Vision

Organic Principles

Nikau Gardens, in Golden Bay, was established by Chris and Silvia Rowse in 1999. We wanted to be able to grow our own vegetables, fruit and nuts using organic and permaculture principles. Before we moved here we did several organic and tree crop courses as well as a permaculture design for the property.

More Info on our organic principles…

 

Produce

We have enough land to grow a few crops commercially – primarily Avocados (about which we are very passionate!) with some other surpluses for sale – particularly citrus, persimmons and others that grow on our nearly frost free, north facing, escarpment property. See link to Golden Bay climate and growing conditions The 11ha of land above our cultivated areas is being allowed to regenerate, with 1/3rd of the property – over a ridge, in a gorge, being in a protected covenant.

We try and use as much as possible from our land – fire wood, some timber, rocks and mulched materials.

Underground power was already on site and water comes from the gorge creek. The house we built is primarily timber and designed for passive solar heating. Water is heated with a solar unit and a wet back log burner. Grey and black water is used for feeding the avocados.

We are selling surplus produce and expect this to increase as the fruiting trees mature. We also sell honey from our bees on the property.

More info on our produce…

 

WWOOFers

Wwoofers have contributed a lot to make the property function so well and are welcome, particularly long term. We have a separate studio available.

More info on WWOOFing at our place…

  • Gallery

    View of our house and fields from the cliff Our house and the Dragons Teeth - Kahurangi National Park We love our fruit trees! Bird of Paradise Flower Paulownia tree in full flower

  • Timeline

    August 1997

    We visited Golden Bay looking for a property and found this one. Contract signed soon afterwards, subject to a further subdivision to create this
    current title on 14.8 hectares.

    1998 / 1999

    We visited the property several times and studied the topography and what was growing here. We attended an organic horticultural course and Chris did a “Tree Crop” course and a “permaculture design course”, which included doing a design for the property. The house design was worked on ready for possession date. We sold our home and businesses in Christchurch.

    March 1999

    The sale went ahead and we started to build. We moved up here and lived in the cabin whilst the building went ahead. With our neighbour, we constructed a goat proof (almost!) fence around our development areas.

    September 1999

    Moved in to the house.

    2000 – 2003

    Established the shelter belts and planted most of the fruit trees.
    Removed many of the timber trees and replanted with native species (3-4000 in all). Started the vegetable gardens. Cut walking tracks to allow access to the areas we want to plant and develop. Neighbours kept the goat population down
    up above us and with no sheep grazing there, the bare slopes quickly changed from grass to a primarily kanuka and totara hill, with thick ferns and mixed native species at the back our land – in the Te Kite Creek gorge. The 2 remaining mature Nikau Palms fell over in storms – they were left from the pregrazing phase and were very exposed.

    2004 onwards

    Developing the property and refining the details. Learning more about the climate and range of plants we can grow here. We planted a range of tropical trees and also several of the rarer native trees that particularly grow on the limestone escarpment.

    2006

    Created a covenant with the QEII trust for the furthest third of land, it is in the Te Kite Creek gorge. This protects the land from development in perpetuity and is set up to encourage native tree etc regeneration.

    2008 November

    There was very heavy rain for 2 ½ days (459mm) and we had a third of our lawn slip down the hill to our drive. This was rebuilt 6 months later.

    2011

    We removed most of the remaining timber trees along our south boundary (Eucalyptus and Macrocarpa) and replanted with native species. Finished off many infrastructure projects and built a composting toilet for the wwoofers. Our plan was to finish the infrastructure by Chris's 60th birthday and we did it –
    just! Now we can focus more on the production side of the trees and plants and start building up the marketing of the Avocados and other produce.