TOP & FLOP CROPS

- A roundup of Lynda Hallinan’s successes and failures.

As far as years go, 2021 was not one of the finest on record, was it? But it certainly made me appreciate my garden. Deprived of access to garden centres – and every region other than Auckland – for the entirety of spring, I kept myself occupied completing loads of tasks that I wouldn’t have got done otherwise, because I would have been off gallivanting around the country going to garden festivals.

I pruned my roses early. I fed my citrus. I mulched and weeded my asparagus bed. I grew dozens of perennial daisy bushes from cuttings and – wonders shall never cease! – sowed most of the seeds in my seed box before ordering more. I created a colourful wildflower meadow using expired and half-used packets of seed dating back to 2014, and raised tray upon tray of healthy vege seedlings because, with time on my hands, I nurtured them well.

Most notably, during the lockdown I succesfully grew novelty ‘Candy Cane’ capsicums and ‘Turk’s Turban’ pumpkins to a transplantable size for the first time ever and, of the five ‘Iznik’ mini cucumber seeds I sowed (you only get five in a packet), three are now fruiting madly. Sixty percent is a pretty good pass rate given how prolific these snack-sized hybrids are once they get going.

Then, in a joyous surprise to see the year out, the lotus plant (Nelumbo nucifera, pictured left) that I thought our Labrador had sent packing last summer burst back into life. I wasn’t expecting that, after the dog chewed all its leaves off, and drank dry the recycled copper potted pond it’s housed in. Having tried and failed so many times to keep a sacred lotus alive for longer than one season, I was more than thrilled by its resurrection – and I may have danced a happy jig when a flower bud emerged from the foliage. It’s amazing the gifts our gardens bring us when we need them most. In return, I won’t eat its tuberous roots even though I’ve always wanted to try making homegrown lotus chips. (The cute roots, as illustrated above, look like wagon wheels when sliced.)

‘Desiree’ potatoes

I pride myself on my Irish ancestry when growing a fine crops of spuds, but occasionally they defeat me. Remember my potato trial in 2014? Of 19 early varieties, the everpopular ‘Jersey Benne’ proved the biggest dud. This year, it was the turn of pink-skinned ‘Desiree’ to let me down. Don’t ask me why, because the plants looked healthy on top, but the tubers were hopelessly small for a main cropper.

The aptly named ‘Dwarf French Hickok’ bean. From root to tip, my plants measured barely 25cm high, with plump green beans that curled when they touched the surface of the soil.

Courgettes

I let my 10-year-old son Lucas choose which courgettes we’d grow this year, and he decided to sow an old packet of ‘Ronde de Nice’, a round variety with a green speckled skin. (I thought I’d sow ‘Rampicante’ to amuse the kids, but none of my seeds germinated.) Lucas’ plants, meanwhile, have cropped like crazy, and if you think sausage-shaped courgettes turn into marrows quickly when left unchecked, let me tell you that their ball-shaped counterparts blow up like water balloons. The damn things seem to swell from the size of a ping pong ball to a cannonball overnight. Water them at your peril. They taste good though, with firm flesh that can be cubed into stir-fries and casseroles, or chopped into wedges.

We’re having such a cracker crop of courgettes that I’ve been flicking through old cookbooks to find ways to eat them. In Nigel Slater’s 2009 book Tender Volume 1, he suggests “a lemon- and garlic-scented side dish” requiring courgettes, garlic, olive oil, mint, flat-leaf parsley and lemon juice: all common ingredients.

Peel 2 cloves garlic and shallow fry in 3 tablespoons olive oil. Add 400g sliced courgettes and cook until golden and tender. Add a good handful of mint and parsley, squeeze over the just of half a lemon and serve in the pan, seasoned with salt. (I added half a finely diced onion and preserved lemon wedges that were languishing in the fridge.) Delicious and easy.

Dwarf beans

In 2019, when I shared my list of the top 10 dwarf beans in NZ Gardener, ‘Dwarf French Hickok’ came second only to the ever-popular ‘Top Crop’. “A high-yielding, disease-resistant variety that sets its beans higher than most, keeping them clean. Because these dark green beans don’t end up dragging on the ground, they also stay nice and straight,” I wrote then. Perhaps it was because I sowed them too early (in September) and kept the seedlings in a tray a smidgen too long, but my plants this year weren’t just dwarf: they were midgets. Weirdly, each tiny plant produced a reasonable haul of (albeit curly) beans, despite having fewer leaves than fruit.

Plums

It’s shaping up to be a swell season for plums. As always, my ‘Fortune’ tree is sagging under the weight of its crop (this is the biggest of the plums, with golden flesh that ends up red-streaked when ripe in early February). ‘Luisa’ has its first full crop (although, having planted it in our chook run, I don’t fancy my chances of getting any) and the damsons are laden. So is the golden ‘Shiro’ plum, which is a shame as its the most tasteless of all plums. It’s so bland I can’t explain why it hasn’t been seen off with a chainsaw.

Berries

Why are raspberry and boysenberry plants so easy to grow? They sucker and spread like agents of globalisation – but when it comes to edible fruit, I’m lucky to get enough to make a single summer pudding. If the budworms don’t get them, the birds or botrytis will. I suspect a covered berry cage is the only way to ensure a decent crop.

Leeks

I always grow more leeks than we eat, but it doesn’t really matter when they run to seed in summer as they’re so sculptural. It’s a shame they stink of onions as a cut flower, however.

I’ve learned never to turn my back on a courgette patch – let alone water it – lest I return from summer holidays to find a mountain of marrows.