Prepare for the year ahead

For the home organic gardener, winter is primarily a time to plan and prepare your next spring garden (at least here in chilly Te Waipounamu) before the work actually begins. In colder months, savour the delights from the harvest of last summer's bounty. Enjoy fresh vegetables growing slowly in your garden.

One key to a successful organic garden is rotating crops so that plant-specific pests and diseases don't get a chance to build up in the soil. As a general rule, a three-year gap between one type of crop being grown in the same location.

If you're starting from scratch, draw an outline of your garden plot and divide it into four areas of roughly equal size. Write in each quarter what you would like to grow there.

Depending on the size of your garden, it can be useful to keep a written record of what has been planted each year. Keep track of where things have grown.

I divide my garden into four basic crop types for rotation:

  • Root crops, such as potatoes, carrots, kumara.
  • Brassicas, such as broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale.
  • Onion family, such as garlic, leeks, onions, spring onions.
  • Salad plants, such as lettuce, tomatoes, celery, zucchini, cucumbers, beans, corn.

The good news: as the gardener who puts in the time and effort, you get to determine what vegetables get planted based on what you like to eat. Despite encouragement from my whānau, I still refuse to grow brussel sprouts!

By planning in advance,you can expand the choice of seeds and plant material used in your spring garden. Garden shops normally provide a good range of seeds or seedlings for planting out in early spring. However, specialty suppliers like Kings Seeds and Koanga Gardens have heirloom and organic varieties that can be ordered through their websites (see below).

   

Koanga has helped revive some old varieties of Māori potatoes and now grow enough to sell them through their website. Potatoes have been grown by Ngāti Māmoe and Ngāi Tahu since early contact period with Takata Pora (Europeans), Records show large areas of potatoes were harvested and traded in Murihiku in the early 1800s.Today, the Māori potato varieties available from Koanga include:

  • Urenika. Has a purple skin and is a good cropper;
  • Karoro. Has a a creamy texture. One source was Horomaka (Banks Peninsula);
  • Whataroa. Creamy with purple streaks.

A good cropper that keeps well and was sourced from Whataroa on Te Tai o Poutini.

  • Kowiniwini. Round and light purple;
  • Māori. White flesh and a bright purple skin (see photos).

Above: Seed potatoes (left to right) Urenika, Kowiniwini, Whataroa and Māori potatoes.

I grew some of these varieties a few years ago and they were so delicious we ate them all and forgot to keep some to plant again, so I will definitely plant some of these varieties in my potato area this spring.

Potatoes are best planted after the threat of frost damage has passed in your area.

Garlic is the one vegetable that does need to be planted while the weather is still cold in mid-winter. Its value as a promoter of good health has been scientifically proven. And it is easily added to meals, giving food a delicious flavour. The garlic purchased in supermarkets has usually been treated with a growth inhibitor (unless it is certified organic), so it is best to buy garlic cloves specifically for planting from a garden store or from a seed supplier.

The whole garlic is broken down into the individual cloves and planted upright with the base down so that soil just covers the top of the clove. Depending on the size of the garlic variety, leave about 10cm between each clove and at least 35cm between the rows.

Garlic is a gross feeder so needs nutrientrich soil with plenty of compost. Traditionally it is planted on the shortest day of the year during Matariki or Puaka and harvested on the longest day of the year in December.

Winter is the best time to plant fruit trees, such as peach, apple, apricot or plum.

Consider size of the mature tree. If it grows into a 10m-tall monster, you might not have enough room left over for a vegetable garden, or it might block out sunlight.

But many dwarf varieties are available these days that grow only a few metres high. If you don't have room for fruit trees, another option is fruit bushes, for example, raspberries, gooseberries or strawberries.

Fruiting plants usually need a large amount of compost, so if you don't have any ready, buy some in to get these plants well established in time for their spring growth.

Mauri Ora!

Please email any questions about home gardening to tekaraka@ngaithau.iwi.nz.

HEI MAHI MāRA
A beginner's
guide to
growing
organic veg
nā
TREMANE BARR

Tremane Barr is Ngāi Tahu/Kāti Mahaki. He has been gardening organically for more than 20 years. He currently works as a storeman and a part-time contractor helping to develop a pounamu resource management plan for Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio.

More Information

For the basic practice of gardening, you can't go past the traditional Yates Garden Guide, which also includes useful information on organics.

The NZ Soil and Health Association's bi-monthly magazine Organic NZ provides practical organic gardening advice and the latest inspirational stories from the world of organics.

Useful Organic Gardening Websites:

Book Competition

TE KARAKA has one copy of the famous Yates Garden Guide to give away to a lucky reader.

Simply write to us at
PO Box 13 046,
Christchurch 8041
or email us at tekaraka@ngaitahu.iwi.nz and tell us the name of our gardening writer.

Inside Issue 43

Wind of your Homeland

Cyber Connections

Reo Revolution

Keeping Watch Over Mātaitai

Bi-Lingual Tamariki

Chopper Ready

Appetite for Living

Organic Gardening

 

Issue #43 Published July 2009
© Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu