The Home Gardener's Handbook for New Zealand: Companion Planting, Garden Design, Glasshouses, and Composting for Aotearoa (Gardening)

Most gardening books are written somewhere else, for somewhere else. You buy them, follow the advice, and discover that the recommended varieties do not survive your climate, the soil amendments are not sold here, the pest list is missing the ones actually eating your tomatoes, and the planting calendar is upside down. The Home Gardener's Handbook for New Zealand fixes that. This book is written for Aotearoa — its climate zones from subtropical Northland to cool-temperate Southland, its volcanic and clay and stony soils, its prevailing westerlies, its biosecurity rules, its retailers, and the animals that actually steal your fruit. The principles of companion planting are universal. The application is local. What you'll find inside: Knowing What's Legal — Which fruit trees, berry bushes, vegetables, and herbs are allowed under MPI's National Pest Plant Accord; the lookalike traps (banana passionfruit vs. edible passionfruit, wild ginger vs. culinary ginger); regional council rules; fireblight obligations The Science (and Folklore) of Companion Planting — What's evidence-based (carrot-onion, Three Sisters, marigolds for nematodes), what's tradition, and which pairings to actively avoid Vegetable Companions, Bed by Bed — Tomato, brassica, legume, cucurbit, root, and salad guilds, with NZ-specific varieties from Awapuni, Kings Seeds, Egmont, Palmers, and Oderings The Herb Garden as Companion — Culinary herbs that earn their place by what they do for the rest of the garden Companion Flowers — Marigold, nasturtium, calendula, sunflower, cosmos, phacelia, sweet alyssum, yarrow; the trap crops, beneficial-insect attractors, and pollinator magnets the food garden cannot do without — plus a clear word on which flowers to skip in NZ Berry Bushes and Fruit Trees — Blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, boysenberry, blackcurrant, gooseberry, Chilean guava; apple, pear, plum, peach, citrus, feijoa, olive, fig, kiwifruit; permaculture guilds adapted for NZ pests and pollinators The Parterre — Formal symmetrical edible beds with NZ-resilient hedging (corokia, lonicera nitida, lavender, rosemary — not buxus, given box blight) Lasagna Gardening — No-dig layered beds with pea straw, lucerne, sheep manure, and seaweed sourced locally Square Foot Gardening, NZ-Adapted — Mel's Mix with coir replacing peat, sourcing notes, and adaptations for clay sites and frost-prone regions Glasshouses, Polytunnels, and Cold Frames — Sizing for the household, seasonal use, building consent thresholds, ventilation, and indoor companion planting for pollination and pest control Composting the Kiwi Way — Hot, cold, bokashi (Zing), worm farming (Hungry Bin), tumblers, council subsidies, and what genuinely belongs in NZ compost Defending the Garden — Possums, kererū, guava moth, codling moth, white butterfly, passionvine hopper — non-toxic strategies that work in NZ conditions and respect protected native birds Year-Round Planting Calendar by Region — Month-by-month tasks for sub-tropical, temperate, and cool zones, so you know what to do in your week This is the gardening book the country has needed for decades: specific to New Zealand soils, climates, retailers, and rules, written for ordinary home gardeners who want vegetables on the table, fruit on the trees, and a garden that gets better every year. Written for the soil under your feet — not the soil under someone else's.