Gardening Information

Here are some guidelines for the kinds of activities you should be undertaking in your garden on a monthly basis. The secret to productive gardening is to work consistently and plant regularly - plant something every day if possible. See our guidelines below for what to do, harvest, and plant every month.

When most people hear ‘edible gardening’ they imagine the vege plot around the back of the house. Straight rows of caterpillar eaten lettuce and wilted silver beet! Today; as garden’s become smaller and lives busier, edible gardens have the opportunity to become the main garden. As we are faced with issues such as genetic engineering and high l...

A punnet of six seedlings from the garden centre costs around the same as a packet of seeds which will, depending on the type of plant, have over 100 seeds in it. You do the math’s on which is more cost effective! There is something very satisfying with raising vegetables from seeds. Seed raising will open up a huge world of hard to find, heirl...

Chickens make great pets, they are docile, easy to keep and happily consume all your kitchen scraps, converting them into delicious eggs and rich manure. They are also excellent workers with their natural scratching and pecking put to use they weed, clean up fallen fruit and eat bugs. The trick with them is to devise a system where they work for yo...

If you collect seeds from your own plants you can truly become self sufficient with your vegetable growing. Let a few plants of the type you want to grow again go to seed. You may want to choose a variety that you particularly enjoyed eating, or most pest resistant or still grew with little watering or care. By choosing these sorts of plants you ar...

Creating a Bee Friendly Garden Nothing evokes the sense of an organic garden like the hum of honeybees toiling among sun-warmed summer flowers. Honey bees are important for pollination of all our fruits and berries and many of our vegetables crops. They don’t need us but we certainly need them. World wide their numbers are on the decline...

How to ‘squirrel’ your Produce For centuries families have squirreled away their garden surplus to feed their family through winter. Plenty of crops will keep for months if stored correctly with no need for freezing, bottling or preserving. The golden rule is to store only fruit and vegetables that are in perfect condition. Allow air circul...

Beneficial insects, or as I call them the good guys, play a very important role in any organic garden, maintaining the natural balance. Beneficial insects include many wasps, ladybirds, lacewings, damselflies, hover flies and different types of bees. Unfortunately like many organisms beneficial insects are under threat from pesticides, spreading su...

In today’s world any way to prise children out from in front of the TV or Xbox can be a real challenge for parents. One way to get kids outside can be to involve them in gardening. By designing the garden with the kids in mind it is possible to develop an exciting adventure playground and fantasy world within your own property boundary. A child’s w...

Find community gardens in New Zealand via an interactive map on the Good Magazine web site.

Companion planting is a method of gardening that minimises the risk of pests and disease, without the use of pesticides and fungicides etc. Plants that complement and support each other are planted together. Some combinations works because of scents and chemicals the companion plants release which repel undesirable bugs, or attract desirable bugs.

All over the city there is food that is being grown by nature, which falls on the ground and rots without being utilised. The Urban Foraging group will function as a treasure map for the city, displaying information about foraging throughout the Christchurch area which are publicly accessible. This map is also open for persons who have food growing...

Here's five great immune boosters to keep you healthy.

t makes sense to add native plants to your garden. Because they were ‘home grown' over millions of years natives can be quite well suited to our conditions, in some cases thriving with a minimum of fuss. This saves you time on watering and maintenance, so you can relax and enjoy your outdoor surroundings. They also hold the soil well on slopes. ...

Apartment-dwellers need not miss out on the pleasures of gardening – plenty of plants thrive in pots and garden bags, set up in small areas. They are a good option for people who want to garden but don’t have any access to land. They add a nice "green feature" to flats and apartments, adding living colour to verandas, patios, steps, kitch...

Choose the natural way of keeping the pests out and diseases at bay!

Learn how to plant your container garden in this demonstration gardening video. It has great beginner gardening advice for container gardening.

Share in your bountiful crop. Don't let your your surplus fruit go to waste. Add the location, type, time of year for harvest and any other instructions. You need to login with a google account, then click Edit, then add a place mark (top left of map) to be able to add locations. Add other interesting items like Community Gardens, markets, cy...

Crop Rotation is the practice of changing or rotating growing areas in your garden, to enhance the health and productivity of your plants.

The pH of things is one of the mysteries of daily life. It comes up when the conversation turns to beer making, swimming pool water, dairy products or garden soil. This degree of acidity or alkalinity, is expressed as a number is called pH. What's really being measured is the concentration of hydrogen (H) ions -- the more hydrogen ions there are, t...

