Blog feed
The simple chronological feed of all the blog posts published on this site.
From the most recent to the oldest post, follow the entire journey.
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.
The sinking gully
We’ve noticed something sinister happening in one of our paddocks, and we’ve come up with a plan.
Pruning fruit trees
Everything you need to know about pruning stone and pip fruit trees: equipment, technique, tree shapes, and the golden rules.
Green banana flour
An experiment in making a prodigious banana harvest last longer. More useful than expected, with some caveats
My mother’s mother’s mothers
How the women who came before me have shaped my life at The Outpost today. The story of my matrilineal line.
Albert (‘Snowie’) Charles Schaeffer (WW1 23/903)
Albert “Snowie” Charles Schaeffer served in World War 1, and returned home, broken.
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.
Poor peanut performance
Turns out, peanuts don’t much love being ignored for the entire growing season.
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.
Cleaning the water tank with Safe H2O
When we noticed our tap water was acidic, we decided to get the tank cleaned. Here’s how it went.





















