Success with self-sufficiency: Terra Viva Home & Garden
The move to growing one’s own fruit and vegetables is stronger than ever. It’s easy, satisfying, convenient, fun, and with the current cost of living, it’s also imperative.
Of course, our parents and grandparents knew this all along, and it’s not a mystery for a select few. The bonus is knowing where produce has been grown and how.
Vegetable gardens are no longer just the ‘vege patch down the back; now they can be attractive creative ‘potagers’ or kitchen gardens.
The local home and garden retailer, Terra Viva, has a wide selection of seeds and fruit trees to help you get set up.
Previous generations would be amazed at the range of vegetables available now. Rainbow Beetroot, Wong Bok, Sumo Pak Choi, Lebanese Lunchbox Cucumbers, and Cavallo Nero, are now widely known and readily available.
Good quality, well-prepared, compost-enriched soil is the key to growing sweet tender fruit and veggies. Veggies need to be grown quickly to achieve that tender homegrown quality. Like us, they need small regular amounts of food. Ask the Terra Viva staff for advice on maximising results with the correct plant food.
What’s easy to grow for self-sufficiency? Tomatoes love a hot sheltered spot, moist but well-drained soil (or Tomato Mix for containers), and regular feeding with tomato food. Over 40 varieties are available.
Strawberries are a great way to turn children into gardeners. A hot sheltered spot in the ground, or in containers, using Strawberry Mix, regular watering, and feeding, plus bird netting (use the flexible fiberglass rods or stakes).
New potatoes for Christmas are essential. At Terra Viva 14 varieties are available.
Maris Anchor has a great waxy texture, and the versatile Agria is a good keeper over winter.
Rhubarb is a real winner. It’s delicious and good for you. Rhubarb loves rich deep soil with animal manure mixed in, and a partly shady position suits best. There are plenty of varieties to choose from.
Feijoas are hardy, and easy, with delicious fruit, fresh, frozen, stewed, and made into chutney. Feijoa ice cream is superb.
Patio Dwarf Fruit trees give a good structure in a kitchen garden. The spring flowers and high production will pay their way in terms of space used.
Lemon trees, every home needs one and they’re the toughest of the citrus family.
When growing them in containers choose the Dwarf Meyer as it’s better suited to containers than the regular Meyer and is just as productive.
All gardening queries and questions are easily answered by the staff at Terra Viva, a team of keen gardeners with approximately 150 years of experience combined.
