In a hazy childhood memory, I’m picking peas in a field. I think my grandmother is there, bent over beside me.
It could have been Carterton. It must have been Christmas time and we probably flicked the peas from their shells into an old metal colander on the kitchen bench of Nana’s farmhouse.
Years later, my daughters picked berries at Palmer’s farm and table grapes from Fantail Grove in Greytown. Since then, pick-your-own hasn’t been available much in Wairarapa, perhaps for health and safety reasons. As Ed Cooke of Molewood Orchard says, some 25 Greytown orchards have vanished since the late 1980s, much of the land used for housing.
This autumn, Ed and his family will offer pick-your-own apples to the public at “reasonable prices”. In Ōpaki, Tūrutu Orchard has created nostalgic fun with pick-your-own blueberries.
This tiny re-hatching of pick-your-own comes as we baulk at the price of fruit and veg in supermarkets, with encouragement to grow food at home.
I won’t be growing vegetables – I’m more of an observational gardener. Our home has nice ornamentals and one ancient, healthy lemon tree, and they’re enough.
And we’ve had unexpected supplies: Over one boundary fence hangs our neighbour’s beanstalk, from which I’ve plucked a few leathery strips for the dinner pot. Over another, a neighbour’s passionfruit winds through our laurel hedge. In classic non-gardener form, I told my family the unripe green balls hanging from the vine were tamarillos, or ‘tree tomatoes’ as they used to be called.
My bachelor uncle, who wore a black pirate patch after losing an eye in the war, would make a delicious tree tomato cake. He was a great gardener, but my sister reminded me that he would ‘self-irrigate’ his flourishing vege patch, then give the produce to neighbours.
It’s a joy that people like the Cookes are enabling us to pick something from the source, having been nurtured by their hands. Nearby in Greytown is the perennial Pinehaven shop, with its own ready-picked goodness.
On Te Ore Ore Rd in Masterton, a family continues to sell their own veg from a roadside shed, operating largely through word-of-mouth as different crops are ready. The matriarch who tends the shop uses the family abacus, brought from China. Potatoes and eggs are good value at her shop now.
My fruit-growing attempts have usually involved buying some little trees, leaving them to suffer in the frost or parched earth – then moving house.
But last spring, a raspberry cane was plonked in a sunny corner to mark my daughter’s birthday. Told it wouldn’t fruit for a year, we forgot about it.
Just a few weeks later, I was stomping through rain-soaked weeds to gather at least four plump raspberries a day. Sometimes six. I did zilch to help those fellas along.
Then last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Masterton man Alban Carmine, who has been a vegetarian for his entire 100 years. He has lovely smooth skin and looks very content.
Has all this piqued my interest in growing edibles in an organised fashion? Not a bean. As more people offer the chance to share the fruits of their labour where they are grown, I’ll gladly drive to gather them. Sign up to wonky produce boxes, attend farmers’ markets, romantically forage for blackberries and buy frozen veg if the price is right.
Not as local as my own garden, but it’s supporting locals. With pea weevils banished, maybe one day I can re-live that hazy Christmas memory.
