Caretaker Farm NZ

In June 2017 work on the farm involving our wwoofers was all about gardening-planting food, taking out and planting flower cuttings, pruning trees, mulching and tidying up around trees and garden areas now winter is upon us. At the last new moon we created seed raising boxes from old bookshelves recuperated from the Old Bakehouse Market shop. As you can see below we covered the seed with straw and within 2 weeks the seeds were sprouting up. The work on the new raised winter garden on the top ridge continues as we plant and plant-unfortunately in 2017 the turkeys, possums and various insect predators were making this hard-a few herbs-borage, calendula, rosemary-were hanging in there despite nibbling and a pumpkin decided to grow despite the winter cool.  Then there is the wood gathering and chopping-lots of branches, cut logs still laying on the ground where they were cut by Adrian in 2916 to be collected, split and stacked-gum, pine and kanuka.  The raised-bed exten...

Many people think it is too hard to create a garden or worry that they havent got room but I have found that it is much easier than you think if you do a raised bed effort using cardboard, woodchips or leaves, coffee, clay soil and compost. I am too old to dig and frankly having heavy clay soils makes digging almost impossible so this is the alternative which is still effective. This is a garden created on Caretaker Farm in early summer 2015.  plants regrowing in 2016 a raised bed garden created in 2015 The same garden reproducing itself in May 2017 This garden was the first using some of the principles of Masanobu Fukuoka-seeds planted in clay bullets and then some plants allowed to reproduce....Coriander, Parsley, Kale even strawberries sending out runners so 20 original plants become 80. Self-seeded Corinader Self-seeded Parsley The following garden named "Pen Duick" was created in October/November 2016 with the help of wwoofers...

Caretaker Farm has had dogs since Dorothy and Audrey moved onto the farm in 1990. Those international visitors who have stayed with us over the past 23 years will remember them  well starting with Minty, Bart, Duchess, Maxie, Lucy, Frodo, Jack, Gypsy and Ruby in that order of arrival. Also there were the 4 lots of puppies bred by Lucy, Gypsy and Ruby and then sold by my daughter Tamarah, (whose dogs were bred), to people she vetted so carefully and kept contact with over the years.         Duchess, having a beer! The various Wwoofers (willing workers on organic farms) who have stayed and worked on the farm over the past 23 years have walked, played with, washed and loved the dogs. Interestingly this farm seems to have attracted to it international visitors who are very tolerant of dogs although we have had a few with cat allergies who have not been able to stay for long due to their reaction to cat hairs in the wwoofer house. Part of the farm daily ro...

 This evening around 7.45pm I decided to quickly visit the chicken house and collect the eggs as it has been two days since I did this and we have a couple of broody hens who are sitting on the fresh laid eggs and keeping them warm so the eggs start to develop and therefore I should have done this yesterday...anyway thats another story... So in the half light I put my hand under under one of the broody hens, taking great care that she didnt peck me, picked up the other loose eggs in the boxes  and then reached under yet another broody hen to extract the eggs when I felt a soft body of another type of animal. I admit to freaking out at first thinking that the body I felt was that of a rat as it had a tail and then found to my surprise that it was a kitten and that actually there were three kittens all keeping warm under this broody chicken. What a shock-how did they get there? This chicken house is shut up with wire and metal walls and full of about 35 hens and one rooste...

Caretaker Farm was named by Dorothy and Audrey Sharp in 1990. The name was chosen because we both believed that we are just caretaking the land while we are here and as caretakers we have responsibility to look after the land well. Maori would call this Kaitiakitanga, a type of guardianship. I was surprised to find that the same name used in the USA for a farm property doing similar things as us so to stop any confusion we need to refer to this farm as Caretaker Farm NZ. When I entered into a contract to buy the farm in December 1988 I was given 12 months to get the money together-I worked 6 jobs and by the end of the year had enough money by the end of 1989 to own the farm out-right.  The property was very run down and largely a grass desert common throughout most of New Zealand and particularly here as it had been a milking goat farm for 15 years-goats eat everything from trees, grass and weeds.  As it had been conventionally farmed since the 1880s the land was not really ...