Senga's Blog

Eco-chic Outdoor Living & Exterior Design

Garden of Eaten/Eden - January 1, 2010

Hamilton Botanic Gardens, New Zealand: A sustainable backyard demonstration garden

I have just returned from a three week trip to New Zealand. Being a Landscape Architect I naturally gravitated to all things garden and landscape. First stop the cousin Wright’s house in Te Ahora – a small town on the North Island – approximately 1 hour NE of Auckland. Barely arriving in the driveway I was whisked away into the back yard. A typical suburban lot in New Zealand where the property is ¼ acre in size – the same size as our lot in North Vancouver.

I was greeted by 4 ‘chucks’ at the bottom of the garden – the New Zealand term for 4 egg producing hens.

Dave and the Chucks in the backyard, New Zealand

I was fascinated to learn that while council is endlessly debating the pros and cons of keeping chickens in Vancouver suburbs, this practise was long adopted in New Zealand. See the my blog at Gardenwise on this. As I wandered and surveyed the various vegetable and fruit tree crops woven through the gardens I realized that this idea of sustainable gardens and growing your own food really wasn’t rocket science.

Being isolated on an island, where sheep outnumber the local’s 6:1 self sufficiency in the food department comes naturally. In essence New Zealand is one big farm community and even the suburban children are encouraged to home school local lambs at their parental abodes.

The tipping point for me personally was visiting the Hamilton botanical gardens where a permeaculture garden is part of the permanent display. Curious I proceeded to glean through many national gardening and it came as no surprise to see food production and sustainable gardening high on the list of feature articles. In New Zealand larger tracts of land for similar purposes are called ‘Lifestyle Blocks’ and as the name indicates has become quite trendy.

A couple of visits to local garden centre was all I needed to procure approximately $150.00NZ dollars of heritage seeds – approximately 3 years worth of a variety of vegetables from Tomatoes to Eggplant, Endive, Radishes – the list was endless and I will go more into detail in my later blogs. While heritage vegetables are becoming fashionable in North America – in New Zealand these varieties are quite common part of the usual seed rack offering.

In July of 2009 we had built an edible green roof over our garden.

The Edible Green Roof in 2009

Admittedly, my main goal was to experiment in the ‘how low can you grow’ vegetables in raised planter boxes with 10” of soil as my interest lay more in the traditional green roof (i.e. sedums and ornamentals) scenario. The latter which adorns my studio.

Armed with seeds, and a myriad of other established plants (dwarf and espaliered fruit trees, Blueberries, edible containers) on the ground floor this culinary challenged Landscape Architect will show how anyone can grow, harvest and create meals from their own back yard. Recipes and culinary support courtesy of the in house chef. And in the spirit of the “Lifestyle Block” will be introducing honey bees and chickens and anything else I can think of into the mix. Because I am an ‘A’ type personality, I will be showing how one can use the square foot garden principals (originally developed by a retired Engineer) to eke out the maximum harvest from your garden.

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Square Foot Gardening

As I am not the chef in the family my husband David (he really is ladies a French trained chef) I have avoided the kitchen like the plague. Last year my task was relegated to growing the ‘grocery list’ for my husband. But after seeing how it was done in New Zealand and not one to shrink from a challenge I have decided to take myself, David (the guinea pig) and whoever cares to read this blog and the gardens through a 2010 culinary and outdoor lifestyle excursion hence, the name for my blog 'Garden of Eaten/Eden.'

So as we approach January, the planning begins...