Permaculture Visit

Recently I planted bulbs in clumps so that come Spring there will be intense bursts of colour in my garden. Not only this I have been staggering the planting over a few weekends so that they will flower at different times therefore I will have a curated programme of flowering bulbs. I’m a gardener - I turn soil, fertilize from my worm farm, weed and turn the sprinkler on in the summer to provide water when rain does not. After visiting a permaculture garden this week I’m starting to wonder if I’m making life a bit hard for myself and if there’s a simpler more sustainable way…

This week G3 were challenged to rethink how we work with nature in the garden. We visited Christine’s garden in Whakamaramara which had been designed applying permaculture principles. And we were joined by Catherine Dunton-McLeod, a local permaculture guru. To start Christine explained that permaculture was ‘permanent agriculture, it entailed developing agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient’. So what did this mean in relation to her garden design?

Christine purchased her north facing elevated property with views out to the sea, 4 years earlier. It had looked like your usual property with a camellia border, some fruit trees, a stand of native trees at the rear and lots of lawn. Christine has twin boys and like most of us spent a lot of time and money at the supermarket for her food.

She decided that she wanted to live more sustainably, affordably and eliminate her waste. She undertook a permaculture design course and started participating in Permabiltz’s (more on this later). Through these much research, she developed a design for her garden that set about achieving her goal of sustainability. Here’s what we saw:

As you approached the property from the driveway the first garden showcased  some lovely sculptures surrounded by a number of flowering plants including marigolds, barley, herbs and weeds. Yes weeds – Christine is a fan of Julia Edible Weeds philosophy and is actively growing weeds for nutrient dense smoothies. An overgrown mess? No very pretty, when left to its own devices nature doesn’t garden in rows nor straight lines. 

Directly off the deck near to the front of the house was her pick-n-eat garden (herbs, leeks, lettuce, spring onions etc). Previously lawn, she had developed it by layering cardboard with straw, followed by compost into which she plated her veggies and added pea-straw on top as mulch (lasagne gardening). She discussed how she doesn’t fertilize nor spray her garden, instead she lets nature provide the sources through companion planting such as comfrey to provide nitrogen the chopped leaves providing fertilizer and French marigolds grow to detract white fly. Next we walked around to the side of house where the property sloped down towards the boundary. There we  saw:

A vege garden that applied the 3-sisters idea of planting 3 crops closely together. Christine had planted corn, waited a while and then added beans which had grown up the stem of the corn, along with pumpkins growing out horizontally. Again comfrey grew in abundance providing nitrogen to the soil.

Off the side of the house Christine discussed her plans for a glasshouse which would include pipes where water would be heated by the sun and then flow into her house providing no-cost warm water. 

Near to the house was the chicken coop which had been moved there for the winter so the 3 chooks could get more sun. Here they happily lived on scraps from the kitchen, whilst scratching up the ground in preparation for when Christine wished to plant it. The chooks provided enough eggs to feed Christine/s family along with extras to trade with friends.

Sloping down the property away from the house were a series of raised beds. Christine explained that these were swales – a design feature that allowed the water from her roof to be piped to the swales were it ran along the beds keeping the plants watered, even during summer - yes not sprinkler required! Here amongst the swales Christine had her food forest. A food forest works on the idea of replicating a forest in nature which has 7 layers starting with your soil at the bottom, lower trees, shrubs, climbers etc and finishing with the tree canopy at the top. Here she grew a variety of plants including lemonade, lime, pomegranate, plum, nectarine, pear, apple, fig, fejoa and so on. Each were part of her permaculture plan (see later). It was here that we came across tagasaste  - an important nitrogen fixing tree. At the base of the raised beds clover (more nitrogen) and other weeds grew. Christine said she only now weeded grass, milkweed and nightshade. Some weeds she would chop and drop to return the nutrients to the soil. 

So how did Christine achieve all of this? As I mentioned she attended a permablitz programme. This is a programme where you learn about permaculture gardening through working on 3 gardens that are blitzed. In return you then become eligible to have your garden blitzed. You work with a designer to come up with a plan for your site and then the crew come along over a weekend and work on your property, for Christine this was to install the swales. For more information visit http://permablitzbopnz.net.

She also did the 1year cert in permaculture offered by Catherine and her husband. http://www.plentypermaculture.co.nz. 

Other sources for information, sharing and exchange that Christine and Catherine discussed were:

Fukuoka http://www.permaculture.com/node/140

Tree Croppers - http://www.treecrops.org.nz

Rick Austin The Survivalist Garden - http://www.secretgardenofsurvival.com/

Out of our backyard http://ooooby.ning.com/group/tauranga

Many thanks to Christine and Catherine for a very thought provoking and inspiring morning.

