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A collection of 105 posts

Featured

Come Launch My New Book - Homegrown Fruit: A Practical Guide

To get a signed copy of our book and celebrate its launch - join Jason in his home garden in Waitati, or join me at Firebird cafe, Levin. 28 September @ 2.00-3.30 Firebird Cafe, Levin Entry is free Books are $58.00, either pre-order, or pay cash on the

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The Abundant Vegie Patch Talk

Saturday 13th September @10-11.30 Ocean Road Community Centre, Paraparaumu beach $30.00 Come along and learn my tried and true, simple, practical steps to a naturally healthy vegie garden. Where every crop from salads to tomatoes is supported to be great, pests and disease are few and far between,

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The Healthy Soil Project #4: Chop and Drop

Chop and drop is exactly as it sounds - to chop a plant or tree, and drop the trimmings back on the ground. When the tops are cut the roots slough off adding carbon, organic matter and boosting soil biology. Short roots not so much - that's why

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My Three Fave Nurseries

Buy your fruit trees and companion plants from one of our small, owner operated, NZ nurseries. Tap into their experience, their range of unusual and heritage varieties, and score yourself tasty, trusty, reliable trees and plants. These passionate nursery women and men are doing important work keeping older varieties going

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The Healthy Soil Project #3: Plant power

Plants are incredibly fertile - grass, dahlias, nettles, parsley, plantain, borage, buttercup, comfrey, dock, shrubs, trees - you get the picture, all plants! Plants are natures soil builders, in part from the bits and pieces of organic matter they drop onto the soil, but mostly from the biology that lives

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How To Mulch Fruit Trees

Fruit trees, on the whole, do best with a living mulch, which is simply a covering of plants as in the photo above (yes that includes grass and weeds!) A living mulch is not only super fertile, but its loads easier for you too - read more about it here.

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The Healthy Soil Project #2: Sort Drainage + Compaction

For soil to be in good health, water and air and roots must be able to easily flow through. When they cannot because of compaction or poor drainage, soil health never quite lands. Compaction is generally an easy fix, and mostly drainage is too - though not always. For gardens

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How to Finish Asparagus + Prep it for Spring

Asparagus ferns will likely be tall and green and ferny, and getting in the way of everything - corral them behind a string-line so as they can finish in peace. Letting the stalks wither and go full cycle is a nourishing and important step in the process towards an abundant

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The Healthy Soil Project #1: Know your soil

Knowing your soil is the first step on your soil health journey. When you know where it's at, you can treat it just right. No more guess fertilising at the hardware store, no more pests and diseases from overfeeding, no more disappointing crops from underfeeding - steadiness all

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Revitalise The Greenhouse!

The greenhouse soil has worked hard all summer - revitalise it before planting the next round of crops to keep health steady. That's our goal - no dips and dives, just brilliant steady health. Seize the day, my friends!, and get it done before soil cools off. These

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Dear Kath, my tomatoes have blight...

Dear Kath, the tomatoes in my greenhouse are suffering from blight. What can you advise to treat them? Is it a deficiency in the soil or a pest? thanks A deficiency, in this case, of soil microbes, and the solution is simple as. Read through my very simple, tomato growing

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Listen in Kath and Kim Hill RNZ Audio: On Apple picking and Autumn

Kath Irvine: apple picking and autumn in the garden From Saturday Morning, 11:35 am on 19 March 2022 Organic gardener Kath Irvine returns to share some autumn gardening tips and to answer your questions. This is a time in the garden for both harvesting and preparing for winter. Kath

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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&

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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

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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

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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,

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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

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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

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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

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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