I thought it might be a good idea to do a write up about the new dahlias that I added to our garden this season. Prior to last year, I only had a few varieties, including the famous Café au Lait and Penhill Watermelon, which I purchased from Bulbs Direct, New Zealand’s leading mail order bulb supplier. Two years ago, I happened to purchase the lovely Labyrinth, which was not being sold in 2021 and became the most highly sought after dahlia tuber in the country. Someone in a Facebook group for dahlia growers that I belong to said that a couple of auctions for the Labyrinth closed at $400! Here is the Labyrinth in bloom in this year’s garden. The Labyrinth has a sister called Labyrinth Two Tone, which I purchased from a supplier called Petal Plants. It is also really lovely. Firm favourites in our garden are the varieties Maya, Wizard of Oz and Peaches n’ Cream, all of which I purchased from Jenny at Studio 24 Botanicals. Mum and I were also very impressed with Breakout, which is the sister to Café au Lait. The picture that received more likes on my Instagram page than any other dahlia was Alfred Grille, which was a tuber from a previous season which I purchased from Bulbs Direct. I don’t have many cactus dahlias and it is admittedly not my favourite variety, but I do really like this one. One strange thing about this year is that our dahlias have been very late to flower. Some have only just started flowering and we are waiting on many others. I will post another update on our dahlias in the future to cover them.
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Here’s a round up of developments in the garden. Harvesting pumpkins and butternuts My pumpkins and butternuts died off the vines quite early this year so I harvested them and stored them inside. The butternut variety that we grew this year was called Chieftain. We also grew Spaghetti Squash and the following pumpkin varieties – Blue Hubbard, Jarrahdale and Queensland Blue. All of these are known to store really well. Harvesting okra Our okra is starting to become ready! This season I grew four varieties: Gunjan, Emerald Green, Clemson Spineless and Burgundy. I planted my okra in 9 litre square black plastic containers (around the size of a household bucket). I have 193 plants in total. Every two days, I keep an eye on them as they mature quickly. It’s best to harvest them while they are young otherwise they can start to become too tough. Planting rudbeckia seedlings My marigolds that were planted in large plastic baba troughs had just about had it, so I pulled them out and replaced them with some dwarf rudbeckia seedlings that I raised from seed. This is the first time that I have grown rudbeckia and I am very pleased with the results. They are very easy to grow from seed and required little effort on my part. Potting up seedlings I have been busy working in my nursery. I have been potting up lettuce seedlings (including the wonderful variety Degli Ortolani from Italian Seeds Pronto), Pak Choi, Silverbeet, Kale and Spinach. When they have grown a bit in the seed raising trays I transferred them to, I will move them into the garden. I expect this to be in March some time. Next steps
It has been a shamelessly long time since I have written a blog post and I thought it was about time I resurrected the blog section of my website. Apart from the three month hiatus when my laptop was being repaired during the last lockdown, I have been very diligent at writing my weekly gardening newsletter. I really think that this would benefit from being supplemented by extra gardening tips and news about what is happening at Anita’s Garden. I will try to include the link to my recent blog posts in my newsletter, so readers can stay up to date. It feels like summer is over. Our Naked Ladies have started flowering, which for me is a sign that we have moved into autumn. It has been an interesting season with a mix of successes and failures. I would like to share them with you. Successes
Failures
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