Farm update

Spring! No cute daffodil pics here. How do WE know it's Spring?

Wild pig population explosion invasion: a large mob of 60 wild pigs is marauding its way through local farms. They're rooting up precious pasture to forage for worms, roots and grubs, and our back paddock is a mess. The mob is a mix of sows, piglets and boars ... by the looks they have had a recent population explosion. The first we knew of it was when a breakout group of roughly half the mob came right up our driveway. I chased them away, terrified of them getting into our market garden. And they've been alluding us ever since. Daryn patrols our farm boundaries every night gaining more insight into the mob's movements and where they're living. They are generally hanging out in the pine block behind us, and on our neighbor's farm. We've got a local hunter coming in a couple of days to scope them out. He's a policeman that likes shooting pigs on his time off. Stay tuned for an outcome. Hopefully it involves some pork sausages and peace of mind.

The pig mob is on our minds a lot, as you'd expect. But there are other more subtle signs that we're well into spring:

We notice Pipi the cat is back on front paddock rabbit patrol. She'll take down baby rabbits but we've never seen her with bigger ones.

A loud and raucous paradise duck pair dominate the airwaves. They're protecting their nests in spring. The cows and goats don't like them and get freaked out with the ducks swooping and honking. Hands on ears!

Early morning we start out with long pants and two layers on. Within 2 hours we've dashed inside to throw on some shorts and sunhats. Legs out ears in.

Admiringly, indomitable frost-knocked nasturtiums resprout with a vengeance. I watch them regrow thankfully. We need lots of nasturtium flowers for our Babyleaf lettuce with edible flowers for the big summer quantities. The nasturtium flowers are bright, look great in the bag, are the tastiest of the flowers, and quick to pull apart into the petals that adorn the lettuce bags.

Our kikuyu grass in the paddocks follows the Nasturtium pattern. Knocked back in frost, regrows in heat. We hope it gets a good drink before the forecast big dry gets here. We need it to feed our cattle when the rye grass dies in the heat. Sometimes we curse the kikuyu the way it creeps into places we don't want it to … but it saves us in the summer.

And … thank goodness … more lettuces to harvest because they grow bigger and faster in the warmth.

What's going to be a challenge this season? The big dry. This spring into summer we have a monster sized El Nino forecast. Hotter than normal Nov-Dec and less rain. We might have a very challenging summer on our hands with extra dry, hot conditions.

Big dry prep: We will mulch as many of the inground beds that we can. We're setting up new flower beds under weedmat to act as mulch. We're planting out inground plants as early as possible for them to establish before it gets dry. We'll provide shade for the hydroponic water tank and exposed pipes. We might have to purchase shade cloth for the hydroponic tables. We're already being extra careful with water, checking pipes and hoses for leaks. We always treat water with great respect because we don't have a water bore or access to town water supply. Being totally self-sufficient waterwise means capturing, filtering and storing enough rainwater. If it rains less and is warmer than usual, we'll need all the water we have stored to keep our market garden alive. We've brought an extra water tank for extra capacity. 

We might sell half of our cattle earlier than usual, keeping the smaller cattle on to keep the grass down. We might make less money by selling some earlier, but it might be better than struggling to feed all if there is a draught.

What's big? This summer we're going big with our edible flowers. We've grown the flowers for years for our salad bags but last summer we were asked to grow them to sell as edible flower punnets. We ended up selling thousands of punnets through Farro Fresh stores, and this year we'll be selling even more and they'll be available at Fruitworld Silverdale, too. The seedling nursery is full of baby flower seedlings, and the in-ground gardens are bursting with extra beds of colour already. 

We grow some of the flowers in our in-ground beds, and some under weedmat using compost made from our hydroponic plant and microgreen waste. If we used this waste in the uncovered In-ground beds the compost would regrow. The weedmat doesn't allow the compost to regrow and also keeps the plants grown through it mulched.

What's new for us? Asian mix microgreens! We've concocted a yummy combo of microgreen varieties to make our Asian micro mix especially for our Farro Fresh stores. A final dash of calendula petals before the lid goes down gives each punnet a bit of happy attitude. 

Growing microgreens has been a new process to learn. We start new projects off by doing a bit of research but find that the real learning begins when we follow our instincts, forge ahead and do it. Along the way we tweak and alter until the crop works for us. Although it's good to listen to how other growers do it, every garden is different, so we keep an open mind. We often come up with our own ways to do things which suit us better. 

