New Zealand: Dahlia to dream: pivoting from urban food writer to flower farmer
Last year, Hall lifted 5000 dahlias then planted out 7000 in spring after dividing them.
By Nicky Pellegrino
The Post
March 2, 2025
Excerpt:
Joshua Hall has always loved plants. Even when he was living in the crowded South Korean city of Seoul, he had a rooftop garden where he managed to grow tomatoes and roses amid the concrete.
Back then, Hall was working as a journalist, writing about food and wine, but it was a lifestyle that resulted in burnout. For the sake of mind, body and spirit, he returned home to get his hands back into New Zealand soil again and was lucky enough to find a job working for renowned plant breeder Dr Keith Hammett.
“After a few months, I got fired because I was daydreaming and doing an absolutely hopeless job of weeding, which is still not my forte,” admits Hall. “We’ve since become very good friends and collaborate on projects.”
At that stage, Hall was interested in growing heirloom tomatoes at home. He took some of the dahlia breeding rejects from Hammett’s compost pile and planted them to attract more pollinators to his garden.
Read the complete article here.
Source: https://cityfarmer.info/new-zealand-dahlia-to-dream-pivoting-from-urban-food-writer-to-flower-farmer/
