Kath Irvine

Monthly gardening advice

March Fruit Tree To Do List

Young trees need to be at the fore front throughout summer. This month, take stock of yours. If the soil beneath is dry, water them back to barely moist, then scatter some nicely pre decomposed woody mulch about them. * Long grass surrounding them is awesome protection from wind and sun

Monthly gardening advice

February in the Vegie Patch + Greenhouse

The thing is to match what you plant and sow in your vegie patch this month, to the season that you are having. If its roasting hot and dry you'd be smart to delay the planting of your carrots and winter brassicas for instance.

Harvest

February Fruit Tree To Do List

Fruit trees are peaking! I hope the grass and herbal ley are thigh high and you're revelling in surround sound fruit - late plums, pears, apples and oh so peachy. A sight for sore eyes! As stone fruit are harvested, summer prune them. They're best pruned

Featured

3 Simple Ways to Revive Soil

In an ideal world, our soils don't end up hungry and tired. We take care of them in a little and often way so they stay juicy + wormy in order to sustain the demands of production. But - hey, it happens.... life happens! And when it does, here&

Featured

An Easy-as, Bucket Worm-farm

A home-made bucket worm-farm costs next to nothing to set-up, takes next to no time to run and yet it turns your food-scraps into gold, aka worm-castings. Worm-castings are good-for-everything! For sick plants, for strong seedlings, for tired soil - it’s no exaggeration to say that they have super

Featured

How to Grow Basil

Basil is a queen, and needs to be treated just so - her tolerance for anything other than perfect is low and if you dish it out she'll let you know with fungus-y foliage, black streaks, pale leaves, tough leaves, poor growth or by rushing off to seed.

Monthly gardening advice

January In The Vegie Patch + Autumn Crops A Go

January is all about extending our summer crops so as to create a lovely continuity. Successional planting is the proper name. I call it "little and often", and it's the key to never going hungry because it keeps your garden in steady production. And though most

Featured

Preparing New Vegie Beds

There are two parts to this: first up I'll show you how to work out the most efficient shape for your bed (fyi not necessarily a rectangle and defo not a square!), and then we get down to the business of getting it ready for cropping. In my

Monthly gardening advice

January Fruit Tree To Do List

One of the most important tasks this month, is to check in on newly planted fruit trees. Check the soil beneath the mulch, and if its dry give it a lovely slow watering. Slow is best so the water soaks in, rather than running off. Then top up the mulch

Monthly gardening advice

December In The Vegie Patch

A December planted zucchini, cucumber + a few tomatoes are awesome when late summer rolls around. Keep the harvests flowing in, in a regular way with regular, little plantings and sowings this month. If it's hot at yours, shade comes to the rescue. I plant all my summer seedlings

Featured

How to Grow Awesome Tomatoes!

It's entirely possible to grow abundant tomatoes without artificial tomato food, or tricky fertiliser brews. Here are my very simple, tomato growing strategies - each one is a key thread, and success comes when they are all in action, together. Set your tomatoes on the road to glory

Berries

December Fruit Tree To Do List

Fruit trees look kinda static, but they're super dynamic! Hormones, enzymes, sugars - much goes on as they constantly adapt to the wet, dry, windy, hot, cold, pest, pathogens - add to that their innate push to grow you some delicious fruits and there's a lot

Featured

How to Water

When you water brilliantly, your garden performs brilliantly. The right amount of water, delivered at the right time makes for way less disease, less pests and improves cropping no end. This is no empty promise, my friends! Watering has as big of an impact on your gardens wellness as soil

Greenhouse

November In The Vegie Patch + Greenhouse

The most important mission this month is planting out long term crops like kumara, yams, pumpkins and peppers - drop everything else and get them in the ground! Yams need about 6 months to fatten up, kumara and sweet peppers need 4 - 5 warm months and pumpkins 4 -

Monthly gardening advice

November Fruit Tree To Do List

November is when the summer fruits really get a roll on - grapes, currants, early plums and berries are forming revealing the harvest to come. Keep an eye on these new fruits because birds + pests will be just as aware! Your daily walk is essential if you want to keep

Animals

Natural Remedies for Worms in Chickens

Sweetie (chook on the left) has a dirty behind - a possible sign of worms. If I get in quick, I can save the day with herbs! Chickens go downhill fast, so it pays to be aware. Since spring is worm o'clock, lets be prepared with some natural

Featured

Turn Your Plastic Compost Bin into a Wormfarm

Worm-castings (worm poops), are the good-for-everything, by-product of your worm farm. It's no exaggeration to say that they have super powers. Team them with your homemade compost (your gardening dynamic duo), and your vegie garden will never look better. There are plenty of ways to farm worms. My

Featured

Speed Spring Crops Along

Heat loving crops like pumpkin, zuchinni or tomato need warmth, its the trick to strong steady growth, and strong steady growth from the outset, makes for awesome crops later on down the track. In an ideal world, we plant our crops out when soil temperatures align with their happy place,

Featured

Help! Our Garden is Full of Grass Grubs

Grass grubs are bronze beetle babies, and as far as pests go, a relatively easy one to balance in the home garden with natural practises such as I champion below. Mostly they reside in lawn - these are grass grubs after all!, but they can also make their way into

Harvest

October Fruit Tree To Do List

Loads to do in your food garden - both the vegie garden and fruit trees need you this month! Plan the weekends at home and get the family on board to work up a storm. It'll set you up for a productive, healthy season ahead. All of Septembers

Monthly gardening advice

October In The Vegie Patch + Greenhouse

The October vegie patch is pretty dam exciting with seedling raising in full swing and crops boosting away in the warming soil and air. Do your best to keep your head and don't rush into planting summer loving crops on the first fine day! Its hard, I know,

Featured

The Perfect Soil Temperature for Seeds + Seedlings

What a difference when we sow seeds, and transplant seedlings, into soil that’s at the perfect temp for each crop - seedlings boost away with strong growth! Use your trusty soil thermometer along with my chart below that shows the ideal temperature range. Most crops will germinate outside this

Featured

How to Grow Celery

Homegrown celery is so efficient (and delicious!), gifting a lot of crop, in a small space. By regularly harvesting the big, outside stalks you inspire fresh, new ones to come. In this way, a happy celery plant can perpetuate for years, and that's the trick - to keep

Pruning

A Spring Prune for Plums + Peaches

Stone fruit are naturally spreading trees, so for best shape and health – let them reach and spread as much as is practical, that being said if you've pruned hard in the past and ended up with loads of tall shoots, spring is an excellent time to tie them

Featured

How to Sow a Greencrop

Greencrops (also called greenmanures) are awesome! Diversity, homegrown fertility + living mulch all in one. * Use them to prepare soil for OR restore soils after, a heavy feeder – you use less compost this way * Sow them beneath/ beside bigger crops like broccoli, pumpkin or beans, as a life giving, living mulch