Tag Archives: permaculture

A Decade of Eco Thrifty Permaculture

We’ve just passed our 10-year anniversary on the farm and want to celebrate by sharing some of our successes.

Our kaupapa is ‘eco-thrifty’, which means we do everything to a high environmental standard but keep to a lean budget, saving money by sticking to the fundamentals of good ecological-design. We have applied this approach to renovating an 80 year-old home, building a high performance new building, managing our orchards, growing a productive garden, bush and wetland restoration, animal husbandry, and earning multiple incomes on the land.

Join us Labour Weekend to see what we’ve accomplished.

Come for one session or for the whole time.

Sunday 27th October

3:30 – 4:30 The high-performance and low-cost approach to building. Learn the basics of simple and effective design along with plenty of tips for building in New Zealand.

4:30 – 5:30 First and best investments for renovation. We have renovated our 1935 bungalow to improve its energy performance by about 400%. In other words we heat double the space using half the firewood. The home also never overheats in summer.

6:00 Shared Meal. Bring a plate to share along with stimulating conversation.

Overnight ‘B&B’ available: Camping or marae-style $20 p/p. Or find a place to stay in Whanganui just 4 km away.

Monday 28th October

This morning focuses on water management in both winter and summer.

9:00 – 10:00 Tour of gardens and orchards. Learn about our low-input and high-productivity systems for growing plentiful and healthy food.

10:00 – 11:00 Tour of bush regeneration, wetland restoration and stream corridor protection. This is a walking tour of our regeneration projects that include over 4,000 native trees and over 300 poplars and willows.

12:00 – 3:00 Nature Play Reunion! For children and whanau that have come to our Nature Play programmes over the years. Bring a picnic lunch and come on back for more great fun by the stream!

Kaitiaki Farm is located on the outskirts of Whanganui.

Free to attend. Registration essential. theecoschool@gmail.com.

Fruits of our Labours

It’s been a long time since we last posted, but it has been a great growing season for us on Kaitiaki Farm. We counted 12 varieties of plum this season and we have three new ones to plant this winter.

We had so many prune plums this year that we wanted to preserve them by making jam. Just add lots of sugar.

Just as the plums are winding up the peaches are cranking.

We’ve had some early apples so far but most of them are mid and late season varieties.

Pears, persimmons and feijoas are still a little ways away, but avocados are ever present.

The garden is winding down but still plenty of basil for pesto.

Also grapes, guavas, quince and plenty of citrus on the way!

Kia Kaha!

Estwing

Fruit Set 2023

Despite the consistent strong spring winds and apparent lack of bees we have had excellent fruit set on our stone and pip fruit. I addition to these it appears all the other fruits are also doing well. Below are peaches and plums.

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Incredible fruit set on the apple trees.

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Pears and quince below.

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Feijoas and avocados are just blossoming, and persimmons on the verge.

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Still plenty of fruits on the avocado trees and citrus.

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Also we’ve got black currants, grapes, raspberries and boysenberries.

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I forgot to take images of the lemon tree and blueberries. Too much fruit to even remember!

Kia kaha! Estwing

Spring Permaculture Update

Kia ora friends! It’s been a mild and wet winter, which has served our native tree plantings well. With over 500 natives in the ground this winter we are hoping for moist soils as far into summer as possible.

See the previous post for more on the plantings. https://ecothriftylife.com/2023/07/09/tree-mendous/

One of the first signs of spring are the plum trees in bloom as seen on the featured image. Another is the poplars leafing out.

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We also see the muscovies sitting on eggs.

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And avocados (and peaches) blossoming.

At the same time, the peach stones are germinating in their propagation beds – ready to prick out and pot up.

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September marks about the halfway point of the growing season for garlic. We have just mulched ours but have had to put y-posts on top to keep the mulch from blowing away in these big winds!

All the does have given birth so we’ve got a paddock full of kids and fridge full of milk.

And Cheese Season has kicked off with a massive double batch of halloumi.

Love this time of year and looking forward to the abundance of this growing season.

Peace, Estwing

Tree-mendous!

Trees make up a large part of our approach to land management on this challenging 5.1 hectare property. We plant trees to prevent erosion. We plant trees to protect stream banks. We plant trees for fruit. We plant trees for stock fodder. We plant nurse trees to protect other trees. We plant native trees for biodiversity. We plant trees for shade. We plant trees to bees.

In a nutshell, we love planting trees. Oh wait, we plant trees for nuts too!

Winter is when we plant most of our trees and this year is no exception. We’ve been planting native trees on the valley sides above Purua Stream. Here is a bucket of trees ready to be planted.

Of course I also brought along a little treat for my helpers. Our kune kune pigs eat much of the grass around the trees we plant so they won’t get covered by the fast growing grass come springtime.

