Author: Rory Harding

Sorry for the late notice folks, the Open Day tomorrow has been cancelled. Hope to see you next year, if not before. Take care

Rory

Hello website followers! It’s been almost a year since I last contributed to my site, and you can blame Instagram (click the logo at the top and centre of this page). It’s very convenient for sharing a few photos with minimal text regularly, plus it reaches a different audience. Any long form content (should it ever materialise!) will still be posted here, as will all event notifications. I don’t want you to get another email just to see a few photos that you’ve probably seen before in a past season. However, each season is a new iteration of the familiar and there have been some exciting changes, so I promise a decent update soon.

Meanwhile here’s a poster for some upcoming events. If you can’t make it to the open day here on Sunday March 22, there are two more on the Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 of April as part of the Wild Dunedin Festival, both 12-4 pm and $5 entry. Hope to see some of you then!

From Jason Ross…

‘This year we stoked to be releasing our 2019 Fruits Nursery Catalogue and holding our Apple Tasting at the Open Day of George Street Orchard, Rory’s abundant & diverse inner city fruit garden.

Continue reading “Catalogue release + Open day”

Thanks to everyone who visited George Street Orchard on Sunday as part of the Valley Project and Otago Girls’ High School fundraising tours. It was great to see familiar faces and I enjoyed meeting lots of new people so keen to grow. Thanks also to those who purchased some of my plants – it really helps to keep my nursery habit alive!

Lettuce and Shungiku. No dig 75cm bed, 45cm path. Yes, I measured. Modern standard dimensions for no dig market gardening and to me it’s the best

Rhubarb and Sweet Purple asparagus

Haskap berries

It’s such a fun time of year – watching blossom slowly turn to fruit, seeing perennial herbs construct themselves again, launching new ideas and patterns, and witnessing the emergence of crops you’ve been waiting on a few years…

Nursery courtyard

Moorpark apricot

First time persimmon flowering

Marionberry

Haskap

Mini market garden

Conference pear

Loquat

Nursery

Orchid

Sea kale

White paint dramatically improves your equivalent sunshine hours

William’s bon Cretian pear

Woodchips for paths, mulch, compost…call an arborist today and get heaps. Leave it in a pile to age if you want or use it as you need. After a year or so on a pathway you can rake it up for adding to a potting mix

Liberty apple

Brown Turkey fig. Permanent framework is now mostly established. One to two year shoots grown and cut back off this as figs only fruit on new growth (main crop) and last years wood (Breba crop).

Loquat well under way at a garden nearby

Sea kale root cuttings

Chicken roost and nesting box under construction

Covered compost and chicken run connection

https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018648735/urban-food-forest-dunedin-s-george-street-orchard

Feijoas (Acca sellowiana) are probably the most discussed crop here at George Street Orchard. People are often surprised that they can grow this far south.

They are native to South America and range in the wild from latitude 26° – 35°. In southern Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay and northern Argentina they are common to elevations 400 – 1400 m, therefore hill country not as hot as those latitudes might suggest.

Continue reading “Feijoas FAQ”

Many thanks to Guy Frederick for making this short clip

Read the article here: This NZ Life article