Get growing

Growing our own veggie garden and getting one step closer to living off the land.

Two years ago, we bought a two-acre block near Lake Taupo and Ruapehu to build a sustainably focused holiday pad with friends. Since the day I first stepped onto the land, I have dreamed of a city escape, where the kids could run free and we could eat off the land.

One of the first things we did when the foundations were being laid was set up six large 2m-long raised garden beds made from untreated macrocarpa. Years ago, when I was in my 20s (not that many years ago, guys), I started an online business, urbanmac. I wanted to enable city slickers like myself to grow organic vegetables at home in kitset garden beds, using whatever size garden or patio they had. Thirteen years later, urbanmac is still growing strong and I’m now able to grow veggies in a garden bigger than I ever dreamed of.

With spring air and less icy frosts, we planned to get our vegetable garden planted in September. Unfortunately, the extended lockdown in Auckland meant that I wasn’t able to travel down to the land on our planned landscaping weekend. Being based at Mount Maunganui, Marianne and Sean were able to go ahead as planned (with Sean’s amazing parents helping out), spending a few days at the mountain house with Sean on the digger landscaping and moving dirt, and Marianne and her kids planting vegetable seedlings that should be ready to eat over summer.

Sean filled our raised garden beds with rich Waikato topsoil (thank goodness for that digger!), adding the compost we have been creating this year using the food scraps we accumulate whenever we come down to stay. A beautiful bounty of broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, herbs, strawberries, tomatoes and spring onions have been planted.

As the area is rampant with rabbits, we truly don’t know how these garden beds will go: will the boxes be high enough to prevent them discovering them and having a feed? For now, we are giving it a go, while on the side I am researching homemade net cover designs in case our next trip down finds our vegetable plants have been eaten by those unwanted dusk visitors. Visions of Peter Rabbittype escapades come to mind.

We also have a mini orchard growing a range of fruit trees, including feijoa hedging, apple, pear and peach trees. Now in their third year of growth, we should start to see some decent fruit this season. For now, all of our fingers and toes are crossed that us Brookers can make it out of lockdown for our summer vacation at the Lake.