A little taster of the journey
Hi, I'm Anna and I am one of your Avo Keepers. We’ve owned our orchard for over 7 years and have planted it out with over 3,000 new avocado trees. It's located in Tapora, look it up, you’ll wonder why you haven't heard the name, it is so close to Auckland.
When we started out on the orchard, I’m not sure if we knew what we were really up to, but we have stepped our way through it from equipment, to tree health, to picking, to seasons.
It has now become the fabric in our lives and it has been amazing to watch our children subliminally grow an appreciation of mother nature, a work ethic and some great skills on the orchard.
Growing avocados has been a steep learning curve, we’ve gained many new skills, and so many of them are incomprehensible when starting out.
Simple things to consider and learn about;
What are the good parts of the orchard's land contour - as we’ve found this year, drainage is critical.
How does one go about quoting and setting up an irrigation system?
How much water does a new avocado need vs an older one?
What data might be needed to monitor the important things to make better decisions on and who the hell supplies these things?
How do season change our trees and what do we need to look out for at various times,
Pests and chemicals - bad words but part of the system of orcharding.
What do we need to do to be compliant on our orchard?
It's fair to say it's been a journey. My biggest passion is learning about the seasons and understanding soil biology. This is a fundamental part of understanding plant health and formation of growing and fruit development. What I have grown to understand is that under the soil are zillions of biomes, much like your stomach and these are the lifeblood of the soil. My passion for biome is now shared across both.
Right now we spend a lot of time getting our soil tested and putting on an annual fertilizer program to ensure that the acidity levels are prime, the organic matter continues to grow and our minerals are all at the right level. One of the things we do here is drench it with a mycorrhizal formula which feeds the fungi down there, helping to activate it. I also look at nitrogen fixing plants to help draw up the nitrogen, as ideally we want to reduce this over the coming years.
Flowering is an important time on the orchard, leading up to it and then the following months are critical to the right development of the fruit to create a strong cell reproduction.
But the joy comes from hearing the Tuis singing in the shelter belts, collecting the free-range chickens eggs, space to grow and more often it is weeds, rituals from a hard day of physical work, like the simplicity of a Huntly Palmer cracker, avocados of course, vintage cheese and pickles and a beer next to a derelict fireplace that adds a sort of charm.
Oh… and avocado season starts in July usually and they continue to taste great on Vogels with salt.
