Meet Anthony and Angela Tringham, of Curious Croppers, the couple growing heirloom tomatoes using agroecology principles. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
They are hard to spot beneath the rows of looping green vines and tomatoes of every shape, size and colour, but the hundreds of thousands of tiny green insects covering the leaves serve an important role.
While most growers might lament finding insects inside their growing houses, this insect - engytatus or tomato bug - acts as a form of biocontrol to help eradicate other pest insects like whitefly and protect the tomato crop.
Anthony Tringham, one half of the duo behind Curious Croppers in Clevedon, describes the "little beauties" as part of his team. He grows tobacco plants to help establish the engytatus which then eat the bad insects.
"This is quite new science," he told Country Life. "It's using something that's locally available to do a good job for us."
It's one of several agroecology principles Anthony and his wife Angela have incorporated into their heirloom tomato growing business.
Agroecology is a type of sustainable farming that involves applying ecological principles and working with nature to improve agricultural systems and operations.
Engytatus modestus, also known as tomato bug, is a species of plant bug that acts as a biological control solution to tomato potato psyllid or TPP. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
Follow Country Life on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts.
For the Tringhams, it starts outside the greenhouse where the couple have allowed a 'New Zealand meadow' to flower and flourish as a form of biocontrol.
"One of the things we like to say is don't mow your lawns, because what we're trying to do is create an entire ecosystem outside our greenhouse," Anthony said.
"All these flowers, they nurture the good insects that we want to grow outside and [have] fly into our greenhouse."
Left to their own devices naturally, the wild carrot, plantain, dandelions and other meadow plants provide an alternative food source for pest insects and habitat for other bugs and critters which eat them.
The wild meadow that sits outside the hot houses helps act as a natural biosecurity control in a reversal of the 'scorched earth' approach. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
This approach differs from that of the "scorched earth" approach favoured by many other greenhouses in which they are surrounded by sterile concrete environments, Angela explained. There's always a tomato that finds a way through a crack which then attract pests like white fly, she said.
"We're inviting every single native insect we can to come in. There are so many native insects that we know nothing about and they're all here and all a barrier. So insects that we don't want coming into our greenhouse, they're all here and they have this battle."
The couple grow heirloom tomatoes in Clevedon, south-east of Auckland. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
Inside the hothouses - which are certainly that, as temperatures range from 25 to 35 C - the agroecology principles continue.
The tomatoes are grown in cocopeat mixed with compost and seaweed additives. It helps hold water and oxygen so "it's a really sweet thing to grow plants in" Anthony said.
"We're also doing lots of complicated stuff underground. What we're trying to do is create a complex environment around the roots that's full of life."
Anthony holds a tobacco plant leaf which helps sustain the engytatus used to help with pest insect control in the greenhouse. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
They have about 4000 tomato plants, including about 40 different heirloom varieties, ripe for picking when Country Life visited.
"We lose count of how many different varieties we have because it's all so chaotic and random," Anthony said.
His favourite is the beefy vintage brandywine tomato which comes in a lovely rouge colour and often grows slightly mishapen. Angela's meanwhile is the merrygold - a suitably orange skinned cherry tomato with a vibrantly sweet and tangy flavour.
The secret to growing good tomatoes, she said, is allowing them to remain on the plant - not just the vine - for as long as possible.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday
