Advice. Ideas.

Inspiration

Anita’s Garden
Volume 2, Issue 34 13 March 2020

Useful Links Editorial

Webpage
Blog
Newsletter back issues Welcome to the thirty fourth issue of
my newsletter Anita’s Garden for
Facebook
2020.
Instagram
I hope you have all had a good week.
Twitter
Plant nursery
Linkedin
I am selling a range of autumn and
Pinterest winter veggie seedlings and other
plants. Click here to see a list of
available stock.
Contact me For those who live outside Auckland
and are unable to visit the nursery, I
 Feedback am able to send plants to you on the
overnight courier service.
 Newsletter input
(tips, recipes, gar- Cut flowers from Anita’s Garden
den photos etc)
In parallel with selling plants in my
 To be added to my nursery, I am trying to develop a side-
mailing list business selling cut flowers from our
garden. In the winter months, plant
anitakundu.nz@gmail.com
sales in the nursery are slow as peo-
ple aren’t as active in their gardens.
It is during this time that our garden
is arguably at its best. As many of
Inside this issue: you are aware, Anita’s Garden is re-
nown for its display of spring bulbs
every year.
P ot te r ing aro u nd 2 At this stage, I am looking for some-
Anita’s Garden one or an entity to supply cut flowers
to on a regular basis, rather than sell-
ing them on an ad hoc basis. If you or
Top 5 gardening tasks 2 someone you know may be interested,
for the week
please contact me at anitakun-
du.nz@gmail.com
Contributions
I welcome all contributions to the
newsletter, including:
 Feedback
 Requests for articles
 Suggestions
 Input (tips, recipes, photos of
your garden etc)
Please email me at anitakun-
du.nz@gmail.com and I will incorpo-
rate them into future newsletters
Collaborations
I am pleased to announce that I am a
brand ambassador for the following
gardening businesses:
 Awapuni Nurseries
 Bulbs Direct
 Egmont Seeds
 Italian Seeds Pronto (the NZ
distributor of Franchi Seeds)
Mailing list
If you haven’t already subscribed to
my newsletter, you can do so by email-
ing me at anitakundu.nz@gmail.com
and writing “subscribe” in the subject
field. Advantages include receiving
the newsletter direct to your inbox eve-
ry week and being the first to know
about specials in the plant nursery.

