Daniel Woolly and Bena Denton Photo: RNZ/Sally Round
A gully at the base of Mt Taranaki surrounded by dairy farms has been transformed into a food forest nourished by home waste.
The lie of the land and a bio-intensive farming system allows even bananas and pawpaw to grow here as well as everyday greens.
Bena Denton and Daniel Woolly are among several "backyard" farmers throwing open their gates at the Taranaki Sustainable Backyards Trail which takes place at the end of the month.
The couple saves energy and water using what's called a closed system on the terraces surrounding their solar-powered home.
Their four-hectare property is a showcase for their business Greenbridge and used to be a rutted paddock for dairy cows with not a tree in sight.
"We've been regenerating it over the last ten years, basically healing the landscape," Bena said.
They were drawn by the challenge but it almost broke them at the same time, she said.
The ecological landscape designer says her mission is to be productive and grow food.
Their house is situated to catch the sun a third of the way down the slope in a thermal belt, protected from the region's high rainfall by a series of swales above which also help rehydrate the land.
"It's the first line of defence when we get big rain," Daniel said. He is the healthy homes specialist on the Greenbridge team and helped build the infrastructure on the property.
Worms and slaters digest their home's wastewater - the grey and black water - providing a nutrient-rich diet for the "food forest" of fruit trees below the house.
Hens in "chook tractors " are used to dig over the vegetable beds and eat pests.
"We site our animals as high in the landscape as possible so that, passively, any nutrients they generate naturally go downhill but also we help and expedite that process as well," Bena said.
The different contours allow for different habitats for a huge variety of fruit trees from subtropical - bananas, tamarillos and avocados - to deciduous stone and pip fruit trees.
The couple also grows material for compost and sequesters carbon through tree planting.
They say they have noticed a rising demand for this kind of system.
"Four years ago we felt a real shift in the marketplace ... where "sustainability was no longer fringe", Bena said.
And since the pandemic and lockdowns people's interest in growing their own food has risen further, she added.
"They felt the scarcity and the anxiety of the lack of resilience in our food system."
Click here to find out more about the Taranaki Sustainable Backyards Trail
Bena saves energy and water using a terraced system Photo: RNZ/Sally Round
