Justice

Gardening

By Graham Cameron / 6 April 2007

Gardening on a social justice blog?A good question, but that overgrown patch of weeds out in your backyard could be your first step to addressing global warming.

I agree that sounds a little grand, but one of the key drivers to global warming has been that our lives have so specialised we feel no personal responsibility for being kaitiaki of Papatuanuku. We have removed ourselves from growing, nuturing and preparing food crops, which removes an awareness of our natural environment.  

Gardening is our chance to connect again. But it’s quite hard to start, so here’s a few tips for starting today. 

Your plot

Gardening is more about dirt than it is about plants. We are blessed in Tauranga with excellent soil, but in Wellington we had to work with clay. The current fashion is the no-dig, built-up garden. These are great, but I don’t do them, so look them up on Google if you are interested.

If you are starting from scratch, then you are likely digging over a new plot. Measure out the area you want. Size does matter. For our whānau of 3 adults and 2 children we have a total of about 20 square metres. This is not all in one place. Creatively use your space. If you have a strip here, think beans, peas, things that grow up. If you have a shady-ish patch there, think hardy plants, like silverbeet or spinach. But you will need a main plot that has good drainage, good sun, and good soil if you are going to have a garden that meets your needs.

Watch the sun throughout the day. Where does it come up? Where does it go down? What parts of your property get sun all day, just in the mornng, just in the afternoon?

Then the wind. What is the most common wind you get? Where do the strongest winds normally come from?

How do these change with the seasons? Answering these questions will help you pick an area to garden. If you are strapped for space, don’t despair. We have a property that is only 380 square metres, and the house is 120 square metres. You just need to change your view – your grass and your tiling are not as important as your garden, and small is not beautiful, but also possible. 

I recommend the double-dig method to turn over an area that has never been gardened. This means dig out a spade-depth of topsoil, then turn over a spade length under that. Then put the topsoil back on top. Yes, it is back-breaking, but it is also successful. You might think, I’ll use a rotary hoe. I say, don’t be lazy. Use a spade.

If you have grass on top, cut it off with your spade, pick it up and shake the dirt off it. Grass left in a pile with a bit of polythene on top soon rots, and can be put in your compost. 

Compost

Did somebody mention compost? Forget gardening if you don’t have compost. Compost bins, heaps, fancy buckets, worm farms, worm baths – whatever you like, just do it. We have a compost heap, a bin and a worm farm. That is about right for our household waste, and worms can eat small amounts of meat (which is all I ever leave).

Composting is all about heat and the mix of materials. Get some books out, it is worth a read. Composting is actually pretty simple, providing you have a good mix of materials like straw, grass, paper, household wastes, keep it covered and turn it over regularly. Yes, you have to touch it. You will come to love it.

I started our compost before our garden. This meant once we had left our new plot a couple of weeks, I could then fork through compost to enrich the soil. Do not buy cheap compost! It is mostly bark, and often has weeds. Use compost regularly. You will see the soil change over a relatively short period.

Every gardener has something they swear by when talking about composting. I swear by seafood. The shells are a wonderful addition to compost, adding a good nitrogen boost to the soil over time.

Planting

Getting a new plot ready takes about a month. If you did it tomorrow, you could plant in May, which is not too bad for winter crops.

Now, I’ll tell you what I plant in Tauranga, but you need to ask an obviously successful gardener in your area what they plant. Initially, ask them what are their “easy” crops. Success now will inspire you to go again.

Autumn has begun in earnest here in Tauranga, and we have been planting in earnest. My garden is half is experiment, half certainty. I’ve just planted carrot, beetroot, radish, and swede seeds. In some areas, like here, you can plant seeds directly into the plot. In other areas, you will need to raise seedlings, and plant those out.

I’ve also planted leeks, onions, lettuces. I’ll plant garlic and peas next month. We have existing crops of silverbeet and spinach. I’m glad to say the strawberries are going strong. The tomatoes are just finishing. I’ve covered my pepper and chilli plants to protect them from frost. Kumara should be ready in a month or so.

The other key to success is having a rotating bed system. This leaves one area of my garden fallow regularly with a lupin crop in it (this becomes a green manure), and means that you don’t get the diseases building up from having the same crops in the same plot. I recommend it.

If you are just beginning, you might want to think about potatoes to help break up the soil more.

Final piece of advice in this blog: gardening is not necessarily going to save you heaps of money. The supermarkets work on such a scale that they screw producers and offer cheap veges. So don’t let that be your motivation. Gardening will supply you with better tasting, more satisfying veges, and a greater appreciation of this miraculous creation.

Till next time, good gardening.