Inter-club rivalry adds spice to garden show

Nelson

It's show time, and residents around the region are being encouraged to cut flowers and pick crops from their gardens to exhibit, as Vanessa Phillips discovers.

Nelson's Frank Grant has been growing flowers and veges for 60 years. Not bad for a bloke who's 65.

A gardener from the tender age of five, he's also grown a bit of a reputation for taking a lot of the prizes at his garden club for the vegetables he produces at his Atawhai garden.

Next weekend, there'll be extra pressure on him to produce the goods.

Frank will be entering his produce into the Nelson Horticultural Society summer show, and organisers hope plenty more members of the public will join in the fun and enter their own.

Although known as the annual Dahlia Show, it's always had a vegetable section, and with so much emphasis on growing produce at home during the past year, there's high hopes that this section will be even more popular this year.

The event is one of two big summer garden shows in the Nelson region during the next two weekends, with the Brightwater Horticultural Society show being held Saturday and Sunday.

To spice things up, for the first time, two garden clubs are going head to head in their own competition at the Nelson Horticultural Society show.

Members of the Marybank Garden Club and the Waimea South Garden Club will be vying for prizes at the show, after the Marybank club put out the challenge to their counterparts in Waimea South. Each club is now keen to win.

Frank's one of Marybank Garden Club's best vege growers, but if he's feeling the pressure, he doesn't show it.

Frank was living with his parents, brother and grandparents in England when he was given a little plot on their section to start growing plants.

"Pansies were my first love," he says. "I used to grow huge big purple ones."

Five years on, when the family bought a plot that hadn't been used for about 30 years, they built a house on it and set about developing gardens.

Although only young, Frank took over a large chunk of it and grew all the veges for the family, also keeping a milking goat and beehives for honey.

He left home and got married when he was 20, living in a flat for six months, but being a man of the land, he "couldn't stand it" and had to get a house with a garden. He's continued gardening ever since, enjoying growing a mixture of produce and ornamentals.

He and wife Mary and their young twins moved to New Zealand in 1972, settling in Nelson nearly 13 years ago. A former chef, Frank operated a composting centre in Tahunanui for five years until he closed it in 2003, and says compost is the secret to growing good veges.

"You only get out of a garden what you put into it." His one small compost bin at his home is a fantastic producer, but that's because Frank knows what he's doing. After all, he made a business out of it.

The trick to making good compost, he says, is turning the pile over regularly. "It's best to have three bins so you can turn one compost pile into the other."

Any plant matter that is soft, he throws on to the lawn and then mows over it with the lawnmower. All the clippings then go into the compost to boost nitrogen levels.

Although his hillside terraced garden is compact, he manages to pack plenty of crops into the small space. He grows his spinach in boxes on the balcony, courgettes in a pot so he can move them around, strawberries protected from the birds by a frame of netting, parsnips, carrots, leeks down the side of the garden, blackcurrants along the back, and agria spuds.

His new potatoes get harvested when they've flowered, while later crop potatoes come out when the tops die down.

His heritage runner beans that have been grown in Nelson for the past 40 years (don't ask him the name of them though) are grown after he digs a trench and adds lime, compost and horse manure. The area around the beans is lined with cardboard and weedmat to protect the roots of the bean plants while Frank and Mary pick from them.

Frank buys six-packs of mixed veges, but grows his leeks from seed because he grows all year round.

"When they come into the garden centres, it's not the right time for me, so I grow my own seed to suit when I want to grow them."

Frank rotates where he grows his crops within the vege garden to avoid carrot fly and diseases that attack produce, and doesn't dig his garden unless he absolutely has to, because digging brings to the surface weeds that germinate with the light.

He uses very little spray - mainly just derris dust and neem oil to control bugs - and another way he boosts his crops is by using liquid manure.

``I put the manure in the bucket and just keep topping it up [with water] until it reaches a brew to put on the garden.''

Frank says he gets huge satisfaction from growing his own food and is enthused by the renewed interest in growing vegetables at home.

``I think it's marvellous and long overdue,'' he says.

``You can't beat your own for freshness and flavour.''

The Nelson Horticultural Society show will be held at the Stoke Hall on Saturday January 31 from 1pm to 4pm and on Sunday February 1 from 10am to 4pm, with entry $3 for adults and free for children.

As well as veges, there will also be gladioli and dahlias on show, roses and cut flowers, potted plants, floral art and a children's section and sales table.

Anyone interested in entering veges or flowers in the show can contact show secretary Carol Hughes on 547 9563 or email cfhughes@xtra.co.nz.

* The Brightwater Horticultural Society is also hoping for a terrific turnout to its summer show, at the Brightwater Hall on Saturday and Sunday.

Society secretary Pamela Sirett said the annual show would feature plenty of flowers in various sections, including gladioli, dahlias, roses and cut flowers.

There would also be fruit and vegetables on show, children's exhibits and a display of floral art from the Waimea Floral Art Group.

She said the group was renowned for its imaginative displays in the society's previous shows.

The show, which will include gift and cake stalls, will be open to the public from 1pm to 4.30pm Saturday and 9.30am to 4.30pm on Sunday.

Admission is $3 for adults and free for children 14 years and under.

New and experienced exhibitors are welcome.

For entries and information, phone 542 3414 or 542 3737.