Here's the inside scoop - where you, our subscribers, can get your burning questions answered:

Tracy asked: Hi Salty River Farm. Do you still attend a farmer's market?

Hi Tracy, thanks for your email. We don't attend a farmer's market at the moment. Preparing for, and attending markets takes a couple of days a week. When we attended markets we were younger and could cope with less down time. We are not spring chickens anymore and are grateful that we now have at least one day a week off ... and can even get away for the odd weekend.

Saying that, over the years building our business, we've learned never to say never. We have had to adapt and change how Salty River Farm operates to navigate changing times. If our business dynamics change in the future, we would be completely open to returning to the farmer's market.

Email us your questions and we'll answer them in our next farm update ... or if it's an urgent growing question we'll email you directly. saltyriverfarmnz@gmail.com

What didn't work? Our Miner's lettuce was tough to get started this year. The first few beds we sowed didn’t germinate. This hasn’t been a problem before. We keep diaries so we can look back on dates of sowing, germination, harvest etc. We asked ourselves many questions. Was the soil warmer than usual after summer this year? Was it drier than usual? Was the wind more drying? Did we do everything the same as the year before? What can we do next year to make sure it’s not a problem? Can we cool the beds before sowing? Having a shorter season for the Miner’s lettuce this winter has cost us thousands of dollars in revenue, so we have to put thought and effort into problem-solving.

What're we looking forward to? Beans. The first beds of beans have germinated, and next week's job will be setting up the bean fences and tying them up. This year we're growing blue lake runner beans and Italian flat beans. Eating fresh, crunchy old fashioned tasting beans is something we look forward to every year, and our customers do too.

What's for lunch? Tuna melt. So good. A bit of a perk from working from home is the ability to knock up some pretty tasty lunches to keep our energy up working outside. Here's the recipe!

What are we growing and selling this spring/summer?

• Babyleaf with edible flowers 
  
• Mixed leaf lettuce
• Edible flowers
• Asian Microgreen mix
• Radish Microgreens
• Beans - blue lake runner and Italian flat
• Dill
• Coriander 

What's new for our stockists? Farro Fresh has a new store opening in Newmarket this week. We're excited to be supplying another Farro store. It will be a busy store in a great location, and we congratulate Farro on their expansion. The new store address is 480 Broadway, Newmarket.

Our stockists:

• Farro Fresh stores
• Fruitworld Silverdale
• Sabato
• Matakana Smokehouse
• The Superette, Omaha Beach
• Bliss
• Village Kitchen

Let’s get frisky

Autumn is a big pest time for us. If we don’t watch it, bait it, trap it, we would be overrun. Field mice, the odd rat, hissing possums and pesky sparrows are standing by for the smallest opportunity to nibble, nest and reproduce before things get cold, living by a slogan “let's get frisky before winter”. Less food elsewhere in autumn encourages them to head to Salty River Farm to see what's on the menu and if they like what’s on offer set up their winter base. Our farm is a mine field of traps, bait stations and the cat. My first job out of the house in the morning is to check the possum traps. It’s such a thrill to find we’ve trapped another possum. I’ll call out to Daryn with glee that we’ve caught a big fat male overnight! I don’t even mind taking the dead possum out of the trap anymore, mind you I can’t bear to touch them, I’m all PPE’d up with gloves. 

This year for the first time we had mice eating mature lettuce. And not just little nibbles. We're talking big chunks into lettuce hearts. We have had problems other years with mice eating planted seed before germination, but never actually grown lettuce. So we’ve ramped up our rodent bait cafes in the market garden. And the bait has stopped being taken. Pesky mice taken care of.

We sped through summer

Last summer was the busiest we’ve ever had. We’re so proud of what our farm and tiny team of two can produce. By tweaking what we grow, being open to drop or introduce new crops, we’ve managed to survive the last 10 years. Last summer Salty River Farm thrived … but we worked so hard we almost burnt ourselves out. With the quieter season at our door and ahead of us we’re catching our breath.

