23 Oct 2023

Gardening gurus Gill and Greg Miles

From Labour Day, 9:35 am on 23 October 2023

We dive into the garden - for many of you, what Labour Weekend is all about.

That's certainly true for Gill and Greg Miles. The pair are the owners - and curators - of a tropical garden oasis known as Black Gates, which will be featured for the third time in the upcoming Taranaki Garden Festival.

Their 1.9 hectares is full of edibles - 24 vegetable boxes, fruit orchards, microgreen glasshouse and livestock paddocks with sheep, cattle, and chooks allows them to be self-sufficient and then some ...

But its their ingenius method of piping compost and worm cast to roots that sets them apart. 

A row of cherry tomatoes, and other vegetables. A black and white cat is in the frame an a man in the background.

Cherry tomatoes. Photo: SUPPLIED