls of fluttering wings as well as armies of aphids, squadrons of psyllids, and columns of caterpillars. One poster said she’d tried everything (which she listed in case anyone wanted to write, “… have you tried … ?” – a wonderful tactic which might have saved her a great deal of time and annoyance in the long run if only the people commenting had read the list – they still offered up the very solutions she wrote hadn’t worked). Finally we were all saved by the comment of one man: Colin Bruiser Smith (what a name – surely his parents hadn’t named him that? How had he come by this nickname? He is clearly not a man to mess with). He said he’d grappled with bugs in his glasshouse for over 25 years, had tried all the FB poster had tried, and more, and had finally found something that worked: an auto pyrethrum sprayer.

I figured after all this time gardening in his glasshouse, and with the nickname “Bruiser”, he probably knew a thing or two about killing things. I was also impressed that there were no spelling mistakes in his comment – and his grammar was correct too – nothing short of miraculous in this day and age. I suspected he must be a boomer with a decent education. In short, A Man To Be Trusted.

The pyrethrum automatic spray sounded like a very nearly perfect solution. Pyrethrum is considered to be low toxicity to humans. It does kill all sorts of bugs though, including the good ones like bees, although Colin Bruiser Smith said he only has his sprayer turned on at night when bees are asleep – see what I mean about AMTBT? Pyrethrum is made from a daisy belonging to the chrysanthemum family, but that doesn’t mean it’s harmless. There are many toxic plants that will kill you if you’re not careful.

When Dr Darling and I next went to the supermarket we bought one of the sprayers pictured above. I wasn’t worried about the bees because the Crystal Palace has mesh over its doors, windows and vents – they can’t get in. I took the sprayer out to the CP when we came home, and set it up to spray once every 20 minutes. For a brief heady moment I felt like Bill Murray in Caddyshack.

The next day I checked the plants. The whitefly numbers were at least halved. Twenty-four hours later, there were only a dozen or so. Within a week there were absolutely no whiteflies at all. There were no aphids either. I saw a small column of ants, so moved the spray closer to them. Over night they all disappeared. I saw a large army worm moth fluttering on its back the next day, and yesterday morning I found a quite large (by New Zealand standards at least – don’t write to me from Australia please) black spider upside down on the ground with not even a leg kicking.

I wrote back to Colin Bruiser Smith, thanking him and telling him what a huge success I’d had with the spray. He said he’d had almost 40 years of gardening in his glasshouse. That’s impressive. Someone whose advice is well worth listening to. Thank you Colin.