Cover Story
Natural-born gardeners
by Maggie Barry
With the price of fruit and vegetables rising astronomically, New Zealanders are rediscovering the joys of gardening.
My father grew up in Hastings during the Depression and he and his seven siblings had to garden because you didn’t eat if you didn’t grow it.
My mother, who opened her Wellington florist shop during World War II, always grew flowers and foliage, because even though money was short, she liked to have something pleasant to put in a vase.
Gardening was just what everybody did. Most Kiwis had a couple of rose bushes and camellias. And around the back of the house, next to the clothesline, there were always a few fruit trees – and the vegetable garden.
Yet, over the next 50 years, vegetable growing became a casualty of a rapidly expanding and prosperous society. Fresh produce became readily and, usually cheaply, available from conveniently located supermarkets. Fewer and fewer New Zealanders seemed to have the time or inclination to garden.
But that’s changing. There is now a noticeable shift back to growing our own vegetables. After a lean few years of a gardening downturn, garden centres happily report a huge surge in sales of fruit trees, seeds and vegetable plants.
Public gardens, too, are responding to the demand for knowledge. At Auckland’s Botanic Gardens in Manurewa, for example, staff have just planted the first of a six-stage redevelopment of its edible garden because visitors say they want to see more vegetables.
Last week, I enjoyed visiting half a dozen fine gardens at the Taranaki Rhododendron Festival and they all featured abundant vegetable gardens. This year, as part of the festival’s 21st birthday celebrations, organisers included a separate category for vegetable gardens – and these were the ones reportedly inundated with inquisitive young people armed with cameras and notebooks.
So, what’s prompted all this?
Certainly the grim economic forecasts are making people think about cutting costs where they can. And there’s plenty of money to be saved, especially if you collect and grow from your own seeds.
Statistics New Zealand reports that the prices for fruit and vegetables rose 18% in the year to September 2008, with the cost of lettuce rising nearly 140% and broccoli 110%. Those who like tomatoes will be relieved to know tomato prices fell about 11% in the same period.
And despite fuel prices dropping in recent months, the overall increase in the past few years has provided another incentive for people to grow their own produce. Earlier this year, the New York Times reported that seed and produce companies have not seen such an interest in growing food at home since the rampant inflation of the 1970s.
And it wasn’t just vegetables – one US firm reported that fruit trees had sold out, as had blueberry, raspberry and grape plants.
In New Zealand, it has become a challenge to find strawberry plants in the past few weeks, according to garden centre owners, who say demand has been unprecedented.
Simon Thompson, sales and marketing general manager for Zealandia, one of the country’s largest wholesalers of plants and commercial seedlings, says the edible-garden trend is “very big. Products are just going out the door, which is a good sign, really – it’s telling me that people are wanting to grow their own food and they also want to know what’s been sprayed on it.”
He says Zealandia has tripled production of vegetable and edible-gardening items, echoing sales trends in countries like the US.
Thompson says the growth can be attributed to several factors, including the influence of British chefs Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay, who have adopted a back-to-basics approach with fresh, homegrown herbs and vegetables in their recipes.
Items initially introduced as a novelty by Zealandia, such as a cocktail carrot in a punnet, have sold in their thousands, Thompson says. Retailers are also selling quite a few metre-square vegetable boxes for people who have smaller sections or want to grow veges on their apartment balcony. Others are more sophisticated, using a much bigger area for their plot and planting flowers like marigolds to help keep out aphids.
Thompson and his family have a 4.8ha property on the outskirts of Christchurch where they enjoy growing tomatoes and lettuces. “The kids are getting back into it – there are a lot of school programmes that are promoting gardening. It’s great that it’s coming back – I used to love being in the garden with my grand-parents, so hopefully I can pass it on.”
Rhys Taylor of the Sustainable Living organisation, which runs gardening classes in conjunction with several city and district councils, says cost and the desire to eat more healthily and better understand what is in our food are driving the edible-garden craze.
He says Sustainable Living ran gardening classes for more than 2000 Kiwis last year and demand has increased this year.
“There’s a growing awareness in New Zealand that some of our foodstuffs carry pesticide loads … so there’s a growth of interest in having unadulterated food, and that motivates people to grow their own.”
Taylor has planted an orchard of heritage plum, pear and apple trees at his property in South Canterbury. “I love communicating and learning about gardening.”
Last weekend he ran gardening classes for a group of Ashburton residents, many of whom are planning to convert their extensive lawns into orchards and vege-table plots.
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