Farm update

Autumn arrived with a thump. In came a big windy and wet storm that swept summer scooting. After a big dry summer, our hills, paddocks and market gardens were dry as a bone. It was the driest summer we've had. The dam that collects and stores water for our animal troughs barely had a lick left and the grass had stopped growing so the cattle had been sold at the sale yards. We terminated beans, tomatoes and cucumbers early and started sowing winter crops early, prioritising precious water to the future and not the past.

Big storms are exhausting for us. We worry about our livelihood out in the front paddock and do all we can to protect it from the elements. Big winds are our big worry and Daryn spends a lot of time patrolling the hydroponics to check the covers haven't blown off. We watch the wind try to push through our in-ground crop covers but we've secured them down before the storm hits. The only uncovered crops are the baby curly kale, who's little leaves are flinging around in the wind, and the edible flower beds. All crops make it through the storm, and we get through without any major damage to infrastructure.

I probably don't have to describe the relief that it's rained, our water tanks are filling up, water is running through and over the ground into the dam and finally we have a break from watering the in-ground crops. In the paddocks, down at grass level, you can smell the sweetness of the new lush grass. If it's a relief for us, it's a feast for the goats. Daryn is keeping an eye on the sale yards for 20-30 good looking calves to become our next cattle herd. We usually buy weaned calves and sell them about 18 months later.

Temperatures were so high through February our lettuces struggled to survive. High temperatures slow or even stop photosynthesis. And that's what we were seeing happen to our lettuces, growth had slowed so much it had pretty much stopped. For a salad grower, this is a disaster. It caused a big gap in our production and left us with very limited stock. And it's taken a while for us to recover.

Thank you to our patient customers. Our lettuces are nearly back to full capacity and we're really looking forward to having enough to please you all soon.

And Daryn is back on the tools building more hydroponic infrastructure to grow more lettuce to help us be more resilient. He's got a genius idea about using an old milk cooler to cool the hydroponic water when it's hot in the summer. I'll keep you posted on how it pans out. Finding new ways to be more resilient is vital when you're a little farm like us. The change of season is an opportunity for us to sit down and write notes to help 'future us' out with what has worked, what didn't work through summer. Increasingly the notes include crops that we should stop growing and new crops to trial. 

Metamorphosis has taken place in our in-ground beds from upright summer crops like beans and tomatoes to down-low cool season crops of Rocket, Miner's Lettuce, baby curly Kale and Mache (Corn Salad). The autumn garden looks entirely different from the summer one, and our autumn gardening and harvesting tasks are different too. We enjoy the changes to our daily routine that the new season brings. 

Baby curly kale is new for us. We've grown full sized kales before, but our customers enjoy smaller leaved greens that keep well in our bags. So, this autumn and winter we're growing in-ground beds of baby curly kale leaves. Its sweet and tender, we're finding it delicious for both raw salads and cooked dishes. The beds are growing well so far, and we're enjoying a crop that seems to be happy without a row cover. Because it's not under a row cover it makes harvest easier for us, and we can admire it every time we walk past! 

Big reward has come with two gold medals in the Outstanding NZ food producer awards. Our mixed leaf lettuce salad and our Miner's lettuce and Rocket salad both won gold medals. 

We had an exciting evening at the Champion's party celebrating the awards. The Outstanding NZ food producer awards celebrate kiwis who harvest, grow and produce food and drink. It was great to chat and enjoy the company of other producers and exciting to meet food industry giants. We were surprised and very proud to have Salty River Farm's name up on the big screen twice ... as a top 4 finalist as champion in our category and as a top 4 finalist in the People's Choice category. We also gained recognition as a Sustainability Hero, and you can read more on this at https://www.outstandingfoodproducer.co.nz/sustainability-heroes. 

Receiving the medals for our salads affirmed that we need to be focused on producing enough of these salads to meet our customers’ demands. And we wonder what the next salad is we'll create? 

I had a chat with a New Zealand food writer at the awards, who said that she could never find Mache (popular in Europe as a salad green) in New Zealand. The funny thing was that we had got a giant bag of Mache seeds, aiming to trial it this autumn. So, the Mache trial has been sown, and we'll see what happens …

The awards are an opportunity to have our product assessed and be given feedback by food experts. But most of all they are a reward for all our hard work and a reminder to stop and celebrate what we do. Thank you so much to all of you that voted for us for the people's choice award. 

The weather and daylight hours are the most obvious sign that the season has changed. But there are less obvious signs too. Suddenly the Kereru are back, scoffing fruit in the guava tree. We hear the noisy calls of the paradise ducks from our hill paddocks and flying overhead. The ducks are returning to their territory after attending annual moulting get together with their friends. The leaves are turning brown and falling to the ground. Now that it's rained the black field crickets are about during the day, and we see them when we move row covers in the garden. In a dry summer they seek refuge down in the soil and we don't see or hear them. And it's rodent season. We keep the rodent baiting stations topped up. Mice eat our sown lettuce seeds in the nursery before they've germinated. The cat does a great job, but we give her a helping hand in autumn and spring when there are more around. 

We've counted ourselves lucky not to have turkeys on the farm in the past. While our dog was alive and barking and our boys were here running around with slingshots, the local turkeys stayed well away from our farm. But lately there has been a turkey flock roaming around our farm. Yesterday, when we looked up and saw turkeys casually strolling up the driveway, Daryn swung into action and grabbed the gun. He managed to shoot three and the rest of the flock escaped up the hill. Hopefully they've decided our farm is risky once more and evacuated. We can't risk turkeys moving on in and gobbling up our crops.

