It’s (pretty) easy being green

Why is a Writer’s Festival like a box of chocolates? Because there’s something inside for everyone.

Today I saw Tony Murrell, from Radio Live’s garden programme, host a lively session with The Gardener magazine editor Lynda Hallinan and sustainable gardening writer Janet Luke. All three are highly regarded gardening experts. They’re passionate about plants and their enthusiasm was infectious. I’ve never seen the microphone passed to so many people so quickly. It seemed everyone in the audience had a question to ask or a comment to add.

Tony Murrell has noticed a huge resurgence in interest in growing food at home in recent years. He laments the fact that many of today’s gardeners have lost the skills needed to grow veges successfully and have to spend money on re-education, tools, catalogues, fertilisers, etc. This results in expensive crop of perpetual spinach, lettuce and tomatoes which people get bored with and ‘turn back into camellia hedging’.

His panelists disagree. “It’s not all about money, Tony,” said Janet. “You are such an Aucklander!”

Linda said, “Don’t spend anything! Don’t build raised beds, don’t hire a garden designer, don’t buy a tonne of compost. Just buy a spade, dig a hole and plant things.” She believes gardening journalism has made it sound difficult and it’s not. “It’s natural. Plants grow and produce fruit because they are fulfilling their biological function. People think it’s harder than it is.”

Some sustainable gardening tips:

• Lasagne your compost heap
• Pile fallen leaves into a black polythene bag, tie it off, punch a few holes in it and store behind your garden shed for a year. It makes great compost.
• If your plants look great above the soil but have nothing beneath, your garden has too much nitrogen and not enough potassium.
• Blue flowers attract bees. Plant rosemary and borage to help pollination.
• Chop out the middle of your lemon tree and prune to a vase shape.
• Avoid systemetic sprays – they hurt bees.

If you’d like to know more, visit your library and check out Linda Hallinan’s Back to the land and Janet Luke’s Green Urban Living. They’ll give you plenty of helpful advice on how to get your garden doing what comes naturally.

 

Home, Garden and DIY: picks from our latest newsletter

Some picks from our March Home, Garden and DIY newsletter:

Subscribe to our newsletters and get our latest titles and best picks straight from your inbox.

 

Time to get the kids outside

Do you find your kids hang about inside even when the weather is fabulous?

Let’s get them inspired to play outdoors:

• get into some outdoor games
• learn a sport
• dig in their own garden
• try some outdoor crafts
• read a good story under a tree with a picnic.

Kid’s say they’re bored of their books? Try searching a reading list for other authors that write stories like their favourites and they can join the Summertime Reading Club where they may win a prize!

Teens can check out The Pulse for what’s new and happening. Garden City SummerTimes is here and the World Buskers Festival is just around the corner so there’s no excuse for not getting out this summer!

 

Psst! – hidden treasures #5

So far, while exploring, I’ve mainly talked about old stuff in our Aotearoa New Zealand Collection. This time around I want to let you in on a little secret:  whenever our library selectors buy New Zealand titles for the libraries, they buy a special copy for the Aotearoa New Zealand Collection. Just like its brothers and sisters out circulating in the community libraries, it gets processed and organised and added to the records, but after that it (most often) makes its way here to Tuam Street, where it is freely available to read, as long as you don’t leave the room!  Seriously, don’t make me chase you …

Remember that these books are reference only, and not to borrow, so unfortunately if you are number 72 on the list for a popular recent release, you can’t jump the queue; but if you truly are DESPERATE to get a head start on the latest must-read, Central Library Tuam and the ANZC are a great place to visit. Poking round the shelves this morning turned up these treasures:

• Julie Le Clerc’s Favourite Cakes (for when you need something yummy)
• Dennis Greville’s Easy on the Pocket Vegetable Growing (in case you spent all your money buying those cake ingredients)
• Witi Ihimaera’s The Parihaka Woman, and Paula Morris’ Rangatira, both recent novels by two of our most well-known writers
• Joanne Drayton’s The Search for Anne Perry (for those who saw, or didn’t see, Joanne at The Press Christchurch Writers’ Festival)
• and a series of large and hauntingly beautiful books featuring the photographic work of Doc Ross. I was particularly moved by the 2012 title Quietus: Observations of an Altered City, a large white-covered book recording the changing face of Christchurch, with a mixture of black and white, and colour photos, and script by Andrew Paul Wood. This is one of only 50 copies printed, and it is a real privilege to have a copy here on the shelf at Tuam Street to be read and admired by all.

