I have recently started reflecting on where plants in our garden are originally from, because people often ask me the same question about myself. Most of our flowers, fruits, veggies and herbs in the garden are from other countries. I have started writing a series of blog posts to explore some of our favourite flowers and edibles we have grown over the years which are from overseas. In this post, I would like to cover plants we have grown in our garden that originate from North America. Sunflowers Every summer, I look forward to growing sunflowers in our garden. When I first started gardening a decade ago, I grew the very tall ornamental branching varieties which attract bees and help to pollinate veggies. In the past few years, I have become increasingly interested in flower farming, so I started growing sunflowers which are bred for the cut flower industry. These flowers produce only a single stem with one head. They are also pollenless. Usually, varieties suitable for picking tend to be hybrids. If you save seeds from your plants, they might not necessarily come true to type. The seeds also tend to be a lot more expensive than ornamental sunflowers. You can usually pick up a packet of these seeds for a few dollars from garden centres. Here are some cutting varieties I grew last summer. Rudbeckia Two years ago, I discovered rudbeckia, which are a rather charming flower in the same family as sunflowers. I purchased a packet of seeds on special from a large NZ mail order supplier called Kings Seeds. Every month, they have discounted seeds on their website, reduced by 40%. At $2.37 for a packet of seeds, I felt that I didn’t have anything to lose by giving it a try. I scattered the seeds in some punnets filled with seed raising mix and covered them with a light layer of the same product. I did this in mid-December. I left the seeds to germinate inside our greenhouse, but placed the punnets inside a plastic Sistema crate. I left the crate open during the day but covered it with a lid at night for extra warmth, as it can still be quite temperamental even at the start of summer. I kept the punnets moist by spraying them with the hose on the mist setting. Once the seedlings germinated and grew a bit, I moved them into our patio to grow a bit more before transplanting them into seedling trays, which you can see in the picture below. Once the plants were large enough, I planted them in plastic troughs outside once our marigolds finished flowering. By that time, it was late summer and the plants flowered in autumn. Blueberries When I set up our mini orchard in 2017, I planted quite a few different blueberry varieties in large containers. Prior to that, when I first started gardening, I did pick up a couple of blueberry plants on clearance at the garden centre and planted them in the ground, but they ended up dying. My theory is that the soil was too alkaline for their liking. Blueberries thrive in acidic soil. There are certainly things you can do to change the soil conditions where they are planted, such as adding pine needles. But this is of course an on-going task as any matter added to the ground will gradually decompose and fresh material will need to be added. For that reason, I wanted an alternative. In the past, Mitre 10 (a NZ hardware store with a garden centre) held a garden club evening around October. On one occasion, a sales rep from Tui, a large gardening company which makes a range of products, attended and gave a talk. He said that blueberries can be grown in containers filled with an acidic mixture called Pot Power, which is made by Tui. After having a chat to him after his talk, I decided to plant our blueberries this way and they have all done really well. The plants are much smaller and less productive than if grown in the ground under the right conditions, but are well-suited to an urban homestead like ours, where space is limited and the soil conditions are not naturally ideal. Pumpkins Every summer, I enjoy growing pumpkins. Here is a picture of the pumpkin Atlantic Giant, which I grew one year. It is an ornamental pumpkin that is used for entering pumpkin growing competitions. They are not as common here as in the US, which is a shame because I think they are fun and a great thing for young people to get involved in. There are so many temptations for youth, including recreational drugs and binge drinking, which aren’t good for your health. Pumpkin growing competitions are an example of good, wholesome fun that the whole family can be involved in. Contests bring together all the growers as part of a community, which is also nice. Modern society can be very individualistic. People can sometimes feel a bit isolated and lonely. I have recently written a blog post containing some tips for growing pumpkins, which you can read here.
Miners lettuce Every spring, I sow miners lettuce. As the name suggests, it was consumed by miners to prevent scurvy. It has a lovely flavour. You can pick the leaves as they become ready. As the weather warms up towards the beginning of summer, the plants start going to seed.
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I have been thinking a lot about Italy lately. The reason is because I started conversing with an Italian I met in an international homesteading forum. He was raised in California and has been living between the US and Italy for most of his life. He is in the process of planting himself in Italy permanently, between Rome and Naples. I couldn’t help but be envious. I am admittedly the world’s worst cherry picker and those are all wonderful places in my opinion for many reasons. Years ago when I worked in an office, I came across a skirt with cherries on it while shopping for clothes. I simply had to have it, because it summed me up perfectly. I don’t wear that skirt anymore now that I am a gardener but even now, if I had to pick fruit for a living, cherries would suit me to the ground. While New Zealand is a very long way from Italy, I have been able to bring Italy to the garden for over a decade by growing veggies and herbs in the famous Franchi Seeds range, which are made available here thanks to the New Zealand importer and distributor Italian Seeds Pronto, which is owned by the lovely Gillian Hurley-Gordon. Franchi Sementi dates back to 1783. All of the seeds in the Franchi range are heirloom, which means that you can save seeds from your plants and be assured that they will come true to type. Just be careful as cross-pollination can sometimes occur. There are ways around this such as planting different varieties far away from each other if space permits, or sticking to just one variety per family if space is tight. In true cherry picking style, I have selected my favourite varieties which I have grown over the years to share with readers. Brassicas I always grow brassicas in our garden during winter. While they take a long time to mature, they are not difficult to grow. I highly recommend Cauliflower Macerata, Cauliflower Romanesco and Broccoli Calabrese. Kale I highly recommend the Black Tuscan