The ducks, turkeys, mice, rats ... even the black field crickets could all be a terrible nuisance for us with our market garden. But if everything is kept in balance and nothing gets out of control, we can live with it all.

Christmas has screamed by and it's now midsummer. It's been blisteringly hot and the grass in the paddocks and on neighbouring hills has turned golden. Contractors in their tractors drive down our road on their way to hay-making jobs with their hay-cutting, hay-fluffing and hay-baling attachments ready for a long, hot, hay-making day.

Right now, we're hoping for rain that has been forecast. We check the weather app a few times a day. Sometimes it feels like it's raining everywhere else ... but here. We were driving on our road the other day and one drop of rain hit the windscreen. Someone wisecracked that it was one of the isolated showers forecast. We want rain because our in-ground crops need a really good soaking and our water tanks need a good generous top-up to get us through the second half of summer. The grass in our paddocks would turn from the current golden colour to green which would please our cattle and goats.

The weather dictates our schedule. Before wet weather arrives there are tasks we'll aim to get done. We'll rush to get near-ripe tomatoes picked and inside so they don't swell and split in the wet. We'll pick and pack leafy produce ahead of schedule - because it has to be dry before it's packaged. If it's going to be really hot, we'll start work outside at sunrise to get the lettuces inside while it's cool ... as the heat makes them warm and soft. If we're expecting strong winds we'll check that plants are supported and cloche covers are secure.

The summer weather brings holiday-makers who come to nearby holiday hot-spots, stay in their baches, enjoy the beach and become our holiday-maker-customers. Our farmer's market gets super busy over the summer holiday. Local-customers come early to beat the holiday-maker-customers. Our babyleaf with edible flower bags are always in high demand at the market and in the local shops who stock it. Everyone wants them for their larger than normal get-togethers. From a week or so before Christmas to late January we're picking and packing butterhead lettuce and edible flowers every morning for it. This year we've kept up with demand almost perfectly. It surprised us, so we looked back on the babyleaf sale numbers from last year to check demand isn't down. Numbers aren't down. Why are we keeping up? We've become faster and more efficient and we've gotten better at growing the right amount at the right speed. This is great news!

It's this time of the year that our basil gets super big - like, massive. It's so big it's hard to get them out of their grow-pots ready for the market. We get up in the dark on market day to get them in, out of their pots and wrapped in paper. It's a very early arm-workout, yanking the pot off the basil root ball. It's also a very early nose-workout ... the packing room is filled to overflowing with basil aroma. Market customers smell the basil before they see it, and they can't believe their eyes when they do. If they look overwhelmed with the size, we say share it with a friend (or two) or make a load of pesto and freeze it. 

We're different from most other tomato growers. We grow our tomatoes outdoors, out our front paddock rather than in a tunnel or glass house. Being outside, it is always a bit of a mission to get the tomatoes tied up and kept supported throughout the season. Therefore, in the summer, our front paddock ends up being a bit of a tomato jungle! Our tomatoes are out ... with nothing between them and the blistering hot sun, in the rain when it falls and feeling the wind in their leaves. Is their great flavour a result of their life in the great outdoors? We think so. When we pick them we admire the bold red of their skin, their quirky curves and how each variety is so different from the other. To read a rundown of the tomato varieties we're growing this summer click here

What else are we growing in the front paddock this summer? We're growing eggplant, chili and little capsicum for the first time. We check on them daily and watch their development curiously because we're still learning how the plants behave, what they need from us like water and food and when they'll be ready to pick. We were surprised when the Hungarian wax chili peppers comically appeared upside-down on the plants. The eggplants seem sneaky the way they hide their fruit under huge leaves. And it was news to us that some capsicums and chili go black before turning their final colour. 

We have Lebanese cucumbers, zucchini, scallopini, green beans, rocket and mizuna in the no-dig beds. Some of the zucchini plants have been producing since early October, are producing less and it's a balancing act deciding when to take them out and replace them with another crop. Hydroponic crops of basil, thai basil, coriander and the various lettuces we grow stay lush and sweet in our hot summer. The continuous water running through their roots stops them from turning bitter or bolting to flower as they would if they were in the ground and got dry. 

We've been market gardening full time for about 6 years now. The years of growing in this location with it's own challenges, and copious notes we have written for ourselves, give us self assurance. It feels like we've got more headspace to appreciate the farm and the beauty of the produce we grow. With all of the inspiration around, it occurred to me it was high time I start drawing again, something that had been put on the back burner for many years. I'm loving illustrating and telling the stories of life here on our small farm. I'll continue to post on our social media accounts, in our emailed blogs for our subscribers and on our website.

Soon it'll be time to start seeding autumn plants for our in-ground beds, for the hydroponics and to sell as seedlings at the farmer's market. Once the end of February comes it won't be long before the temperatures start to cool, the summer plants will be replaced with winter crops and the garden will once more be transformed.

Thanks for taking the time to find out what's been happening here in our small corner of the world. Enjoy the rest of summer at your place.

Spring in our market garden - and in the paddocks of our small farm. It's a magical time. The garden is full of summer good-lookers, growth is fast, and we're excited to eat favourites like zucchini and basil that we've missed since last sumer. Glancing up from work in the garden and seeing little calves adventuring ... but keeping mum in sight is, well, lovely. I didn't need any more inspo to get out the old visual diary and get drawing. Life has kept us busy over the time it's taken to raise two boys and become market gardeners. But now the boys have left home and we're getting better at our work, I'm loving taking the time to draw again. There will be more drawings about life on our small farm to come.

