Greenbridge’s Regenerative Garden Tips for Spring
Bena Denton-Woolley shares with us some areas to focus on to ensure you have a pumping and healthy veggie garden...
Bena and Daniel from Greenbridge in their regenerative designed garden.
Learn more about Greenbridge on www.greenbridge.co.nz
1. Plant your carbon crops. Growing the raw material for your compost = feeding the microbes. At this time of year, great carbon crops to plant include; millet, barley, and summer wheat but can also include crops that double as carbon and give your whanau a food yield as well ie: corn and lambs quarters.
2. Warm your soil. A bit of soil trickery to turn the soil temperature up a notch or two: from simple repurposed plastic containers to planting into black plastic with a slit (can be re-used), to fancy cloches – these all work a treat.
3. Buy seedlings if you have to. Sometimes busy lives mean buying the best quality seedlings you can find (try Awapuni or Big Jims). It's still a good idea to try to sow bulk crops ie corn and dwarf beans, but when you only need one cucumber, a bought seedling will do.
4. What to plant now. This cold snap is a good teacher not to rush things - patience is the gardener’s friend! Try sow now (in a warm spot) climbing and dwarf beans, corn, zucchini, cucumber, tomatoes, parsley, spring onions, basil, and peppers. Direct sow: carrots, coriander, peas, salad greens, mizuna, and rocket. Add lots of flowers for beauty and beneficial insects; sunflowers, zinnia, sweetpeas, calendula, cosmos, borage, phacelia...
5. Intercrop. Think small ‘batches’ of crops sown into old crops, by cutting away little spaces to sneak in your tomatoes or cucumber. This gives these seedlings some added protection from fluctuating soil temperatures. Or plant a 1 x 1m area of carrots or garlic in two to three different areas of the garden, rather than one big bed. This gives you a bit of insurance against pests and diseases. Mixed root depths feed different soil microbes and nutrient-dense food is all about healthy soil.
Written by Bena Denton-Woolley.
During the Sustainable Backyards Trail:
Growers Gathering at Greenbridge:
When: Sat 5 Nov 3-5pm
Where: 321 Hurford Road, Omata, New Plymouth 4374
More info and tickets here.
Food Forests and Edible Gardens talk
When: 28th Oct 10am, 30th Oct and 4th Nov 4pm, and 6th Nov 2pm
Where: 321 Hurford Road, Omata, New Plymouth 4374.
Greenbridge from above.
