So you lost your vege garden in the rain, it may be time to start again

It’s been a disastrous few days in our vegetable garden with all the rain on Friday and the continued downpours on Tuesday and Wednesday. What we expected to have ripened, or was on the way to ripening, has suffered from flooding and lack of sun. On the positive side, we had managed to harvest some of our summer vegetables the previous week.

The remaining tomatoes I expect will split from excess water, or suffer from blossom end rot. At the least, I wonder, if they survive will they ever ripen without the sun. Does this mean we will have a shortage of tomatoes this year, as at this time we’re usually well into harvesting and turning into relish or freezing for winter soups?

The Asian greens and silverbeet look sad and are sagging, while the corn, which can have shallow roots, are leaning over following the surge of water in our backyard and strong winds.

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The peas and beans have been torn from their vertical supports and lie on the ground. The cucumbers and courgettes have managed to cling on, but the leaves are covered in powdery mildew.

The carrots and radishes, while being good providers so far, have been sitting under water, as have the potatoes. Will the tubers survive or rot? I tried saving container potatoes sitting on a table, but doing so created a muddy mess.

My herbs in containers floated around in the water and tipped over, while the spinach, in an old Auckland City Council recycling container, emptied most of its soil onto the ground. As did the capsicums and eggplants, also in recycling containers.

Many of the apples and pears have fallen on the ground and floated around. A couple of the more heavily fruit-laden branches have snapped. And I suspect the remaining fruit may soon suffer from bottom end rot because of too much moisture. We’ve been grabbing as many off the tree as we can and storing in the fridge.

I’m not going to harvest fruit and vegetables covered by flood water because of likely contamination. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up on gardening. When the ground dries out and the weather settles down, we’re going to plant again (see below). Gardening teaches resilience.

All the mulch has washed away, so after picking up the containers and debris, laying more mulch will be one of my first jobs this weekend, weather permitting, to get the garden tidy and viable again. I’ll also be getting soil from a garden centre and focus on container planting for the immediate future.

All this sounds a bit doomy and gloomy, I know, so considering the positives, our feijoas have received a decent drink and will hopefully survive to fatten for a March harvest. So far, I haven’t noticed any sign of guava moths.

And the citrus, including lemons, mandarins, oranges, lemonades and limes, are hanging on and look green and healthy for autumn and winter, if the sun ever arrives to help them ripen.

We were lucky the water receded before reaching the floor boards, and is now sitting about a cm high above the ground under the house and on the lawn. Other homes in our south Auckland neighbourhood, out west, north and on or near cliffs were not so lucky, as you will have seen from the news.

Growers in Northland, Coromandel, Waikato, Bay of Plenty and East Coast have also suffered from heavy rain, flooding and landslides. They will be busy this week harvesting what crops they can and protecting what’s left. A burst of fungal disease and pests are always expected at this time of year.

It may be time to start a vertical garden, like the one in the video above.

What to plant now

Once the rain has stopped and water receded, hopefully by next week, we’re going to start replanting, but it won’t be the usual succession planting we usually do at this time of the year because of the continued likelihood of little sun and lots of rain.

Usually it pays to give the ground a good soak at this time of year before planting, but if you’re in the mid to upper half of the North Island, this obviously won’t be needed right now. And it may pay to let the ground dry out for a while.

If you’re in the South Island, and especially Canterbury, where I understand there is risk of drought, it will pay to give your seedlings and the ground some water before planting out. And as always, avoid planting in the full heat of the day.

NZ Gardener editor Jo McCarroll also recommends planting under taller crops or rigging up shade to shelter seedlings during the hottest part of the day. But again this will depend on the weather where you are.

If you are sowing direct, Jo reminds us, that all seeds have an optimum temperature for germination – crops will not germinate when the soil is too cold, but also if the soil is too hot, germination will slow down, become patchy or fail altogether.

So thinking ahead to autumn and winter, sow beetroot, carrots, parsnips, swedes, turnips, radishes and silverbeet. We’re going to do this in our recycling containers, after giving them a good hygienic wash. Root crops usually don’t like being transplanted.

Plants such as celery, coriander, leeks, spinach and lettuces are best planted out as seedlings in all areas. And brassicas are ideally planted out now as seedlings, although you may get away with sowing these in trays in warmer areas and planting out as late as March.

If you’re in doubt about what to transplant or direct sow, consult NZ Gardener’s Vegetable Growing Made Easy special edition. Another guide is seeing what’s being promoted at your local garden centre.

Reinforce weighty crops

Many of us have lost our near-ripened crops to storm damage because of flooding or because they lacked adequate support.

So for those lucky gardeners still expecting to harvest their summer crops, it may pay to check if they need some extra security.

Avoid disappointment by inserting an extra stake or two to secure fruit-laden tomatoes, eggplants and capsicums.

NZ Gardener’s annual Garden Diary 2023 suggests providing fabric hammocks or slings for climbing melons, squash and pumpkins (if you’ve trained them to climb). You can find plenty of suggestions on Google if unsure how to do this.

If you have corn blocks on the go – and this is something I should have done knowing from past wind-damage experience – add corner stakes and encircle them with twine to stop the tall stalks from flopping over.

Gardening by the moon

There will be a full moon on February 6. Stop planting. Turn the compost heap and deal to weeds. February 5-8. Sow root crops. Prune and spray if necessary. February 9-10.

Gardening by the maramataka

Ngā rākau or trees play a more subtle part in the garden but they also represent a story on the soil attributes further down than a spade depth. In this, the driest month, we need to observe the longer lived trees and shrubs to determine the longer-term influence of raumati (summer) on plants. The raumati season is a sequence of phases that leads to the harvest of valuable crops such as kūmara, taewa and kānga (Indian corn), and later, for kākano (seed) maturity and collection. Rest for the first week of the month prior to the full moon (Rākaunui) – the maramataka tells us this is the time to focus on other kai such as fishing. The new moon (Whiro) falls on the 20th and resets our focus to observing all plants following this period for their regenerative qualities as the next maramataka cycle emerges. As we move into the Tamatea period at the end of this month, the best times for mahi aligned to new crop cycles (seeds or transplants) starts. Dr Nick Roskruge