Location

Bay of Islands

Birthday:

November 2

Suburb

Kerikeri

I am a...

Gardener

I can offer

Food from my garden, Tools & Equipment to hire/borrow, Preserving, Bulk food storage

Food Growing Skill Level

Confident

Experience and Qualifications

Lots of years in the garden

I am interested in...

Selling Local Grown Food, Bartering Local Food, Learning, Preserving, Seed Savers

Tell us about your garden and what you're growing

We have a large organic garden using recycled materials, and mostly saved seeds. Nothing unusal in the vege garden...tomatoes, 5 or 6 types, lettuces 3 or 4 types usual, nz spinach, silverbeet, carrots, beetroot, leeks, onions red white and spring, cabbage, brussel sprouts, broccoli, broad beans, climbing beans, peas, corn, potatoes 2 or 3 types, kumara, and in a few years hopefully the aspargus seed will finally be asparagus! we also grow stevia...the sugar plant. and this year have just started a herb medicine garden. Everything is grown as cost effectively as possible and is shared out to our families. What is not eaten or shared is preserved -either jarred ,stewed, into jams, pickles or bottled or frozen. Those in turn are stored or sent out as far as Auckland and Tauranga. Its sent wherever it is needed. Any of the off cuts from preserving is divided between our piglets, chickens and compost heap to start the whole cycle again. We also have a spray free orchard with over 500 trees of all different types. Madarins,lemons,ugly fruit,red and yellow tree tomatoes, guavas, feijoa, apples, pears cherry, black berry, mulberry, figs, kiwifruit, persimmons,chestnuts, bananas, grapes, and advocado. Some are 1 year old and some are up to 35 years old and we are in the process of trying a radical rejuvenation plan. It is based on an old newspaper article we found dated 1953 explaining that cutting back the tree to the stump and then tilling and fertilising should start new growth. Since the trees are worse for wear we are prepared to try this method before pulling them out and replacing them. As new trees are replaced we try to replace them with heritage strains as we believe these are much stronger and naturally nutritionally better. Well that should be enough for now. Hope that was interesting reading!!