THE GARDEN

My vegetable garden is a constant work in progress. It is always evolving. 

Here are some of the many faces of my garden over the years. I have a mesh covered raised garden that is about a foot and a half deep, made out of scrap corrugated iron and long run roofing 'chutes' that I painted with some red roofing paint. They've held up well, four years and still going strong. 






On the base of the garden to bulk it out a bit I added brush, stick and anything I had laying around that took up a lot of room, ponga fronds, nikau fronds, manuka brush. Then I added a layer of rather gross fill which contained lots of gravel and plastic children's toys! I sifted through it as best I could and used the large rocks on the bottom. Then I emptied on of my compost bins full of horse manure, a contribution from my very own ponies. On top of that I added about six bags of bagged compost. I combined the two using a spade in a flipping action and hey-presto, one raised garden bed ready to go. 

Over the years as the soil has settled I've added more horse manure, chicken poo and wood shavings and the occasional bit of topsoil from the gateway under the big puriri tree because that's some good quality humus right there. And that's humus as in rotted down organic matter as opposed to hummus which is a delicious middle Eastern dip made of chickpeas!

Here's what's in my garden at the moment: 

• Vietnamese Mint – striped like a tiger and smells amazing!
• Coriander
• Flat Leaf Parsley
• Curly Kale
• Cavalo Nero
• Hearting Lettuce
• Butter Crunch Lettuce
• Cabbage – green and red
• Broad Beans
• Spring Onions – red
• Spinach - perpetual
• Silverbeet – red stemmed

•  NZ Spinach – harvest the leaves, eat them raw in salads, steamed with a knob of butter, throw some into a quiche, onto a pizza, in a toasted sandwich, make pesto with them. Endless possibilities for this versatile plant.

• Lavender – I use the flowers in tea!
• Rosemary – mine is the upright bush type but I do love cascading rosemary too. With the woody stems you can use them as kebab skewers and they’ll impart a rosemary flavour into your food.
• Oregano – the ultimate pizza herb.
• Thyme – amazing in soup or in a herb butter.
• Stevia – this plant is so sweet, sweeter than sugar! I use a leaf in my tisanes to sweeten them up.

• Mint – common single ‘trunk’ that multiplies like crazy. My plants came from my parent’s garden, they multiplied from the original plants I used as a child to make mint sauce for our roasts.

• Peppermint – I’m a peppermint addict….guilty as charged! Pick a bunch, tie it together with twine, hang it up high by the fire, when it dries and crumbles in your hand load it into a jar and enjoy homemade peppermint tea, sweetened with stevia if you need it.

• Lemon Balm – great for tisanes, a bunch in iced water in summer gives it a lovely flavour. I love it as a border plant because as you brush against it all you can smell is lemons.
• Sage – this is so woody and closer to being a sage tree than a bush, I’ve split it several times and dotted it around the garden. I dry it and use it in soups and stuffings.

• Globe Artichoke – invest in one plant and you can split it over and over again., also, let one flower and drop it’s seeds and you’ll have them sprouting up everywhere.
• Marjoram
• Calendula
• Garlic Chives – these happen to be one of the best things I’ve planted, this plant is about four years old and still going strong.
• Borage – currently I only have the blue but I’d like pink and white too.
• Weeds, lots and lots of weeds!

In the past I’ve had varying levels of success growing tomatoes – lots of tomatoes, eggplant, kumara, courgettes, beans – lots of beans, sugar snap peas, pumpkin (what a flop) nasturtium (the only weed that wouldn’t grow!) potatoes, and onions.

Other stuff....

I’ve got a babaco tree that currently has a sole leaf surviving, doesn’t like the frost and we’ve had a few cold mornings lately. I had a heirloom plum tree gifted to me and the possums annihilated it down to a stick so I biffed it in the horse poo pile and it has resurrected itself and now I see brand new leaves sprouting! I shall rescue it and nurture it, promise. 

I have the worlds nastiest looking kaffir lime tree, it is completely naked of all leaves and has inch long spikes on every limb, Sam found it the other day, I won’t repeat the words he used when he made the discovery but lets just say it cuddled him…..without warning. I think I’ll give it the plum tree treatment and see what happens.

As an engagement present we were given a standard lime tree and an orange, we’ll plant them at the new property.

I also have remaining four out of five olive trees, one succumbed to an over-zealous lawn mowing man and the other have had endured various tortures only to continue to survive and by survive I mean that exactly, they’ve been in the ground for more than 8 years and they’re still no more than knee high. One produces little black rabbit-poo sized olives. I will dig them out and pot one or two and plant the rest in a properly prepared grave…I mean hole.

I would dearly love a lemon tree and a grapefruit tree and perhaps a fig tree…..and an apple or five…..maybe some blueberry bushes, a cape gooseberry. The list goes on.