Dear Friends,
As we approach the longest day on the 22nd it is time to reflect on our gardens. Ask yourself- what did I do right, and also what could I improve on? Jot down notes in your garden diary about things you can do better next year, or to remind yourself to do them the same because everything is just doing so well! If you are not one for record keeping make a mental note instead.
If you planted any of our Early Pearl Garlic you should be harvesting this now or already eating it! Ours is cured and ready for sale! We have a limited supply of Garlic Plaits and loose garlic available as well. For orders email us and don’t forget; we can ship all over New Zealand.
For main crop garlic, our Rocambole has just come up to scape. Rocambole and Elephant are hard-neck garlics, but the rest of garlics we sell are soft-neck and do not scape . If you have planted our Elephant Garlic or Rocambole, be aware as these will send up flowers, called Scapes, about a month before your garlic is ready to harvest. It is important to snip them off if you are trying to get large bulbs as this sends a message to the plant to put all of its energy into forming the bulb for reproduction as the flower has been removed. We have done some trials and definitely encourage this practice as the bulbs we left to flower were consistently much smaller. And the good news is these Scapes are edible and delicious!!! We stir-fry, BBQ or roast ours in butter or lard and when they are soft and starting to caramelize they are ready to be enjoyed.
At the moment, we are submersed in the bounty of our salad patch. We always plant a lot of lettuce and other greens like orach, spinach, cress and some of our Asian greens as well as rocket using succession sowing to assure we never run out! Usually, sowing lettuce and other greens, once a month works really well. The first two sowings are always the largest as these are the seed crop sowings. So as our first sowing is going up to seed with plenty of time to ripen for harvesting, we are eating out of our 2nd and 3rd sowings. Courgettes are also on the menu and they are still very exciting!! Not to mention our Little Marvel Broccolis are producing beautiful heads. And we are pruning the tops off our basil plants allowing them to bush up and trying to not look too longingly at the green tomatoes on the vine!
We wanted to say thank you to everyone who attended our workshop last month at Farmhouse Kitchen! What a great day out. We learned so much from Julia’s Edible Weeds workshop and we are so pleased with our purchase of her Edible Weed Book, a great companion for any gardener! We really are finding the weeds offer nutrition and medicine to our bodies in a way that cultivated plants do not. It is interesting to think the common garden weeds are only found in the garden or pasture, i.e. places humans create! This seems to be nature’s way of suggesting we need these plants in our diet too. Do not be afraid, there are plenty of recipes in Julia’s book to help make these bitter greens tasty to our modern palates.
Save the Date! If you missed out on our workshop or if you are wanting to learn more we will be teaching a follow up Autumn Weeds and Seed Processing Workshop Sunday, February 28th at Farmhouse Kitchen. Julia will focus on the edible autumn weeds and feature a new recipe and we will give in depth demonstrations on seed processing and harvesting for the home gardener. More detals to come in the new year.
Things to Sow in the Garden Now:
December is more of a rest month for new seed sowing, except for Leeks, Autumn Brassicas and salad greens not much to sow until January. We are currently sowing our Lyon Leeks Broccoli Little Marve and Kale Cavolo Nero. Each month we sow a selection of lettuces and other salad greens as salad is one of our favourite foods! Tree and Speckled lettuces are our best summer holders. Purslane is also an excellent summer salad plant. Plant lettuces and most greens in a shady location for best results this time of year.
Choose the format that you can write in and email it to us at:
sethasseeds@outlook.com
People have been asking around the Bay if we are doing any markets. At the moment, we are focusing on our online sales and wholesaling to local shops, Cornucopia Organics in Hastings and Waipawa Wholefoods in Waipawa. Please contact us directly for garlic and seed orders or call in to one of the above shops.
Solstice blessings and season greetings,
Roddy and Setha
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