Sonya

Catherine's property

Garden Centre Visit

Palmers Garden Centre
Welcome Bay

26 March 2015

G3 visit was to Palmers Garden Centre, on the Welcome Bay roundabout in Tauranga. This garden centre happily gives talks, might I add, at no cost, on anything you like. They are also very keen to be involved in schools, working with children and seeing the enjoyment they get from planting a thing or two!

Thank you to all that came. This little garden centre changed hands 3 or 4 years ago and the new owners have done an amazing job to bring it back to life.

There are a number of knowledgeable people there to help, in particular Darren and Alan. Darren was away but if you are wanting the more technical, perhaps scientific side to gardening he is the man you want. So today we had Alan share a few of his life experiences, personal interests and answer a number of questions that we fired at him!

Alan is self taught/learnt through many years of experience here and overseas.

He spent a number of years  working in the U.K in gardening centres, turfing companies and landscaping. He has seen many different sorts of garden, from your massive English garden to apartment living. Alans' particular interest/passion at present is organics. He reminds us to be very wary of any sprays we use. That there are alternative products out there, Neam is one, and if used correctly they will do the job. He says prevention is the key rather than waiting for the damage to appear. Spraying in winter before eggs are laid. Don't forget all these new varieties of dwarf fruit trees says Alan, they can be used in many areas of the garden and you get something back from them, nothing like walking out the back door to collect a plum for breaky. 

Do your homework/research, think and plan! You need to remember to feed and look after these trees as you would yourself, especially if you live in the suburbs where land nutrients may not be as plentiful. Liquid feed not granules. Make sure they are open, regular pruning to allow for air flow, especially for citrus along with magnesium and lots of nitrogen. Beware of chicken and horse compost, where you are putting it as it often comes with weeds of course! 

Alan suggested you could first put it in your compost bin where the heat that is produced will kill the seeds! Think about creating longer fruiting seasons by planting a variety of varieties of plants e.g blueberries, different varieties fruit at slightly different times. Take fruit off in the first two years of fruiting…if that's too hard maybe leave one or two on! This then leaves the nutrients for the growth of the tree.

Pruning throughout the garden can be done at anytime really. There is a new thought now that the best time is during summer, when trees are at their healthiest opposed to being done when they are dormant. This also goes for transplanting, mind if it is done in the hight of summer you must remember to water!

Copper spraying for fungus bacteria can be done in August before leaf burst or with no leaves not when plant has new leaves.

These were a few points I picked up during Alans' interesting, helpful, enjoyable talk!  You may need to nip back if I have missed things.

We finished off  with a good coffee (of course some of us added a sweet to that) from the centres very friendly relaxing cafe.

Emily

Garden Mentors

26 February 2015

This month we had the pleasure of meeting with Vicki Rule of Garden Mentors.  Vicki’s passion for gardening began in 1991 under the encouraging eye of her neighbour. Since then she has developed a successful business in Tauranga that allows her to meet the needs of gardeners tailoring her solutions to their individual experience, knowledge, time and budget.  Vicki offers a range of services, on-site consultation, planting plans and full landscaping projects and she has the added benefit of being able to provide the plants from her nursery.  

We arrived to find Vicki arranging chairs, she had prepared a presentation for us.  Throughout the next 1.5hrs she spoke confidently about the common design errors gardeners make, answered numerous questions about our own gardening problems from how to fix a disastrous camellia pruning to the best alternatives to weed mat.  We appreciated the numerous plant recommendations for difficult situations, explaining the challenges of different soil types and in particular how to overcome clay soil. 

It was interesting to hear about the common error of failing to have a plan or theme for your garden – this resonated with each of us – Vicki suggests choosing three words that you would want someone to use when describing your garden. For example, elegant, refined and beautiful or fun, bright and surprising.  When you have ‘a moment of inspiration’ at the garden shop or elsewhere and are considering adding a plant/sculpture/bird bath or some other item to your garden, you can use these three words to check if the addition is consistent with your overall theme.  This is a good way to ensure you don’t go spending time or money on something that will actually detract from your existing plantings/garden plan.  

We enjoyed touring Vicki’s Nursery as it gave us an opportunity to see a range of plants up close and ask numerous questions about growth, growing conditions and combining plants.  The final piece of advice Vicki offered was one none of us expected. Tea. Remember to take a cup of tea in to your garden and sit down, just take a moment to enjoy your garden – because that is what gardening should be all about. 

Thank you Vicki for sharing so much of your time and wisdom with us! 