We're well into spring and it feels like the list of jobs to get done never ends. Not only do summer crops need to be planted out, they have to be pruned, tied up, enticed to climb up fencing or stakes, and to top it all off they need to be kept watered until their roots are deep into the ground. But to witness the massive turn around from winter garden to spring garden is exciting and refreshing. The winter garden is all low to the ground. Suddenly in spring and into summer the garden is vertical, the peas and beans reaching heights of 1.8 metres.

Existing spring crops need to be encouraged to carry on as long as possible ... and hopefully overlap into the start of the summer crop harvest. A gap in produce means a gap in our income.

The seeding, pricking out and potting up of summer seedlings to sell at the farmer's market keeps us busy in the potting shed once it's too hot to be harvesting or doing outside jobs. Our customers are on a deadline to get their summer gardens established too!

It might be busy, the shear amount of work makes us tired ... but we're feeling great when we consider our progress.

We have managed to get zucchini in the ground and fruiting earlier than we ever have this spring. The green variety 'Black Mamba' zucchini we grow is happy as an early variety. The coloured and striped varieties are happier to be planted out mid-spring onwards.

We got the snow peas under control and onto their fences so nicely that they're a joy to pick. We're getting more pods and bigger pods this year, and for the first time they're sharing their beds with radish and edible flowers ... and they're getting on with each other just fine!

The more produce we can get out of each bed the better. Having the edible flowers spread all around the garden makes the garden a beautiful and uplifting place to be but also there's a big bonus: plenty of bees.

Spring crops of rocket, snowpeas and radish will carry on until it gets too hot and they stop performing at their best. At this stage it's better for us to use those garden beds for extra summer crops. Summer crops are fitted out with deeper roots to access water deeper in the ground. Many of our winter and spring crops are shallow rooted and just can't handle getting dry at any stage.

Our attention is always focussed on the best use of our most precious resource: water. Our only source of water is the rainwater we collect, filter and store. It dictates what we grow, how we grow it and when we grow it.

Want to know what we're growing and where we're growing it?
Tomatoes: inground
- mixed coloured cherry
- heirloom beefsteak
- roma
Lebanese cucumbers inground
Zucchini: inground
- classic green
- zephur multicoloured
- italian striped
- scallopini
KumiKumi inground under weedmat
Beans: inground
- round runner beans
- flat Italian beans (later in the season)
Capsicums (little Cornito) growbags
Eggplant (striped) inground under weedmat
Chilli (various) pots
Basil hydroponic
Thai Basil hydroponic
Coriander hydroponic
Lettuce galore (various) hydroponic
Edible flowers (various) inground.

Want to know what we're harvesting right now? Our online pre-order for market pickup is open from Monday-Thursday each week. We load what we'll have available for market onto the shop each week.

It's not only our inground crops that change out depending on the season. The hydroponic part of our garden gets a change of crops too. Cos lettuce (who hates summer) gets changed out to Basil (who loves summer). Thai Basil also makes a star appearance for summer.

We've planted little cornito capsicums into growbags and chilli in pots. Why did we choose growbags and pots for our chilli and capsicums this year?

• It's a great way for us to grow more produce instantly without building more in-ground beds
• It's an efficient/flexible use of space, the bags and pots are moveable
• It's an efficient use of soil, fertiliser and water
• For heat-loving plants (like chilli and capsicum), growing above the ground in bags and pots can make the soil warmer- quicker
• The bags make the plant higher so harvesting can be easier on our backs.

This spring we have made some new inground beds using a different method. It makes use of weedmat laid on top of the compost we make from our garden waste. Although our compost looks beautiful, dark and rich, we can't be sure that there aren't weed seeds in it. The weedmat stops any weed seeds from germinating and helps to keep the compost underneath stay warm and moist. We've planted eggplants and kumikumi into these new beds and they're settling in nicely.

Gardening tip:
When planting out your summer seedlings ...

• Soak your seedlings in a mixture of water and liquid plant food or worm wee either overnight or at least an hour before planting out
• Plant out early morning or in the evening so the plant doesn't get heat stressed on it's first day out!
• Plant into fertile, free draining, friable soil that contains slow release fertiliser
• Always protect your seedlings from slugs and snails, birds and any other pests you have in your garden. Do it straight after planting or you might regret it!
• Plant out seedlings when they are robust and strong. Bigger seedlings will take off quicker
• Keep your planted-out seedlings well watered. To check if you need to water, push your finger into the soil. If it's dry more than 2cm down, you should water
• The best time to water is early morning. Early evening is ok too.

A lesson we've learned:

That being open to experiment with new ways to grow is a good thing. It makes us more resilient, it enables us to grow a wider range, helps us compare different growing methods and makes our time working in the gardens more varied and fulfilling. We like to think that we'll be gardening well into our old age. Discovering new, less back breaking ways to grow will help us reach that goal.

We apply our 'only natural/organic inputs and no synthetic fertilisers or pesticides' rule to all of our hydroponic, inground and growbag/pot methods.

A quick whip around the farm:

Cows and calves: the calves are getting bigger but still enjoy a drink from mum. All the cattle are enjoying the lush spring grass. Once the weather become drier and hotter we'll have less grass. Some of the cattle might be sold at this time.

Goats: the goats have a lovely relaxed life roaming our hill paddocks. We leave gates open so they can choose between 3 or so paddocks.

