Hi from the Waikato

Hi everyone, we (me, my husband and two kids) have just bought a small lifestyle block (just under 2 acres) in Whatawhata, near Hamilton. It is one big garden, with a wild area containing natural springs and ponds. The place is beautiful but seriously overgrown so we have made a start tackling the ivy which is choking many of the trees.

Our dream for the place is to grow the majority of our own fruit and veg, organically. I am particularly interested in heritage varieties. My grandmother had a small orchard when I was a child, and I will never forget the small, russeted apples with the crisp flesh, so full of flavour.

We have started our vege patch, and we've bought a few fruit trees to add to the ones already here, including Monty's Surprise apple and Laxton's Favourite apple. Have yet to plant them out.

Looking forward to meeting virtually lots of other lifestyle blockers and gaining much wisdom from it!

Lisa

Welcome aboard to another of the green minded persuasion

Welcome! I'm also from (just out of) Whatawhata! Your dream sounds like ours is, we had a great Autumn last year furiously planting out fruit trees. I can't wait to start picking! This year extending the vege garden is our priority and putting in more water tanks.

Hi, welcome, we are just out of hamilton as well, other direction to you though. tauwhare!!!. it took us a while to suss out what we wanted to do as well. we were just pleased to have some flat land for the kids to run around on and ride bikes. Our place in Hamilton town dropped 8m from front boundry to back!!. We now have 2 cows (had 3 but one now in freezer) and one lamb/sheep. was last years calf club pet and was supposed to be in the freezer by now, i just couldnt do it!! sook i know!!. We have just finished our chook house, i cannot wait to get chickens. I found the lifestyle blocks book on poultry a godsend!!!. now to get the chooks and i want to buy one of those grandpas feeders at the fieldays.
free range eggs here i come!!!.

Hi, I'm a bit further South In Te Awamutu, but if you want some heritage nectarine seed (golden queen,from the orignal plant that Koanga used to propagate theirs) I have about half a dozen left. They will grow from seed and true to type. Just put them in a wet bucket and forget about them for a year! If you're interested then pm your address and I'll send them on.

Hi everyone, thanks for the lovely welcome! Silly me, I forgot to check back after a couple of days, and missed these lovely posts. Very cool, thanks