They say timing is everything, and Raglan West resident Matt Stockton wouldn’t disagree.
A simple roadside stall he knocked together a few years ago out of a packing crate picked up from “down the end of the road” is now the face of a flourishing wee business – one helped in no small part by the passing traffic generated by the sprawling new Rangitahi subdivision.
The Plant Box, as it’s called, has had something of a facelift recently but retains its old-fashioned honesty box and its old prices.
Attracted by the $3 a plant or the four-for-$10 deal, keen local gardeners regularly stop by Matt’s Opotoru Rd stall, see what’s available – as written on the “high tech lids” of old two-litre ice cream containers – and buy what they need.
From veggies, herbs and flowers to easy-to-grow trees or native grasses, it’s all been – as the Plant Box sign says – ‘Grown in Raglan for Raglan’.
Matt set up his roadside stall back in 2020 during one of the Covid lockdowns, first buying his seeds and potting mix from Bunnings.
Now however he simply flicks through online catalogues to purchase Kings and Egmont seeds which, he says, consistently produce quality plants. “I want a high level of reliability,” Matt told the Chronicle.
Then it’s just a matter of nurturing the seeds in the same environment the plants will live, he explains, so they become well adjusted to Raglan’s wind and salt air.
Matt also collects his own seed heads. The native grasses currently for sale have come from just over the bridge at Rangitahi, and new sunflowers growing taller by the day alongside the Plant Box were last year’s seeds collected from Stewart St.
Why a whole new garden largely of sunflowers? Because they’re a “feel-good” summer plant, says Matt. “A couple of years ago I did wildflower gardens in front of the house and they were a real hit.”
Matt believes people like to come along and see the ever-changing variety of plants on offer. There’s everyday tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini, tamarillos and tomatillos – the Mexican plant used to make green salsa – and Asian greens like mizuna and komatsuna.
No takers have emerged yet for the catnip, he laughs, though he’s keen to know if the plant really does have the same “happy” effect on humans as it apparently does on cats.
Matt says he always buys more seeds than needed and only the best-looking plants go on the stand, with any duds going straight to his own backyard. “My entire garden is made up of rejects,” he confesses.
There’s three stages to the growing process before plants go out on the stand for sale, Matt reveals. The seeds get started in the warmth and humidity of germination houses he’s built beside the back door of his own home; then they’re transferred to the adjacent greenhouse before becoming strong enough to grow in the home-built shade house alongside it.
This can take just a couple of weeks for some plants or two to three months for others.
It’s all in a day’s work for the one-time Whatawhata School principal, who juggles the demands of the Plant Box with his part-time job as Raglan Area School’s digital technology teacher and – with any downtime – a love of water-sports.
There can be the occasional crossover, and Matt’s even growing plants to contribute to the “lovely gardens” at the school, the new caretaker-cum-groundsman having been open to the idea from the get-go. Some years back Matt also guided his Whatawhata School crews to repeated successes in Raglan’s annual raft race.
With his work/life balance now about right “I’ve definitely found my place in Raglan,” Matt reckons.
by Edith Symes
