Spring magic '24

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