Organic NZ

Organic NZ is filled with info to live a healthier lifestyle - for you and the planet! Published by the Soil & Health Association of New Zealand, working since 1941 for sustainable organic agricultural and good health. Topics range from home garden to large-scale success stories; eco-building; urban organics; genetic engineering & chemical issues; food matters & natural health.

Organic NZ

Precious soils under pressure

Your letters • Email: editor@organicnz.org.nz Post: PO Box 9693, Marion Square, Wellington, 6141

Things we like

New report shows organic opportunity for NZ • New Zealand Organic Market Report 2020–21

How well do you know your soil?

In memory of Peter Downard

Have your say on organic regulation

Rich pickings AT A FEIJOA WINERY • Theresa Sjöquist traces 49 years of Lothlorien, from its orchard beginnings to its evolution into the only organic feijoa winery in the world.

instrument of change for organics • Bridget Freeman-Rock visits Perry Spiller, a prime mover in the organic scene from the 1980s onwards.

ACID TEST Safer weed management trials • Catherine de Monchy reports on citizen science weed-control trials in the Bay of Plenty using acetic acid as an alternative to herbicides like glyphosate.

Autumn gardening gather, snip and tidy • Tips and tasks for the garden in May and June, by Diana Noonan

How to make A LASAGNA BED • Hot off the press is a new book by Niva and Yotam Kay of Pakaraka Permaculture – The Abundant Garden: A practical guide to growing a regenerative home garden. This comprehensive book contains a wealth of practical gardening information for beginner and seasoned gardeners alike – everything from starting a new garden, building up soils and composting, to propagating, planting, weeding, watering, harvesting, organic pest and disease management, microgreens, fermenting and preserving. This extract will give you a taste.

Compost solutions for urban renters PART 2 • How easy is it for urban renters to compost their food scraps? In part two of this series, Meghan Read interviews two Wellingtonians in contrasting living situations about the options they’ve chosen.

Maramataka for Haratua

Maramataka for Pipiri

LOVE your hips! • Rosehips help boost the immune system, writes medical herbalist Sara Mertens, of Symphony of Herbs.

Recipes from the herbalist’s kitchen

Make your own plant-based milks • Gretta Carney and Isidora Roa of Hap? Eatery in Napier share their recipes, their research into nutrition, and their trial-and-error journey towards the perfect plant-based milk for baristas.

Shovel-ready SOLUTIONS to reverse climate change • It’s vital that we scale up organic, regenerative agriculture now to reverse climate change, writes Andre Leu.

WHEN METALS are heavy • This is the second article in a Soil Doctor series by Dr Tim Jenkins. This time we look at the issue of heavy metals in the soil.

A RARE BREED ideal for organic blocks • On a small farm near Dannevirke live some of the rarest cattle in the world. Kim Phelps introduces the Hinterwald: a hardy, friendly, dual-purpose breed.

Hands & hearts THE STRENGTHS OF URBAN FARMING • In 2019 Carl Pickens travelled to Europe on a Winston Churchill Fellowship to track down the best examples of urban agriculture he could find.

Cohousing for life • Cohousing visionary and dynamo Robin Allison has recently published a book about the trailblazing community that is Earthsong in West Auckland. Here we publish some extracts from the book, Cohousing for Life: A practical and personal story of Earthsong Eco-Neighbourhood, and a review.

Book review • Cohousing for Life by Robin Allison reviewed by eco architect Graeme...