Growing vegetables or fruit in your own backyard has made a comeback. Rosie Manins learns how it's done.
It is little wonder Lex Donaldson is still gardening, well into his 80s.
''I was born and bred in a nursery.''
The Mosgiel resident has spent a lifetime in horticulture.
During his working life as a nurseryman and garden centre owner he planted, tended and sold roses and shrubs throughout Otago and beyond.
And in his spare time he grew vegetables.
He grew up in the Leith Valley, where his father established a rose nursery on the family property.
Mr Donaldson was the only one among his siblings interested in joining the family business, and he spent many hours budding roses and helping out before getting a job at a traditional seed shop, Matheson and Roberts, in the Octagon.
Eventually he took over the nursery and made a career out of his green thumbs, before retiring to a block at East Taieri, where the soil was good and his vegetables even better.
These days Mr Donaldson prefers to stay out of the limelight, living with his wife, Cath, on a flat quarter-acre section in a quiet Mosgiel street.
The ground is not as good; in fact it's ''awful'', but Mr Donaldson does his best to reap some quality produce.
No longer involved in the horticulture trade, he now simply gardens for the love of being outdoors, with his hands in the soil, and to taste the sweetness of fresh, homegrown, organic vegetables.
Chantenay carrots are his favourite.
Given Mosgiel's history as a swamp, Mr Donaldson has had problems with drainage and says the composition of the soil is poor.
''It's a damp garden and it's the latest garden I've ever had.
''When we were in the Leith Valley I put potatoes in about mid-August, and here it's at least a month later.''
To boost the low nutrient, water-clogged ground, Mr Donaldson uses horse manure ''by the trailer-load''.
He first plants potatoes, carrots and white turnips, ''when I think the dangers of frost are over''.
Most years his potatoes ''get tickled up'' by a late frost, but he plants three different varieties, and in stages so they mature at different times.
''Everybody in Dunedin wants to have nice new potatoes for Christmas. I've got Jersey benne and heather, which is a great cropper. The one I'm trying this year is swift - swift as the name suggests - it's early.''
Remarkably, given his property's lacklustre soil, Mr Donaldson gets by without a compost bin.
Green rotted material from the garden, such as prunings, goes into a trench with horse manure and it breaks down until he is ready to dig the garden over.
He knows a few ''no-dig'' gardeners, but prefers traditional methods.
''I get by with most things. Over the winter I have to be careful, because the carrots will rot as the ground is so heavy and wet.''
Pitting carrots has become a necessity and Mr Donaldson will move his three different sowings from the soil into sawdust.
''It's an old English method. You dig them out of your garden and put them in a drier area, which enables them to last. If I left carrots in some parts of my garden they would rot.''
He is an organic gardener by default, having never felt the need to use chemical sprays.
''I use a wee bit of artificial manure but not very much.''
Mr Donaldson has never had a glasshouse - his tomatoes grow outside - and he says the warm Mosgiel summer is also conducive to courgettes.
He also regularly grows cauliflower, silverbeet, broccoli, cabbage, leeks, parsnips, beans, lettuces and rhubarb, and is casual about rotating crops.
''There might be something in it, but I've never tried to prove it.''
Top tips
• Plant potatoes in September for eating at Christmas.
• Horse manure does wonders for low nutrient soil.
• Good things take time.
• ''If you've been gardening for years and building up the soil by adding compost and other stuff to it, it enriches the soil and also builds up the depth.''
• Pit carrots if your garden is particularly wet and the soil is heavy.
• Avoid chemical sprays and treatments.
• Unrotted compost causes carrots to fork.
• Turnips, carrots and lettuces have the greatest yield-to-space ratio.
• Broad beans do well in damp soil.
