Do you have the best gardening intentions but lack inspiration and know-how? These blogs and accounts may help.
Unlike in past generations, for many of us, gardening tips weren’t passed down from our parents or grandparents. If you’re starting from scratch or need a bit of guidance to get your garden flourishing, these passionate experts could be a worthy replacement for the village of yore.
Mrs Evans Garden
Mrs Evans leads the way with her prolific and beautiful home garden in Rotorua, where she grows seasonal vegetables and fruit for her family – as well as flowers for the pollinators. She has a wealth of knowledge and tips on what to grow where and when, how to get things started and how to plan a garden and keep it ticking over through the seasons. She also has a brand new, gorgeous book, Hands in the Dirt: Grow your own kai with Mrs Evans, if leafing through real life pages is more your bag.
The Edible Backyard
Kath Irvine’s blog on The Edible Backyard website is continuously updated with seasonal prompts and tricks for getting the most kai out of your patch. Follower’s comments and questions are answered swiftly and thoughtfully, with a tone of voice that is down-to-earth and not too technical (but not condescending either!). This means even a beginner can soak up timely tips by following her ongoing gardening journey. She also has a book that documents a year in her garden and sends out an extremely useful newsletter at the start of each month. Highly recommend!
Poppy's Farmyard
For those who prefer to glean knowledge from watching, rather than reading, Poppy is one to follow. Her Insta is packed with informative and aesthetically on-point videos and photos from her cottage garden in Central Otago. She uses thrift store finds and salvaged materials to make plots and planters, and advocates for the mental health benefits of gardening, having suffered from depression and anxiety.
Good Life Permaculture
Based in Tasmania – which has a similar climate to New Zealand – Good Life Permaculture is led by friendly expert Hannah Moloney, host of the Gardening Australia TV show and author of two best-selling books. Along with a passionate team of garden lovers and environmentalists, she works across Australia on permaculture projects and advocates for a back-to-basics, living-off-the-land life. Her blog has plenty of tips for organic home gardens as does her fun and vibrant Instagram account. Plus her outdoor life makes for some cute and curious posts.
OMG Auckland
For a taste of urban regenerative gardening, this Insta account follows the journey of a pocket of land in central Auckland, which has been turned into a productive kai garden. OMG (an initialism for Organic Market Garden) has a vege box subscription service popular among city dwellers, and attracts an active community of volunteers. Seeing what can be done in a contained urban space is both inspiring and motivating for home gardeners.
Header image is Leah Evans of Mrs Evans Gardens photographed by Lottie Hedley.
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