 

Courgette carnage

I’m a killer. I confess.

I have managed to knock off courgette plant number one for 2012 in less than a week.  This is an improvement on last year, when I went through three before managing to get one to grow. Excited about the arrival of spring this year, I had dutifully prepared my vegetable garden beds which incidentally have expanded in number. I am attributing this to my well planned and successfully orchestrated guerilla campaign of last year. This involved stealthily planting veges in strategic places to an unpredictable timetable, all through the bloke’s flower gardens. I also brought home lots of books on companion planting (see a whole selection of titles here…) and artfully left them strewn all over the house with feigned nonchalance hoping to convince him it was a great  idea.

In the end,  having initially refused to increase the space allocated to the cultivation of kai (in case it didn’t get looked after?) he got sick and tired of my edibles messing up the look of his beautifully maintained flower beds and  kindly expanded mine with the assistance of  Mr 8. On the proviso that I,  ”Look after it” (translation:  keep it weeded). Bless.   Unfortunately it appears I was over-eager at the weekend, planting seeds and transplanting  little seedlings into my garden as we’ve had a frost since then. I went out in the morning to discover my poor courgette, all limp and slimy looking- a victim of hypothermia perhaps? ?

Since then I’ve been scouring the library catalogue for gardening books about what I should be planting when, to avoid any more accidental assassinations.  So far, I’ve found this one to be quite inspirational – One Magic Square. It just goes to prove you don’t need a jumbo-sized garden to be a successful vege cultivator and explains how you can make your small patch super-productive with different crops in different seasons.

The Small Edible garden looks promising (I’ve got it on hold).  I’m trying to grow organically so hopefully this will offer some good tips.

Finally this one looks like it might give the children some good ideas Yates Young Gardener. We had lots of success last year with peas and radishes.  This might help us expand our horizons.

Do you have any ideas to help me get my spring garden going?

 

Winter gardening

As the morning chill creeps up on us my garden has passed what I call its jungle phase and is moving into a gentle, mildew-sprinkled decline. I love how much its landscape changes through the seasons. Soon it will be mid-winter, when the bones of the garden are exposed - save for a few clumps of hardy brassicas, beets and emerging spikes of garlic.

There’s a wealth of information about spring and summer gardening available, but many gardeners struggle with maintaining a year-round garden. It’s too late to plant many things from seed now but you can still sow broad beans and peas. Garlic cloves can go in a couple of months either side of the traditional midwinter planting time and you can still get away with some seedling punnets of winter vegetables.

The exposed winter paths and beds also turn my thoughts to landscaping and planning the plantings for the next spring and summer. I’ve got a wee (read: enormous) list of tasks in mind, in between curling up by the fire with a few good winter recipe books. Maybe I’ll let the library come to me and spend a wet day or two browsing the Gale Gardening, Landscape and Horticulture Collection on my home computer, available via The Source.

What do you like about your garden in winter? What are your inspirational winter gardening reads?

 

Growing local: take a leaf from New Zealand books

I have a tiny, tiny garden, most of which is devoted to growing food. However, when we bought our small property, I was determined to have some native plantings as well. Now, nearly five years later, home-grown cabbage trees, pittosporum, kowhai and flaxes fill a corner too shady for vege, and we’ve squeezed a line of corokia in alongside the drive, thanks to the advice of Trees for Canterbury. I was struck (sorry for the pun) by how easy it is to grow many native plants, either from seed or from cuttings, and Growing gardens for free by New Zealand author Geoff Bryant is now my propagation bible.