Hydroponics: Daryn is constantly building more hydroponic tables. He's nearly got an extra 3 built from what we had last summer. The 3 new tables will give us an extra 1500 or so plants.

Native planting: we're working through plans to plant out some of the farm in native bush. The Forest Bridge Trust have been, and are helping us apply for funding to help us with fencing, preparing to plant and planting.

We're at Matakana Village Market on Saturdays. Pre-order by Thursday Midnight to pickup from our farm or from the Farmer's Market.

Our Stockists:
Matakana Smokehouse
The Superette, Omaha Beach
Fruitworld Silverdale
OMG Silverdale
OOOOby online shop

Here we are half way through the year and a good month into Winter ... so far ... so good.

Winter is a favourite time of year for many fans of our produce. Birds, possums, rabbits, mice, slugs and snails ... and so, our farm is a fortress - protecting our precious income from the onslaught. Nets, crop covers, traps, bait stations, the cat, us, we're all on patrol.

We're forever tweaking what crops we grow, and we're pleased with this years Winter garden. The truth of the matter is, we just can't grow everything timewise - there are only the two of us and we have to stick to the crops that grow really well and are profitable for us here, on our farm.

If crops are growing really well: strong and healthy, we'll have less trouble with bugs. Our aim is prevention in the first place, because we don't use strong synthetic pesticides.

You don't need me to mention that it's tough at the moment. And for us, as small growers, we have to make sure that every crop we grow is making enough money.

Some of the crops that we've grown in previous years we aren't growing now, and have given way to extra beds of what does grow well for us: Rocket, Miner's Lettuce, Baby Chard, Cos lettuce, Italian Parsley, Coriander and various sweet lettuces for our MIxed Leaf salad.

It goes without saying that we're forever building up our Babyleaf lettuce growing capacity for our Babyleaf and Edible flower mix. It's an inside joke "for goodness sake, don't mention the babyleaf" because we're always striving to keep up with demand.

Anyway, in a nutshell, we're growing more volume of our most popular crops, and let some of the other crops go.

And, it's working for us. We've learned not to be scared of change over the years that we've been here on the farm ... it's just gone on 10 years since we arrived. That long? Crickey time flies.

In our no-dig, in-ground beds, the Miner's Lettuce is bulging and dense. High in Vitamin C, it was grown to combat scurvy by miners. But we don't really grow it because we think you might be fighting scurvy. It just tastes great ... it has a pleasant, almost crisp texture and mild flavour. We pair it with our Rocket and it gets to join in our Mixed Leaf salad too.

We sow the Miner's Lettuce in 7 rows across our 75cm beds. The beds are prepared by adding 2-4cm of compost and some blood and bone. The seeded beds are covered with protective cloth. This keeps the beds moist, prevents the seeds getting washed away in heavy rain and protects the seeds from getting eaten by birds. Once the seeds have germinated and are a few cms high, we raise the cloth onto hoops and the beds remain covered for the season. We pull the covers open to harvest.

The in-ground Winter garden is pretty much all covered in this way with cloth and hoops. I often think about how the garden looks so completely different in each season. All leafy, green and hooped up in the Winter, a far cry to the Summer garden with it's open beds and vegetables of all colours.

We've had an interesting past with Parsley. We've tried and tried to grow it from seed and failed miserably. Because we're stubborn and think that if someone else can grow it, so can we, we've perservered and probably wasted alot of time, to be honest. So we gave up and planted purchased parsley plants. And they're thriving. We're looking forward to having parsley to sell ... and for us to use here in our kitchen too.

We have an old shed on the farm from which watercress was once sold. It was a long time ago, the 'watercress' sign is all worn away and you can hardly see it. We grow watercress too, but we grow it in our hydroponic gardens. The watercress loves the water flowing under its leaves and through it's roots.

Watercress is a pretty looking thing with it's dainty leaves and trailing stalks, and it's got a lovely peppery bite. We love it in a sandwich with smashed egg. Sometimes I wizz it up into a peppery sauce and fold it through pasta. It's another green you can feel all righteous chomping on, it's full of vitamins and minerals.

We're growing more COS lettuce than ever before. We eat alot of COS ourselves and say that opening a jar of good store-bought mayo and using COS leaves to scoop it up is 'smart cooking'! We've learned over the years that everyone loves it. Slugs, snails, birds, aphids, possums, humans. And a new lover of the COS has shown itself ... we've had mice eating the un-germinated seeds out of our seedling nursery. Crazy. The nursery is now a dangerzone of mousetraps and the cat's been busy. All in for protecting the COS!

We're growing bigger beds of baby Chard now that we've learned our customers love it. It's more profitable for us than growing larger leaved varieties of Chard or Silverbeet. It's a cut and come again crop for us, and we get a few cuts off each bed. We chop the leaves off and the bright red stalks are exposed ... so pretty. It's nearly instant cooking as far as I'm concerned. Raw or momentarily wilted or sauteed. No chopping required as you would with the larger leaves. My kind of prep.

All the best from us for the rest of Winter!

Well, that was a great Summer! Just the right amount of rain so we didn't run out of water, hot enough for the tomatoes to ripen fast, and just the right amount of breeze for good airflow around the plants. And, quick as a flash the leaves are falling off the trees and turning crispy. We crunch through them in our boots and feed them in fist-fulls to the goats who adore them and sound like they're eating kettle fries.

