lingee wrote: and my asparagus that is now 5 years old picking each day.

Don't have green fingers and don't have much land either, but for the past three years have tried to grow some vegetables.

Since moving to an acre in northern Taranaki 4 years ago, we have gradually become self sufficient with veg with fruit slowly getting better.

2 raised veg beds plus 2x2m veg pods plus 20 buckets plus an extra few hundred square metres for whatever. Also a mixed flock of 20 odd chickens. Had a few Jacobs sheep but suffered serious fly strike when I was really crook, so sheep now only kept in freezer.

Usually have a mix of seasonal greens including beetroot, carrots, broccoli, potatoes, lettuce all in buckets and peas and beans over 10 metres along a fence. Also grow crops of potatoes over about 20 square metres.

Struggle for some reason with most brassica so have now moved to sprouting broccoli in purple and green in buckets which seems to work better. Being a household of only 2, we pick most veg per meal. Celery, chives, spring onions, spinach/silverbeet, parsley, lemongrass, coriander, rosemary are almost perpetual and many now self-seeding. Potatoes are Purple Heart, Van Rosa and Swift.

I make relishes, pickles or chutneys with excesses (beans, beetroot, and green tomatoes) and I have successfully dried kilos of apples.

Fruit are guava, avos, passion fruit (make “ice cubes” of pulp), lemons, limes, oranges, plums, peaches, apples, figs, one feijoa, tamarillos, a mandarin, cape gooseberry, blackberry & strawberries to varying degrees of success. Besides one lemon and an ailing feijoa, I have planted the rest myself. We also have 2 olives which bore a small crop for the first time this year. I planted 2-year old asparagus crowns when I got here, so we enjoy these for a few weeks each year.

Unproductive fruit trees are currently finger lime, Yuzu and a newly planted persimmon. Mulberry, which I struggled to find, was unsuccessful.

Frost remains the bane of my gardening life. In my first year, I had a frost in December and the following summer, I had a frost in January. So a great windless fishing day can turn into a painful gardening night. As you can imagine, my tamarillos and young avo trees especially take a hammering. I was fortunate with my tomatoes and potatoes in both cases.

We are 2 km from the sea and 30 km from the mountain, so have a relatively mild micro-climate for the Naki. I have now planted babaco & banana against a north-facing wall, as others around me have managed to crop from both successfully in my area.

Big -Dave wrote: My fingers are oil and glue stained, not green... I buy my veg in 1kg bags..

Reel Deal wrote: Great affords lads.   smudge love the Turkeys what are the pros and cons of keeping them ?