How to prepare soil for a happy spring planting

It’s only just started raining in North Canterbury when I ring no-dig (or no-till) food grower Candy Harris. It’s been a dry year compared to the rest of the country, she says, from her 1000sqm edible garden in Clarkville, Waimakiriri.

The long dry has been a good thing considering her gardening tasks in the past week.

“Everything has been drying out quite nicely in terms of being able to collect dry leaves and seeds. The leaves will be used to make the leaf moulds, bagging it up and putting leaves on the compost, so lots of leaf collecting and collecting the flower seed heads from the wild flowers.” These will be scattered over the fields in spring to encourage bee pollinators and attract beneficial insects.

“A lot of my autumn and winter work is focussed on creating really healthy soil, planting the cover crops and building up compost and mulching everything and laying pea straw, everything to feed the soil. Like I’ve cut up a big pumpkin and put that down with some manure, so the worms can have a really good winter. Then the soil should be really happy when it comes to planting in spring time.”

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Cover crops include legumes like peas and broadbeans and an autumn crop she gets from Kings Seeds that includes peas, lupin and some oats.

Legumes have long been recognised and valued as “soil building” crops. Growing legumes improves soil quality through their beneficial effects on soil biological, chemical and physical conditions. When properly managed, legumes will enhance the nitrogen in the soil. Nitrogen is key for plant growth.

“If I’m planting peas for eating I will grow them up with some kind of trellising. It’s usually what I’ve got hanging around, it might be some old chicken wire, it might be some old bamboo stakes, it could be an old fence that I’ve found that I can create something out of.

“After I harvest, I’ll just chop and drop the remaining plant to provide mulch.”

Other mulch and compost material is taken from remaining summer crops like old sunflower and corn stalks.

“I’m chopping those up and layering them down, so it will be things like using the dried leaves and river reed or manure from the alpacas or any other animal manure I can get my hands on, and layering that before I put pea straw down on top. Otherwise, I will put it into the compost and give it a pretty good mix around every month.” That will be spread out late winter.

A little further down the road in Banks Peninsula Clare Goodwin is also working on her soil and gathering seed.

Like many other gardeners all over New Zealand, Clare grows greenhouse and tunnel house tomatoes, chillies, capsicum, basil and other favourites that don’t like the cold.

“My big job this week is to get cardboard onto the soil in my tunnelhouse and wheelbarrow the huge piles of compost and alpaca poo onto it. I am also raking leaves to make leaf mould to mulch the vege beds in summer.”

Clare has just finished harvesting the last of the butternuts growing in her tunnelhouse. “I left a few there till the last minute because they still had a green tinge, but the rain is supposed to set in this week and although no rain gets in there, the plants are getting mouldy.

“I let a lot of my plants go to seed, so I have seedlings of chard, lettuce, pak choi, kale and rocket growing amongst the bigger plants in the vegetable beds and these along with my stored and preserved vegetables, should keep us going through winter.

The chillies in the tunnelhouse are also ready to go. “I want them out so I can get it ready for next season.”

Clare is now bagging up the walnuts. “They have been sitting on racks for weeks now and they are ready to store.” This should be her last job before planting out the garlic.

“The garlic beds are ready to go, so I am planting my seeds.Other than that, I am not actually sowing or planting anything.”

About that bathtub herb garden

After getting advice from permaculture enthusiast Amanda Warren for Get Growing last week on creating the ideal herb garden we realised we didn’t cover the best way to set up our bathtub. So here are Amanda’s suggestions:

1. Remove the plug and half fill the bath with old rubble, brick, crocks and include sticks, logs (hugelkultur), gravel and old leaves.

2. Add in a piece of vertical pipe at one end (easy to water to the bottom and allows each plant to take what moisture it needs – less likely to overwater sages etc)

3. Fill the bath 5cm from the top with good organic compost, supplemented with some grit and a couple buckets of live compost from a home bin or worm castings (microbes).

4. Add extra grit at the sunniest end (try to position where there will be some shade and some full sun). Note well: It must be near the kitchen door for easy access.

5. Plant all your herbs – hot sun loving sage, rosemary(use weeping and upright at the back) and thymes in the sunniest part.

6. Add a few river stones and plant the coriander, dill, lettuce, rocket and basil around them in a bit of shade (use upright rosemary to cast some shade).

7. Cover soil to top of the bath with mulch – stones for the hot, dry and sunny plants, and bark mulch for shady moist loving plants.

8. Intersperse with calendula, heartsease (wild pansy) and cascade nasturtiums for colour and edible flowers. Sow a little fennel and maybe dandelion and plantain for weed smoothies!

9.Observe and water if needed using the pipe, and move any plant that looks unhappy. Experiment as every place is unique as is every plant and person

Gardening by the moon

May 11-15: Dormant period. Cultivate and spread fertiliser. May 16-17: Another chance to sow root crops. May 18-21: Set up cloches to warm soil for seed sowing ahead.

Gardening by the maramataka

For those in the southern regions, the clearing of the māra can commence. Seasonally, we are definitely at the tail end of the harvest season: Naumai ki te ngahuru pōtiki. All long-term annual crops need to be off field by now and any processes applied to their storage complete. Similarly, the seeds collected need to be properly dried and put into storage for the cooler months. As we head to Matariki, we need to ensure the remaining tasks in the māra are complete and then we can look to rest during the short days. We are heading towards hōtoke or the coldest period. Be mindful that more northern regions have a milder climate so their rest period is shorter but based on day length rather than temperature. The full moon falls on the night of the 5th of the month and new moon on the night of the 19th. This period following the full moon is one of rest from the heavy tasks aligned to the garden. Time to celebrate the harvests instead. Dr Nick Roskruge