In my garden: May

We are really into simple living and natural eating. I have done a ton of research into nutrient dense food and would love to learn to grow my own food. Until we get to live on a little block of land I am honing my (non-existent) skills in our little suburban patch.

The Koanga institute is where I have learned a lot and ordered seeds, fertilizers and books. The institute is dedicated to saving New Zealand's heritage of seeds and simple. natural living.

This season we wanted to start small and grow learn to grow carrots, beetroot and onions from seeds. Our soil is clay based so we have improved it with Koanga's EF Active calcium and EF Natures Garden Fertiliser.

The carrots have done well! They are super easy, sew seeds into the soil and they grow. We chose the Oxheart variety as they are good in clay soil. We got a free packet of snow peas and these grew really well from seeds too.

Here is my little beetroot patch. The beetroots were so hard to grow from seeds and this was my third attempt. I choose the Chioggia variety as they are striped. That's the only reason (!)

Next to the beetroots are the onions. These are not from seeds as I gave up. They didn't even raise their heads out of the seed tray *sigh*. I bought seedlings which are the same variety as the seeds- Pukekohe.

This is a bit hit and miss and I am learning. But it's such fun and I can't wait to eat our own food!

grow baby grow

We are getting into growing our own food. Part of our journey to simple living. I love that we know what goes into these plants and that they are nutrient dense.

It's been a bit of a learning curve as I am such a newbie though! Growing plants from seed has been... interesting! I have tiny little beetroot plants in the ground now and so very glad to have them out of the seed trays and into the soil. They are particular little plants and it took 3 round of seeds/ seedlings before I got these ones. I managed to kill the others through lack of sun and then too much sun...

Loving learning and can't wait to get fresh beetroot juice into my Mom. Pure goodness!