A healthy population of insects now make their undisturbed homes in my microscopic little patch of native bush and last year, for the first time since I moved in, I saw waxeyes and fantails. (At first all I encountered in the initially lawn-filled garden were sparrows and blackbirds.) It’s such a little planting but I was amazed by how quickly even this had a noticeable effect on my garden’s ecology. Imagine if we all just planted a little corner of natives: we could create a green corridor for so many creatures across out garden city. If you’re keen and seeking like minds, there are many individuals and organisations working towards greening Christchurch/Otautahi, and you can find out about them on CINCH, our community information database.

The library has many good books on planting native plants in your garden – why not celebrate New Zealand book month by leafing (sorry again!) through a few?

 

Getting the garden through a watering ban

I‘ve just started converting my patch of liquefaction into a garden, so I was dismayed to read in the paper that watering gardens might be completely out of bounds if the summer gets dryer. Determined not to give up my morale boosting project, I started thinking about how I could get my new garden through a watering ban.

Twenty five years of gardening on sand in Sumner have taught me a couple of things about dry gardens.

• Water less often but more deeply. This encourages the roots to go deeper and makes them more drought resistant. This really seems to work and I am preparing my garden by doing that now.
• Mulching really does work. I always put down dampened newspaper underneath to discourage weeds as well.
• Get the right plant in the right place – especially if it’s a difficult spot. I have always found Roy Lancaster’s books invaluable for help with this.

A friend in Ashburton, where they have regular watering bans came up with these:

• Attach a hose to your water outlet pipe. In true kiwi no. 8 wire fashion you can do this by using a funnel, that feeds into a hose, which feeds into a drum. My friend has bought a large water container with a tap on the side because this makes getting the water out again easier.
• The old “bury a plastic bottle beside drought prone plants” trick. You put holes in the bottle and keep it full of water. This makes very efficient use of your water, although I don’t know if this contravenes a watering ban. I’m hoping to use this to keep my lemon tree alive.

And from the Australians

• Apparently in Melbourne they take a bucket into the shower with them to collect excess water for the garden.

Of course we have lots of books in the library to consult on water wise gardening there are also some good water saving tips on our website. Maybe some of you have already done the research and have other ideas to contribute. If so I’d love to hear them.

 

Time to spring into your garden

Spring is a great time to get enthused about your garden. Regardless of the size of your section, balcony or paddock we have load of gardening resources for you.

If your soil is still a bit cold for such things as tomatoes, you can start planning what goes where, and when to plant. Some frost-tender plants can be started in glasshouses, cloches or on your windowsill.

Vegetable gardens are very popular in spring. Start putting nutients in your soil now while you decide what to plant.

Before outdoor summer entertaining, you could renovate your courtyard or garden room, or make new garden furniture. How about garden sculptures?

Got no room? Container gardens  can thrive in a small space. Got loads of room? How about planting an orchard and  large trees and hedges.

Through the Source you can access Gardening, Landscape and Horticulture. A collection of more than 100 journals focused on key issues in gardening, landscaping, and other areas of horticulture. You can access it with your library card number and PIN.

Don’t have a PIN? Ask at one of our libraries or call us. PINs allow you to access your library account information and place holds on items through the online catalogue. Your PIN also gives you free access to  the Source — paid services the library subscribes to.

What are you growing this season? Any good tips to share?

 

Time to get the kids keen on gardening and the outdoors

It’s nearing the end of the school holidays and the sun is shining. This is a perfect time to get the kids outside without having to drive them to the beach or for a walk in the hills. Let’s get them outside in our own backyards.

There are many books on gardening with kids in our libraries. We have some great books for parents about how to provide kid friendly gardening spaces and about encouraging them to participate. Children’s gardening books are written in a style appealing to them.

If your child is really not interested in gardening at all try books on outdoor activities.