Darlene's Story
THIS IS PART OF OUR NEW COMMUNITY STORIES SERIES, WHERE WE Share ARTICLES, NEWS AND PHOTOS FROM TARANAKI FAMILIES, INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANISATIONS THAT ARE CURRENTLY ENGAGING IN THEIR OWN SUSTAINABILITY JOURNEYS.
Darlene Gibson lives in Lepperton. In 2016 she and her family purchased 1.7 acres of fence-free land and a self-care house with shrubbery gardens. Thank you, Darlene for sharing your story with us!
Gardening, organics and recycling are what we have around us, and these practices have been in my family for generations. I learned a lot from living with my Nanna in Inglewood and her dad (my koro) in Opunake. I have always had a vegetable garden to some degree wherever I have lived.
At our current property in Lepperton, and in just over three years, we have fenced off 4 paddocks where we raise six Arapawa ewes and a ram. We’ve also built a chicken coup and run that we’ve surrounded with avocados and a tamarillo, a pigsty that moves every 18 months to fertilise the ground, and an orchard and vegetable garden with a newly constructed, recycled-window greenhouse.
The first thing we did was create a chicken coup as I already had 3 white Sussex chickens, which were my daughter’s pets. I soon added red shaver chickens for laying purposes.
The next thing on my list was a productive vegetable garden. I picked the sunny spot close to the house and began building up fertile soil by the Hügelkultur method. I layered cardboard, leaf fall, newspaper, heaps of manure and lawn clippings. I slowly collected and layered over the months until one side was ready. I then added and added, and added again. I only grow heirloom vegetables and favoured collecting my own seeds where possible. I then enrolled in a Kai Oranga Permaculture Course run by Whare Wananga O Awanuiarangi and facilitated by Pounamu Skelton. Through the course, we were asked to design a new maara (garden), so as part of the assignment, we created an extension in the shape of a koru design. The meaning of growth and new life fitted perfectly with the new property and my growing whānau.
The knowledge that I gained through this course has been invaluable to me on my self-sufficiency journey. I try my best to plant by the Maramataka and follow the waxing and waning cycle of the moon. The whole permaculture philosophy in reusing what we have is something that I feel very strongly about. A hua parekore station has been set up at home for all our rubbish and recycling.
All our food and green waste are recycled by the chickens or pigs and in turn, their manure is used back in the garden as fertiliser. We raise two kunekune pet pigs which eat lots of garden weeds and spoilt fruits and vegetables. Also, we have two boar goats that do a great job in keeping weeds at bay.
John and my cousin Cody have recently been busy erecting a new greenhouse (thanks to lockdown) made from recycled windows which we collected for free. It also has water collections into two IBC containers. They are soon to make a couple of seed raising heat boxes. We also plan to add a potting shed later on, and we collect water from a shed into a 10,000L tank for the garden and stock water.
The orchard has been my latest project by adding many fruit trees to the already established few that we had. My plan was to stagger the orchards fruiting to cover the year so there was always some fresh fruit to eat. There was an apple, pear, plum, guavas, feijoas and kiwifruit already well established along with citrus trees. It just gave me the idea to expand more.
The existing feijoa hedge gets fed via sheep manure and lawn clippings. An old espalier apple is next to that with an old Omega plum in front of them both. I have added tamarillos, fig, tangelo, grapefruit, lime and mandarins, Wilson and Luisa plums, plumcot, sweet johnny apples, peaches, strawberries, raspberries, grapes and six avocados. All the fruit trees are bordered with Russian comfrey.
I am also establishing a rongoa garden for balms and tinctures that I produce from native herbal plants and extracts, as well as an herbal tea garden.
When we purchased the property the house already had solar hot water which works well, so we decided to get a few solar panels for general electricity with the aim to add more in the coming years. We also have a battery storage system sourced through SolarCity.
Our house water tank is a little on the small side so we are planning to collect from another roof source into our collection tanks. During spring, summer and autumn we raise our porkers and rotate the sty to fertilise the soil for next seasons planting in the orchards. At some point, this will end due to running out of space, but at this stage, it works great.
We have a few projects on the drawing board, a fire-heated outdoor bath and earth-plastered, hyperadobe hut overlooking the neighbouring farmland to capture the sunrise amongst the orchard.
I hope to be here for a long time and hope our children appreciate their own piece of paradise. Even though it is hard work, there is no place I would rather be.