When the pigs came to find the scraps I had thrown for them a small flock of piwakawaka appeared. They eat flying insects that were disturbed by the pigs and I.

Here is an image for some trees in the nursery waiting to be planted out.

On a shelf above the stream I’ve planted a small avocado orchard where there is some well drained soil. When young the avos need protection from high winds, frosts and sunburn, so I planted tagasaste as nurse trees, which also add nitrogen to the soil.

Here you can see a small avo tree under larger tagasastes.

We also need to protect the avocado trees from possums.

As the avocado trees get older they are more frost and sun tolerant. While they grow upward I can selectively prune tagasaste branches, which are taken in winter to the goats as a treat. They love it!

See below an image of the valley before we started our native and orchard plantings. Notice the shed on the left and the large manuka on the right, as well as the tree stump in the foreground.

I’ve marked those same landmarks in the image below so you can see the difference.

Here is a reverse angle looking back up the hillside. It may be hard to pic out the trees as most of them are small – and my camera is not very good.

We’ve planted a lot of trees over the nine years we’ve been on the farm and we seem to just keep planting more!

Kia Kaha!

RetroSuburbia Property Tours

These events are free to attend.
Partial funding comes from Whanganui District Council. 

​RetroSuburbia Property Tours
An introduction to permaculture and how it can be used to improve the resilience of suburban properties.
Saturday 25th March at 2:30 pm. 9 Tainui St. Castlecliff. Sandy and windy site.
Monday 10th  April 2:30 pm. 37 Downes Ave. Springvale. Large site
Sunday 16th April at 10:30 am. 6 Plunket. Durie Hill. Clay soil and gully.

Permaculture Productivity

The growing season here on Kaitiaki Farm has been fantastic so far. Plenty of rain and plenty of sunshine have resulted in abundant yields in the orchards, paddocks and gardens.

At the moment we’re flush with plums, goat’s milk, avocados, zucchinis, green beans , silverbeet, and eggs among other things. We’ve been busy preserving plums, making cheese, and freezing green beans.

We’ve got a great group of permaculture interns helping with all this and enjoying the fresh, healthy kai.

*One note, however, our garlic season was a bit ordinary because of a fungal disease on the leaves.

We’re also looking forward to forthcoming abundance in basil, potatoes, pumpkins, chokos, peaches, apples, feijoas, pears, persimmons and citrus.

Peace, Estwing

And piglets born this week!

Signs of Spring

Despite a very wet winter the farm is looking fabulous and the animals are very healthy. These pregnant goats were shifted into this paddock for a good spring feed.

We’ve had a dozen kids born this season with one doe left to go. Sophie had twins on Sunday afternoon.

Mindy had a Mini-Me

The red shaver chicks we bought in the autumn have grown into hens and laying eggs with the longer days. Eight hens are laying 5 to 6 eggs per day.

The 100+ poplar poles we planted this winter are starting to leaf out.

The piglets are looking plump and healthy, while the sows and boars are keeping on top of the fast growing grass.

The garlic is up and going – almost ready to be mulched.

Plum and peach blossoms have been plentiful and we are hoping for good fruit set.

Avos are ready to be picked.

And tomatoes are ready to go into the ground.

So much more to report but also so much work to be done!

Kia kaha, Estwing

Free Programmes 2023

These events are free to attend.
Partial funding comes from Horizons Regional Council, the Whanganui River Enhancement Trust, and Whanganui District Council. 
Register: theecoschool@gmail.com

​RetroSuburbia Property Tours
An introduction to permaculture and how it can be used to improve the resilience of suburban properties.
Saturday 25th March at 2:30 pm. 9 Tainui St. Castlecliff. Sandy and windy site.
Monday 10th  April 2:30 pm. 37 Downes Ave. Springvale. Large site
Sunday 16th April at 10:30 am. 6 Plunket. Durie Hill. Clay soil and gully.

Bike or Bus to the Market

22nd April, 11:00-12:30.

Let’s embrace active transport & public transport with our tamariki.

Come down to the market for some kai and a good play with others.

Small and Large Block Permaculture

23rd April. 1-3 Permaculture on a Small Block. 3-5 Permaculture on a Large Block

Family Planting Day

25th April, 1-3 pm. Join us for a fun family day on the farm exploring, playing and planting native trees to protect te whenua and Te Awa Tupua.

Healthy Homes for Healthcare & Social Workers
25th May
Whanganui Regional Health Network
This programme helps  healthcare and social workers to empower families improve the health and comfort of their homes. 
Register with Angela Weekly at the Whanganui Regional Health Network.

Register: theecoschool@gmail.com
Kia Kaha!