Quite a few of the full time residents in Tuateawa have great vege gardens and orchards. Tuateawa does present particular challenges but it also has good soil and growing conditions. If you have just bought in Tuateawa, or intend to spend more time here than in the past, a garden makes good sense. We are a distance from the shops and having fresh garden produce to hand is a real boon.
If you would like tasty new potatoes and fresh dwarf beans for Xmas 2009 you could make a start this Queen's Birthday weekend. Select a spot that gets a lot of sun. Levelish places are best as the soil is usually deeper. It will almost certainly have a lot of grass on it. You can use a strimmer to get most of this, dig your patch over with a fork and then weedspray it. This is the hardest part of the job. Remove and reserve as many of the stones you dig up as you can. There are a lot of locked up nutrients in the soil so a dressing of lime will pay dividends in the future. Alternatively you can weedspray your selected site and save the digging for three or four weeks later.
It is best not to be too ambitious when it comes to size. Rabbits are a major problem and they have to be kept out of your garden. The cheapest way to do this is to make a shade cloth fence around your plot. Bunnings warehouse sells shade cloth in 15m.x1m. quantities for not very much. It is easily fastened to a few metal stakes banged into the ground. A Taranaki style gate will let you in and keep the rabbits out! The reserved stones, and perhaps a few others can be used to hold the bottom of the shade cloth down. The plot could do with another weedspray
before planting out and a topdressing of fertilizer to help things along.
One other problem with gardening in Tuateawa is the heavy winds, but the shadecloth will act as a windbreak so a fairly exposed site can be chosen. Then there is the lack of water. You may have sufficient reserves and be able to spare some which would be great. The soil is a fairly heavy clay/loam so it does retain moisture well. You could also mulch around your plants which will conserve soil moisture. It also helps to get an early start with your planting. There are almost never any frosts. Potatoes could go in by mid August, ready to eat in November. You may need some pesticides. Shield bugs are often common on the brambles and they multiply very fast.
Soon it will also be time to plant fruit trees. Plums are particularly good but you need to select varieties that will fertilize each other. Apples are easy and there don't seem to be any codlin moth in our part of Tuateawa. Peaches are particularly good as many varieties fruit over the Xmas period.Both apples and citrus are also, unfortunately good rabbit food! They will eat the bark and kill your trees. I am using lengths of gutterguard as a temporary fix on my trees.
The best sites have deeper soil and some protection from the wind which is valuable at blossom time.
Permanent residents could certainly add a lot more information, so, make a point of asking around as to the most suitable crops and techniques.
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