fresh herbs

cut to order

five dollars

a bunch

bumper crop

farmer wins

kitchen wins

—

 

‘For those dependent on their gardens for fresh food,

it was often a case of feast or famine..

One settler wrote: ‘Strawberries were now so plentiful that… I made 287 lbs of jam…’

*Bee Dawson, Author, ‘A History of Gardening in New Zealand.’

 

*Bee Dawson is a social historian from New Zealand who enjoys researching and writing books on the history of people, places and gardens. The wide range of topics she has written about includes women painters, the air force, New Zealand gardens, freight transportation, Hobsonville air base, the Child Cancer Foundation, and Puketiti Station. Her writing captures the unpredictable reality of early colonial gardens, where fluctuating seasonal cycles meant settlers either faced severe scarcity or overwhelming, sudden bounties.