Gear grinding

Our lettuces have now stalled into cool-weather-gear speed … which has created a gap in lettuces in the last week or so. It’s frustrating but it happens each year in the cooler months. While we wait for the lettuce to grow it gives us extra time to get other stuff done - stuff that gets neglected when we’re scrambling around madly in the summer. We’re talking maintenance jobs ... repairing birdnet, weeding, general tidy up, catching up on things like emailed newsletters … and also some down time for us - the Daryn and Louise us, rather than the Salty River Farm us. We’re talking long weekends away exploring other parts of the country. One day we’d love to travel further and for longer but we have learned that inspiration isn’t far away in this beautiful country of ours. 

Louise Penny Artist

I’ve also had a bit of time to do some of my other love, illustrating and writing. While Salty River Farm is our home and business, it is also the heartbeat of my inspiration—and I’ve decided to give the little stories and illustrations that grow here a dedicated home. Many of you have seen my illustrations pop up on the Salty River Farm social media pages, but over at @louisepennyartist, I’ll be offering a front-row seat to the antics that unfold around me. I hope to see you there!

Got questions? Fire away!

We often get messages from curious customers asking questions or giving us a shoutout - and we love hearing from you all. What would you like to know about Salty River Farm? Let me know if there is something you're curious about ... and I'll cover it in the next farm update. We consider it a perk of being a small business that our customers feel like they can be in touch with us, and it can make our day to hear from you all. Keep it coming!

Flick us an email or message us through social media.

Here's the inside scoop - where you, our customers can get curious:

Jodie asked: Hi Salty River Farm. What day do you deliver your salads to the stores? I want to time my shopping so I don't miss out on my fave salad!
Hi Jodie, thanks for taking the time to be in touch. We deliver to our stockists on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Through winter we may have gaps in produce and only deliver one day a week or not deliver at all. We don’t like having gaps, and for years we’ve worked on expanding so this doesn’t happen. The challenge is that we’re selling more and more every year so we always feel like it’s a never ending expansion!

Booming and blooming

We’ve grown Edible flowers for years now because they’re the bling ingredient in our most popular product, babyleaf with edible flowers. But since last summer we’ve been growing an increased amount of flowers to supply Farro and Fruitworld Silverdale with punnets of edible flowers. We once imagined what it would be like to fill our front paddock with flowers and we’re excited that our edible flower beds are triple what they used to be. Maybe one day soon half the front paddock will be flowers. The bright colours, the big fat bumble bees, the quirky shapes and personalities of the different varieties, even punneting the picked flowers ready for our stockists - makes it an inspirational crop to grow. We couldn’t believe how many punnets we delivered to our stockists through the festive season. We’ll be aiming to triple our edible flower harvest this coming summer. 

Dillicious

We’re growing mouthwatering, dillicious dill again. Selfishly, we’re pleased to be harvesting it again as we are so in love with using it in our own meals. You can find it at Sabato Mt Eden and Matakana Smokehouse (perfect with their smoked salmon). I love adding it to chopped slaw-type salads and it’s delicious. I’ve also been making a polish sausage stew one night every single week that the dill has been harvested! It’s a tasty, hearty, satisfying, warming autumn meal now it’s getting colder and darker earlier at night. And like all my fav recipes it’s easy. Click here for the recipe. 

What're we growing right now?

• Lettuce for babyleaf with edible flowers
• Lettuce for butterhead lettuce leaves
• Rocket
• Miner's lettuce for Miner's lettuce and rocket
• Dill
• Edible flowers
• Coriander
• A trial microgreen product that's still a secret (more to come about that next time

What cattle do we have on the farm right now?

We have 23 calves, all heifers (girls) a mix of ... black white face, friesian/angus cross, jersey/charolais cross, and a couple of Murray grey.

We got them when they were about 3 months old, just after they were weaned from milk. They will graze our grass pastures until they are about 18 months - 2 years old. At that time we'll sell them on to the next farmer. At that age they're a bit big and boisterous for us to handle, and we'll look to buying in the next lot of calves to raise.

Where to find us:

Sabato MtEden/Newmarket
FARRO Fresh stores Auckland wide
Fruitworld Silverdale
Bliss box online shop www.blissbox.co.nz online delivery Auckland-wide
Matakana Smokehouse Shopette
The Superette, Omaha Beach
Village Kitchen - Matakana

The seasonal clock has ticked into Winter and steady rain has made the grass grow, formed puddles on the driveway and is filling up our water tanks for our gardens and house and the dam for the animal troughs. The temperatures are starting to drop, with a cold snap arriving today. Being in Northland, when I say 'cold snap' it means a high of 13 and a low of 5 (brrrrr ... out comes the beanie), that's pretty cold for us. Each winter we might get an occasional light frost, but it rarely gets truly cold.