Becks

Hydrangea Valley

5th Februrary 2015

Hydrangea Wholesaler

Te Matai Road, Te Puke

What an interesting and inspirational woman Bev is. Bev is nearly 70 and started her hydrangea business 14 years ago from scratch, as her retirement plan. Her original plants came from hydrangea expert Glen Church in New Plymouth, and nowadays she shares plants with other local growers. She now has 1700 plants, and exports around the world to Japan, Hong Kong, Dubai, USA and Canada. She is a very hard worker and for 6 months of the year, December to May it's picking time, they work 12 hour days 6 to 7 days a week. At the end of the season, June / july they spend about 4 weeks pruning then have a well earned holiday. Bev has a few people including her daughter to help and up until recently even her 85 year old mother lent a hand. 

Bev exports 99.9% of her flowers. She sells her flowers in 3 forms, 'fresh,' 'light antique' or full antique. Most of them are 'fresh' which means 80% of the petals are out. 'Light antique' is they have partially started to change colour with tints of green starting to form on the petals. Then 'full antique' where the flower head has completely changed colour to mottled green, red, pink tones. It takes about a month for the flower head to get to full antique stage.

'Fresh', 'Light Antique' and 'Full Antique' flower heads

Hydrangeas originated from Asia in a coastal environment with sea mist. So Bev has hers under shade cloth, as they do not like to much full sun. She has some of her plants in bags, as it is the only way to control the colour. They are drip feed for 5 mins, about 200 mls each time, 4 times a day with a feed mixture to keep the colour correct. Even if a little bit of root comes out and gets into the ground the colour can change. They last 8 - 9 years in pots. The earth planted ones have slow release fertiliser planted with them, but she does not have so much control over the colour of these ones.

Pruning is a bit complicated as it depends on how much flower and size you want. When picking cut 4 to 6 nodules up from the base. When pruning take a third off, and every now and again cut them back hard, right to the base. Winter is the time to prune them hard, its best to wait for the sap to be down in the base of the plant, so when the plant is looking quite died off. They can handle rough treatment and to split them up Bev takes to them with an axe!

Bev's tips on growing and picking hydrangeas are:

   -  Planted under deciduous trees is perfect as they like the winter sun.

   -  Not too much sun, lots of water even on there leaves.

   -  White ones go blue if in acidic soil.

   -  Too much super phosphate can kill the plant.

   -  Hydrangeas do not like to be in a warm sunny spot in your house so place them some where cool.

   -  Best to pick hydrangeas when they are fully open and hardening off, which is when all the petals and the main 

      'real' flower are fully open. (There is a 'real' flower in the centre of the head and the rest of the petals are 

      actually leaves).

   -  Antiqued ones will last in a vase for weeks and if you let them dry out they can be used as dried arrangements.

Donna

Kokedama Workshop

Kokedama Workshop and a Xmas brunch at Becks's House

December 11th 2014

Fresh from her successful display at the Garden and Art Festival we were excited to be meeting Coraleigh  from Pickled Whimsy  and learning how to make our own Kokedama.    http://pickledwhimsy.bigcartel.com/

Coraleigh explained that Kokedamas originated thousands of years ago as a form of Bonsai that was grown in a round pot until completely 'root bound' then the pot would be broken with the root ball intact and the plant could be hung and maintained like this.  The full process would take many years.

Unlike Bonsais you can make a small Kokedama in a few minutes and it is a very enjoyable process.  You can use many different plants and there were hundreds of different specimens hanging in Coraleigh's workshop to prove this.  A small Fejoa tree looked festive with it gorgeous red flowers.  Some of the Kokedama had been cultivated with moss on the outside which offered a different look.  Most were hanging from the roof of  workshop as this is the most common way to display them. We used a succulent to make our own Kokedama, as they require less maintenance than most other plants.  

We each took a large handful of Sphagnum Moss patting it on a table to form a flat pancake shape, then we added a handful of potting mix and lastly our plant on the top.  Next we scrunched the sphagnum moss into a rough spherical shape with the plant just poking out. Taking a piece of twine we bound the sphagnum ball, looping in a random pattern to create a firm ball.  A few minutes later we had all completed our Kokedamas and were very proud of our efforts.

To water our Kokedamas we were advised to submerge them in a tub of water until they no longer floated, with the option of adding liquid fertiliser to the water.  Coraleigh explained that the water and nutritional needs of a Kokedama were slightly less than a potted plant but more than a regular garden plant.  

