Summer Entertaining
Friday, December 4 by Hamish Dodd
G’day green fingers,
Hamish here. I hope you are all winding down and enjoying the silly season.
Despite the continual down pouring of rain I am keeping a close eye on the soil in both my flower and vegetable garden because humidity can be the kiss of death for under-watered plants at this time of year. We generally remember to water plants daily when the sun is blazing but this current weather can deceive a gardener into thinking plants are getting enough rain to combat the humid weather, especially in the North Island at present. Regularly hosing down not only keeps plants alive and kicking but can help keep aphid numbers down (of course water alone will no deter disease and pests). I went to my sister-in-laws house for dinner the other night and her newly planted flax and grasses were looking droopy. She, like so many others, thought the plants were getting enough water but because the plants were located under the eaves of her house rainfall was minimal. If you take anything from this blog today, remember to water plants under the eaves of your house – you would be surprised how dry the soil gets.
I believe our seasons are changing due to global warming and like last year we will have a late summer. But the weather is starting to heat up so we should be out enjoying the produce from our gardens. I’m taken by all the living wall structures around. How cool to have a vertical wall of growing produce metres away from your entertaining area. I must investigate some more and get back to you about these vertical garden. I’ve sampled some wonderful home-grown strawberries in champagne and fruit desserts already. And everything is springing to life, including all the beneficial and not so helpful insects flying around the garden. I love this time of year, on a quiet evening the plots sounds abuzz with energy. If you haven’t sown seeds yet get to it now. There is nothing more flavourful than fresh salads from your plot to your plate in minutes. Don’t forget to grow a variety of herbs to liven up salads and meals to make your taste buds zing.
As a special treat, here’s a recipe from Yates new cookbook – Yates Garden Fresh Cookbook, available at all good books stores. It’s makes a great Christmas gift idea with lots of delicious recipes that you can create using the produce from your garden!
Tomato Savouries
(Makes 24-36 savouries)
2 sheets of ready-made puff pastry
3/4 cup cream cheese
2 Tbsp chopped black olives
1 Tbsp chopped spring onions
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
1 tsp capers, finely chopped
24 -36 slices ripe tomatoes
100g creamy blue cheese, thinly sliced
Using a round cookie cutter, cut as many as possible from the pastry sheets. Using a smallest cookie cutter press it into each cut out disc, taking care not to cut through the pastry – this gives the discs a narrow border. Keep the discs chilled until needed.
Preheat oven to 200C.
Mix the cream cheese with the olives, spring onions, cayenne, garlic and capers.
Place the pastry discs on an oven tray, top each with some cream cheese mixture, a tomato slice and a sliver of blue cheese.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the pastries are golden brown. Enjoy!
Feeding vegetables at this time of year to get an optimum harvest is a must. Natures Way fertilisers are important in feeding plants a balance of the essential elements they need to grow yummy delights for your tummy. Not only does Natures Way fertilisers help plant growth but gives it the strength to withstand disease and pests. Read the back label for instructions and remember to keep watering – soaking not a quick sprinkle – your vegetable garden. It is best to water your garden every second day giving it a good soak than a trickle of water once a day. When the sun starts burning hot you will have, most probably, have to soak every day.
With Christmas holidays only a week or two away now is the perfect time to get kids into gardening. It will keep them busy and active and help them feel a sense of achievement. Fun activities include making bean tepees out of bamboo and watching peas and beans spiral up the structure. Why not make some papier-mâché faces or animals to decorate and liven up a garden plot? Growing sunflowers and making scarecrows are always a family favourite. If dad or mum like wood work, or our local hardware store should provide them, why not let your children paint up a bird house and be responsible for topping up the bird feed. A great Christmas present idea is buying your child a plastic pot, the Tuscan Self Watering pots are ideal. When they open the present they may be confused, but follow up with herb and flower seeds in their stocking. They can then get to work painting and decorating their pot with their name and start learning about the wonders of growing.
My tomatoes are coming on very well with massive amount of flowers and we all know what that leads to – hopefully, a massive amount of tomato’s! The tomatoes planted in the open ground are doing incredibly well but no sign of flowers as yet. I have had a great crop of snow peas from both the plants in the Tuscan self watering pot and the glasshouse but they have finally had it and so I have removed them to start on my next crop. The cucumbers planted in glass house ground as opposed to the self watering spots have not germinated to maturity but the plants that were transplanted from Greenhouse into open ground are doing real well. The ground has been fed with fertiliser and pellets and this is starting to show results. Clearly I’m not a great bok choy grower – the seeds germinated fairly rapidly and almost as rapidly have turned to seed before getting to an appreciable size to use. Broccoli getting bigger but still no visible sign of the head forming. However, the zucchini – Yates “Greyzini” – are continuing to flourish and provide substantial amounts for an evening meal. Unlike the traditional dark green zucchini, these are a very attractive pale almost variegated version. The last of the radishes will be harvested over the next week to free up more space in the raised garden for something new. It’s about now that I need to think of investing in some shade cloth to cover the top of glass house during the height of summer as the really soaring temperatures over the last week damaged some of the lettuces that were planted in trays in the glasshouse.
I look forward to seeing all your snaps in the great tomato growing competition. Remember that the winner of the competition gets a prize pack to the value of $575. Send in a picture of your tomato plant, a photocopy of your Yates garden diary with harvest weights and records. You can get one from this website.
Don’t forget that entries for the Yates Nature’s Way competition close on the 14th of December – all you have to do to enter is buy any Yates Nature’s Way product to be in to to WIN one of 150 Yates great gardening books!
Catch ya,
Hamish
“Back to blog >”:/hamish-dodd/
Comments (1)
Add a comment
This area is for general comments from the Yates Garden Club community. Questions posted here will not receive a reply from Yates. For specific product advice Contact Us
Nic
Yates site member
10:39, 23 December 2009
Planted my Tomato in a Yates Self watering pot and use Yates Profeesional potting mix, full of flowers and some large fruit starting to form.
Add your reply