The temperatures are dropping and the tomatoes and zucchini are ripening so slowly that it's not worth keeping them in the beds anymore. It's time to take them out and start seeding the winter crops. We cut the plants just below the soil surface, leaving the roots where they've grown in the beds and into the paths. The roots will become part of the soil, helping to transport water and nutrients to future plants. We won't loose soil like we would if we pulled the whole plant out, we won't disturb the worms and the infrastructure they've made and we won't encourage any weed seeds from below to germinate. The beds will be topped up with 2cm or so of compost before seed or seedlings go in.

We reflect on what we did well as gardeners and what we should improve for next Summer. As every season goes by we get better and better. Obviously next time we need to tie up the tomatoes better. We could sow the first beans two weeks earlier next Spring. We make notes in our book about what crop we had in each bed and how it did. This info helps with crop rotation. We write down varieties, and how many plants we planted ... was that enough?. We'll be thankful of the information next Spring.

Our rock-star of Summer, heat-loving Basil, is coming to an end. Customers will miss it, we will miss it too, we wizz up a big batch to pesto to freeze into portions so we can taste a bit of Summer in the Winter.

And now we look forward ... what will be seeded for the winter? We'll direct seed into the no-dig beds Miner's lettuce, Rocket and baby Chard. We might slip in a couple of beds of Snow Peas. Into seed trays go Brightlights Silverbeet, Curly Kale and Pak Choi, to be transplanted into the no-dig beds when they're big enough. In the hydroponics, we've started seeding Watercress and COS. Other crops of lettuce, dill, coriander, mint, edible flowers - just carry on. They'll have their ups and downs (which will mean a gap for customers of a couple of weeks here and there) but we grow them year-round.

Summer is a huge season for us and we're tired. Summer in-ground crops need to be picked every day - it's relentless. It feels wonderful as the Summer crops finish, for our work to slow down, and for us to find our feet again. We're going to take the market off during the month of April. April's a slow month at the market, our in-ground crops won't be ready to pick yet and lettuce growth slows down as they adjust to the temperature drop and less daylight hours. We'll keep our stockists stocked up while we're having a break. We hate disappointing our market customers but we've learned that if we don't take time off during April, we don't get a holiday at all.

Cheers to a good Summer, but we're ready for Autumn!

We're full into Summer, we've been flat tack picking and packing and delivering and generally going hard since a couple of weeks before Christmas. This is our biggest revenue gathering time of the year, and we need to earn as much as we can to get us through the lean winter months. There is barely any time to do anything other than pick and pack ... except seeding the herbs and lettuce for the hydroponics. All other garden work comes to a halt at this time of the year, there's just no time. We get up early every morning so we can be outside at sunrise ... most summer crops have to be picked daily, and out of the front paddock into the packing room before 10.00 or 11.00 at the latest. After that, it's too hot for the produce and too hot for us to be outside. Once we have it all in, we then weigh, bundle, punnet or bag and into the chiller it goes. 

So what's in our in-ground beds and being picked right now?

Tomatoes - 100 metres, my goodness, we've got so many tomatoes, it's almost too many. We have 5 varieties planted, 20 metres of each. Our little baby tomatoes are going great guns, the plants are heaving full of handfuls of the little guys and they taste terrific. We grow Black Cherry, a red 'Cherry Berry' and yellow 'Honeybee'. Then we have Andiamo, which is a San Marzano style tomato. They're a curious shape, long and quirky, and their flesh is more meaty and is lower acid than other varieties. And the last variety is Tigerella, a stripy medium sized tomato, good for salads and sandwiches and has good flavour.

We had a customer ask during the week; 'how do you grow the tomatoes without having shield bug (stink bug) problems?'. And we had to say we haven't had a problem this year ... (yet). We squash a few a week, mainly on the beans. I looked up 'who eats the shield bug', and it turns out lots of other insects and even birds eat them. Out in the front paddock we grow a lot of edible flowers, and beds of 'wild' insect loving flowers. These flower beds are full of bees and other insects. We also have a massive amount of bird life here, which we often curse when they nibble on snow peas and lettuces. Are the birds redeeming themselves by helping us with the shield bugs?? Maybe.

Beans - 60 metres of beans, 3 beds planted 2 weeks apart - this helps to stagger the pick. One bed is nearly finished. The other two have a few more weeks in them. The beans are an awesome crop for us, customers appreciate being able to enjoy freshly picked beans and the tall rows provide an avenue of shade - which is appreciated while we're picking. We deliver our beans, zucchini and herbs to The Smoko Room at The Sawmill Brewery, a fantastic local Restaurant where the chef creates delicious dishes from truly locally sourced seasonal produce. We love that the chef changes the menu depending on what's being picked.

Zucchini - 140 metres of all kinds of zucchini and scallopini. 7 beds planted all throughout the season and I'm thinking of seeding more. Our first plants have been harvested for 3 months now, and have pretty much finished. Varieties this year are: an ordinary green variety, the yellow and green 'Zephur', the little yellow spaceship-shaped scallopini, and my favourite - stripy green 'Cocozille'. The Cocozille is an Italian variety with creamy nutty flesh. The plants grow upright ... which is a bit of relief for our backs when we're picking. 

Lebanese cucumbers - 40 metres of the little guys. We've trained them upright this year, which saves our backs a bit, although we've left some of the leaders to sprawl over the ground too, as it creates some shade for the roots. They've got such lovely sweet flavour, and are so refreshing to munch on ... we eat a lot of these. 

Jalapeno chilli - 20 metres ... the fruit are just appearing. These are the first chilli we've ever grown, so we're excited to see what we can do.  

Mint - this is the first year we've sold bunches of our mint. We grow it in big grow bags, so that we can stop it from spreading everywhere. Every once in a while we rotate the bags so the roots don't take hold of the ground under the bags. Rascals!