We also met Coraleigh's Dad David, who explained his latest garden project, the creation of a permaculture food forest.  The aim of the food forest is for it to become self-sustaining, not requiring any fertiliser and very little weed control.  It involves careful planning of a five layer forest.  You draw out a grid with each intended tree's mature size mapped, so that their canopies will be touching when they are fully mature.  Nitrogen fixing trees and plants are added to the forest to bring nitrogen back into the soil.  It requires patience as it will be 5-6 years until the trees begin to reach their planned height.  The aim is to have something fruiting almost all of the year so this is carefully factored into the plan.  It would be interesting to return to the food forest in a few years to check its progress.

Our next stop was a Becks's lovely new home and large garden, for a delicious Xmas brunch. Her garden is in the planning stage, but with the hard landscaping completed.  There are endless possibilities for different plantings and we will watch with great excitement. Thank you Becks for an excellent G3 adventure!

Paula

Art Month

4th September 2014

September was art month and we spent a great morning visiting 4 galleries in Tauranga. The art scene in the region is booming with a number of new spaces opening in recent years. 

We started at The Incubator based in the Historic Village. Housed in a large barn the community gallery comprises an exhibition space, artist studios and a communal area for gathering. With a vision to grow art and culture in the City and offer a platform for anyone with a great creative idea, they offer talks, exhibitions, workshops and so on. The exhibition on show was Invasion of the Poms and we met one of the two exhibiting artists – Angela Croft. Angela had produced a suite of digital woodcuts of the historic buildings at the village. Each bordered by arts and craft style drawing, the detailed prints were exquisite. We then took in a tour of the studios appreciating the sense of community that the gallery offers artists. 

Next stop was Zeus Gallery 106 11th avenue Tauranga which was opened two years ago by Elliot Mason. Elliot is the grandson of the original owners that set up the space 60 years ago - Harrison’s Gallery. Elliot presents a programme of Tauranga and Hamilton artists. On show was a selection of work by years 10 to 13 from Tauranga Girls College – very affordable. Elliot also had some of his established artists on show including Laurie Steer, whose work was recently purchased by Te Papa. Elliot himself is a painter and lover of our beautiful estuaries. His work often incorporates birdlife and water forms. In the same building as Zeus Gallery was Flux – where we enjoyed a cheeky coffee and browse of the gorg home wares.

Gallery 59 on Ninth Ave had on show a number of painted abstract works, particular favourites were large unframed canvases by Rotorua artist Kristian Lomath. Inspired by nature and social networks the paintings wove colour and movement into rich contemplative works. Gallery59 also offers framing and life drawing classes.

We finished up at the Tauranga Art Gallery on Wharf Street where the biennial Miles Art Award was on. Funded by the estate of deceased Tauranga artist Venetta Miles, the exhibition was a real showcase of artist talent in the Bay.  Presenting painting, moving image, pottery, sculpture, contemporary weaving and photography  - a diverse range of practices were on show. The winning work by Lea-Anne Sheather Tipping Point explored environmental concerns with exquisitely drawn creatures and bright pops of painted pink exploding on the paper. The gallery offers a great holiday art programme. Sonya also encouraged everyone to become a friend of the gallery and help support the acquisition of new works. Plus receive benefits such as invitations to openings, exclusive talks and studio visits and trips to other galleries.

We all finished the day inspired by the creativity in the Bay. Now how to translate this into gardens…?

Sonya

The WEED Lady

Megs House

Tauranga

24 July 2014

Onion weed, cleavers, Red clover, stinging nettle, herb Robert, chickweed, kale smoothie for anyone? 

Sound appealing? Add avocado for saturated fats to help absorb vitamins, add water then some cardamom, pumpkin and chia seeds. Lastly add some fruit for sweetness. Blend well and you get an amazing green coloured smoothie which tasted, as Paula put it, “grassy”

We were at Meg’s place to learn about edible weeds from Julia Sich, “a woman wild about weeds”

It was fascinating; Julia had a wealth of knowledge and plenty of enthusiasm for plants that most of us just want to get rid of. Did you know that Cleavers contain silica which is a lymphatic cleanser and stinging nettle contains magnesium? Herb Robert otherwise known as geranium Robertianum is being considered for cancer treatment and Red clover is good at balancing hormones in women.

Nasturtium leaves have a gold edging which is said to be protective and Veronica Persica or speedwell is named after a young girl who wiped the face of Jesus Christ. This plant has remarkable medicinal powers.

I am sure that we will all look at the weeds in our garden differently now, I have been nibbling on my violets and dandelions when I go to hang out the washing.

For those that want to know more, Julia has put together a book called Julia’s guide to edible weeds and wild green smoothies. It is full of clear photos, descriptions and lists nutritional qualities for about 40 edible weeds as well as a section of green smoothies.

She also recommended a website called plants for our future.

This was then followed by a sumptuous midwinter xmas lunch. Thanks Meg for a most enjoyable morning.

Vicki