Garden, foraging, preserving.
Back to my roots. Words and images by Charles Buenconsejo
I grew up in paradise, in a small town called Consolacion on the beautiful island of Cebu in the Philippines. Reminiscing about my roots, I can’t stop thinking about the way our entire community used to be and how beautiful the town was before progress arrived. Full article “My pinalanggang ginikanan”
Growing the future with Ella Rose Shnapp and Levi Brinsdon-Hall
In March 2017, just around the corner from Ripe delicatessen in Grey Lynn, we moved into an old villa that looked like it hadn’t changed since the fifties. All that was present in the yard was a large lawn space reminiscent of a public park Full article “Urban abundance”
Interview and photos by Emma Badeia
Organic material, particularly from food, makes up the largest proportion of waste in the average Auckland refuse bin, and qualifies as the largest domestic contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. Full article “Blue Borage”
Some people are born gardeners.
I’m not among them, Full article “Mini havens – Herb gardens for tea”
When I cook with plants I like to focus on getting as much exciting flavour out of them as I can. I don’t like to think I’m restricting myself and believe a shift in perspective is all it takes to enjoy the full potential of plants when you give them your full attention. Full article “Making Meals With Plants”
As a family, we love mushroom hunting, and from open paddocks for ‘fieldies’ to forests for porcini, North Canterbury provides no end of habitat for adventure. Full article “Wild Food Love”
Stone Soup Syndicate presents the first in a series of short documentaries on New Zealand knife makers by Jacob Brown of brewery.studio
By Sarah Smuts-Kennedy
I have to confess I am already a fully signed-up cow-shit lover. Full article “Not just a load of crap”
I just couldn’t seem to co-ordinate a time to get to one of Jerome’s sourdough baking classes. But knowing half a dozen bread obsessives that have done his class, the odds of getting my hands on some starter and the recipe was always looking good. Full article “Starter Crumpets”
Over the last five years, Olly Perryman, the Christchurch-raised electronic music producer better known as Fis, has marked himself out on the world stage as one of New Zealand’s most adventurous, open-eared and celebrated experimental music makers. Full article “Saplings Records”
By The Next Meal
This fermented tomato and chilli recipe was inspired by tomatoes going bad at home as well as already-gone-bad tomatoes at markets – you can pick up kilograms of them from markets like Avondale or Otara in Auckland for pocket change. Full article “Tomato & Chilli Ferment”
When we first caught up with baker Jerome Ozich a year ago he had a seriously DIY enterprise, baking eight loaves of slow fermented sourdough a day in his home oven which he personally delivered to those who bought it from him via Instagram. Full article “WAKE & BAKE”
by Brie Sherow
Photos Jade Cavalcante
I first met Fiona Stewart when she and her business partner Bailey Perryman approached me with their idea for an inner-city farm situated on a lot left vacant by earthquake demolition. The organisation that I was working for at the time, Life in Vacant Spaces (LIVS), manages private property on a rolling monthly basis while the landowners work through their future plans. Full article “Cultivate Christchurch”
Food for Soil, Bugs, Plants, Humans.
The clay seed ball has been used for thousands of years as an effective tool and technique for the growing of agricultural crops and re-greening large areas of land. In recent times, they have been popularised through the Guerrilla Gardening movement. Full article “Clay seed balls – à la seed truffles”
By Lydia Veltman
A dyed-in-the-wool maker and an artsy type by trade, Jess Hemmings has a magpie’s eye for lost things. “It’s so ridiculous,” she says, “but I always come home from places with all this stuff in my pockets.” Full article “Object”
“They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.”
— Mexican Proverb Full article “Saving Seed”
Last weekend ‘for the love of bees’, a city bee collaboration / social sculpture in Auckland put into action their mission to turn Auckland into “a biologically robust ecosystem” and the safest city in the world for bees. Full article “for the love of bees – biking bee”
We’ve always had a tangy-tongued approach to food, constantly craving the power of sour that pickles and ferments can bring. It’s only recently on our own bacteria-driven journey that we’ve developed a new appreciation for what can be done with some salt, water, vinegar and a bunch of beautiful produce. Full article “Preserving the proceeds of summer”
“The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common,
But lets the greater felon loose
Who steals the common from off the goose.”
— anonymous protest poem from the 17th century.
Daniel Kamp makes beautifully designed everyday objects, designed with the explicit intent that they will last and be so beautiful that you’ll never want to let them go.
Photography by Fraser Chatham
Viv from Breakbread recently put a call out on social media for volunteers to help Julie Heffernan break ground on an inspiring new organic garden in West Auckland. With a gift of land she is able to continue the work she did with and for women at Kelmarna Gardens. She explains in her own words below.
Public Share is a collective of six New Zealand artists working together to engage in ideas of production, sharing and exchange. Public Share make objects with site specific clay which they then share in events designed to punctuate the day with pause, reflection and conversation. Full article “Public Share”
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese Proverb
Full article “Guerrilla Gardening”
by Laura Verner
Illustrations: Erin Ellis
Many useful and nutritious plants growing around us are treated as botanical outcasts. Weeds are characteristically fast-growing, and usually in areas people don’t want them. But their abundance and resilience means we are growing free food without even trying. Thinking of weeds differently opens up a new world of plants that are edible and/or medicinal. Full article “Eat Your Weeds”