I understand it's easy for people to think of lettuce as a summer crop, because we all like to eat a refreshing salad when the days are hot. And we do grow lettuce all year round, but it's definitely a challenge to grow in the heat. Once reliably cool temperatures set in - like now, the lettuce grow in a calm and orderly manner ... so right now we're feeling pretty PHEW - it's a relief that they have chilled out after hectic summer growing. Year-round eating of lettuce is more popular than it used to be when I was a kid in the 70s, salads aren't what they used to be and there are many winter salad recipes in which leafy greens play a star role. 

It's a never ending part of our job to make sure our crops continuously produce. Generally, as long as we're sowing both in-ground beds and pots for the hydroponics every week, we have a constant supply. We usually harvest and pack in the morning until early afternoon, then do sowing and other garden tasks in the afternoon. Cooler day temperatures make it ok for us to harvest later into later in the morning, as the produce stays cool. Harvesting crunchy, cool produce is a pleasure!

Daryn got some very nice calves at the sale yards. 24 calves from 3 different pens ... and they're a mix of breeds and colours. Visually, the standout calves of this group are of Speckled Park breed ... with black and white smudgy dotted patterns with fluffy ears and soft coats. It's always interesting to meet new calves because they all have their own personalities and it's entertaining to watch them as they make new friends and learn to be a herd together on a new farm. It doesn't take long for them to understand that Daryn will come and shift them to a new paddock every couple of days. We don't use barking dogs or motorbikes to shift them so life here is calm and quiet. Daryn just calls them and they learn to follow him to a new paddock. 

As a general rule of thumb there is always in the herd: a smart intuitive leader, a couple of friendlies who'll come right up close, and an annoying thick one who over-analyses everything and takes forever to follow along to a new paddock ... or totally freaks out and takes off in the wrong direction! Sometimes there will be a 'friendly' with a ear tag that's got an actual name on it instead of a number. Of course the calf can't tell us their past - and we wonder ... were they a calf-club calf, or someone's herd favourite? Often we get an impression by the way they act they were something special to someone. When I was a kid we used to spend Winter school holidays at my Aunt and Uncles on their dairy farm. We helped feed the calves and would spend a bit of time trying to decide our favourite calf and a name to call it. It wouldn't have had anything to do with good breeding traits, more the colour and pattern on their coat and length of their eyelashes!

Probably our biggest news right now is that we have new stockists ranging our salads. This is what we've been planning and working towards to a while now and is another milestone for our business. Being able to stock more shops means we need to grow larger quantities, so we've been building more hydroponic and in-ground beds. It takes a while to do this, because we're self funded and our normal workload doesn't leave us much time for building. 

Selling larger quantities of our products means longer days of harvest and packing. We're pretty much working every day of the week right now ... and I mention this not as a moan but because we have readers of this blog who want to know what it's like for us as small market gardeners. The truth is that there are periods of time that we have to work really hard to achieve the next step for our business. During these busy times we often work out more efficient ways to do our work to speed up the process. Bonus.

We're excited to announce our new stores:

Sabato ... legendary foodie heaven in Mt Eden/Newmarket. It's the most incredible food store ever, packed with the finest Artisan products sourced from around the world and here at home. Most of their suppliers are small businesses who use traditional methods of production. It's certainly an honour for Salty River Farm to be gracing Sabato's fridge. If you haven't visited Sabato before, allow some time to take in this culinary wonderland ... plenty of carparks right outside the door.

4 FARRO stores ... GREY LYNN, MAIRANGI BAY (constellation dr), SMALES FARM and MOUNT WELLINGTON. Having Farro stocking our salads means it's easier for our customers to get hold of their favourite Salty River Farm salads throughout Auckland.

It's just the beginning of Winter but the little changes of season are everywhere on our little farm. Early one morning I headed outside to begin the morning harvest. As I walked out I saw spiderwebs on fences and in trees, illuminated by the strong early morning light and cold morning's dew. During the morning as the dew dried and the sunlight softened and spread across the sky the spiderwebs became harder to see and it seemed they had magically disappeared. 

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.

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.

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

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 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!