In the hydroponics, the big stars right now are basil and Thai basil. Market Customers say they smell the basil before they see it. Customers wander around the market with these massive basil plants, and other people ask where they got them from. We're a bit famous for our basil. Our Thai basil is amazing this year, the leaves are bigger than previous years we've grown it - not sure why. If you haven't tried Thai Basil Chicken yet, find the recipe on our website. It's easy and truly delicious. Our other hydroponic crops of lettuces and coriander carry on as usual.

That's about it, we're hoping for a bit of rain but all-in-all it's been a good growing season for us. So far so good, long may the summer crops carry on!

Yay, it's spring ... and although the weather is still a bit crazy, we have a sense of excitement here on the farm because it's a time of change in the garden, with new crops to grow harvest and eat. We're big food lovers here, and this year we're growing all our favourites: baby coloured tomatoes, basil, thai basil, coloured and green zucchini, scallopini (my favourite), green beans, snow peas and lebanese cucumbers. Of course our year-round crops of lettuce, edible flowers, coriander and dill just keep rocking on.

The planning of in-ground summer crops is done, ordered seeds have arrived and most have been seeded, germinated and are now seedlings, tucked into the nursery cloche and pampered until they're big enough to go out into the no-dig garden beds. Because night air temperatures can still be cold, most of the summer seedlings are started out in our sunroom on a table. It feels funny to have gardening happening in the house, next to a couch, sleeping cat and drying washing ... but it's handy to be able to keep a close eye on the babies. Once they've germinated they go outside into the nursery cloche, under bird-net and plastic, which we open up each day if its warm and not raining. 

Most of the winter crops have finished in the garden, and the beds they occupied are covered with tarpaulins. Covering the beds kills off the old crops and any weed seeds. It protects our precious soil from the elements of drying wind and the rain which washes away nutrients in the soil. The worms in the soil love the darkness and do their magic. We leave the roots of the old crops in the beds, cutting the plants off just under the soil surface. The roots stay in the beds and become part of the soil web, creating underground networks, carrying food and nutrients for future plants.

The other night Daryn went outside to check something. When he came back he said that we had a bigger problem than the initial reason he went outside for. One of our animal troughs was leaking and water was flowing down the paddock and onto our driveway. On went the beanie and outside we went, phone torches lit, and we began rummaging through boxes of plumbing spare parts in the shed until Daryn found the part he needed. I held the lights while he got wet and made the fix. I stood and gazed up at all the stars up in the sky. The sky is so dark where we are, since we're away from any town or city. The trough was fixed, and it was a good reminder that even though our dam and water tanks are full from all the rain, it's going to be hot and possibly dry soon, so we'll have to keep an eye out for leaks.

We're working on a new salad garden mix and are growing a few new types of lettuce for it. Call us selfish but we usually decide to grow new things because it's what we feel like eating ourselves. It'll be a mix of sweet, buttery lettuce leaves of different shapes and textures and tender baby chard leaves. We're also trialling a new crop to put in the salad, Purslane. It's a wild plant (weed) that's delicious and highly nutritious. The leaves taste slightly citrusy and salty, with a peppery kick not unlike rocket, but with a juicier crunch to it. We're wanting to create a salad mix that tastes great and is quick to throw in a bowl for summer BBQ's. It'll be ready before Christmas.

During our first 2 years of in-ground gardening we had good success with most of our in-ground crops. But we've got to say the last 2 years have been a big challenge with too much rain at times, droughts and high wind events. Too much rain washes the food and nutrients out of the in-ground beds. It starts to feel like a wasteful way to grow when all of your good work in building up the soil is washed away. And when the soil is too dry, the plants can't access the nutrients in the soil. So we spend a lot of time and water to keep the soil moist. And some time despairing on the nutrients we've lost. 

It makes so much sense to extend our hydroponics. No nutrient or drop of water is wasted, the crops are protected from rain and wind. As our world weather systems change and more extreme weather events occur we'll be more resilient. And as we get older, the crops are up off the ground so our bodies are saved from all that bending and crouching that's need for the in-ground crops.

So we have begun building our 3rd hydroponic area. We're hoping the first couple of cloches of the new area will be finished by summer. Daryn is punching in the posts while the ground is soft enough, in summer it'll be too dry and hard. We slowly extend our infrastructure, materials are expensive, and sometimes there's not much extra time after routine gardening and harvesting jobs. Our hydroponic table design has evolved over time, and we've gotten smarter with ways to fit more plants in, and smarter with ways to keep out birds - who love our sweet lettuces and are very smart and adaptable little critters. 

Have you tried our Frilly lettuce? It's sweet and super crunchy, with a flavour like Cos and a crunch like iceburg - but has a frilly edge. It stays crunchy in hot situations (like in a burger) and will be the star of your sammie or sub. Our home-compostable bags keep it fresh for days, once you open the bag, secure the top with a rubber band or pop into a air tight container.

Harvesting now: Babyleaf with edible flowers, Frilly lettuce, Cos Lettuce, Dill, Coriander, Curly Kale, Brightlights Silverbeet, Radishes, Thyme, Sage, Oregano.

Coming up later in spring: Snow peas, new salad mix, green Zucchini, Basil.

Great news for North Shore and Hobsonville customers, The Artisan Hub (aka the cheese guy) at Catalina Bay Farmer's Market is setting up an online delivery service for Hobsonville. You'll be able to order a box of weekly staples from your favourite Catalina Bay Farmer's Market vendors (and us) for pick up or delivery in the Hobsonville area each Friday. The service will be live very soon so check it out ... it's called the Catalina Bay Farmer's Market Staple Box at www.theartisanhub.co.nz.

