Festival Farm

Festival Farm We are a family specialising in growing food, flowers and foliage

Time to get those seeds in the soil!!!!Gull has a whole heap of new season seeds packed ready for Sundays We have grown...
19/09/2026

Time to get those seeds in the soil!!!!

Gull has a whole heap of new season seeds packed ready for Sundays

We have grown all the flowers and veggies in our urban and community gardens 💚

Varieties that will be available at the Community Produce Stall:
Shirley Poppies
Silverbeet
Beetroot
Parsnip
Snow peas (a mix of purple and green)
Elephant Garlic bulbets

Southern seeds for Southland gardens - building regional kai resilience one plant at a time

Bloom buckets are back 💕The first for the new flower season!And let me tell you it felt so flippen fantastic to be out p...
14/09/2026

Bloom buckets are back 💕

The first for the new flower season!
And let me tell you it felt so flippen fantastic to be out picking again for Ambrosia Floral design 🌸 .

We always kick off the spring with speciality double daffs and jonquils, hellebores - both doubles and singles as well as some flowering shrubs.
While the poppies and tulips are budding up getting ready to do their beautiful thing.

Where do your groceries grow?Two different installations created with the help of my friend Demelza Beck to highlight th...
29/08/2026

Where do your groceries grow?

Two different installations created with the help of my friend Demelza Beck to highlight the wonderful work of the Glengarry Community Kai Project to show how good/beautiful/bountiful local produce can be while creating a broader conversation about kai and where it comes from - during the Supporting the Arts in Murihiku Southland Night of the Arts here in Waihōpai.

These gorgeous photos were taken by Jenna-lee shave Photographer and are a special keepsake to remind me to keep being brave, sharing my viewpoint and creations with others. (I don't know what took me so long to share them)

But it's the suprised faces, overheard comments from people as they experienced the piece and then the kids who started pulling and eating the carrots with gusto that are stuck on my heart 💚

Nic

FYI - All the vegetables were grown here in Murihiku by Wilsons Veges Pipers and So Sweet and after the event carefully deconstructed then shared, eaten or preserved.

You might be wondering what happened to my100 Days to Spring – Garden + Life Glow Up...Because right as I started buildi...
03/08/2026

You might be wondering what happened to my
100 Days to Spring – Garden + Life Glow Up...
Because right as I started building momentum, I went radio silent.

That's because I started a new job that has genuinely changed my life.

It took over a month for my body to catch up to the fitness needed to work full-time as a Gardener and Apprentice Caretaker. So I didn't have the capacity to show up here or anywhere else 🫠

But life and the new gardens I care for have definitely been getting a glow up!!!! (More about that another day.)

My work days are now spent moving my body outdoors (something my soul was crying out for) caring for landscapes, rebuilding ecosystems, learning, fixing, growing and building practical skills I know will shape the rest of my life.

Taking on this role also meant accepting that I couldn't keep doing everything.
So, I'm closing the chapter on wedding floristry.

Festival Farm is returning to garden bouquets and bloom buckets.
Community gardening with the Glengarry Kai Project isn't going anywhere but I might need a bit more help if there are any new volunteers lurking out there????

So while it feels like everything has changed - some things will never change.
I'm still out there; growing.

Thank you for sticking around while my horticultural dreams keep evolving. 🌿

I'm still the same dirt-stained dream.
Just living a new chapter.

100 Day Garden + Life glow up challenge. 89 days untill Spring 🌱Momentum does really build momentum. 10 days of doing, h...
04/06/2026

100 Day Garden + Life glow up challenge.
89 days untill Spring 🌱
Momentum does really build momentum.
10 days of doing, has really got me going.
I'm looking forward to how I'm going to move my body each day rather than dreading the idea of exercise.
And each time I walk outside and see the wee jobs getting ticked off in the garden it makes me want to keep going rather than just seeing what needs to be done. Does that even make sense?

Anyway today was leg day at the gym then I came home and cleared a wee sweetpea garden.
I found germinated seeds which of course went straight back in after some compost, because I have absolutely loved this purple sweetpea this season 💜
I then split some white alpine strawberry plants and put them all the way along the front (if you don't yet grow these I really think you should - they delicious).

Taking notes from nature I will plant more Sweetpea seeds even though traditionally I would not have during winter and add in some coriander plants over the weekend

94 Days until Spring 🌱Today was a beautiful day to make compost...Both at home and at the Yarrow Street community garden...
30/05/2026

94 Days until Spring 🌱
Today was a beautiful day to make compost...
Both at home and at the Yarrow Street community garden.

