by Wally Richards

NEW SEASON GROWING TIPS

Depending where you are in New Zealand, daylight hours have increased by approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes to 2 hours since the winter solstice.

That is why deciduous trees and roses are ‘waking up’ as they welcome a new season of living.

We are also waking up from the ‘winter blues’ to another spring in which we become more active and many will do ‘Spring Cleaning’ in the home and gardens.

‘Spring Fever’ is in the air and the extra sunlight hours increases our Vitamin D content if we allow our skin to have gradual exposure to the sun to build up the protective pigments. Sunlight is health providing and getting in the morning or later afternoon at this time of the year and doing some gardening will refresh the spirit and elevate the stresses of life.

We gardeners like to grow the food we eat because we have control of what goes into our food chain and we can enhance the nutritional value and taste of our food by using natural products which include any animal manures, blood and bone, fish and seaweed extracts and compost made from healthy plant residues. (Not lawn clippings full of herbicide weed killers)

I am often asked how to grow Kumara: The sweet potato is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the bindweed or morning glory family, Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a root vegetable. The young shoots and leaves are sometimes eaten as greens.

Kumara contains a dietary significant amount of potassium (they are one of the highest potassium-containing vegetables).

Kumara is one of the highest carbohydrate containing vegetables so it makes an excellent source of energy. The coloured flesh and skin of kumara supply an array of phytonutrients including phenolic compounds, flavonoids and carotenoids.

Red or purple varieties contain anthocyanins (found in the skin of red varieties), and those with orange and yellow colouring are rich in beta-carotene. The richer the colour, the more phytonutrients present. Which means ideally you don’t peel Kumara; just wash and roast or boil instead of throwing the goodness in the skins away.

To obtain Kumara plants one simply sprout a Kumara tuber by placing it into a container with damp sand or growing medium so it is just buried with most of the ‘eyes’ (that where the shoots come out of) facing up wards.

You could in fact peel a Kumara with a paring knife so you take about 5mm of flesh with an eye and skin and place that in a container just covered with mix or sand.

The eye will sprout and form roots and when it gets to about 12cm to 15cm tall it is then ready to plant out.

If you have buried a whole tuber then when the eyes have sprouted and reached the desired length you simply lift the tuber and with a sharp knife cut the sprout off taking a few mm of parent flesh with it and the roots that have formed.

Now here is an interesting thing: at the supermarket you are likely to see red, gold and orange Kumara. There is no problem sprouting a red Kumara normally but what of the other colors?

You would be very lucky to find one that will sprout and if you do it is very precious. Why? Because the other colored Kumara are propriety Kumara which the commercial growers pay Royalties to be able to grow them.

To prevent you, the home gardener, getting them buckshee (free) and growing them; the commercial crop is treated with a chemical prior to harvest which goes down into the tubers and prevents them from ever sprouting. I suspect Roundup or similar is what is used as it is cheap and does the job perfectly.

Not being able to sprout and grow those tubers does not bode well with eating them for your health as they are full of toxic chemicals.

Back to chemical-free red Kumara that will sprout and be safe to eat. You need to prepare a bed to grow Kumara slips in so take a plot about a square meter in size and remove all the soil to a bit over a spade depth.

Put the soil into your wheelbarrow if you have one; if not lay down a small tarpaulin and put the soil onto that near the dugout area.

At the base of the area dug out you need to trample the soil to make a very hard base.

If you have clay base soil then make it smooth and wet it and allow to bake hard in sun light.

Another way would be to put down a piece of tight woven weed mat; in fact a double layer would do nicely.

The reason is that the sprout will send down roots and when those roots hit a solid base they stop and fill out forming the tuber you harvest. If there is no base to stop the root it will carry onto China (as we say) as a shoestring root.

Once you have your solid base you fill the area with the soil dug out but mixed with the likes of sheep manure pellets, blood & bone, some BioPhos, Unlocking your Soil, Wallys Calcium & Health and Ocean Solids all mixed with the soil in your wheelbarrow or tarp, and if your soil is not friable add sand to it to make it more friable.

Then to put it all back into the dug out area which it will likely be a bit higher than the surrounding area making like a small mound.

Now to plant your kumara slips you do this: lay the slip on the ground with the roots pointing North and back about 20 mm from the end of the shoot place your forefinger and press down carefully to insert the root end into the soil in the shape of a fishhook with the foliage standing up like a little soldier.

Plant all your other sprouts the same way about 15cm apart. If concerned about later frosts or during the establishment period, some crop cover can be put over the area using ridged alkathene pipe hoops to raise it above the sprouts.

If your soil is cold where you are at planting time then do the following: part fill the area with your mix, say about half full then mow the lawn and catch the grass clippings which you will put a good layer of over the soil; then fill with the rest of the mix of soil.

The grass as it decomposes will heat up the soil nicely and encourage growth plus also supply more food for the Kumara growing. (Even if your soil is warmish it still is a good idea to use the underheat to establish the crop quicker)

If you want to grow yams you can use the same method but only make the area to grow dug out to about half a spade depth.

If you wish to grow pumpkins, squash etc. you make a mound using a lot more animal manure and the other products as above.

Pumpkins etc. can take a lot of room and I have in the past taken the runners up into shrubs and smaller trees so they grow and form fruit up in the branches.

Otherwise allow them to run across a waste area or lawn. They can be grown under trees and shrubs and if you take a 50 litre container with drainage holes on the sides near the bottom (not underneath) and fill with your mix and sit that in a sunny spot under the trees, you can allow the runners to run up or over the ground where they are out of the way.

Then you plant into the mound or container 3 pumpkin plants or place three seeds a triangle pattern and prior to planting soak them overnight in a solution of Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL) — they will germinate very quickly: one gardener told me within 24 hours.

Zucchini if you like them are easy to grow and as they also take a bit of room use a 50 litre size container and the preparation as above for filling; then put two plants or seeds opposite each other near the rim of the container.

They can then grow out of the container and produce the fruit while nicely balancing the container with their mutual weight. Sit on concrete or anywhere that is sunny.

A lot to do now, so get moving.

Note my article on Future Proof is just about completed. Anyone who would like a copy and so far have not requested it then do so by sending me an e-mail: wallyjr@gardenews.co.nz with the words Future Proof.

There is a lot of material in it: so far over 40 pages and still going.

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