We all know gardening is seasonal and with each season comes a fresh set of joys as well as jobs in your ever-changing home or market garden.
Even though the gardens themselves have slowed down a lot from their summer highs, May at Kelmarna Community Farm is still a busy time with a load of different jobs and activities.
Market garden manager Sarah Lilly Moss-Baker says they are harvesting, sowing, planting, cover cropping, making compost, reviewing and learning. “Basically, we are preparing for the ‘hunker down’ season," she says.
Harvested crops in May include the last of the beans, courgettes, brassicas, salad crops, spring onions and herbs plus root veggies such as Jerusalem artichokes, kumara, beets, radish and turnips.
Staff and volunteers are busy tray-sowing salad crops and short-lived brassicas such as kohlrabi and direct-sowing coriander, calendula, mizuna, miner’s lettuce, corn salad and beets.
Crops to be planted in May will include strawberries, spring onions, onions, chicory, lettuce, endive, beets, silverbeets and spinach, brassicas, beets and broad beans.
"We also spend a bit of time in autumn on maintaining tools, planning ahead and reviewing what happened over the summer," says Sarah. "If we see a bed that hasn't been performing well, for example, or needs attention we will cover crop it for the autumn and winter months.”
Cover crops add life to the soil and Sarah favours using a mix of Kings Green Manure with other seeds, lupin and sometimes phacelia. "We also use expired seeds that might still germinate to add diversity to the blend.”
The healthier the soil, the healthier the plants. "Cover crops are bred to increase the soil’s organic matter and pump sugar into the soil which will feed the biome, and healthy soil microbes mean healthy plants,” says Sarah.
Cover crops are also great for suppressing weeds and keeping the soil covered in winter which keeps it alive, instead of eroding away with the elements such as wind, sun and rain.
Along with the year-round job of making compost, they are spreading out compost made earlier for the winter crops. "They’ll appreciate a bit of a feed as the days get shorter,“ says Sarah.
Sarah says other nice things to be doing in May are clearing beds of the last of the summer or transitional crops, as well as indulging in some root division. "This will be with plants like garlic chives, comfrey and sorrel that reproduce laterally. Now is a good time to dig them up and divide them so you can have more of them in your garden.
“Even as things slow down, there’s something satisfying about autumn gardening – you’re tidying up, tucking things in and quietly getting ready for what comes next.”
As well as working out what went well last year, autumn into winter is a great time for up-skilling or even learning new skills. Kelmarna has workshops running on-site throughout the year.
The next one, ‘Practical Preserving at Home: Kimchi’, is on Tuesday 6 May. This two-hour workshop includes theoretical and practical instruction in making kimchi, access to ingredients, equipment and tastings as well as some finished kimchi to take home. Check out the website for more information as well as a look at other workshops happening later in the year. kelmarna.co.nz/workshops
For more information visit: www.kelmarna.co.nz
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