Kale Cavolo Nero. It has a wonderful flavour. Towards spring when the plants have grown a lot, we harvest large leaves which are perfect for making kale chips. Lettuce Lettuce is one of my favourite veggies to grow as the taste is so much fresher and succulent than what you would find at the supermarket. Italian Seeds Pronto stock a very wide range and I have enjoyed growing quite a few different varieties over the years. For a peppery flavour, you can’t beat the Rocket Coltivata. I came across Lamb’s Lettuce, which was something I hadn’t heard of until I saw it in Italian Seeds Pronto’s range. My favourite variety is called Verte de Cambrai. Mesclun is really good to have in the garden as it contains lots of different varieties and the leaves can be harvested as you need them. I have grown both Misticanza di Lattughe and Misticanza Quattro Stagioni, which each contain 14 different lettuce varieties. For a great lettuce variety which can be harvested whole or picked as required as a cut-and-come again, you can’t go past Degli Ortolani, which I have grown successfully season after season. It performs well planted both in the ground (ideal if you want it to form a head and harvest it whole) and containers. Spinach There are two fantastic spinach varieties in Italian Seeds Pronto’s range, Merlo Nero and Matador. Both perform very well in spring in our Auckland garden. Zucchini I highly recommend the three zucchini varieties Romanesco, Fiorentino (which wasn’t available last year) and Striato d’Italia. They are prolific, have great flavour and the large flowers are perfect for stuffing. Not all zucchinis produce blooms that are ideal for stuffing. The flowers on my other varieties were small by comparison. Last year, Gillian kindly gave me a round variety called Tondo Chiaro di Nizza, which I had never grown before. It performed incredibly well, despite the floods and cyclones in Auckland. They can be stuffed, baked or steamed. Tomatoes Italian Seeds Pronto offers a wonderful range of tomatoes that are meaty and full of flavour. Eggplants Every summer, I look forward to growing Prosperosa (a round deep purple variety) and Violetta Lunga (a long deep purple variety). I always grow my eggplants in containers as space is tight and I leave the ground for growing root crops as well as veggies that sprawl, such as pumpkins and melons. Pumpkins I highly recommend the variety Marina di Chioggia. Don’t be put off by the warts on the exterior! Personally, I find them charming and they help the pumpkin to store longer. This variety also has a great flavour. One of my favourite ways to consume pumpkin is in cannelloni made with fresh spinach (ideally Matador and Merlo Nero, which are covered above). Herbs Basil Basil is a staple in our summer garden. I always grow it in containers to save ground space for other crops and for ease of harvesting. For pesto, the perfect variety is Italiano Classico which has deep green glossy leaves. For something different, I have also grown the lettuce leaf basil variety Foglie di Lattughe. This variety is ideal for wrapping balls of mozzarella. Parsley Italian Seeds Pronto stock the Italian flat leaf parsley variety Gigante di Napoli, which has a fantastic flavour. Thyme The thyme Timo di Provenza is hands down the best variety I have ever come across. It has so much more flavour compared to common thyme. It did very well in 9 litre household buckets with holes poked in the bottom for drainage. Oregano
We always use fresh oregano in homemade pasta sauce. The oregano in Italian Seeds Pronto’s range has a wonderful flavour. A couple of days before we went into lockdown in August last year, I had my laptop sent away for repairs. I only got it back three months later, which meant that I could not write any blog posts. While it is a long time ago now, I would really like to share a report on our spring and early summer garden. Everything went really well. It only went downhill in summer, but that is the subject of another post! Miner's lettuce A firm favourite in our spring garden is miner’s lettuce. In September, I prepare a small area by mixing in a bit of compost and garden fertiliser. I then sprinkle a 10g packet of seeds and cover lightly with soil. At this time of the year, it is not usually necessary for me to keep the area moist as it rains a lot. The leaves are tender and delicious. We harvest them as we need them. At the end of spring, it runs to seed and if left there, the plants will happily self-seed the following season. NZ Spinach Another favourite in our garden is NZ Spinach. I sowed our plants from seed over the summer and planted them out in autumn. NZ Spinach is difficult to get established but once it takes off it spreads and ends up growing in a bit of a bush. We pick the leaves for our daily green smoothies. The leaves can also be steamed as with any other spinach Sprouting broccoli In July, I planted quite a few punnets of mini brassicas that I purchased from Roger’s, including broccoli. After we harvested the main head, I left the plant in the ground and side-shoots began to form. This kept us with a constant supply of broccoli all spring, right up until mid-December when the plants started going to seed and I needed the space for the dahlias. Potatoes Last spring, I grew two varieties. I always grow Liseta, an early variety which matures in 70-80 days. I also grow Summer Delight, a main crop potato which matures in around 120 days and stores very well. We had a really good crop and have been enjoying eating potatoes from our garden right up until February. Broad beans We had an incredibly good crop last year. We ended up freezing lots. To freeze broad beans, shell and blanch them first. Strawberries Awapuni very kindly gave me two mega bundles of strawberries to grow in our garden. There were two varieties, Camarosa and Ventana. Each bundle contained 50 plants. They were honestly the best strawberries that we have ever eaten and I have been growing strawberries for many years now. I highly recommend Awapuni’s plants! Avocados We planted a Cleopatra dwarf avocado tree in 2017 and it cropped for the first time last spring. We harvested about 60 avocados which was a great result. Iceland poppies I grew Iceland poppies for the first time last year in a garden bed alongside our driveway. I was very inspired by the displays that I have seen in council gardens. Ours did not disappoint and we had a beautiful display in spring. Early summer poppies Every year, a number of different kinds of single and peony poppies self-seed merrily in the garden. Last year, we had a spectacular display. Tulips Last year, Bulbs Direct kindly gave me a number of different tulips to grow in our garden. We had the most magnificent display in late winter and early spring. Here are some of my favourites. Roses Our roses always look their best in spring and last year they put on a spectacular display. Here are some of our favourites. Bedding plants
Here are some photos of our bedding plants in early spring |
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