Grow these money-saving edibles to get the most out of your gardening.
When I visited Sarah Oliver’s three-acre garden in the Waitetuna Valley in Raglan, I was not actually looking for proof of concept, but in fact, that is what I found. Not only is Oliver a vegan, she is also a veganic gardener (combining the principles of veganism and organic horticulture), which means she eschews all animal inputs not only in her diet but also her garden – no blood and bone, no manure, no sheep pellets – a method known in these circles as stockfree. Instead, she relies on green manure, seaweed fertilisers and mountains of grass mulch – in part because her vege beds are not irrigated and grass is the most abundant resource she has at hand, she explains – to build soil fertility as she works to clear and rehabilitate land once dedicated to grazing stock.