About a garden

Since I’m planning to write more about our vege garden this year I thought I would start by describing what our growing conditions are like.

We live on the west coast of the lower North Island, inland, tucked up under the Tararua’s. This means we have very good rainfall. It also means that the temperatures are mild, not too hot in summer but not so cold in winter. Usually we would have about 5 frosts a year (this year was an exception). Sunshine hours are not high, due to cloud build up around the hills. This can lead to ripening issues.

Above is the actual garden. It is made of raised beds. The soil is heavy, verging on clay. The drainage is not great, we live on the edge of what was once a huge swamp, flax milling was the first industry in our area. You can see the puddles on the paths in the right of the picture.

I have improved the soil, but it is a work in progress.

You can see Magnolia’s blooming in the background. Since I took this picture we have had 3 frosts, which turned the flowers to brown mush. This winter has been cold and quite dry, leading to clear sky’s and lots of frosts.

So what are we eating from the garden?

This week I picked spring onions, nothing else. I was hoping to eat a cabbage but our pet ‘lamb’, who is really a 40kg hogget, got loose, and she really likes cabbages. I found her sitting in the bed where the cabbages were (note the past tense), chewing her cud, which was probably made up of cabbage.

Trying to look on the positive side she did free up a bed for summer planting and graciously left it manured!

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