Your Garden Coach

27/10/2026

How about trying something a little different in your vegetable garden this season?

We tend to stick with what we know when it comes to leafy greens. Silverbeet, spinach and lettuce are familiar favourites, but there are so many other varieties worth growing.

This season we're trialling Stridolo (Silene vulgaris), also known as Bladder Campion, a perennial wild green that has been part of traditional Italian cooking for generations.

You may know Bladder Campion as a herb, or wildflower rather than a vegetable. It's named for its unusual, inflated, balloon-like flower calyx beneath its small white flowers.

In Italy, Stridolo is traditionally gathered in spring when the shoots are young and tender. The leaves have a delicate, slightly sweet, pea-like flavour and are used in risottos, pasta, frittatas and soups, or simply sautéed with olive oil and garlic. Young shoots can also be added to salads.

One of its attractions is that Stridolo is a perennial. Once established, it can return year after year and will also self-seed. It prefers a sunny position and free-draining soil, making it a useful addition to the perennial kitchen garden.

A few growing notes from Kings Seeds:

Sow August–November or February–April.

Germination: 7–14 days at 12–18°C.

Matures approximately 70 days from transplanting.

Grows to around 60 cm.

Perennial and self-seeding.

We're keen to see how it performs in our Central Otago garden, particularly how it copes with our cold winters.

The trick is to harvest the young shoots before flowering, while they're still tender. Older leaves and stems become tougher.

Why not join us in this little growing trial?

Let's see how Stridolo performs in our different New Zealand climates and experiment with using it in our summer dishes.

You'll find Stridolo on page 89 of the Kings Seeds catalogue, in the Herb section.

I'd love to hear if you've grown it before, or if you're going to give it a try alongside us.

26/10/2026

A very warm welcome to Mila, who has joined the Your Garden Coach NZ team!

Mila is a wonderful food gardener, with a productive kitchen garden, tunnel houses, and hens all playing their part in providing a plentiful supply of homegrown food. She has a great deal of practical experience and a real talent for making the most of the space she grows in. I'm delighted she'll be sharing her knowledge with us.

We took a little time out beneath the century-old cherry trees at Crosshill Garden to enjoy a pot of freshly picked lemon balm tea and browse through the Kings Seeds catalogue.

With Kings Seeds as our supporting seed partner, there's plenty for us to look forward to. New vegetable varieties to trial, herbs to grow and flowers to encourage the pollinators. And, of course, we'll be sharing what works in our respective gardens along the way.

Welcome aboard, Mila! Thank you for bringing your wonderful gardening knowledge and fabulous skills to the team. I'm really looking forward to working together.

22/10/2026

A Taste of Place – Mid-Spring Foraging

I came across the expression “A Taste of Place” recently and thought how well it describes foraging.

Over the years I've created something of a foraging-style garden within my vegetable garden. Alongside the vegetables, I grow a mixture of edibles that might otherwise be considered weeds. I enjoy being able to wander through the garden and pick a little of this and that to bring into the kitchen.

At this time of year, there are young dandelion leaves and flowers for salads, fresh fennel fronds to use with fish or new potatoes, and elderflowers for tea and an annual treat - cordial. I let the Orach, Corn Salad, Lettuce, and Rocket self-seed and grow wherever they wish. It's so much easier than starting them from seed in trays.

Fresh Mint, Chives, Oregano, and Lemon balm - they all have their place in my daily salads.

Cleavers are picked and dried, they make the best 'Spring clean' lymph-flow tea.

You don't need great quantities. Often, a handful of fresh leaves, a few flowers or a sprig of something fragrant is quite enough to make a meal a little more interesting.

What I particularly enjoy is that the selection changes as the season progresses. There's always something different coming along, and it encourages me to make use of what's growing rather than heading out with a particular recipe in mind.

Can you identify what's in my Late-Spring Salad? Delicious with a splash of olive oil, and either lemon, balsamic vinegar, or one of my homemade vinegars (chive flower, apple c***r) S+P. may have a few more suggestions

Of course, it's important to know exactly what you're picking!

17/10/2026

It was such fun chatting with Gemma Sturges, Kitchen Garden Supervisor at Audley End House and Gardens in Essex, England.

Gemma has a wonderful job looking after one of England’s magnificent historic kitchen gardens, and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about her work.

If you haven’t caught our conversation yet, it’s available now as a bonus episode of Your Garden Coach NZ.

Find us here and enjoy the chat!

www.yourgardencoach.nz/podcast
Audley End House and Gardens

16/10/2026

SOWING BASIL

I’m sowing basil now, but here in Central Otago we can still get frosts right through until November, so it needs a little help.

I sow mine fairly thickly in a large pot near the kitchen door, where it gets plenty of full sun. Having it close to the kitchen also means I actually remember to pick it!

To give the seeds a bit more warmth, I make a simple chicken-wire dome over the pot and cover it with bubble wrap. It works like a tiny greenhouse, helping to warm the soil and protecting those young seedlings on cold nights.

A few things to remember:

• Basil likes warm soil. Germination is best at around 20–25°C.
• Don’t bury the seed deeply. Sow it on the surface and cover very lightly.
• Keep the potting mix consistently moist, particularly under the bubble wrap where conditions can change quickly.
• On warm sunny days, lift or open the cover for ventilation. It can become surprisingly hot underneath.
• Put the cover back on before temperatures drop in the evening.
• Once the seedlings are growing strongly, pinch out the tips to encourage lovely bushy plants.
Keep harvesting - there are so many ways to enjoy basil - have you tried drying and storing your herbs?

16/10/2026

Our Bonus Podcast Episode is Live - Find us at Your Garden Coach NZ on your favourite podcast platform.

We head to Essex, England, where I'm joined by Gemma Sturges, Kitchen Garden Supervisor at the magnificent Audley End House and Gardens.

Gemma has spent 15 years working in this extraordinary walled kitchen garden, where Victorian gardening traditions are very much alive.

Set within historic brick walls, the garden covers almost three acres and is home to an impressive collection of heritage fruit and vegetables, including more than 120 varieties of apples, 70 varieties of pears, and beautifully trained fruit trees.

We chat about what it takes to maintain a Victorian kitchen garden today, how traditional gardening methods have been adapted to suit modern organic practices, and what we can learn from the gardeners who worked these productive gardens more than a century ago.

From four-year crop rotations and soil management to historic glasshouses, heritage varieties, and the practicalities of growing food on this scale, Gemma shares her experience of caring for a garden that is both a piece of living history and a working kitchen garden.

There are plenty of ideas here for those of us gardening on a much smaller scale, too.

Join us for a fascinating look behind the walls of one of England's remarkable historic kitchen gardens.

15/10/2026

Is your frost cloth ready?

🌱Gardeners Beware! Frost incoming! ❄️

🌞It might be hard to image right now, but this weekend will bring plenty of clear skies and with it, a few frosty mornings.

🌷If you've already popped some summer seedlings in the ground, you might want to go check out your forecast minimum so you can give them a bit of shelter over the coming days if need be.

📸Let us know what you're growing and bonus if you've got any photos of them in your garden!

https://www.metservice.com/