Kahikatea Farm

Kahikatea Farm Certified organic nursery & permaculture farm in Hawke's Bay. We stock NZ's widest range of medicinal plants, perennial vegetables, dye plants and more.

The farm features 17 year old food forest, veg & herb gardens, silvopasture & horse track system. Kahikatea Farm is a 16 acre farm designed on ‘permaculture’ principles. At Kahikatea Farm we are growing our soils, growing a forest garden, and growing our children and their future. We are growing our knowledge, and growing our community. In our nursery we grow a huge range of certified organic plan

ts - over 300 varieties of perennial vegetable seedlings, edible and medicinal herbs, companion plants, flowers, shrubs and trees. We focus on perennials and self-sowing annuals which are multi functional, hardy, and contribute to a diverse and resilient garden,farm or food forest which provides fertility and pest control from within, and which can provide a forage system of food, medicine, fuel, dyes, craft and construction material for you and future generations as well as a place of beauty and biodiversity. Our plants are available from our website as well as from Cornucopia in Hastings, and we can freight anywhere in the country. We also run permaculture, food forest, propagation and edible gardening courses and workshops.

11/06/2026

A warm winter means the garden is looking fuller and lusher than usual, we still have nasturtiums, and the tree dahlias along the edge of the nursery have flowered for the first time ever! That is all going to change tonight, with the first decent frost forecast! Green manure crops were planted a bit late but are ticking over fine, as are our trial syntropic garlic beds. We're harvesting plenty of brassicas and salad crops and the first baby leeks are ready. And most importantly, the geese are happy!

02/06/2026

RIP, moe mai rā dearest Robbie, you were just the best horse ever. 33 years old, what a wonderful life. We will be forever grateful to our friend Katie for teaching my daughter Anna to ride on him when she was 9 years old and then allowing us to have him here the last few years. He was such a gentleman, such a presence, the farm will not be the same without him.

Thanks to for the photo shoot last year

When 4 of your wider farm whānau have birthdays within 3 weeks there's definitely a case for celebration in the food for...
23/05/2026

When 4 of your wider farm whānau have birthdays within 3 weeks there's definitely a case for celebration in the food forest! And when 2 of them are welding whizzes, there's only one way to celebrate and that's with a campfire in the homemade brazier and dinner cooked on a homemade rocket stove! I feel very blessed to have such talented friends!

Last week we packed out a section between two olive trees in our syntropic retrofit project. For years there were just o...
21/05/2026

Last week we packed out a section between two olive trees in our syntropic retrofit project. For years there were just olive trees and a handful of pasture grass species here. Now in this one section of 18m2, there are 2 olive trees plus 103 other plants , totalling 34 different species and representing 18 different plant families - and we still have a border of evergreen comfrey to plant! We have a productive row of tree crops, a productive row of medicinal herbs, a row of woody biomass and a row of soft biomass material. How's that for functional diversity?! Already planning the next row and excited to see it all evolve!

Great to have an EIT horticulture group back on site last week! They had a go at their pruning skills, dismantling secti...
19/05/2026

Great to have an EIT horticulture group back on site last week! They had a go at their pruning skills, dismantling sections of an old tagasaste tree, which we graded down to make into what we call a 'fertility berm', placing the material down in rows on top of horse manure, and then covering it with cut grass to keep the moisture in. These berms act like slow release compost heaps, decomposing over time to release their nutrients to the rest of the system.
Herbie the dog had another great 'stick season' day and we were both super grateful to have the students' there (but for different reasons!!)

There's a goose loose! Can you spot her? Helping to 'prune' the oats in a garden bed of green manure! And leaving her ow...
16/05/2026

There's a goose loose! Can you spot her? Helping to 'prune' the oats in a garden bed of green manure! And leaving her own green manure behind too hopefully:)

Our ganders are called George and Lucas, and it's their special day today - May the 4th be with you!!
04/05/2026

Our ganders are called George and Lucas, and it's their special day today - May the 4th be with you!!

A precious day in my happy place - our food forest, where there is no distinction between work and play! My brain is on ...
02/05/2026

A precious day in my happy place - our food forest, where there is no distinction between work and play! My brain is on a constant planning and evaluating loop, my muscles are aching, but my heart is full of joy and gratitude:)

30/04/2026

Sunny the bantam hen has ticked off her tunnelhouse inspection but let's go have a look at all the goodies in here growing on for spring already!

28/04/2026

In our certified organic nursery herbicides are not an option and I wouldn't use them if they were. We do some weeding by hand and we call on the support of our feathered friends for the rest! In permaculture terms this is turning a problem into a solution - we get eggs and entertainment as a result! It's also known as stacking functions - one 'element' (the poultry) has multiple functions. And one function (weeding) is supported by multiple elements (people, ducks, chickens and geese). This is how we develop a diverse, interconnected, resilient system, just like nature:)

Address

Hastings

Telephone

02102223582

Website

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