Hello friends,

An exciting opportunity happened a couple of months ago when the New Zealand Gardener magazine contacted me and wanted to chat about my blogging adventures in growing, harvesting, and processing my own sugar beet, as part of a wider article about kiwi gardeners growing their own sugar in various forms (including sugar cane and sugar maple).

I was quite happy to do this as I'm a big fan of the magazine (I buy a copy of it each month), and New Zealand Gardener is such a great source of local news and advice for New Zealand gardeners.

They used two of my blog posts as a guide for growing and harvesting sugar beets, as well as photos of mine for their article, along with a phone interview I did with them in early October 2025. If you want to read more about growing and processing sugar beet plants from these blog posts, here is where you can find them:

1. Making Sugar From Homegrown Sugar Beets

2. Harvesting My Own Sugar Beet Seeds

If you're on the hunt for sugar beet seeds so you can try growing your own sugar, sadly Kings Seed no longer stocks the seed, but I grew sugar beet plants from the last of my sugar beet seed stock, and waited two years until they had flowered and set seed, to harvest my own sugar beet seed earlier this year in autumn 2025.

I have some of those sugar beet seeds available for sale in my online store Hearth & Oak. There is a limited amount for sale, as I've sowed a lot of the seed in my own garden this spring. It would be good however, to have sugar beet seeds in the hands of more New Zealand gardeners, so we don't lose sugar beet seed stock in New Zealand.

As for me, I'm quite chuffed to be included in my favorite gardening magazine, and I never thought a couple of years ago when I started blogging about growing sugar beet in my backyard, that it would lead to this opportunity...

Have a wonderful day

Julie-Ann

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Tags: 2025, Blogging, Garden, Gardening, Harvest, Harvesting, Homegrown Food, Kings Seeds, New Zealand Gardener Magazine, Seed, Seed Saving, Seeds, Spring, Sugar, Sugar Beet