Being able to turn waste into garden gold is a no brainer.
Our process was simple - we filled a black compost bin with all the spent plants from summer jumped up and down on it a few times (well my teenager did) then picked off all the ragged looking leaves of the silverbeet and celery to go in, before putting a few scoops of compost on top to inoculate the pile.
Lid on. Boom 💥

Pam Templer what garden task did you tick off today???

I also did something I was really proud of.
This morning I had a job to do in town. I biked instead of driving (first win) but what's bigger for me was that even though my boys didn't want to come biking I chose to go on an adventure ride (on my own) before heading home. Just for fun and because it made me feel so alive and happy!
Might not seem like much, but as a mum who feels like she's always rushing around - that time out on my bike, just for me, was magic.

95 Days until Spring 🌱5 Days into my 100 Day Garden + Life Glow up Challenge.💚 Today started in one of my favourite ways...
29/05/2026

95 Days until Spring 🌱

5 Days into my 100 Day Garden + Life Glow up Challenge.

💚 Today started in one of my favourite ways. Bouquet making, with my littlest helper talking my ear off and snaffling flowers for his own bouquet.

Garden mahi for the day was in one of our Glengarry Kai Project Community Gardens.
I really love that I get to grow beyond my front fence, spreading my Festival Farm philosophies over our community.

With the tamariki from Just Four Kids we weeded and planted out spinach, silverbeet, pansy and peas (skills they are now confident in, after monthly gardening sessions with Mouse and I)
Today we also got to teach them about seedsaving and composting 🥹
Toddler and pre schooler chats really are the best.

I then showed up for myself and hit the gym 🏋️‍♀️

So far this challenge and the accountability of recording it here (even if no one ever read or responded) is really helping me to build momentum.
Let's keep going!!! AND if you wanted to join me please do it would be so fun

97 days until Spring 🌱Today was all about tackling the Scarlet Runner beans growing in our verge garden.Absolute legends...
27/05/2026

97 days until Spring 🌱
Today was all about tackling the Scarlet Runner beans growing in our verge garden.
Absolute legends those beans.
Those things fed my family all summer and also a gorgeous, elderly couple who I’d regularly catch harvesting them on their daily walks.
Community gardening but accidental this time 🤭 Not that I'm complaining - it made my heart happy each time I saw them.

But I swear everyone should grow runner beans. Chuck them in after the frosts, give them something to climb and they’ll produce like they’ve got something to prove.
We ate heaps as green beans but mostly let them dry for storage beans. And honestly I was NOT prepared for the surprise inside those crispy, paper pods. I'm pretty sure they crossed with my Painted Runner Beans because the seeds came out this insane speckled lilac colour. It is so pretty.

Mother Nature said: you wanted food security but here’s aesthetics too 💜💜💜💜💜

Anyway, today I chopped the vines down (they will be composted in tomorrow's garden sesh) but left the roots in because runner beans can form tubers and regrow next season.
I MUST mulch them with straw before winter properly kicks off though unless I want them to freeze and rot!!! We also harvested the last of the dried bean pods. I let these dry off inside before de-shelling so the beans have no moisture left in them
No joke there were some pods the length of my forearm 👾

Current life strategy:
Cut back what’s overgrown and make room for regrowth.

98 Days untill Spring 🌱Today after mahi I went to the gym so when I got home with me jelly legs the last thing I felt li...
27/05/2026

98 Days untill Spring 🌱

Today after mahi I went to the gym so when I got home with me jelly legs the last thing I felt like doing was gardening! But then I was like come on woman yah can't fail on only the 2nd day of your challenge.
So without sitting down I went straight out and planted my garlic.
I put these amongst the Colibri poppies. Last season they were great companion plants.

We grew these Elephants last season from cloves given to me by my brother in law. Some of them grew to a really fantastic size. Those biggies I replanted and the rest we are using in the kitchen.

By the end of that I was in the swing of it and gathered up some strawberry runners to edge another two wee garden beds because who doesn't love strawbs 🍓❤️

27/05/2026

Welcome to the first day of my 100 days until Spring - Glow up.
99 days to rebuild my gardens and myself.

Monday is a super busy "mum" afternoon for me so today's garden task needed to be a qu**ky.
I decided to start my Anenome planting by putting a border of them in this new driveway garden bed. Only a few hundred left to get planted...

It might have been a tiny job but thats the whole point of this challenge. To take action and build momentum.

Instead of doing nothing because I was "too busy" I did something and that progress led to me remembering how much I love anenomes. I'm now motivated to keep on planting them over this coming week. And because I was feeling so happy with myself for sticking to my challenge I found a way to fit in a walk with the boys activities too - winning 💪

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