Christmas 09 Newsletter

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Gardening

You can grow greens year-round in Wanaka if you use some different techniques and think ahead a bit. To get the earliest spring greens, try using the cut-and-come again method. Plant seeds directly into the garden. Sow them closely in a block (say 50cm square), and then wait until they get big enough (6-10cm) to harvest individual leaves. Try rocket, mesclun and non-heading lettuces like Rouge’d’Hiver or Freckles (from Kings Seeds, www.kingsseeds.co.nz). You can keep harvesting the block for up to four weeks, when the leaves will start getting a bit leggy and light-deprived.

Meanwhile, sow lettuces in punnets from early spring onwards. Lettuces need light to germinate, so just sprinkle a tiny amount of seed-raising mix over the top. Plant every 2-4 weeks, and try not to plant more than you can eat in that time. Otherwise you’ll end up with a nasty lettuce glut that runs the risk of putting your family off salad for the rest of the year. Once the lettuces have their true leaves and are large enough to handle, plant them out into the garden. If it’s still chilly at night, you can protect them with a cloche made from an upside down clear plastic bottle, with the bottom cut off.

Keep planting lettuces out through summer, but switch to heat-resistant varieties like Buttercrunch once it gets hot and look for midday shade. Mesclun also grows quickly and doesn’t get a chance to bolt as it’s picked early. In early autumn, start thinking about winter. Plant blocks of rocket and spinach (try Spinach Winter Giant, also from Kings Seeds) in early and late autumn. Rocket and spinach are great winter greens which can withstand frosts, and will start growing again once the temperature warms.

Sometimes the greens are all looking fine in the garden, but the pressure’s on to get dinner on the table or lunch in the lunchboxes, and there’s no time to pick them and get them ready. To make sure the greens actually get eaten, I’ve found it helps to have some ready to go in the fridge at all times. Pick them in the morning or whenever you have a minute, wash and spin them (in a lettuce spinner or by hand in a tea-towel), wrap them in a damp tea-towel and put them in the fridge drawer, ready to go.