We're at Matakana Village Market on Saturdays. Pre-order by Thursday Midnight to pickup from our farm or from the Farmer's Market.

Our Stockists:
Matakana Smokehouse
The Superette, Omaha Beach
The Artisan Hub, Catalina Bay Farmer's Market
Homeland has our Babyleaf with edible flowers on it's menu

 

 

 

. 

 Great news, we're on the other side of Winter Solstice, which occurs late June in NZ. Winter Solstice is the day with the fewest hours of sunlight in the year, making it the 'shortest day'. After this moment, the earth begins its gradual roll back towards summer for the Southern Hemisphere. The Winter Solstice is considered a turning point in the year in many cultures and has been celebrated since the beginning of time.

Before we came to the farm, we never gave that much notice to daylight hours and Winter Solstice. Now we understand the feeling of celebration that our good friend the sun will be longer in the sky once again!

As growers, we know that our crops will enjoy the longer hours of sunlight and start to grow again.

Our winter in-ground crops have finally settled in and we're harvesting kale, silverbeet, pak-choi, miner's lettuce and rocket from our no-dig beds.

Our hydroponic crops are still slow but will pick up soon. The coriander has been almost dormant for a few weeks now, but looks like it will be back on track within the next couple of weeks. Do you know we pretty much have to grow twice the amount of hydroponic plants in the winter to make up for slower growth?

It's been a tricky start to winter with an army worm invasion attacking our young silverbeet, kale and pakchoi seedlings in particular. The army worm worked it's way through Northland, destroying many home and commercial grower's crops. It set our young winter crops back at least a month. I met a home grower who told me she was growing a new kind of silverbeet. I asked 'oh, what kind?' She said it had very lacy, almost non-existent leaves, just a stalk. It took a second to realise she had the army worm problem too! Now that temperatures have dropped, the bugs have died, and now the plants that survived are back on track.

We love growing (and eating) snow peas in the late Winter and Spring. So we're trialling growing pea feathers in our no-dig beds through the Winter. We're excited to see how they grow! They'll be a tasty crunchy addition to salads and sandwiches and hopefully another successful crop for us.

Trialling new crops is exciting for us, and a part of our business that we enjoy. Usually we try new crops because we want to eat them ourselves!

 

It's been all go here on the farm ever since the flooding and cyclone storms. What does 'all go' look like?

READY ... our in-ground summer crops such as tomatoes, zucchini and beans were destroyed in the storm, so our first job was to remove the plant remains and cover over the beds with tarpaulins.

The tarpaulins cover the beds, creating a warm damp environment. The worms and tiny beneficial bugs that live in the soil love this kind of environment. The heat and darkness kills any weeds and weed seeds.

SEED ... we set to work seeding our in-ground winter crops of kale, silverbeet, mustard and pak choi, miner's lettuce and rocket. Some of the crops are seeded in trays, and some are direct seeded into the prepared beds.

For all our in-ground beds we use the no-dig method. To prepare the beds, we fork over and feed the soil with an organic food. Then we top up the beds with about 5cm of perfectly balanced new soil. The beds are then ready to be planted into.

GROW ... preparing the beds and planting out the seedlings is a big job. We've got 18 x 20 metre beds and paths, which seems like alot while we're topping them up! We've got most of the in-ground beds planted out now ... phew.

We lost many hydroponic crops due to the wind and the 6 day power cut produced by the storms. Worst hit were the more mature lettuces, coriander, basil and dill. Most of the younger plants survived luckily. We acknowledge that as a small grower, it's important not to have all our eggs in one basket (or crops in the paddock!). We were lucky to have at least some produce to sell after the storms.

Daryn is building more hydroponics - as demand is always growing for our bagged lettuce and herbs we need to increase our production!

Many of the 'old man' pines along our farm's roadsides tipped over in the storm. The tree guys delivered to us 4 big mountains of mulch ... so we haven't had to buy mulch to top up our in-ground bed paths. There was some good that came from the storms!

What's with all this rain? What happened to summer?

The other day a customer asked "but how does rain affect your crops - I thought veges like to be watered? We thought that was a good question. Before we became market gardeners we would have wondered the same thing. In short, summer crops like growing in summer. They like many hours of sunlight, can handle getting a bit dry and don't like damp, humid conditions. We saw the met-service guy on tv say that NZ has been averaging 5 hours of sunlight a day! That's totally not enough for summer crops to grow, thrive and produce.

So what does our wet summer garden look like? Baby tomatoes are splitting in the wet and green fruit is slow to ripen due to lack of sunlight. Zucchini fruit flowers are rotting when the fruit is small so the fruit doesn't get any bigger and eventually rots. Less beans, beans need 7 hours of sunlight a day to produce pods and up to 10 hours to produce pods well. All lettuce and herb growth has slowed due to less daylight hours. Lebanese and apple cucumbers were so bad we pulled them out. They hate damp.

We are lucky in lots of ways. All of our growing is either in raised beds or hydroponic, which means it's all up and out of the wet.

Are there any crops that are actually happy about the wet and humidity? The edible flowers are going nuts whenever we have sunshine! If there is no sunshine they don't open. They have loved the extra big drink. The sage and thyme seem to be having a good time. The sage is very lush - time for fried sage and eggs! We have been trialling growing lemongrass - and it's gone nuts in the wet, humid conditions.

