Caring for garlic
Avoiding rust, fertilising, mulching, and harvesting scapes. Everything you need to get your garlic through the season, to a good harvest.
Everything I know about planting garlic
When to plant garlic in New Zealand depends on your garden’s climate. Here’s what nearly a decade of growing in the Far North has taught me.
Pruning fruit trees
Everything you need to know about pruning stone and pip fruit trees: equipment, technique, tree shapes, and the golden rules.
Harvesting the kūmara
After ignoring our māra kūmara for several months, we dug it up!
Growing food from kitchen scraps
You don’t need to buy seeds to start growing food. Your weekly grocery shop is full of ways to get your garden pumping.
The dangers of weeding
Gardening isn’t all butterflies and rainbows. And even when it is, that isn’t always a good thing.
Smoking paprika
A bumper paprika crop means it’s time to make one of my best decisions so far and smoke it.
Garden planning with GardenBox 3D
Creating a map of my garden using GardenBox 3D, and how I’m using it to plan my upcoming gardening adventures.
Māra kūmara
This year I’ve re-introduced kūmara into my garden.
Companion planting
Does companion planting actually work? Why don’t the lists agree? The science behind which plants help each other, and which ones don’t.
Summer garden plans
The plans I’ve got for my garden over the summer of 2025-26.
Growing peanuts in New Zealand
What I’ve learned about growing peanuts over the last three seasons.
Upgrading the garden paths
There’s a secret under your feet when you walk through my garden, and it’s quietly improving our soils.
May in the garden
Winter planting begins, and it’s time to start tidying up your patch from the summer months.
April in the garden
Establishing winter brassica, securing seed garlic, tiding up strawberries, and harvesting pip fruit.
About Kat
Kat is a gardener and purrveyor of Kat's Nip. Most Sundays she writes about her life on her lifestyle block in Te Hiku (Far North), New Zealand.
