Bookworms in Greytown, with its quaint Victorian buildings, will already know and love Mrs Blackwell’s Village Bookshop, an independently owned shop “for inquisitive minds and romantic souls”. Millie Blackwell, who owns this former library-turned-store with her husband Adam, as well as a handful of other country lifestyle businesses, lives in an early 1900s stately villa on the edge of the town. Millie Blackwell and the landscaping in her back garden, which was once formal lawns, roses and trimmed buxus, was ditched for a full working garden with 12 raised beds, citrus, fruit trees, a glasshouse and a cutting garden for flowers. The couple also intend to add chickens to the mix in the not-too-distant future.
Which gardening books are your favourites and why?
My favourite gardening book is Homegrown Happiness by Elien Lewis, she’s a Wellington author whose book shows us how to garden on whatever size plot of land we happen to have available to us.
I get a lot of inspiration from Niva and Yotam Kay’s books The Abundant Garden, and the companion Abundant Kitchen. And as much as I like growing, I also like to use as much as we can and one of my favourite books is Food Saver’s A-Z by the Cornersmith Kitchen. This book is an encyclopedia of common fruit and vegetables and all the different uses for them, from root to stalk.
Do you have any favourite plants/flowers you like to grow (inside/outside) and why?
My favourite flowers are gladioli in orange or apricot, they require a bit of effort in our climate but I think they’re 100 percent worth it.
The American chef Thomas Keller always has a huge vase of deep red gladioli at his Bouchon restaurant in Napa Valley, California, and whenever I see red ones it reminds me of the years we lived in that area.
What have you had the most success with?
We have had phenomenal success with silverbeet, which we both happen to like. We can produce leaves bigger than our heads.
What’s your best gardening tip?
Be a seed saver and a seed sharer. It’s so easy to save seeds from many vegetables, herbs and flowers and it’s fun to visit a friend who is growing something successfully that started life in your garden, or vice versa.
You have many festivals coming up in Greytown. Which ones do you think will appeal to gardening fans?
We are lucky to have two working orchards in the centre of Greytown, and Molewood Orchard hosts two festivals each year: an apple blossom festival in spring and an Apple Harvest Festival in late April.
They also have pick-your-own apples and pears every weekend from March to May and it’s a charming thing to do.
We’re also hosting a watercolour painting class, Art in the Orchard on March 29 with Italian artist Elena Brambilla. mrsblackwell.com/event
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