Category Archives: Grow it yourself

Grow it Yourself: Peas

Peas are a marginal crop in mild climates. They tend to be much more reliable and productive in cooler areas. The frozen products in the supermarkets are ridiculously cheap to buy and of very high quality. So the reasons to grow peas at home are less related to quality and volume and more related to life’s simple pleasures. The satisfaction of picking fresh peas to serve with Christmas dinner is an adult pleasure. The opportunity to browse fresh peas in the garden, popping them from the pod straight into the mouth is a delight that every child should experience and one that does not wane with age. Raw, fresh peas don’t last well so are rarely nice if you buy them. You need them straight from the plant.

If you want peas for Christmas, sow them straight away. They take about three months to mature. The seed is the dried pea so they are large and are sown direct into well cultivated soil, about 5cm apart. Cover the area. The birds will destroy the germinating crop as soon as it bravely pokes its shoot above the ground. We use low chicken netting hoops for peas and various other germinating crops. Other people string cotton across the patch, cover with a cloche or even raise in seed trays under cover to stop the ravages of our feathered competitors. Once the plants have reached about 10cm in height, they are generally safe but soon they need some support to cling too. Even dwarf peas benefit from support. We tend to use a length of wire netting with a wooden standard (or post) every few metres. This can be rolled up when not required and used repeatedly. The supports need to be about a metre high. We do not spray peas at all. Ever.

While you may read the advice that peas are predominantly an autumn crop, our experience is that applies best to colder climates. It may be relevant if you live in areas like the King Country with its cooler autumns and winters but in mild, humid areas, autumn sowing is more likely to be a waste of effort as peas are vulnerable to mildew. We have given up on autumn crops but will sow from June to late September. So don’t delay. You will have harvested them by the end of the year and can use the area for a late crop of corn.

First published in the Waikato Times and reproduced here with their permission.

Grow it yourself: Bok Choy or Pak Choi

Mark, the vegetable-growing husband here, comments that we have been a bit slow to wise up to the fact that the Chinese know a great deal about food production and we should have been looking to their crops a long time ago. Bok Choy, also known as Pak Choi, is a case in point. In the world of leafy greens, it is a great deal faster and easier to grow than the likes of spinach. It can also be grown throughout most of the year and deserves to be a staple crop, though you are best to avoid sowing in mid summer when it is more likely to get stressed and bolt to seed rather than to leaf. It is so easy to grow from seed that there is not a lot of point in buying baby plants.

Sow into the usual vegetable garden conditions – full sun and well cultivated soil with plenty of compost or humus added. Water if it gets too dry. Within a few weeks, the seeds will have germinated and you can start thinning the row and eating those baby thinnings as micro greens, raw in salads or lightly cooked in stirfries. Bok choy only takes about six weeks to reach maturity so you can be harvesting for as much as four weeks of that time, at various stages of growth. As with many crops, sowing a few seed every three weeks ensures a steady supply but it really comes into its own as a winter green when the more common crops basically stop growing and fresh veg are expensive to buy. There is a lot to be said for a quick maturing green vegetable which grows all year round and is not silver beet.

First published in the Waikato Times and reproduced here with their permission.

Grow it Yourself – Florence fennel or finocchio

In this country we have been a bit slow to catch on to the European favourite of finocchio or Florence fennel and it is only very recently that it has sometimes become available at the fruit and veg counter. But we rate it very highly as a crop to grow at home and regard it somewhat like celery to eat (which is not at all easy to grow well). It can be finely sliced or grated and eaten raw in salads, it is delicious roasted whole like a parsnip or used in stirfries. It is genuinely versatile and has a good crisp texture raw or lightly cooked without the strong aniseed aroma of the seeding fennel (which is foeniculum vulgare). Florence fennel is foeniculum vulgare azoricum and it produces a fleshy, bulbous base to the stems. This is the section that is eaten.

It is not difficult to grow and it holds well in the garden. As with most vegetables, it needs to be sown into well cultivated soil in full sun. As it germinates, thin out the baby plants to about 20cm spacings. The thinnings can be eaten as fresh greens. Seed sown now will be ready to harvest in summer. We usually sow again between the end of January to early March for winter harvest. It is pretty forgiving as a crop so timing is not critical but seeds sown from late October onwards will tend to bolt too quickly in summer, before they have formed the edible bulb. However, if those plants are cut back and left, they will come again and be edible the following winter. The fluffy green tops look similar to ordinary fennel but lack its flavour so are really only good for a garnish. If you can’t find seed at your garden centre, try Kings Seeds or Italian Seeds Pronto who both have websites for on line ordering.

(first published in the Waikato Times and reproduced here with their permission)