For more information go to Get Kids Growing with Organic Seeds

Sunflowers are great for children to grow because of their fast growth and amazing flowers.

You can sow sunflower seeds directly into a sunny spot in the garden or into deep pots if you don’t have much garden space.  Water gently and wait a week or so for the shoots to appear.

Be prepared to stake the plants as they get taller, especially if you live in a windy area.  Or if you have them on a balcony you can tie the stems to the balustrade or a pole to help them stand up straight.

If you would like an organic vegetable garden but don’t have the time or the knowledge to build and maintain one all by yourself then Home Harvest can help you.

All of their raised vegetable gardens are made from macrocarpa and filled with organic compost and seedlings. Your new garden means that you will have an endless supply of fresh, chemical-free, organic vegetables that you have grown yourself.

Home Harvest can produce an organic garden to meet your needs, making it completely accessible for anyone, anywhere in the greater Wellington region.

This means that a bush left unpruned becomes a tangled mass of dead and live wood bearing flowers of poor quality on spindly stems.

Pruning is the means of getting rid of the dead and diseased wood each year and encouraging the development of new strong and healthy stems. It will also give you a well shaped bush which will flower freely, giving you quality blooms on strong stems over many months each year for many years.,

Rose bushes are pruned in the winter when they are dormant. they will reward you with flowers from late Spring through to Autumn, even early winter depending on where you live.

When you start pruning,  you may have a lot of old leaves to cope with. Start at the top.  If you prune from the bottom of the bush you may remove stems you really should retain. You cannot put it back!

Remove some of the top growth then cut out dead and diseased wood, the weak and spindly wood that is cluttering the bush and stopping air circulation that will lead to disease. The best flowers are produced on new wood so if you have had sufficient new growth to maintain the shape of the bush, COMPLETELY cut out unwanted old stems.

You will now be able to “see” the bush properly and can make your final cuts. Medium pruning is a good general guide, i.e. prune to about half the original height of each stem. Some roses, such as FIRST LOVE, resent being pruned too hard and should be lightly pruned, i.e. to about two thirds of the original length.

The final cut should be to an outward facing bud to keep the centre of the bush clear and aid air circulation. You should now have 3 or 4 good strong stems ready for the coming season.

When you have finished pruning and have removed all the prunings carefully hoe the soil to loosen it up where you have been treading. Add a dressing of blood and bone.

SPRAY the bushes, paying particular attention to the bud union at the base of the bush.

A suitable spray is a mixture of a copper spray such as Copper oxychloride and All seasons oil. Mix separately as directed on the container and combine after mixing.

DO NOT prune during or just before rain. If the cut has not sealed there is a risk of infection by disease. The oil in the spray mixture will help seal the pruning cut.

Notes provided by Graham Williamson of the Kapiti Rose Society.

Use your watering system to soak the ground up to 20cm deep.  You will need to test how long this will take with your particular watering system.  After say 30 minutes, dig into the soil to see how far down the water has seeped. Then you can assess how much more watering you need to do.

If you’re using a basic grey water system – that is buckets of water from your washing machine or bath –  gently pour the bucket of water around your plants, allow it to seep in then add more water. Keep track of how many buckets of water ( or how many litres) you use to give your plants a good deep soaking

Empty plastic soft drink bottles

Remove the top and cut the bottom off the bottle and bury the narrow neck of the bottle near the plant you want to water. Fill the bottle with water and leave it to drip water to your plant. Check every few days and refill when empty

Timers

Purchase a timer to attach to your tap then attach you hose and sprinkler. You can then turn the water on for a set time (say 30 minutes) and know it will be turned off at the end of that time.  (Your local council will be delighted that you didn’t leave a sprinkler running all night!!)

Leaky hose

Yes – you read that correctly.  Leaky (or soaker)  hose is a special form of environmentally friendly watering system using hose made from recycled rubber.  This works best in lengths less than 15 metres. Lay the leaky hose on the surface of your garden. You can lay it in a straight line or snake it around so it goes close to the plants you want to keep damp. Keep the hose 2-3 cm away from the base of your plants.

