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E tipu e rea!

Profile Information

Suburb: Napier

I can offer: Gardening & yard labour, Garden watering, Garden sitting, Poultry sitting, to be a gardening buddy, Food from my garden

Food Growing Skill Level: Beginner

I am interested in...: Buying Local Food, Selling Local Grown Food, Bartering Local Food, Community Gardens, Learning, Preserving, Helping Others, Seed Savers, Swapping Food, Eating Local Food

Tell us about your garden and what you're growing: I'm growing quite a few things this year... Too much for the small space I have really, but it's amazing what you can manage to fit into a relatively small outdoor area (in a rental) if you're creative about it!

So far, we're growing: Tomatoes (various varieties), corn (various varieties, including popping corn), herbs (sage, chives, rosemary, parsley, dill, thyme, mint, basil), cucumbers (a couple of varieties), red onions, rhubarb, figs, garlic, bok choy, capsicums (various varieties), courgettes (cocozelle), lettuce (various varieties), pumpkins, strawberries, globe artichokes, aubergines, gherkins, spring onions, and watermelons.

I'm growing as much as possible from heirloom seeds and am having lots of fun discovering all sorts of new (to me) and unusual vegetables to try!

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Strawberries

I was really really excited yesterday to see that a few of my strawberries have flowers! I didn't expect that they'd be out this early - it's not even Spring yet!

That said, we are starting to see signs of Spring all over the place... The jasmine is starting to flower, my pomegranate that was dormant over Winter is starting to sprout leaves, the fig cuttings I have on the windowsill are starting to go mad...

SPRING!!… Continue

Posted on August 14, 2009 at 7:30am — 3 Comments

Progress.

37 garlic sprouts and counting!

This weekend we had a mad planting frenzy - stuff that is usually sown in early spring, but we thought we'd experiment and see how they go inside, on an open shelf in front of a window. We've had to wrap it in frost cloth to keep the dear darling (*&@#*&@#*) kittens from playing with the soil... I already lost a spinach seedling to Stella. Little snot.

Last week, Hester let me borrow her NZ Gardener fruit tree book which was very… Continue

Posted on July 20, 2009 at 7:30pm

Winter gardening

I have had an awful cold, so while I've wanted to do some work in my garden, I haven't been feeling up to doing much this week. That said, the awful weather hasn't given me much opportunity to get out there anyway! I did get a couple of things done though:

- built a new cloche for the lettuces from an old hose, bamboo stakes, and some clear plastic that our new mattress came wrapped in.

- moved the compost 'heap' into two wool fadges. One is full while the other only has a… Continue

Posted on July 8, 2009 at 4:30pm

Garlic

I've been excitedly watching my garlic come up, and may sort of be going out to check the patch most mornings... I've got a total of 9 garlic sprouts so far! That's not actually all that many - I probably planted about 50. :D

Not much going on in the garden at the moment, otherwise... My few winter crops are slowly doing their thing. I'm waiting for cabbages (red and standard), bok choi, snow peas, lettuces, and spinach to be ready. We've been steadily using the celery, silverbeet,… Continue

Posted on June 29, 2009 at 8:28pm — 1 Comment

Argh.

I took my gumboots off last night and out plopped a big fat black spider. It stuck to my sock. ARGH. I jumped around like a big girl going "eek eek eek eek eek eek eek!".

The gumboots usually get shaken before putting them on because cockroaches love our laundry (where I keep the gumboots). Typical - the one time I forget, something is in there!

Things about gardening I find hard to handle: cockroaches, earwings, milli/centipedes, and SPIDERS. Oh, and picking up a clump of… Continue

Posted on May 2, 2009 at 9:00am — 3 Comments

Comment Wall (23 comments)

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At 1:09pm on September 8, 2010, Liz Gee said…: Hi Sonya, I turned off my email notifications for this group by mistake and didn't get your July 21 message until today! Thanks so much for your offer -I have sent you a private message.

At 7:41pm on December 12, 2009, Robyn Wolfe said…: Well, you have a busy garden. About the bucket tomatoes. I guess the buckets are quite big and I have plants in the top that stop a lot of the rain now. I don't water them enough for the water to drop out the bottom. I'd love to hear how you go with a cucumber!

At 3:51pm on December 1, 2009, Yvonne Nikolaison said…: Your photos of your garden are great. As we will be going into a rental soon you have given me some ideas on what to do. I know the feeling about soo many plants and sooo little room.

At 4:16pm on November 22, 2009, Hester said…: Thanks so much for a lovely afternoon and for the goodies. See you again soon.

At 9:48am on October 3, 2009, liz bennett said…: hi, yes very happy to share the recipes. i can give you a starter for the sourdough. the other bread is a cheats sourdough as you use a tiny bit of yeast but let it brew for 12+ hours. give me a call next week and we'll arrange something. 2255

At 8:56pm on August 15, 2009, Nikolien van Wijk said…: I'm glad you liked the book - if you want to 'dig deeper' with schemas, Anne Meade and PAm Cubey have written a second edition of Thinking CHildren - available through the NZCER, on their website.....Anne and I also did an interview with Kim Hill on 23rd MAy - that may also still be available on the Radio NZ website....I am a TOTAL schemas groupie...it just makes so much sense, and it is so powerful alongside Te Whaariki and when we consider learning dispositions.....I could soap box about that FOREVER.....Warm regards, Nikolien

At 8:49pm on August 12, 2009, Lynn said…: Oops...hit add by accident! lol Yes, I think perhaps the fruit bins would maybe only last a couple of years. Going through the seeds catalogue, I had trouble deciding which varieties to select, as there are SO many! Perhaps we can swap experiences of which varieties worked or not.

At 8:43pm on August 12, 2009, Lynn said…: Yes, I too have tried to get heirloom seeds where possible. Should be fun!

At 7:17pm on August 12, 2009, Lynn said…: Hehe...I know the feeling. Because wanted to expand my growing repertoire, I have SO many different seeds arriving, it's gonna be interesting rotating the crops to make sure I can grow a little of everything. Good on you for having seeds already sown...well done. Thanks, I'll give the fruit bins some thought. I wonder how durable they are with soil in and constant damp. I don't necessarily have to have that particular height...but my back problem is the reason I decided to run with the no-dig concept. Besides, it fits well with organic, I feel.

At 6:40pm on August 12, 2009, Lynn said…: Hi Sonya, many thanks for the welcome. Yes, I am looking forward to the larger garden I am planning this year. It's VERY exciting. The seed order should arrive in the next couple of days, and my friend and I will set to and organise our first sowings in trays. Thanks also for the tip on the fruit bins...I'll scout around. I'm hoping to come to the next group meeting, so perhaps we'll meet properly then. Cheers...Lynn