Market Garden At Paroa

• Published date: 08 November 2023
• Publication title: West Coast Farming Times, The

From a small hot house and outside garden, they have expanded into a productive vegetable growing and poultry concern

"We always grew our own vegetables but over Covid the price of everything basically went through the roof," Jeremy said.

"We had the space to grow more vegetables and it has just 'grown' from there." The couple started clearing the gorse-covered land and developing the area they had which was a challenge for them while working in full time jobs.

Jeremy continues to work full time while Rachael finished work earlier this year to concentrate on building the garden operation.

The couple built the tunnel house and other covered hot houses using plastic rather than glass and germinate and grow their own plants.

There are cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, courgette, potatoes, beetroot, spring onion, pumpkin, tomatoes and grapes growing at the Paroa gardens.

"We are still setting up and we do lose some plants but we have had to extend and plant what we plant to supply. At first we just had the one tunnel house and garden but soon realised we just didn't have enough," Rachael said.

It has been both trial and error for the Colemans, developing their gardens and they quickly learned what works and changes which need to be made.

"Initially we cleared the gorse and planted five crops of potatoes but we got flooded and we lost the lot," Rachael said.

"That was just over three years ago so we have now raised and built the gardens up. The white butterfly was a problem out here and did a lot of damage but we overcame that by putting up shade houses to protect the plants.

We have plenty of bees out this way and the pollination is good. I have grown a number of marigolds which attract bees," Rachael added.

With Rachael now not working in town she can focus more on planting now that they have the space with the land cleared.

"We grow for ourselves and sell as well." "We grew all our seedlings and plants as they were too dear to buy and keeps our costs down. The way I do it I can keep the prices down for our customers. Last year we grew 150 good sized pumpkins and expect a lot more this year.

"We continue to improve the soil and use our own chicken manure as well as add a couple of truck loads of cow manure to the soil." "As well as the vegetables we have...