Gardens — big or small, on balconies or on rooftops, all require nourishment if they are to continually produce bountiful crops and gorgeous flowers. One of the easiest and most cost effective ways of doing this is to feed your plants, on a weekly basis during their individual growing seasons, a healthy, incredibly rich, completely organic, drink of a brew called ‘compost tea’.

All gardeners are familiar with the rotten, recycled material as ‘compost’ but not all gardeners have the space, or the patience to make this. It can be bought readymade and ready to use, providing that it is guaranteed 100 percent chemical free. Plants relish it but the cost, can be prohibitive. Compost tea is a far cheaper and an easier-to-apply option.

Actual compost is mixed into or applied on top of garden soil and/in the soil being utilised by plants being grown in pots and other containers. Compost tea, on the other hand, is simply diluted with water and either watered directly on to the soil or, if being applied as a foliar feed, strained through fine muslin and then sprayed on to plant leaves — either way it gives the plants an immediate nutritional boost.

Due to space restrictions, full directions on brewing a variety of compost teas will appear in this column in two weeks’ time. Please be patient until then.

Nourish the plants in your garden with a rich, organic compost brew

Sowing suggestions for March

In the flower garden: Lets go bright and brilliant this summer with lots of ‘look at me’ zinnias in every shade and size imaginable, masses of portulaca tumbling over rockeries, flowing out of pots and brightening up sun-blasted garden areas. Tagetes (star fire) are glorious, French marigolds, coreopsis, plain and striped gazanias, rudbekia, startling amaranthus and celosia with gomphrena, petunias and plenty of stately sunflowers and gentle cosmos to balance the mix. Check through other summer annuals currently on the market and make a start on creating a wonderland for summer to come.

Select drought-tolerant varieties when/if possible please.

The vegetable department: Let rip with those tomato seeds, as many different varieties and colours as you can find and, don’t forget that cherry tomatoes are more weather- and pest-tolerant than some of the larger varieties, plus, crop for longer too. Then there are fast-growing varieties of cabbage and cauliflower; lady finger, red radish and snow white mooli; lettuce, Swiss chard/leaf beet, spinach, capsicums, pimentos, lots of chillies, cucumbers, aubergines, salsify, endive, chicory, climbing beans, bush beans, dwarf beans, bush beans, cucamelons and green onions as well. It’s time, after the middle of the month preferably, to put in pumpkins and squash, marrows, tindas, lauki, kakrri, snake gourds, bottle gourds and courgettes/zucchini too. If you have space, you can plant sweet potatoes and regular potatoes and, with diligence, care and regular watering, look forward to bountiful crops.

In the herb garden: Chives, garlic chives and coriander are a must, as are some roots of mint and countless pots of simple seed basil. Borage, both blue and white flowered for prettiness, plenty of different coloured nasturtiums to climb, ramble or simply bush out depending on form, calendulas for razzle dazzle, lemon grass for tea, lemon balm, plecanthrus, summer savoury, agastache, chamomile for drinks and cosmetic use, plus marjoram, thyme and oregano in partial shade. Sprouted ginger and turmeric can both go in now, preferably in rather sandy, well-drained soil in light shade.

The fruit garden: Seeds for Chinese gooseberries sown now, should fruit in late summer. Sweet melons and watermelons can be sown towards the end of the month. Try rooting some pineapple tops, too; rooted now, they may give you delicious fruit in 19 months to two years’ time when, hopefully, they will have sent up lots of babies around their bases. When large enough to handle, this can be the basis of a decently-sized, well-stocked, pineapple bed. Pineapple plants tend to fruit once and then die, so it is necessary to keep replacing parent plants with home-grown babies for an uninterrupted supply of fruit.

Herb of the month: The popular perennial Allium schoenoprasum (chives) is simple to grow and multiplies rapidly. It’s equally at home in pots/containers or directly in the ground, and flourishes in winter sunshine but prefers dappled shade during the hot summer months. A member of the huge onion family, the seed should be sown, very thinly to avoid overcrowding, just under the surface of reasonably rich, well-draining soil/compost. Keep seed trays/pots/specially prepared garden seed beds lightly moist but not wet, otherwise — as with all onion family members — rotting can occur. Germination should occur between seven to 14 days. Emerging leaves resemble fine grass. When large enough to handle, transplant, in small clumps, into individual 10-inch clay pots or spaced out at six- to eight-inch intervals in containers or the garden proper. Chives make an excellent, very long-lived, border plants and gets attractive, purple or pink globular flower heads in late spring and, sometimes, at other times of the year, too. Snip off leaves, about an inch from the base, as needed for use in soups, salads, as garnish or on sandwiches. Having at least six plants on the go ensures a fresh supply of mildly onion-flavoured leaves for months on end. Chives may or may not die back in the winter depending on your location. For a much stronger, garlicky flavour, opt for Allium tuberrosum (Garlic chives) which is much taller growing and bears flattish heads of dazzling white flowers. Sow all year round unless weather is especially hot or extremely cold.

Please continue sending your gardening queries to zahrahnasir@hotmail.com. Remember on include your location. The writer does not respond directly by email. Emails with attachments will not be opened. Commercial enquiries will be ignored.

Published in Dawn, EOS, March 3rd, 2019