Thank you all so much for waiting patiently, but now I can finally announce the winners of the 2023 Yates Spring Vegie Growing Challenge:

First up we have our three grand prizes winners all receiving a $1000 Give a Garden Gift Card and $300 worth of Yates products.

What we were looking for here was gardeners who fully participated in the challenge, and whole heartedly threw themselves into the community with their time, their effort, contribution to the community and progress in their gardens.  It wasn’t easy to choose only three as it was a closely run race but please join me in congratulating:

·       Neil

·       The Flower Lady

·       Northland Backyard Gardener

But that’s not all, we have other prizes…The winner of the Best Starting Out Gardener receiving $300 worth of Yates products is:

·       ChrisC

I really want to thank you all for the way you embrace our new gardeners and give them all the encouragement and support so they can feel confident and go on to succeed in their edible gardening journey.

Next up is our Best Supporter, in honour of Carol Oates who will also receive $300 worth of Yates products.

Here we were looking for someone who encourages other gardeners, has great top tips and is a friendly and supportive presence in the Yates Vegie Growing Challenge and that description fits so nicely with:

·       Somerset Sue

She is like a ray of sunshine in the challenge with her enthusiasm and inspirational pristine edges!

And finally…  we have the Yates Wild Card Winner who also receives $300 worth of Yates products.

We were looking for anyone who stands out to the Team at Yates for whatever reason, and we made a great choice here for someone who is funny, supportive and encouraging.

·       Old Mangakino Orchard (McCallum's Garden)

Being crazy enough to ‘frolic in a frock’ should have been enough reason for the wild card!  James brings a sense of joy and fun to the challenge and makes it such a safe and accepting place that even Neil got into a frock! His care and concern for other is also commendable as he generously offered to give his prize to Birdhouse Bend.  The good news Yates decided both will receive a prize.    

We also had two encouragement awards and we wanted to reward the efforts of a couple of gardeners who have been there all spring, working hard and letting us know about all their ups and downs so a big congratulations to:

·       Stacey

·       Euqinom  (I do have to say it took me far too long to figure out Euqinom is Monique backwards!) 

And these are our winners for 2023.  It has been another fantastic season, gardening alongside my virtual gardening friends – new and old.  Well done everyone. 

Please keep posting over the rest of the growing season and into next year.  The community will stay open.  There may be a glitch when the clock strikes midnight, or it may go smoothly into the new year.  If there is a problem, please bear with us, well will get it sorted as soon as we can, but even the IT department deserves a holiday!

And so now I will be throwing myself into all things festive as family begin to arrive.  I still have some shopping to do, we haven’t decided on the menu yet, but I do need spend a bit of time in the garden working out what will be ready, before heading to the supermarket.

I know there will be potatoes because we’ve started eating those and they are so delicious!  But we won’t be shelling peas on Christmas day as per the family tradition as the jolly things only popped up on attempt #6 and are only 10cm tall!  I might even get my first cucumber!   Maybe a burst of Yates Thrive Natural Fish & Seaweed+ Plant Food Concentrate will speed things up.

This will be my last blog post before the new year as after Christmas we are heading away and hopefully this year’s house sitter will be a lot more successful than last year's and won’t kill my tomatoes!  I will be lurking and will pop into the comments section from time to time.

So, I’d like to take the opportunity on behalf of myself and the team at Yates to will you all a Merry Christmas and a Bountiful New Year.  I hope it is everything you need it to be.

Happy gardening and as always – if you want to get in touch leave a comment below.

Sarah the Gardener  : o)