Jo is a passionate permaculture teacher and gardener. A long time environmentalist, she has a background in language teaching and since 2005 has taught courses and workshops in permaculture, sustainability, gardening, herb growing and horticulture at Kahikatea Farm, EIT and many other organisations.
In 2005 she founded the Hawke’s Bay Permaculture Group and in 2007 she was awarded the NZ Gardener Magazine’s Hawke’s Bay Gardener of the Year for her gardening, teaching and community efforts. Her main interest is in designing and growing sustainable perennial agricultural systems at both urban and rural scales, and opening people’s minds to a different way of growing.
Aaron was responsible for delivering our plants to our retail outlets and running our market stall until a back injury in 2011 put him out of action physically.
Ever positive, he enjoyed the opportunity to be ‘house daddy’ to our two daughters, Anna and Eliza. He also does the finances, which involves making Jo define more clearly what is a ‘want’ and what is a ‘need’!
Our girls, now in their mid teens, are growing up in interesting and challenging times. So far we seem to be striking a reasonable balance between eco-literacy and digital literacy and they willingly embrace both. Sometimes this is to our advantage when our own digital literacy is not up to scratch!
Anna is our barista, serving morning coffee to whatever crew we have on board each day. She is also ‘the horsey one’, and is in charge of our three standardbred horses, who provide a mountain of poo for fertilising our gardens. She’s helping develop a ‘Paddock Paradise’ track system, for the horses’ own health, and to ensure our grazing management is as holistic as possible.
Eliza is ‘the arty one’! Since she was little she has been an expert at flower arranging, gift cards and crochet. More recently she’s focused on culinary delights which are very welcome at morning coffee! Her latest graphic design skills can be seen in the beautiful new icons she’s developed for our plant shop page.
Patricia is our inhouse herbalist, being a qualified practitioner as well as a hugely experienced gardener. We love Patricia for her enthusiasm and positive energy as well as her expertise. She’s an absolute powerhouse when it comes to pricking out and potting on, and is in her happy place working with and talking about plants all day! She’s a complete plantaholic and does absolutely nothing to help control Jo’s own plant collecting habits!
Rama works both in the nursery, and on the farm as our soil manager. He is passionate about permaculture design, has a PDC, and is currently studying for an advanced qualification to be a design practitioner and consultant. He is upskilling himself on plant knowledge and syntropic agroforestry through experiences here and abroad, so he’s a pretty handy person to have around!
We are delighted to welcome Maggie and A.K. to our team this spring. Spanning both nursery and farm they’ve slotted in like a dream getting involved in numerous projects and we’re loving having them here!
We’d also like to acknowledge all the wonderful people who have supported us and helped out in myriad ways over the years, without them the farm and nursery would not be what it is today.
– our Pre-Effluent Treatment System! (In other words the dogs do first round of dishes duty, which means less food scraps and grease go into our grey water system!). The dogs are all also our ‘mental health ambassadors’ – it’s impossible to have a bad day when you’re having doggie cuddles! All our dogs (8 over the years) have been rescues or from unwanted litters.
Herbie is our sensitive soul who does the rounds at morning tea time to check we’re all ok! You will see him appear on some of our product pages, introducing you to plants which are useful for animals:)
Charlie is our bouncing Beardie x; typically he has a very loud voice and likes to use it! He has a range of skills to show off including being able to clear the horse jumps much better than the horses!
Juno truly believes she is her namesake – the Goddess of Goddesses! Amongst other things she is in charge of barking at visitors and next door’s cattle, and cleaning the coffee cups! In the evening she morphs into a super-handy foot warmer under our desk!
Bea is the junior member of our canine team and is currently upskilling on guard duty, rat catching and cuddles – all the important qualities!
