Edible Backyard NZ (Page 2)

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My New Book! Homegrown Fruit: A Practical Guide

My New Book! Homegrown Fruit: A Practical Guide

by Kath Irvine and Jason Ross Homegrown Fruit: A Practical Guide takes you step-by-step to an abundant, naturally healthy home orchard, and along the way teaches you all the skills you need to be an epic fruit gardener. With a healthy setup, and well-suited varieties - fruit trees

March In The Vegie Patch + Greenhouse

March In The Vegie Patch + Greenhouse

As the mornings and nights start to cool off, the soil temperature soon follows. As soil cools, microbes, worms and plant growth slows. Grab the planting window! Focus on planting autumn and winter crops while a little warmth lingers to keep the flow of good food coming into your kitchen.

March Fruit Tree To-Do List

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Fruit Trees + Berries

March Fruit Tree To-Do List

How to Mulch Your Vegie Patch

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Mulch + Living Mulch

How to Mulch Your Vegie Patch

February in the Vegie Patch and Greenhouse

February in the Vegie Patch and Greenhouse

Its time to turn your attention to planting Autumn and Winter crops. Before planting, check in first with your soil. Use your best soil for heavy feeders like brassicas or leeks.

Why Hasn't My Fruit Tree Fruited?

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Fruit Trees + Berries

Why Hasn't My Fruit Tree Fruited?

February Fruit Tree To-Do List

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Fruit Trees + Berries

February Fruit Tree To-Do List

January in the Vegie Patch and Greenhouse

January in the Vegie Patch and Greenhouse

Keep planting! In a little and often way to keep the food rolling in.

January Fruit Tree To-Do List

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Fruit Trees + Berries

January Fruit Tree To-Do List

Natural Ways With Pests #1: Why Do Pests Come Along?

Pests + diseases

Natural Ways With Pests #1: Why Do Pests Come Along?

There are 3 main reasons why pests come along. Let me greatly simplify the work of Dr Phillip S Callahan, John Kempf and Elaine Ingham: Stress. Pests are attracted to plants for a variety of reasons, all of which can be traced back to a stress of some sorts e.

Natural Ways With Pests #2: Four Steps to Prevention

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Pests + diseases

Natural Ways With Pests #2: Four Steps to Prevention

Natural Ways With Pests #3: Simple, Natural Solutions

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Pests + diseases

Natural Ways With Pests #3: Simple, Natural Solutions

December in the Vegie Patch

December in the Vegie Patch

If there's one thing on your mind as you head into summer - let it be soil care. When the soil is well the crops are well. Here are your 3 soil health essentials: * Keep your soil covered in plants at all times. * Plant new crops amongst greencrops, or

December Fruit Tree To-Do List

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Fruit Trees + Berries

December Fruit Tree To-Do List

How to Prune + Train Tomatoes, Peppers + Aubergines

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How to Prune + Train Tomatoes, Peppers + Aubergines

Growing tomatoes in the edible backyard

How to Grow Awesome, Organic 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 by

November in the Vegie Patch + My New Subscription Model Begins!

November in the Vegie Patch + My New Subscription Model Begins!

This month, dear friends, is the last month of the Edible Backyard newsletter as we know it. For 15 years I've been sending out all your edible backyard to-do's + how-to's on the 1st of each month, for free. But the times they

November in the Vegie Patch + 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 - 6 months (variety

November Fruit Tree To-Do List

Paid-members only

Fruit Trees + Berries

November Fruit Tree To-Do List

purple sprouting broccoli with crimson clover and parsnips

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,

October Fruit Tree To-Do List

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Fruit Trees + Berries

October Fruit Tree To-Do List

winter salads growing under a car windscreen

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,

Seeds + Seedlings

Spring Seed Raising with Setha

NZ heritage, open pollinated, organically raised seed is the best of the best! We’re so lucky in New Zealand, to have Setha and Roddy at Setha’s Seeds, doing the hard yards to provide us with high quality veggie, herb and companion flower seed for our gardens. Growing from

Make a Basemap + Wishlist

Make a Basemap + Wishlist

Understanding your land and your climate first is key to you making sound placement choices. "...protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labour" Bill Mollison (co founder of permaculture) wisely advises. Start by making a basemap - a birds eye view sketch or photo of your land.

The Healthy Soil Project #4: Chop and Drop

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The Healthy Soil Project #4: Chop and Drop