Vegetable Tour Guide
By Elizabeth Alington It’s full-on for Andrew Seager most of the year. From dawn to dusk last Spring, he was busy preparing raised beds, spreading compost, goading the tractor into doing the hard-yard and sowing beans, carrots, radish, basil, and zucchini. Somewhere along the way he managed to transplant Autumn’s fare of kohlrabi, broccoli and cauliflower seedlings. If that’s not a week’s-worth of work, on Saturdays he’s manning a stall at the Black Barn FarmersÕ Market in Havelock North, selling the vegetables of his labour. Andrew operates his market garden from a modest, one-hectare property that lies 20 kilometres south of Hastings near Te Hauke. He’s been there now for 16 years, although to begin with, it took a long time to find the right patch on which to put down his roots. As a schoolboy, growing up near London, and fascinated by the idea of the Antipodes, Andrew longed to go to New Zealand to explore the mountains of the Southern Alps. By his early teens he was saving his pennies; earning pocket money tidying up “old ladies’ gardens”. At 19 and attracted by the idea of community, he left the UK and headed down-under where he chanced upon biodynamics as a method of sustainable food production. But it was to be some time before biodynamics would become part of his life. First, he had to return to the UK via Asia and Mt.Everest base camp. For the next few years, Andrew explored the world. Like most biodynamic farmers, he was inclined to think “outside the square” – these farmers are not the ones responsible for messing up your favourite fishing river. While working on biodynamic farms and gardens in England and Germany, he was able to attend lectures in economics and […]