Here is a quick video on the steps involved in constructing a no dig garden bed. You do not have to follow the video specifically, you can use different materials - just follow the general pattern of construction.

While most people would find tiger droppings offensive, there are millions of gardeners who look at look at manure as money in the bank.

For gardeners who like to cook, there's nothing like fresh herbs. But when the growing season ends, does it mean you have to resort to grocery store herbs?

Sooner or later gardeners come across the word "compost." As easy as it is to say, compost has a reputation for being difficult to master. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. If I can make hot, 160-degree compost during an Alaska winter (see photo below), you can too--no matter where you grow your tomatoes. It's easy. In fact, yo...

Tried-and-true tips to successfully grow your own vegetable, flower and herb seedlings and save money in the process.

Did you know that a No. 2 pencil can do extraordinary things, especially for gardeners who are looking for the right tool to do the right job? It's true. Pick up a pencil and roll it in your fingers. Think potential here. Like paper clips and toothpicks, pencils have more than one life. And for gardeners, it's a dream come true.

At the very moment seeds germinate, they need extra attention. It's just like raising children. In this article we'll learn what your seedlings need to grow up to be healthy and respectable "kids" including how to compare soil to a slice of bread.

A backyard solution to your dog waste woes.

Safe and effective ways to shoo cats from your garden

A year-round strategy for organic weed control.

A year-round strategy for organic weed control.

Many people think that it is not possible to have an orchard in the city but there are many cleaver ways of cramming fruit bearing trees into a small space. My personal tree philosophy is don’t just choose a tree on its looks but choose a tree which will produce an edible crop for you as well. The secret to creating an orchard in a small space i...

Grow a craft project in in your garden this summer? Growing birdhouse gourds and then making a bidhouse is a great outdoor project to do with the kids. A good winter project when winter gardening is not very comfortable! Gourd birdhouses are attractive to many species of birds including Sparrows, Wax eyes, Swallows and Chaf-finches. It all dep...

Growing tomato plants is one of the big items for gardeners at this time of the year and even non gardeners will likely have a go at growing a plant or two. Some gardeners are very fastidious in their selection of types grown, the special culture methods used and like wines, some years have better vintages than other years. From garden centre...

Gardeners keen on growing their own cucumbers will be purchasing plants about now for establishing in sunny, sheltered positions or for growing in their glasshouses. Cucumbers along with watermelons and rock melons need warm settled weather to do best and if the weather is not settled they will sulk and preform poorly. I find that in Palmerston N...

Carrots are brilliant sweet staple vegetable to grow, and baby carrots are particularly versatile. They are easy to grow, cheap to sow so will save you dough! In December, get your carrots on baby! The most cost effective way to grow vegetables is growing from seed. Seeds are cheap as chips and you can grow a heck of a lot of seedlings from a bag ...

Seaweed, which originates from the ocean's garden, is one of the best materials for an earth garden. For one thing, kelp helps stimulates soil bacteria. This, in turn increases fertility of the soil by humus formation (which feeds on the bacteria), aeration and moisture retention.

Gardeners are always looking for new ways to improve their gardens whether it be their vegetables, roses, ornamentals or fruit trees. The goal is to have very healthy plants, wonderful roses, great lawns and high yielding crops. There are a number of things that you can do to improve your gardens such as improving your soils. The optimum is to ha...

Avocados are health and delicious but can be on the expensive side to buy. But did you know that you can grow an avocado from the stone in the middle of an avocado purchased from the shop? All you need to do is put it suspended over a jar of water with just one end in the water and once it has sprouted, transfer it to a pot until it grows too big f...

Three identical lettuces were purchased at the same time and stored for ten days in three different ways. Check out the methods and results!

I have been thinking of keeping bees for a while now and I have done research into the different options that are available. What initially struck me was the cost and the amount of gear required to run a conventional hive. To buy a new hive and all the required tools can easily set you back $800. The other surprise is the amount of equipment requir...

A comprehensive step by step guide to setting up and looking after a worm farm.

Po-tay-to, po-tahh-to – however you say it, now’s the time to plant one of New Zealand’s favourite veges. So get outdoors and gear up for spuds this summer. You can start by purchasing seed potatoes from your local garden centre. Seed potatoes look like any other spud (but smaller!) and can be bought in various flavours and quantities. The t...