🌱 Rain, Sunshine & Getting Ready for Spring in the Garden

It was shaping up to be a beautiful sunny gardening day yesterday… until we actually got to the garden! The showers had arrived, but we weren't going to let a bit of rain get in the way. We powered through, got our hands dirty and managed to get plenty done.

We were also joined by Jay, who came along for the session. He was great company, really interesting to chat with and very helpful around the garden.

🌽 Getting ready for the Three Sisters

We started by having a look at our garden plan and then got stuck into the garden bed that is going to become our Three Sisters Garden.

The Three Sisters is a traditional companion planting method using corn, beans and squash or pumpkin. Each plant brings something useful to the combination. The corn provides a structure for climbing beans, the beans help add nitrogen to the soil, and the squash spreads across the ground, helping shade the soil and reduce moisture loss and weeds.

It's a clever example of how plants can work together rather than each one needing its own separate space — and we're really looking forward to seeing how our Three Sisters garden develops.

But first… we had some serious weeding to do!

🥦 A little harvest for the community

We pulled out some of our older, leggy spinach and separated our bunching spring onions, giving them more room to grow.

And there was a little harvest waiting for us too. We picked some lovely broccoli and popped everything into a kai bag, which we left in the kitchen for a $5 koha.

The best part? Every dollar earned from the garden goes straight back into the community.

The money we make from our garden helps us demonstrate that the project is creating value for our community and supports us in securing funding so we can keep doing more awesome mahi.

So that little $5 bag of garden produce can help us grow more than vegetables. 🌱

☀️ Getting ready for an El Niño summer

We've also got one eye firmly on the weather.

Last week we spent quite a bit of time trying to get our irrigation system set up because El Niño conditions are expected to have a significant influence on New Zealand's weather this spring and summer.

According to the latest NIWA outlook, Northland is one of the areas where rainfall is most likely to be below normal during September–November, with soil moisture also having a higher chance of being below normal. El Niño is also expected to bring more frequent and stronger westerly and southwesterly winds to New Zealand.

Which is all very interesting when you're trying to grow vegetables!

Unfortunately, our irrigation mission didn't quite go to plan. The rather frustrating placement of the tap meant we couldn't get the system sorted, so that's still on our garden jobs list.

In the meantime, we're taking the approach of getting our spring vegetables in early.

Our aim is to have as much planted as possible by the end of September, while there is still plenty of moisture in the soil and before we head further into the warmer, potentially drier months.

Kath has lots of seedlings growing away in her glasshouse, while I have tomatoes and beetroot ready to find their new homes in the garden.

There's plenty of planting ahead!

🐌 And then there are the slugs…

Of course, no garden update would be complete without mentioning our ongoing battle with the slugs.

They remain determined.

We remain determined.

It's an ongoing negotiation. 🐌

👩‍🌾 The kids get stuck in

The kids were fantastic helpers yesterday.

They particularly loved pulling out the old plants and digging over the soil. There's something very satisfying about ripping out a plant that has finished its job and turning over the soil underneath!

And that's exactly what we want the garden to be about — people getting involved, learning by doing, growing food and having a good time together.

By the end of the session, the garden bed was looking completely different.

All that's left now is a good layer of compost…

and then we're ready to plant! 🌱

Spring seedlings, here we come.

Even though we got rained on, it was a really productive morning. We harvested food, prepared new growing space, worked on our plans for the coming season and, as always, had some good conversations along the way.

There's something pretty special about a community garden. You start with a patch of soil and a few seedlings, add a bunch of people, a bit of rain, some compost and a lot of mahi — and before long, you've got food growing, people connecting and something that gives back to the whole community.

We can't wait to see what this garden looks like by summer. 🌱🌽🎃🫘