Long before pakeha arrived in Otaki and Te Horo, Maori had mahinga kai where they grew kumara and wild spinach. After the arrival of the first pakeha settlers, Maori began growing introduced vegetables to trade with them. Early in the 1880s Chinese from the goldfields began arriving and leasing small pockets of land for market gardening.
In the 1920s and 1930s, when gardening land in Wellington and Lower Hutt began being used for housing, Europeans and new Chinese immigrants began arriving in higher numbers and took up small family plots.
Otaki, and to a lesser extent Palmerston North, became 'the food basket of Wellington'. From the 1940s to 2000 the Otaki District Commercial Gardeners Society represented the interests of all growers. In the 1990s market gardens began disappearing, and much of the land is now being used for housing. Street names such as Dal Din Place, Bertelsen Court, Sue Avenue and Jean Hing Place are reminders of Otaki's market gardening history.
(See also OHJ vol 30 for several articles about market gardening in Otaki).
