This week vegetable garden harvests are getting smaller. The red tomatoes are finishing , the green beans take some searching for amongst the leaves and pumpkin vines are drying out after picking.Â
There are some small kamokamo which are being watched in the hope that they will continue to grow bigger. Elsewhere the gardens will be cleared of the dead and dying summer plants and vines.
There are small plants that are being grown ready for planting for winter kai. The foods that grow best in winter, and most favoured here in Aotearoa, are the Brassica family; broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage. Brassica plants are also the most favoured plants for the white butterfly to lay their eggs on so that the emerging caterpillars will have ready meals. In order to protect our Brassica plants we will cover their containers with fine netting such as old net curtains. When the white butterflies have left the garden and the plants are bigger and strong enough to withstand a little nibbling they will be moved from their sheltered containers and planted in the garden.
There are other winter vegetables that are not from the Brassica family and easier to grow. These include silverbeet, pak choi, radacchio and the leafy greens you will see if you visit a Chinese supermarket. We will see some of these plants growing in the garden over winter. At the present time while we will wait for the new plants to grow into kai the most economical vegetables we can eat is frozen peas and bags of carrots from the supermarket.