Will this kind of un-seasonal weather be more frequent in the future? Maybe. We have to carefully consider what we grow and how we grow it. We can't afford for crops to fail.

I'm writing this early on a Saturday. Early means it's still dark outside. We get up super-early on a Saturday, like, usually ... 4.00am! It's market day, our biggest selling day of the week, and Daryn and Joe need to get to the market and set up before their first customers arrive (often as soon as it's light!). We pick lettuces and herbs and wrap their roots in paper. Other produce we have picked and packed on Thursday and Friday and just needs to be loaded into the van.

I check the boys have their water bottles, remind them to eat and wave goodbye. As soon as it's light, I head outside to do the hydroponic jobs. I check the hoses are all clear and running. I throw out any plants that aren't thriving. Then I put out all the seedlings in the gaps where we've havested during the week. Next up, it's seeding to replace the seedlings I've just put out. We're seeding 600 hydroponic seedpots currently each week. As we build more we'll be able to grow more.

The boys get back from the market early afternoon. It's always exciting to see how they've done. We aim to sell-out every week, and it's unusual for them not to. We unpack the van, sit down and have a yarn about market-goings-on ... and then ... to be honest, we often nod off. It's been a big day!

The cool season crops have taken over the no-dig beds, it's been raining, there aren't many leaves left on deciduous trees and we're eating kale, silverbeet and pak-choi ... this means IT'S WINTER!

Big excitement here on the farm with winning a gold medal for our Babyleaf lettuce with edible flowers in the Outstanding NZ food producer awards. We're so proud that a little family run market garden can achieve a gold medal up against bigger producers. It gives us a boost of confidence and reward for our hard work.

It feels good to have the no-dig bed winter seedlings in, and established. We forget every year what a big task it is to seed, transplant and look after all the seedlings it takes to fill the beds. We generally fit 170 plants per bed, and there are 33 beds. 12 of the beds are for the pak-choi, beetroot, rocket and miner's lettuce which get planted and sown all through Winter. Each season we top-up the soil in the beds to replenish and provide good food for our plants. We expect a lot from them, harvesting from them every week through winter for our online orders and farmers markets.

You can see new beds that we've added on to the bottom right of the no-dig bed garden photo. Each year we are growing more and more, as customer demand for our produce grows. Each year we are getting better and faster at our gardening tasks and can take on a bit more work. I guess at some stage we'll reach our limit.

Every season we try growing a new crop. Sometimes the crops are a success, sometimes not. It is a reminder that we just aren't good at growing everything. This season we're trying out Miner's Lettuce. It is looking great, very cute dainty leaves, crisp, succulent with a mild flavour. Perfect, we decided, to pair with peppery Rocket, and we're selling it bagged into our home-compostable, worm-farm friendly bags as Miner's Lettuce and Rocket salad. It's really yum and very pretty on the plate.

The hydroponic crops of lettuce and herbs just carry on as usual. The change of seasons always cause a bit of disruption to the lettuces, while they have a bit of a struggle to adjust to less daylight hours and lower temperatures. If the lettuces are a bit weak, often they will get attacked by bugs, which sets them back further. It's a bit of a frustration to us and our customers, but it's just mother nature and something we have to work with.

Now that there is so much water around from the rain, the paddocks are green and the soil dark and moist, it's seems like so long ago that it was hot and dry and we were so worried about keeping our plants watered. Thank goodness for seasons and change, they make life ... and growing ... interesting.

 

It's autumn!

The leaves on the trees are slowing turning yellow then brown, it's dark in the morning when we get up and it's a bit cooler at night, yay! BUT ... it's still so hot during the day, and it's really dry in our part of the country. Any rain has passed us by, our tanks are very low and the soil very dry. We know the rain will come sometime, so we just have to carry on getting plants in the ground and ready for winter.

It’s the time of the season when we’re ripping out spent crops and getting new crops established in the no-dig garden beds. Pak choi, Chinese brocolli, Kale, Silverbeet, Mustards and Cabbages we seed into trays, and once they’re big enough plant the seedlings into their beds in the no-dig garden. While it's still so dry, we are mulching with pea straw. This helps the soil stay moist, and also gives the tiny seedlings shade and wind protection as they emerge. Straight into the ground go beetroot and snap pea seeds. They get watered twice a day so they stay moist until they germinate. Beetroot beds are mulched with shade cloth until they emerge. If the beetroot seeds dry out they won't germinate. 

Most years we get our flat riverside paddocks cut and baled into hay. It makes us feel good. The hay goes to farmers who need it, we get nice tidy paddocks and some tractor work done for us in return. We love the sweet smell of the hay, our boys love fooling around on the bales and the dog loves running on the once-a-year short grass. Everyone loves hay time!

On Saturdays we head off to Matakana Village Farmers Market and Catalina Bay Farmers Market. As the seasons change, our market stalls change too. Soon our stalls will be full of winter leafy greens, pakchoi and watercress. Our year-round crops of lettuces and coriander carry on... business as usual!

What’s coming up for harvest at Salty River Farm?

In full harvest mode: Cos lettuce, Baby leaf lettuce, Oakleaf lettuce, Buttercup squash, Coriander, Sage, Dill

Finishing soon: Thai Basil, Little tomatoes, Zucchini/Scallopini

Later in Autumn: Pakchoi, Kale, Mini cabbages, Chinese broccoli, Coloured Silverbeet, Babyleaf coloured silverbeet, Baby beetroot, Snap peas, Mustards, Watercress, Parsley