Autumn is well and truly upon us, and we are having a lovely time of it in the garden since the heavy rain has passed. Hope no one suffered too much damage in their gardens with the onslaught of wet weather we had earlier. It has been a strange season and certainly the wettest we have had to date in Hawke’s Bay. We have mostly done well to have the extra moisture, but it did pose some issue as we were ripening seed in the field. As we every season, there were some wins and some failures. The lettuces were hit the hardest and our second harvest was mostly lost. Also, we are noticing the pumpkins are not storing as well, due to the extra moisture. I used to get very emotionally drawn into the weather and the crops wellbeing. It still has an effect, but I now trust that each season we will do well with some crops and less so with others. That is the beauty of diversification in the veggie patch. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket and you won’t be disappointed. Nature loves variety, and we are part of nature, so it is good for us too!
 
After much anticipation, we are happy to announce Seed Potatoes are in stock on the website! I want to apologise in advance, as again, limited quantities available. We are so sorry for those of you who will miss out. This is a common problem we have been having with garlic, multiplying onions and seed potatoes as the demand is so high on these crops, but we cannot dedicate all of our time and garden space to them or we wouldn’t have all the other lovely seeds for sale. We hope you understand.

And on a very timely topic, our Multiplying Onions are also ready for sale! Limited stock again, so get in quick. We apologise for the delay. But we are just in time for planting! This is great news for you, as when you get yours in the post, plant them straight away! For the second year, we are sending out bulbils with each bulb pack!  We do recommend planting the bulbils first in trays and transplanting out for best results.

So what is a bulbil!? Bulbils are the top setting seeds on both the Egyptian Tree Onion and Henry's Flowering Shallot. These top setting seeds are why these crops are sometimes referred to as "walking onions." If left in the ground the tops will fall over and the seeds will grow and give the appearance that the crop is walking across the garden! This also makes them a great food forest crop as they will multiply on their own without needing to be harvested and replanted. For those wanting to grow them in a small garden fear not! These really work well in any situation. 

An easier choice than growing onions from seed. I find onions to be hit or miss when grown from seed, depending on the season. With multiplying onions, they seem to produce well with a lot less effort! When planted in a well fertilised bed and mulched, pretty much nothing can go wrong. And did I mention how sweet they taste! They are delicious raw or cooked. We hope you love them as much as we do! 

We are listing today all of the stock we have for these new products. So even if a day after this newsletter goes out our website states: “we are sold out some of the varieties”, I am sorry to say this will be the truth.

And remember the best thing you can do is to save some of your harvest of potatoes and multiplying onions for next season! So, we wish you all bountiful harvests and some spare to hold back for the following year. 

Attention!! For Seed Potato AND Multiplying Onion Orders Only - YOU MUST USE THE WEBSITE TO PLACE YOUR ORDER. We have such limited stock that it is likely that email orders will not get processed in time before the stock has sold out online. So do not delay and order online. For those who cannot use our website to place an order we are very sorry for this inconvenience and potential disappointment.

Since our last newsletter we have sadly said farewell to Rebecca, our Administrative Assistant who has been answering all of your emails and processing your orders since she started in September 2020. We so enjoyed working with Rebecca and thank her for all of her hard work and helping us to fine tune our systems. We want to take this moment to wish Rebecca the best with her next adventure and to draw your attention to a very special project she has been a part of creating. Village Agrarians is a grassroots network that aims to provide support to new and existing ecological, regenerative, and organic growers, producers and farmers in Aotearoa New Zealand, and build community and food resilience along the way. For job listings, land share opportunities and more head over to their website.  

As some of you may have noticed, or main gardener has also jumped into the office as our new Administrative Assistant and now you will be hearing from Kiersten-Anna when you get in touch with questions. We hope you have found this transition seamless. And a big thanks shout out to Kiersten-Anna for taking on yet another responsibility around the place, we are truly grateful!