Kath Irvine

Paid-members only

Fruit Trees + Berries

How to Choose Fruit Trees

Paid-members only

Fruit Trees + Berries

How to Plant + Prune Deciduous Fruit Trees

Start a garden

My Favourite Perennial Companions

Perennials are the backbone of our garden because they stay put, unlike annuals who pop in and out - even in a no dig garden, every day is moving day - pull a carrot, lever out a leek... In the quiet, undisturbed space beneath perennials, soil life set up home

Homemade

Delicious Dried Apples

Dried apples are an awesomely easy and useful preserve for using up all the apples with bird pecks/ bruises/ black spot that wont store well. Home dried fruit is nothing like the rubbery, preservative dipped things you buy. Flavour bombs! Especially if you are growing heritage varieties. Dry pears and

Vegies + Herbs

How To Harvest, Cure + Store Kumara

Kumara loves the warmth - all the way through the growing process, from the shoots through planting to storage. Steer clear of cold, and keep warm in the forefront of your mind and you wont go wrong. Those of you on light, free draining soil are on a win -

Garden Care

My 2 Ingredient Biological Liquid Feed

Liquid feed is awesome tonic support for the food garden, and this 2 ingredient biological brew in particular, because its alive! It's a brilliant one size fits all that has a gently transformative effect on citrus, vegies, roses, berries, fruit trees, the chook yard, pasture, even compost piles.

Pests + diseases

Be Cabbage White Butterfly Free!

Summer of '22, I grew brassicas out in the open without any insect mesh, from seedling to finish. I was feeling confident in my parasitic wasp population, and they didn't disappoint. What a turn around! For most of my garden life I haven't bothered growing

Chickens

Save Your Chooks From Red Mites

Red mites are tiny 1mm bird parasites, that proliferate in the heat. They live in cracks in the walls of the chookhouse by day, and come out at night to feed on your chooks. Poor girls - no rest for them when mites are in the house. Because they are

How to Grow Sweetcorn

Corn is extra effort to grow, but to my mind, it's easily worth it! Not only is corn a heavy feeder - meaning good soil prep is required, but its also best to stagger the sowings and plantings so as to drip feed the kitchen and eating corn

Homemade

How to Make Fermented Nettle Tea

Stinging nettle is the food gardeners, best mate. Loaded to the brim with minerals and vitamins, at service to the plant kingdom entire, and you and I also - a little wilted nettle with a fried egg is a fine spring breakfast. Amazing at anytime in its cycle for foliar

Radio+ Podcasts

Kath and Kim Hill Audio: Planting Summer Crops

From Saturday Morning, 10:35 am on 5 November 2022. With summer just around the corner you might want to start thinking about planting new crops in your vegetable garden. Organic gardener Kath Irvine says now’s the best to plant things like squash, citrus and beans. She chats to

Garden Care

Don't Mow - Let It Grow!

Once the kids have gone and cricket games are no longer, you may wish to pause and ponder the usefulness of your lawn. If no compelling reason other than tidiness comes to mind, let me suggest you plant it up or let it go. Either way you're adding

Greenhouse

October in the Greenhouse

There's a gradual take over happening in the October greenhouse as new crops of tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, courgette, cucumber, dwarf beans + basil are planted out amongst finishing winter salads, bok choy, spinach, + celery. * Peppers and aubergines need to go in fairly soon - they take ages to produce

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Pruning

How to Prune Passionfruit

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Pruning

How to Prune Tamarillos

Vegies + Herbs

Year-round Leafy Greens

Leafy greens are the best! They win 'Most Resilient Crop of All' for being the easiest to grow, hands down the most nutritious and so very generous - they give and give. Try a few new ones each season and steadily build a diverse collection that’ll take

Fruit Trees + Berries

My Healthy Fruit Tree Game Plan

A diverse environment around your deciduous fruit trees is the answer to all your fruit tree problems. Yes! Truly! All of them! Get a bit wild, my friends and loose the tidy. Engage as broad a range of plants, trees, shrubs, a pond if you can - even a small

Radio+ Podcasts

Kath and Kim Hill Audio: Winter Planting and Chickens

From Saturday Morning, 11:40 am on 2 July 2022 Organic gardener Kath Irvine returns to share some winter gardening tips and to answer your questions. As we move through Matariki and the shortest days, Kath’s main advice to gardeners? Keep planting!

Pruning

My Favourite Pruning Tools

The right tools for the job, make all the difference. Loppers This is where you spend the money, if you can. These are industry standard loppers, made right here in Levin. I've had these for about 15 years and quite frankly - I expect to be buried with

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Pruning

How To Prune An Avocado

Paid-members only

Fruit Trees + Berries

How to Space Your Fruit Trees

Vegies + Herbs

Harvest Smarts - Squash, Pumpkin + Kumara

Please be patient my gardening friends! Don't rush to harvest your squash and pumpkins. For sure, they look ready on the outside - but until the stalk dries off, there's still work to be done on the inside. Let it finish, and be rewarded with deeper,

Homemade

How To Make Echinacea Tincture

This is me and my dear friend - medical herbalist, Ali Sutherland - making our annual supply of Echinacea tincture. An essential in both our homes first aid kit for preventing colds, hay fever and infections. A tincture - for those who are unsure, is a herb steeped in alcohol

Compost + Wormfarms

Can I Compost Diseased Plant Matter?

Yes! Yes, you can. Nature specialises in detoxifying and outcompeting pathogens. A compost heap is full of life, more than equipped for this job. Visualise a bunch of pac-men zooming about gobbling up the bad guys and you're not far off it. Further biology enters the fray to

Mulch + Living Mulch

3 Ways To A Living Mulch

Living mulch (covering the soil with plants), is the most nourishing mulch of all. A soil covered with plants is alive! Living on and in and around plant roots is a diversity of soil life forms - fungi, nematodes, protozoa, bacteria, arthropods and of course worms, these team up with