Dairy farmer John Vernon has found a new hobby to help him relax from the stresses of farming – growing tulips.
It’s his happy place, he said. It relaxes him.
“The way the colour hits you – you let it feed into your soul. It makes you feel good.”
Vernon got his love of growing things from helping his father in their vegetable garden when he was growing up in Wellington, and once Vernon went farming, he continued the tradition and grew his own vegetables.
But, that became difficult when Vernon and his wife, Alison, moved to their 143-hectare farm in Midhirst where they milk 260 cows. As the property is 400 metres above sea level and at the foot of Taranaki Maunga, it is very cold, he said.
“I tried growing vegetables and got disappointed with slugs and white butterfly and so forth. I’ve always been looking for stuff to grow, but, then I came across tulips, and they loved the cold.”
He tried growing a few tulips, and then thought he’d just buy a decent number of bulbs and have a go, he said.
“So I bought 3000 last year. I planted them out in in plastic bags, and I had no idea what I’d end up with and we put them on pallets.”
He sold some and gave a lot away. Through the winter he divided the bulbs and then he didn’t want to lose any of the colours that he had sold or given away, so he bought another 5000.
Now he has about 8000 tulips in pots in a paddock near the cowshed.
“It wasn’t quite so well laid out last year because it was a bit of an experiment. But they are immensely popular with people, and from my perspective it was fantastic because it just looks so nice.”
His uses his own potting mix, which he makes on the farm, he said.
“I think it’s the climate up here and the soil that is just a good match for growing.”
Vernon sells his tulips at the market in Inglewood on Sunday mornings and to people who come to his farm to admire the beautiful blooms.
“I found that I actually got as much pleasure out of showing them to people who come. They just love coming out, photographing them and seeing them.”
And tulips are compatible with cows
“It’s nice seeing customers coming. You shoot over from the cowshed and milking and then come back.”
Alison Vernon said her husband plants the tulips when they’re still milking; then the flowers go dormant and there’s nothing to do.
“There’s a little bit of conflict now because we are still calving, so I’m milking while he takes them [the tulips] to the Inglewood market.
“Then they die down and we don’t have to think about them any more. It’s not like a garden where you have to keep weeding and weeding.”
Her husband agreed, saying: “If you plant a field, it turns into work. This is fun.
“It makes me happy. And, you know, farming is pretty hard work, especially up here.”
Anyone wanting to visit can book by calling Vernon on 027 203 8014 or go onto the Facebook page Naki Farm Fun.
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