Topic: central otago

central otago 

i live in the southern lakes area and want to start my own vege garden this summer.. where do i start!!

Re: central otago 

Ha I'm in the same boat, started digging today and have no idea what to plant.

Re: central otago 

*novice myself*

id suggest preparing your area where you wish to plant. so start turning over your patch, maybe adding some compost or other organic matter in there.

just have a look at the back of seed packets and they tell you when you can plant, and how to do so. easy! you can also get started early by starting seedlings early indoors (or in a greenhouse).

Re: central otago 

Hi , I am actually in West Otago and relatively new to the southern hemisphere...I have tried to garden in NZ for three years now: 1 in Christchurch, 1 in Invercargill and 1 here...on top of that I grew up in a family of green thumbs, but wasn't interested until lately so my learning curve has been huge!

Here are some things that have helped me:
1. I discovered raised beds, also known as no dig garden or lasagne gardening. I highly recommend this as it saves a lot of weed pulling, helps you cheat the temps because it is warmer than the ground temperature, it is easy to plant (and rearrange the plants if you are like me), you can cover with netting or frost protection, and as long as you are careful with the temps and watering the plants love it and grow happily. (NB they said if you are a newbie start with 1m sq.)

2. I used the garden calendar planner tool on the front page of this website. I looked up my region and it states month by month what to plant when.

3. I talked to people in my area about what grows when and got a good feel what to plant and when. (NB many said you can't grow this at this time or it has to be grown this way, but we and others have found you can cheat this too)

4. I poured over my "Organic Gardening Bible", "John Seymour's Guide to Self Suffenciency" and the "New Zealand Get Growing Garden Diary". My husband measured our back garden for dimensions and made a map. Using these resources I made a list of what I wanted to plant and checked to see if it was realistic with my space and then divided it up into seasons and matched up the companions.

5. I will mention we used a nifty little tool in our back garden as well...our chicken tractors. My husband makes and sells them. They till and fertilise the soil. He's designing a cover for the raised bed that has he same dimensions and shape as the typical a-frame chicken tractor to put on the raised bed. It will have mesh on one side and plastic panels to serve as a sort of tunnel house and pest deterent. We are hoping to grow a greater diversity of items than our region will support by doing this. We will be implement the other odd trick of putting in a water filled items to catch the sun and hold the heat at night. We'll see how that goes.

I am pretty excited as it all was so overwhelming at first, but seems to be coming together.

You are in Central so you generally have a warmer summer for growing and may be able to naturally grow some things we have to force here. All the best!