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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Every season has its delicious fruit, and in April it is the turn for quinces. It’s not immediately obvious that these fruits are delicious, since they stay hard when ripe, and can not be eaten raw. But when stewed they…
