Gardening Guides
Be a gardening legend with step-by-step instructions on how to grow a wide range of plants, what to plant when, how to combat pests and diseases, plus extra tips and tricks to get your garden flourishing.
Be a gardening legend with step-by-step instructions on how to grow a wide range of plants, what to plant when, how to combat pests and diseases, plus extra tips and tricks to get your garden flourishing.
Back in autumn, as the country began the great toilet paper frenzy, gardeners (and non-gardeners!) around the country suddenly went potty for plants. Hardware stores, garden centres and our own Awapuni Nurseries online shop, seemingly overnight, sold out of seedlings and plants – enough to make you wonder if Covid-19 had fast-forwarded the calendar to spring.
Which meant that in the space of a week, our normally abundant seedlings levels at Awapuni had been seriously impacted. Then came lockdown; with no staff to pick, pack orders, and re-plant the continual supply of seedlings needed. Suddenly, I found myself rather busy at the nursery!
But a couple of months on, the ‘new normal’ is here and I’m really heartened to see so many more Kiwis have discovered the joy of gardening and also eating home-grown produce. We’ve sown masses of seedlings, intensely watered (as pandemics seem to deter rain) and you can now once again, order veges online from Awapuni Nurseries, and have them delivered direct to your door. And even though we’re now into winter, it’s still a great time to plant veges to ensure some fresh home produce in the coming months. There are lots you can plant right now – starting with onions, brassicas and beets. If you’re not sure what to grow, I recommend trying some spinach and sugar snap peas.
Planting spinach now will have you harvesting the outer leaves in four to six weeks. Sugar snap peas take a few weeks longer, but I do find them so satisfying to grow, and a delicious snack straight out of the garden. Once you’ve cleared out a sunny, well-drained spot in the vege garden for your sugar snap peas and spinach, dig through some compost or general fertiliser. Leafy greens like spinach will also thrive in planters and pots. Sugar snap peas can grow up to 1.5m high, so will need something to climb up, like a trellis or netting. They grow best planted in garden beds, around 15cm apart.
Plant your spinach seedlings 20cm apart, and then apply pea straw, newspaper or mulch to help keep the weeds away. After that, all you need to do is watch out for slugs and snails. Slug bait works well, but I do love organic beer bait traps in the vege garden too.
Come mid-winter you’ll be able to start harvesting your produce. And to keep gardening away this pandemic, remember to plant new seedlings every few weeks to ensure a continuous supply.
Lettuces can be grown, generally, all year round in New Zealand, thanks to its temperate climate in many of its regions.
5 Tips on Growing Amazing Lettuces
1. They love moist, well-draining soil.
2. Use great quality potting mix (or potting mix and garden mix combinations).
3. Use raised beds if you can (especially for younger plants).
4. They need regular watering. Water lightly, regularly for sweet-tasting leaves.
5. Overwatering causes waterlogging. This leads to possible root and leaf diseases.
Awapuni Nurseries offer over 10 varities of lettuces.
Read full articleIt's garlic planting season and we've curated the top tips in growing garlic in New Zealand! We hope you find this helpful and will help boost your garlic yields by summer!
Garlic is a valuable ingredient that brings in extra flavour in many dishes! It's traditionally planted on the shortest day of the year but it can be planted from autumn through winter.
1. Ideally, the suggested planting time for garlic is mid-June to August.
2. Garlic loves well-draining soil. Good drainage is important to reduce risk of bulbs rotting.
3. Garlic does not like weeds. Weeds compete with the required nutrients and moisture.
4. Moderate watering needed. In warmer months (Nov-Dec), as garlic bulbs start to form, make sure it gets enough water
5. You may plant them in pots and containers too. This way you can move the plants around where there's most sun.
6. If you're planting them directly into the ground, choose a sunny spot.
7. In very cold areas of New Zealand, prepare to mulch for better yields. Straw is a good insulator.
8. Garlic needs rich soil. You may want to consider TUI Novatec Premium Fertiliser for container planting. Apply Tui Organic Seaweed Plant Tonic through the season to encourage larger cloves.
9. Harvest in summer once the tops start to die back. Don’t pull the leaves, dig the plant up carefully with a fork. You may leave the plants to dry on the top of the ground for a week or so.
10. Store garlic in airy, dry place, out of the sun and rain.
Watch out for rust. Click here for some tips in dealing with rust.
Great Garlic Deals:
Garlic 50 Plants
Garlic 100 Plants
First-time garlic grower? Don’t fret growing garlic is pretty easy, all you need is good seedlings and great soil and you’re away. Garlic season is from April – July, but the traditional day to plant garlic is on the 21st of June, the shortest day of the year and ready to be harvested on the longest day of the year, the 21st December.
Garlic grows best in friable soil. Friable soil is soil that is “crumbly” in texture and is somewhere between clay and sand, when your press the soil it should make a lump but it’s easy to break down. This type of soil is important for garlic since it holds up to 15x its water and prevents soil erosion.
Let’s get planting!
Once you’ve planted your garlic, keep an eye out for rust. Rust is a fungal disease that won’t cause much damage to established bulbs but unfortunately, won’t be ideal for your seedlings. So, to avoid that happening we recommend getting your garlic plants in as early as possible. and if you had rust in the last 2-3 years on your garlic or onions, make sure you plant them in a different spot this year. Be sure to keep feeding your garlic, we recommend Tui organic seaweed as it encourages larger bulbs and protects the roots of your plant from temperature fluctuations as well as strengthens the plant against pests and diseases.
If you find your garlic has rust, chop off the infected leaves as soon as you spot rust and discard them in the rubbish – not your compost bin as this will spread the infection. Also, give your hands, clothes and gardening tools that might have come into contact with the fungus a good wash to stop the spread.
Companion planting can also help prevent diseases. Plant your garlic with carrots, beets, kale, kohlrabi, roses, marigolds and geraniums. Avoid planting asparagus, beans, sage and peas with your garlic seedlings as this could stunt their growth.
You can purchase our garlic seedlings here.
Happy garlic planting!
Read full articleWe've asked our customers about how to grow the best tasting and healthy tomatoes and they have generously shared their tips!
1. Remove the lower leaves, don't let the leaves get on the ground. Snap out the leaf axil (or the suckers) - these are the leaves in between the stem and the main leaf.
2. "Epsom salts & sheep pallets when they are planted in the hole. I always plant mine on their sides so that there is good root growth to keep them grounded and stable." - Sue JN.
3. Grow them with lots of basil plants.
4. "Crushed eggs for calcium." - Megan KB
5. "Pony poop, lime and regular watering." - Tamzin C.
6. "Fish frames, wood ash, compost, mulch." - Chris A.
7. "Great soil & regular feeding." - Verna P.
8. "Healthy soil with about 2 to 3 basil plants planted around each tomato, consistent watering, once a month feed with lil Seasol." - Kathleen S.
9. "Buy health plants." - Verna P.
10. "Seaweed fertiliser regularly." - Margaret W.
11. "Potassium water. Weekly at least just throw all our banana peels in a sealed bucket and seep like tea a couple of weeks minimum. Right now, I have huge well over a metre tomato bushes." - Kelley H.
12. "Sheep and chicken pellets and regular feeding." - Nik H.
13. "Milk powder. I put a heaped spoon in hole when I plant or you could just dig in around plant. Provides calcium and guards against blossom end rot." - Michele G.
14. "Humate and seaweed off the beach around plants, plant late November to avoid the taste crash with too much rain in the New Year." - Johannes H.
A lot of reasonable, affordable solutions here!
Happy gardening!
Read full article