The year that was

It’s been another busy year for food growers, and there’s still lots more to do.

Nectarine and peach fruit that were growing well, sizing up nicely, succumbed to brown rot during wet periods. Peaches and nectarines are often vulnerable to this, preferring a hot dry growing season with cool winters. My fruit orchard areas, planted more as a food forest, are soon getting a good mineralisation with rock dust (after a Kinsey-Albrecht soil test) to help improve tree nutrition and strengthen the trees’ ability to withstand disease organisms. I’m going to make even more effort to keep surrounding trees and shrubs trimmed back for sun and airflow.

On the vegetable front, garlic rust hit yet again, even though we planted them early in April-May 2022. Crop rotation is practised too, keeping Allium species garlic, onion and leek three years apart. We sprayed the hardneck and softneck garlic varieties weekly with seaweed liquid fertiliser to boost plant health. This helped but bulb size was not as good as it has been. This coming year, we are going to try baking soda spray along with wider 15cm spacings compared to usual 10cm.

Early potatoes ‘Swift’ and ‘Rocket’ worked better this year, largely because we didn’t plant them as deep. They were mounded with soil and mulched with hay from the surrounding fields to keep them from rotting in spring rains.

At Fertile Ground Collective, we planted a lot more ‘Pepa de Zapallo’ beans on the edges, in combination with brassica and sweetcorn plantings. These easy-to-shuck beans grow well, are easy to cook and tasty, and this year we have about 5kg each (times seven shares) compared to 2.2kg last year.

Another winning adjustment was the pumpkin patch. Previously we had individual mounds in the far corner so vines don’t overtake all the other crops. This year we combined all the beds into two 10m x 1.5m beds. After being well forked through to remove weeds, a deep ditch was dug down the centre in which 10 sacks of good quality horse manure was added to each bed. Five plants of each variety – ‘Buttercup’, ‘Walthan Butternut’, ‘Queensland Blue’ and ‘Courge Olive Verte’ – were planted along with some sunflowers. The beds were mulched with woven black weedmat with leaky hose irrigation laid underneath for easy watering… resulting in approximately 150 pumpkins!

The hybrid broccoli ‘Bellstar’ had great returns compared to non-hybrid ‘De Cicco’. After main sprouts and subsequent side sprouts were done, the following shoots from the base were liquid fed weekly. Once the sprout was harvested the stem was removed giving space for the new growing shoots. This resulted in more than six months of broccoli harvest from a single planting.

However, chill time doesn’t mean no work. Whether it’s for my home garden, Fertile Ground Collective or helping other gardeners, I spend this time planning. Working with garden plans and crop rotation, adjustments are made based on feedback received from the previous season and people’s desires and preferences. My seed stock is also updated and compared with what’s needed for the coming season. We have a Golden Bay Seed Savers meet to share and swap seed this month too – another great way for local growers to connect and share information. Anything not found is ordered, preferably organic from New Zealand sources.

I give the propagation shed a cleanup. Punnets and trays are cleaned if not already. Seed-raising mix is made from vermicast and sand. The worm compost is emptied every two months, and some vermicast is stored in sacks or buckets under cover, to combine this with locally sourced granite sand to create a seed-raising mix. Potting mix has less sand, and often blood and bone added for hungry crops.

The only crop I plant this month is onions in large trays – ‘Red Brunswick’ and ‘Yellow Sweet Spanish ’ – as they take a long time to grow ready for spring planting. The rest of the vege garden had been bedded down in autumn: either a green manure crop sown into a lightly tilled bed or beds are sheet mulched with rotten hay (pre-used by our guinea pigs), horse manure and mulch of grass clippings or local seagrass.

Fruits, including berries, stone and pip fruit, get a winter prune on sunny days. I prune stone fruit mostly in January to avoid disease. These days I also use an organic pruning paste ‘Inocbloc’ from Grosafe to be on the safe side. I take the less is more approach, with as minimal cuts as possible to create good sun access to all branches, avoid crossovers, remove damaged and diseased ones, and stimulate new growth (especially with peaches and nectarines). It is also a good time to trim shelterbelts, hedgerows and ornamentals. Combine prunings with fruit branches and chip to provide a blend of woody mulch for fruits and ornamental gardens. Diseased fruit wood is burned. Pruning tools are kept sharp with a diamond sharpener and cleaned with a spray of methylated spirits between trees to avoid potential disease spread. Now that’s all done, I’m back to my book by the fire.

June is the time to reflect on the past season and plan the future. The past summer was wetter than usual and with that came more fungal and bacterial diseases.