Little Pirongia Farms

Little Pirongia Farms We grow spray-free, nutritious veges and flowers, for the Pirongia community and surrounds.

13/06/2026

Bed prep

With the microbes in the soil slowing down over winter it means bed space is precious, so here we are flipping a late season Courgette bed ready to plant brassica.

Each year we've been building up our own seed garlic stock, and this year we've finally been able to double our growing ...
27/04/2026

Each year we've been building up our own seed garlic stock, and this year we've finally been able to double our growing space 🤸‍♀️

I know legend dictates that in the Southern Hemisphere you plant garlic on the shortest day, but where we are (in the Waikato) it gets wet and humid, and is rife with rust, so we like to get a head start and plant now (ANZAC day is the perfect yearly reminder - lest we forget). This way, we get some good growth while the soil is still warm, and the plants have a head start before the rust rears its ugly head in spring and inhibits too much photosynthesis and therefore inhibits bulb growth.

So far, our key learnings have been: prep a free-draining bed well with lots of compost and fert (garlic are heavy feeders), mulch them lots (garlic don't like competition), foliar feed regularly once they've sprouted, but ease off from late October so they put more energy into the bulb and not leaf growth.

Here we have grown a mixed cover crop, cut and scraped it off the bed, composted, broadforked, and fertilised the bed, prepped the holes using a homemade dibbler, soaked garlic seed in a mix of beneficial bacteria & fungi before planting, then mulched with aged woodchip, and finally, covered with the cover crop mulch.  Now we wait, and cross our fingers...


-free

Bit of a PSA.Now is a great time to get seeds and plants into the ground - warm days, plenty of moisture, still enough s...
02/04/2026

Bit of a PSA.
Now is a great time to get seeds and plants into the ground - warm days, plenty of moisture, still enough sun. Things will start slowing down as soon as those night time temps drop, so now is the time!
Fuel prices will have a flow on effect on most items, including the production and transport costs of food, so let's start growing locally, and plant the things that you like, in the space you have - be it a garden, or in containers.
Plenty of things are good to grow now (either with seeds or seedlings): brassicas (broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, Kohl rabi, kale etc), beetroot, silverbeet, radish/baby Japanese turnip, carrots, coriander, lettuce/mesculin, parsley, spinach, rocket, just remember to protect your tender new babies from marauding slugs and snails - nothing worse than coming out the next morning to see all your work gone!


Autumn is always the busiest time of year on the farm, cause we're harvesting the bounty, flipping and composting beds, ...
25/03/2026

Autumn is always the busiest time of year on the farm, cause we're harvesting the bounty, flipping and composting beds, getting winter crops in, as well as storing and preserving for winter.

These are our storage pumpkins being tucked away for vege boxes in the colder months. There is always a satisfaction in getting crops safely into storage, seeing how long it takes to get them here (these pumpkins were sown in Sept).

We also aim to store potatoes (we try to keep these in the ground for storage until we need them, or until the ground gets too wet), onions & garlic.

Now we've got these crops safely tucked away, it's time to focus on next biggest autumn priority - leaf pickup for compost. Say hi if you see us in Pirongia randomly raking and bagging leaves! Leaves make the best carbon source in compost.

Experience has taught us that a big push in autumn makes life so much easier in spring on the farm.

20/03/2026

Peter Piper has been busy on the farm - there's a peck of peppers in the Honesty Fridge today ready for you to pickle (or just eat) if you like a tasty sweet capsicum...

621 McClure St, open now until 6pm.

Roll on the weekend 🤘

We're opening up our honesty fridge again.It's been a while, but with the bounty of summer in full swing we want to open...
14/02/2026

We're opening up our honesty fridge again.

It's been a while, but with the bounty of summer in full swing we want to open up so locals can easily access locally grown and seasonal produce.

All our produce is organically grown right here in Pirongia, from our family run market garden you might have seen on Crozier Street.

The Honesty Fridge will be filled each Friday with all our surplus veges (after we've filled our orders for local families & retailers), and open from 2-6pm. Right now expect Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Carrots, Salad Mix etc.

If you after a greater selection/more regular vege supply, checkout our website to order a weekly or fortnightly vege box.

Honesty fridge is in the roadside stand at 621 McClure Street.
Cash and bank transfer welcome.
Unfortunately, due to previous thefts, please smile for the camera when you pay.


27/12/2025

2025 in review

Thanks to our customers and supporters, it means a lot to this family business when you make a conscious choice to support local.

2025 has been another big year with lots of successes, failures and everything in-between.

Ali and Dan
Little Pirongia Farms

Farm update - DecemberIt's been a very busy last few months at Little Pirongia Farms.Bad news - we lost our main tunnel ...
07/12/2025

Farm update - December

It's been a very busy last few months at Little Pirongia Farms.

Bad news - we lost our main tunnel in the big Sept storm, which really threw a spanner in the works...

Good news - the power of community. A massive thanks to the Pirongia who helped to secure the scene before we got there and prevented it from causing a lot more damage than it could have done. Mother nature is a force not to be reckoned with.

A big push resulted in upgraded foundations (hello 3 tonnes of concrete blocks), er****on of a freshly manufactured tunnel (thanks Harfords), and (6 weeks late) plantings of tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicums and rock melons all covered with a healthy layer of spray free silage as mulch.

The rest of the garden is cranking and enjoying the early summer heat, and we're looking forward to the bounty of late summer.

On another note, thanks to all our local customers for supporting local, seasonal, spray-free produce. Your guys are awesome.




Just a friendly reminder to keep an eye on all your tender new plants. It's that weird time of year where things tend to...
26/11/2025

Just a friendly reminder to keep an eye on all your tender new plants. It's that weird time of year where things tend to be a bit out of balance - aphids etc have been gathering momentum after winter, while the 'good' guys are a bit slower to get going. We observe the silent battle, and if things look like they're getting way out of whack, we intervene with some biological controls. During today's amble, we spied lots of aphidius (a teeny-tiny parasitic wasp) infected aphids, so know that our resident population of aphidius is alive and kicking, and our cucumbers will soon be thriving again. We're so lucky to have a passionate business in NZ supplying pesticide-free alternatives for managing problematic insects - thanks

Life is good when Kermit comes to visit.Growing up on farms meant seeing heaps of frogs as kids, but we haven't seen man...
06/09/2025

Life is good when Kermit comes to visit.

Growing up on farms meant seeing heaps of frogs as kids, but we haven't seen many in recent years in the village.

So we were stoked to find this little dude enjoying hanging out next to a finished red mizuna bed, in our largest market garden plot.

Frogs signal a healthy ecosystem, which is something we work hard on maintaining.


Address

621 McClure Street
Pirongia
3802

Telephone

+64223508056

Website

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