Ruud Kleinpaste: Trying new things in the garden

During a rather aggressive storm in springtime, our ancient tunnel house showed it was time to get a new one. That was our Christmas project. 

Some of our tomatoes survived but there was still lots of space for other plants and ideas, and Kings Seeds sent a catalogue to my inbox just at the right moment!  

February specials and Brassicas plus a great number of beautiful plants in many colours (and for a reasonable amount of money). Let's try something out! 

Snail Vine 

An exotic, heirloom vine grown for its highly perfumed, spiralled flowers resembling curled snail shells. Ideal for growing up fences, trellis, and pergola, or sow in containers with a grow cone or obelisk for support. Fabulous for providing fragrance to outdoor spaces. They germinate within 2 weeks in summer, love warm conditions and develop fast in full sun. 

Great for our warmer areas in New Zealand, but even in the cooler regions they usually become an “Annual”. Try a few seeds as soon as you get them and keep some for next spring as a back-up. 

Echinops Blue Globe

A fabulous textural plant for floral work and in the garden where they add a metallic-like accent. Easy to grow, the versatile plant produces striking steel-blue, globe-shaped flowers. Excellent as an everlasting flower as they retain their colour and form well when dried. Good to start it in sizeable containers to manage the moisture in summer – you can start them in early autumn, so they’ll flower in early spring; 

Now – look at those amazing blue colours! 

Echinacea Lustre 

Look at this! 

A popular range of large-flowered, ornamental echinacea in a vibrant colour range. Also known as coneflowers, they make wonderful cut flowers with their distinctive, daisy-like blooms and long vase life. They flower the first year from seed. 

The echinops and echinacea are both great options for drought prone/dry areas and being perennials, they really are good value in your garden and loved by pollinators. 

Stratify: Chilling seeds in the fridge for 2-3 weeks prior to sowing will promote germination by breaking seed dormancy. 

Cauliflower Green Macerata 

A lime-green cauliflower with brilliant flavour and a nice change from the “typical” white curds. A vigorous plant, the leafy frame protects the green curds which mature to around 1 to 1.5 kg in weight. 

Do not overcook them, to retain the bright-green colour. 

Like many cauliflowers they are great plants to start in Autumn, so a little bit of patience is needed… But what comes out of your efforts will be quite wonderful! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame podcast
from News Talks at Brook Climb.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Past is in the garden for us this morning? Did
I roade?

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Certainly in the garden? Good morning? Are you well?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm very well. Thank you, pomegrant it is still doing well.
That's the big news. Look, yeah, I was.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Just going to ask that because around with it's great.

Speaker 4 (00:31):
I had a friend come around the other day and
they're like, they came around, the first thing they said was, oh,
we heard you've got a pomegranate. Would be on, look
at that before we look at anything else in the house.
So it's yeah, I feel like the Dutch with some
tulips back in the day, you know, saying and this
is my you know, this is my son, this is
my wife, These are my tulips.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
This is my son, this is my wife, This is
my pomegranate.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Anyway, anyway, but it was it was like that because
a lot of people actually commented on that as well,
because they're all having a go and I think Libby
might ever go as well. I reckon, I reckon, I reckon.

Speaker 4 (01:05):
We can bring around and yeah, I'm trying something new
and the garden you are as well this week.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, That's exactly what it should be. And
this is, I suppose what gardening is about, because if
you go to the Potannic gardens or to other places,
or for a walk around the neighborhood, you'll find a
lot of people have got some seriously nice stuff growing.
And and my my favorite thing is always say go
and knock on the door and say excuse me, what

(01:31):
is that and with a bit of like you end
up with a cutting.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, yeah, too right, too right, You've got yeah, sorry.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah, that's exactly what it's about, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh you've got a few little varietals to talk us through.

Speaker 4 (01:46):
Yeah, I do.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
We I had I've had a really old tunnel house
that finally kind of didn't work anymore. I mean a
bit of a bit of a big wind and everything
went a bit down to gurgle. So I've got a
smaller one back and made it up. But that actually
the funny thing with that was I got a new
tunnel house that we actually put together probably the day

(02:08):
before Christmas in the end, and that means everything was
too late to put in there, you know, tomatoes and
all that sort of stuff. So I decided to have
a look at what else I can use in that
tunnel house that I like and that would still work,
or I can experiment with how it's going to work

(02:29):
between now and autumn and even winter. So I took
a few things. I got an interesting thing from King Seeds,
sort of a thing that goes online, and I thought, oh,
here we go. I've got a snail vine. And I thought,
snail vine. That has always been one of my favorite

(02:49):
looking things, an heirloom vine with hyper perfumed spiraled flowers
and things like that. And it looks literally like snails
in a purple flowers.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
You see, They're amazing. I look at the photo. Does
look incredible.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
It is beautiful. So here comes the thing.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
They've got a wonderful fragrance. But they germinate usually very
quickly when you put put the seeds in. So if
I can do that now, as soon as I get
those seeds, which I have, I can literally start this up.
And you get them in full sun, you have to
place them and all that sort of stuff. They're good
for for warm areas in New Zealand, so the north especially,

(03:35):
but even in the cooler regions you can have them,
but then they work like annuals, not as perennials that
come back time and time again. So what I think
I should do is put a few out now in
the tunnel house and keep a couple for a spring
next year, you know what I mean. And that's so
that's that's that's number one. I thought that was a

(03:56):
clever ready and I love that one. The second one
is Echinops the blue globe. Now you see the photograph
there in the blue, yes, god it is, and reasonably
sharp plants as well. Pollinators love them steel blue. If

(04:18):
you want pollinators in your garden, get that there. And
it doesn't look just great, you get everybody that needs
to be in your garden attracted by that particular plant,
the Echinops. That's the one. So and then the third
one that I found was another e word, echinasia luster.
Now if you look at that, there are so many

(04:39):
varieties of that leuster that that would be in itself
a really nice thing to have in your garden around
the lawn say, or maybe in the lawn. Bits and pieces.
Large flowering ornamentals cone flowers as they're known as, and
they're flowering the first year from seed. That's very very quick.

(05:02):
And but here comes the thing. If you have got
some seeds, you do some stratifying. And I think that's
a really nice word for people who are not quite
sure about what it means. It means you're chilling your
seeds in the fridge for a couple of weeks before
you sew it, and the chilling makes them go yep.
I can do that.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Last, but not least, the green.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
The cauliflower, Yeah, yeah, green, much lime green. It is
the most beautiful cauliflower that you can get. Nice change
from the typical white ones. Of course, vigorous plant and
here you go. They give you one to one and
a half kilo of weight just like that. So don't
overlook them, don't overcook them, because you retain you. You

(05:47):
don't get the green color. Dagg do it. Do it
as quick as you can. But the cool thing is
these things you can do in autumn and that's the
thing to do.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Thank you. Those will all be on the news dog
zi'd be website.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to news Talks it'd be from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.