Cover the soaker hoses with mulch after they are in place.

When the soaker hose is in place, connect it to the garden tap with a solid hose and turn the tap on just a little bit.  You will need to work out how much water to use when you see how quickly (or not) the earth gets damp.  It will depend on your water pressure and the nature of your soil.

Before winter, remove the soaker hose, wash the outside and flush out the inside to remove any bits of soil. Store it indoors.

But roses will bloom in an ordinary garden for eight to ten months in the year with very little attention.

Yes – they do get bugs and they can appreciate a spray from time to time to keep them looking good and to stop bugs from eating the leaves.

Over the next while we are going to have more posts about growing roses – written by en expert who is passionate about them, has grown roses for more than 30 years and who wants to share his love of the rose.

What you need

3 old car tyres
soil or well-rotted compost
2-3 certified seed potatoes

Planting times

If you live in an area where you get frosts, you can plant any time between the last frost and mid summer. In other places you can plant any time between early winter and mid-spring.  In very warm areas, you can plant late summer for a winter harvest.

What you do

1. Place one tyre in a suitable sunny place in your garden or patio (If you’re planning to grow potatoes on a patio, you might want to put down some old carpet, a piece of weedmat or strong polythene to protect the surface, especially if it’s wooden).
2. Fill the tyre with soil or compost, making sure the rims of the tyres are filled, and water well.  Don’t let it get soggy.
3. Press the potatoes into the compost so they are completely covered.
4. When the potato shoots are about 20 cms tall, add more compost/soil to cover the stems and lower leaves, leaving the new shoots showing.
5. When the first tyre is filled, add another tyre on top and repeat with the soil or compost.  You can add another tyre and you can do this for about 2 months.  Then leave the potatoes to mature under the soil.
6. If potatoes pop above the surface, cover them well. When potato skins are exposed to light the skins may turn green and could be toxic when eaten.

Harvesting your potatoes

1. You can start `bandicooting’ for potatoes when the leaves start yellowing.
2. Carefully burrow into the lower soil (bottom tyre) to find potatoes at least the size of a hen’s egg. Wash and eat immediately, with skins on.
3. Then the leaves die and the stems start to wither, its time to harvest your potatoes.
4. Cut stems just above the top soil level and leave for two weeks so the skins will harden.
5. Sift your hands down into the soil  (a spade or fork may damage your crop).
6. Spread tubers on the ground to dry for a few hours, then store.

You can see the process of filling tyres at Youth in Action 2009. The sound isn’t flash but the visual is good.

Note:

‘Certified’ seed potatoes are disease free and will give a bigger crop.

I cut bunches of herbs, take them inside and lay them in a single layer between two sheets of paper towels.  Then I carefully lift the sheets into the microwave oven and turn it on for 30 seconds.

I check the process and keep doing this in 30 second batches until the herbs begin to feel crackly. This means they are dry.  I crumble the dried herbs in my hands and pour them into a clean dry jar with a tight fitting lid.

The best time of the year to harvest your herbs is the autumn when there is plenty of growth. Herbs that work well include rosemary, thyme, sage, marjoram.

You can also try chives, mint and parsley.  Let us know how this process works for other herbs.  Or you may have a different process that works for you.  We’d love to hear about that too.

You will need:

• A suitable sized pot say 20-30cm, or a trough 15 cm wide and from 40 cm long
• Potting mix (available from supermarkets, hardware stores or garden centres)
• A punnet of 6 lettuce plants (Some places sell a punnet of mixed plants so you get some green and some red – some with smooth leaves and some with curly leaves).

Fill the container with potting mix.

Set each plant about 8cm apart in your container.

Water the plants well after planting, then continue keep the soil damp but not soggy, and watch your lettuces grow.

If you want to grow your lettuces from seed, sprinkle some of the seeds from the packet on top of fine potting mix. When they are about 2cm high, transplant some so that the remaining plants are about 8cm apart.

You can grow lettuces all the year round in parts of New Zealand as long as you have a warm sheltered spot (or even inside) in the cooler months.  Check out the local situation where you live.