Christine Dann

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    • Self-Provisioning – the December 2018 report
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How much grass do you really need?

When making a new garden, or renovating an old one, most New Zealanders take lawns as a given – you have to have them, and more is better than less. But if we trace this seeming love of lawns back…

June 14, 2018
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  • Garden design
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Autumn harvest – and lime cordial

            Autumn has been doing its mellow fruitfulness thing, and the fruits that mellowed in my garden were pears, cooking apples, quinces and grapes. The persimmons are still ripening. The Albany Surprise grapes were all…

April 24, 2018
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  • Food from the garden, Fruit, Recipe, Vegetables
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Savvy summer gardening

With 2017 the hottest year since record-keeping began, and 2018 so far looking like it wants to top that record, what can a gardener do to beat the heat? Smart water application and conservation have to be a first priority.…

February 6, 2018
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  • Organic gardening methods, Vegetables
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Regenerative gardening – the practice

Wilby the border terrier is shown here snoozing on a big pile of twitch I pulled out to create a new patch of vege garden. I later covered the pile to exclude all light, and a year later the dead…

November 20, 2017
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  • Ecology, Garden design
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My film is flowering

Just after my last post (Regenerative Gardening – the theory) the film I had been working on as producer, researcher and writer for three years had its premiere in the NZ International Film Festival. Since then there has been almost…

November 20, 2017
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  • Flowers
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Regenerative Gardening – the theory

I was reading an article on regenerative agriculture in the July-August 2017 issue of Organic NZ magazine recently, and I have also been involved in organising an evening of presentations and discussion on ‘Regenerating Banks Peninsula’, to take place in…

July 24, 2017
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  • Ecology
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Good gourd!

I received an unusual vegetable gift last month – a gourd. It was grown in the marae gardens at Koukourarata/Port Levy, where after producing a terrific crop from seed they were given, the gardeners were wondering how to use their…

July 1, 2017
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  • Vegetables
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Growing winter greens

Green vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet, but it takes a bit of planning to ensure that you have them readily available in the home garden over winter. Especially the ones that can be eaten raw. But…

June 5, 2017
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  • Food from the garden, Vegetables
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Where do potatoes come from?

Last month I was part of a happy group of potato harvesters picking up taewa (traditional Maori potatoes) in the garden established for them (and other traditional Maori crops) by the Koukourata marae at Port Levy. When I was gardening…

May 19, 2017
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  • Food from the garden, Vegetables
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    Recent Posts

    • Self-Provisioning – the December 2018 report January 9, 2019
    • My self-provisioning experiment – the plan December 17, 2018
    • Cabbage Tree, Ti, Cornish Palm… what’s in a name for Cordyline australis? December 5, 2018
    • The Kinder Garden August 25, 2018
    • The Aotearoa alternative to lawns July 29, 2018

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