 Growing Gardens
with Julia Hancock
Broc Around The Clock
I recently heard my teenage niece saying to her toddler brother at the dinner table 'Eat your trees!' I realised she was referring to the broccoli that I thought I'd cleverly disguised among a medley of succulent winter vegetables. Greens are not enjoyed by many youngsters which is a pity because they are some of the best things to keep humans healthy. Indeed medical researchers have now confirmed that broccoli contains important anti-cancer agents.
For those of us who appreciate the good things in life, broccoli is a gift from the gods. It's blessedly easy to grow, is immune to cold snaps and can even tolerate the sudden heat of midwinter middays.
Seeds can still be sown now, or for an eight-week head start pick up a punnet of seedlings. A broccoli plant can grow to monstrous proportions once it gets going, and is greedy for nitrogenous fertiliser (chook poo) and ample watering, particularly in dry and windy weather. Dry plants fail to produce good harvests.
Sever the heads when they are still tight and firm, with a slightly blueish bloom to them. If the heads are turning yellow or the flowers are beginning to open it's too late, and those bits are good only for the worm farm or chicken coop. However, removal of the main head stimulates the production of side heads for a secondary harvest.
Like any member of the cabbage family, broccoli's main enemy is the cabbage white butterfly, whose larvae are almost the exact same colour as a broccoli stalk and are devilishly tricky to detect. Allowing dill to self-seed where you intend to grow a crop of brassicas is a good insurance policy against these pests. Crop rotation is vital for broccoli to prevent diseases and deficiencies from interfering with your soil.
Lismore Garden Club
 Your potatoes should be up now. I'd suggest a simple, cheap method for keeping bushes hilled and very effective I once. As the potatoes grew, she kept putting dry and dead grass up against the bushes consequently she ended up with a hill of hay and mulch grass.
She scratched into the mulch hill and there were some of the cleanest and largest spuds I have ever seen. The severe frosts would be having an effect on the garden, but I don't have an answer to Mother Nature. If possible, hose off frosted plants before the sun shines on them, which helps save them from frost bite.
Happy gardening.
Enquiries Don 6624 3855.
|