Tips for growing daffodils 2 Blog I hope you have enjoyed this week’s
column. Have a great weekend.
Please don’t forget that I maintain an
active blog on my website. Due to its Anita Kundu
How to grow Pak Choy 3 brevity, I’m not able to cover every-
thing in this newsletter so feel free to
persue my blog posts to inform your-
self about all things gardening related
PAGE 2
Pottering around Anita’s Garden
Here is a selection of photos from
around Anita’s Garden for you to
enjoy.
Some of our beautiful eggplants.
This year, the Franchi varieties
Tonda Bianca and Prosperosa
were incredibly prolific. Both vari-
eties are available from Italian
Seeds Pronto. These are round
eggplants; we are also a fan of long
eggplants which are great for cur-
ries.
Top 5 gardening tasks for the week
1. Plant pansies and viola
I have just finished planting the
pansies and viola I raised from
seeds given to me by Egmont
Seeds in hanging baskets and they
look stunning. Planting now en-
sures a beautiful display for au-
tumn and winter.
2. Plant lettuce
I have also finished planting some
Tips for growing daffodils
In last week’s column, I covered
growing tulips. This week, I
thought I would provide some tips
for growing daffodils. Bulbs Direct,
have a fantastic range. It’s not too
late to get your order in but don’t
leave it any longer or you may
miss out on popular varieties.
Here are some of my top tips:
 Unlike tulips and hyacinth,
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N
Okra “Emerald Green” from Eg-
mont Seeds
Okra Burgundy from
Seeds
lettuce (Mesclun Quattro Stagioni
from Franchi Seeds) in containers.
Lettuce can be planted in autumn
but remember to water well and
feed with slow release fertiliser.
3. Pot up seedlings
If like me you got carried away
with sowing seeds in February,
your seedlings should be ready to
be potted up into six-cell punnets
or seed raising trays
daffodils don’t need to be pre-
chilled prior to planting
 Opt for firm, healthy bulbs.
You get what you pay for!
In my experience, cheaper
bulbs tend to be soft, caus-
ing them to rot in the
ground and flower poorly, if
at all
 Daffodils look stunning
V O LU M E 2 , I S S U E 3 4
A recent harvest. The production
of summer veggies such as zucchi-
ni, beans and eggplants is slowing
down. Pictured is some self-sown
amaranth, kale (from Franchi, dis-
tributed by Italian Seeds Pronto),
perpetual spinach, chillies, egg-
plants and okra. Fruit we have
been harvesting are peaches, gua-
vas, figs, pears and melons. There
are still plenty rockmelons and
watermelons on our vines and we
Egmont are impatiently waiting for them to
ripen so we can harvest them.
4. Sow Pak Choy
For advice on how to grow Pak
Choy, see page 3 of this newsletter
5. Pick fruit
Apples and pears are typically
ready in February. Now that it’s
March, don’t leave it any longer to
reap the fruits of your labour.
Fruit left on the tree for too long
may cause it to rot.
grown in containers. Be sure to
use a high quality container mix
 Sprinkle a little bulb ferti-
liser in the ground prior to
planting. If using pots, use
a slow release bulb food
 Daffodils should re-flower.
They can be lifted and re-
planted again the following
season.
 V O LU M E 2 , I S S U E 3 4
How to grow Pak Choy
Pak Choy (Bok Choy or Pak Choi
as it is sometimes called) always
features in our winter garden.
Pak Choy is incredibly easy to
grow and matures very quickly.
The leaves can be used in many
ways and can be harvested as you
need them.
Growing Pak Choy from seed
Pak Choy is incredibly easy to
grow from seed and I normally
start plants this way.
If you are a new gardener or have
run out of time, you may want to
start from plants rather than seed.
Awapuni stock a really good range
of seedlings and deliver direct to
your door, which is convenient.
Here is some advice for starting
Pak Choy from seed. Simply
sprinkle the seeds in a punnet
filled with some seed raising mix
and cover lightly. Always look for
a seed raising mix that is fine in
texture. Some contain pieces of
bark which are no good when try-
ing to germinate fine seeds! The
seeds are very fine, so don’t sow
too many or place them too close to
each other. Water regularly, as
plants tend to dry out easily in the
heat of early autumn. March can
be quite hot! When seedlings are
large enough, prick them out of the
punnet and pot them up individu-
ally into 6-cell punnets. If I have
lots of seedlings, I sometimes plant
them into a seedling tray. At this
stage it’s fine to use potting mix.
You don’t need to use an expensive
one. I find that Dalton’s potting
mix from Bunnings is sufficient
for potting up all my seedlings.
Egmont Seeds stock the following
varieties of Pak Choy: Oriental
Mini Toy Choy (which I highly rec-
ommend, having grown it in
spring), Oriental Mini Le Ren
Choi, Oriental Pak Choi Green
Fortune, Oriental Pak Choy Mei
Qing Choi, Pak Choi Joi Choi, and
Pak Choi Red Choi.
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N PAGE 3
8. For best results, liquid feed
plants weekly with a soluble
plant food or tonic such as
Seasol
9. Like most veggies, Pak Choy
is an annual and will go to
seed when temperatures
increase in spring. For this
Some of our Pak Choy seedlings reason, I have found it is
best planted in autumn for
Tips for growing Pak Choy
the winter garden. In
spring, it starts running to
 Pak Choy can be grown in
seed.
early spring, autumn and
winter. It isn’t really suita-
Ideas for using Pak Choy
ble for summer gardens as it
bolts to seed as the weather Pak Choy is a very versatile vege-
warms up. table and can be used in many
ways. Here are some ideas to get
 The seed is quite fine so be you started.
careful when sowing to en-
sure that you don’t sow too  Steamed
many seeds and that they
don’t end up too close to-  Stir-fried
gether or this will affect ger-
mination  Sauteed
 Roasted
 Don’t prick out seedlings for
potting on to individual 6
 Cooked, with garlic and chil-
cell punnets or seed raising
li
trays too early. It’s best to
wait until  Cooked,
plants have with oyster sauce
“Pak Choy is incredibly
developed
easy to grow and matures
three large  Eaten with
very quickly. The leaves
leaves first. tofu
can be used in many ways
 When work- and can be harvested as  Eaten with
you need them”
ing with noodles
seedlings,
 As a filling
take special care to avoid
in dumplings
damaging the roots.
 Pak Choy is suitable for  As a filling in rice paper
growing in containers if you rolls
are short on space
 As a filling in spring rolls
 As a leafy green crop, Pak
 Soups
Choy can be grown in part
shade but it does best if it
 Green smoothies
receives lots of sunshine
 Pickled
 Water plants regularly.
They need it, especially as
temperatures in early au-
Have a great weekend
tumn can still be quite
warm. Happy gardening!