My Gardening Beginnings...

Since I now have a referral link to Hnry on the website, I may as well start writing about why I use Hnry. Hnry is an online accounting platform. They handle everything from IRD and ACC through to client invoices. They charge 1% of your businesses net profit. I use them for my sole trader Gardening Business, which I run where I live in Eastbourne, near Wellington.

I remember my first gardening idea was when I was a teenager, I used to think about making a moat with a fern in the middle in a garden bed at our beach house. While I never actually did that, what I did was make a cactus bed. I would continue with my cactus beds for the next decade, at least until the end of my flatting period. In my last flat I had a herb garden that I enjoyed tending too. My little forays at herb gardening would continue for the next few years. About 5 years ago I had a volunteer role planting natives. I would always break the roots up so that the natives could access the nutrients. The area where we planted the natives was a river flat, so was nutrient dense. What could and did happen though, was the plants would get waterlogged. But I went there earlier in the year (about 45 mins from where I live), and the Kowhai and Toitois were looking good.

I seriously got into gardening a few years ago, when I started volunteering at a local community garden. Although I was already growing blueberries and strawberries at home. I used to volunteer in the community gardens twice a week. I was gradually making more garden beds at home, and getting some big pots, which I filled with garden mix. This garden mix is still in those beds and pots today. I had a lot of success a few years ago when I added synthetic fertilizer. While this was good for that season in question, adding synthetic fertilizer probably hasn't been good for the years that followed. Organic fertilizer is much better for the soils microbial organisms. Synthetic does nothing for benefitting the soil in the long term. In saying that though, I still have a bag of synthetic fertilizer in the garden shed. Lately, I have been using my own compost a lot, and liquid blood and bone. There is a delicate balance that you have to make for optimizing your soils PH i.e. alkalinity and acidity. But that is an article for another day.

Crop rotation is very important for keeping bugs and diseases at bay. I discovered this personally with 2nd round potatoes. Most of the time you will find either the yield is very low or the potatoes have been eaten into. Best to leave them in for more than 3 months until the leaf has totally died away, and they have sprouted properly in the soil. Potatoes only need to be watered once a week, they are a very forgiving vegetable to grow. About a month after planting them in the soil you should add some mulch like seaweed or wood chips, this will help with the sprouting process in the soil. It is important with higher maintenance plants that you keep the maintenance up, make sure you clip away the dead leaves and add blood and bone or lime once a week (optimizing soil PH). My current potatoes will be in for another month or two. After which I will plant some seedling zucchinis, and hopefully the last of the summer season will yield some fruit.

Gardening is always a learning process. And I still have much to learn. But it is enjoyable to be outside and working with my hands. Obviously, it is enjoyable to eat your own produce. Last summer season was not good in this respect. I blame this on not keeping up with maintenance. The PH of the soil probably got too low, and maybe I should have added some lime to raise my soils PH, i.e. increase its alkalinity. This is what I'll be doing this season, and fingers are crossed that we will be enjoying lots of our garden produce this summer.