Kōanga Institute

03/10/2026

We have a VERY special giveaway to announce!

We have one place, worth $965, on our upcoming five-day Gardening Masterclass to give to somebody who really wants these skills.

You will be here with us at Kōanga, learning both the why and the how of growing nutrient-dense food - working in the gardens, building soil and fertility, planning for food through the year, making compost, using ramial woodchip, biochar and liquid fertilisers, and getting your hands into the whole system.

We would especially love this place to go to someone who will take these skills home and share them with their family or community.

If you know someone who would love to do it, tag them in the comments and tell us why you think they should come.

The sponsored place includes the full five-day workshop and all your food. You will need to bring your own tent and get yourself to Kōanga, you will use the facilities here during the workshop.

18–23 October 2026

We’ll choose someone this week, so please share this around and help us find them.

More info on the workshop can be found here: https://koanga.org.nz/gardens/workshops/five-day-gardening-masterclass-18th-to-23rd-october-2026/

26/09/2026

This evergreen comfrey is one of the biggest finds for me in the last few years, saves so much work weeding berry beds, and also no need to mulch, or feed if you chop it down and mulch it right there a couple of times a year! The second video was taken later in October last year
https://koanga.org.nz/perennial-date/september-october/

25/09/2026

Seakale is on my mind! Seakale is a delicious perennial vegetable that is coming up right now and do sso each Spring at the same time as asparagus does, both perennials I would not be without. Seakale is an ancient vegetable from Northern European seacoasts, where it grows all Summer then is covered in great mounds of very white flowers ( which the night pollinators love) . It can be eaten as a leaf raw or cooked, delicious young leaves, or eat the young flower heads just as you would broccoli. It has a mild aniseed flavour. NOW is the time to plant it. It refers free draining and especially sandy soils, eventually making a plant that is about 1mx1m.

Description: These artichokes came directly from an elderly Dalmatian gardeners garden, right on the shores of the Kaipara Harbour near Pouto. The site chosen by an early Ships captain to make home and build the first commercial store on the Kaipara.. and where there already existed in 1840, large M...

24/09/2026

NOW is the time to plant Horseradish. Horseradish is a traditional European herb, that has many medicinal properties, as well as culinary ( roast beef with horseradish sauce!). These days it is what you get when you buy or eat sushi with wasabi. I love the very young leaves in dressings, peppery with that delicious flavour! The roots are what is traditionally used to make medicine and sauces but when the leaves are young as in the picture below on the left they are excellent! eg finely chopped raw into mayonnaise
https://koanga.org.nz/perennial-date/september-october/

24/09/2026

Future-Proofing Your Garden Resilience
Now is the time to be doing some future proofing for your garden resilience and self reliance.

Two of the best things you can do are plant Jerusalem artichokes and comfrey for compost material that is high in the nutrients our plants are needing, and also carbon in the case of jerusalem artichokes

If you don't have enough carbon crops coming from your garden to make enough compost to feed your garden, and you don't want to use a chipper, these two crops grown outside of your garden are our choice to enable you to make enough quality compost to feed your whole garden.

To make a compost heap that is big enough to actually make compost well, it has to be 1 cubic metre, and that requires a 100 sqm garden to produce enough carbonaceous material. Apart from being great for carbon artichokes are great human and pig food, as well as great insect and pollinator food.
We have comfrey borders around all of our gardens, two rows planted at 50cm diagonal spacings, no weeds coming into the gardens, and heaps of comfrey w ecan harvest every month from October to April for mulch compost liquid fertiliser etc etc , chicken food. it goes on and on.

You will probably also need approximately 30 Jerusalem artichoke plants to plant a patch big enough to provide you with the extra carbon required in both Autumn and Spring.

You will need the carbon from 10 plants to add to the carbon crops coming from your garden to make your spring compost heap, and another approximately 20 metres to provide carbon to add to your compost crops coming out of the garden to make your Autumn compost heap.

That is around 30 plants.

Each of our bags weighs 300g and can be cut into at least 10 pieces, each at least as big as a walnut. Instructions for cutting and planting are on the website with the product.
The dry stalks below are what are still remaining from last Autumn when they died back, super valuable for compost NOW

https://koanga.org.nz/perennial-date/september-october/

24/09/2026

Our rescheduled Webinar with Bob Corker on building low-cost greywater and composting toilet systems is happening tonight at 7pm.

We’re sorry it has taken a few attempts to get this one happening. We’ve had some frustrating technical problems, and really appreciate everyone who has stuck with us.

There has been a lot of interest in this subject, so we really wanted to make sure we could still bring this webinar to you.

Bob will be sharing practical ways we can make better use of the water and nutrients we already have around us, rather than treating them as waste.

If you’ve been thinking about composting toilets, greywater systems, reducing your reliance on expensive infrastructure, or creating a more self-reliant home, there will be a lot to take away from this evening.

Members have been emailed the link to join.

We hope you can make it tonight at 7pm.

22/09/2026

Kia Ora , If you are looking for sheep for your small farm (or big) we have Wiltshire ewes with lambs at foot for sale NOW. These sheep shed their wool so no shearing is required, they have been organically farmed for 25 years on hard land so they are extremely hardy (never been drenched in 25 years) and have been selected for health all of that time. They are easy to manage, pretty fast to adapt to electric fences and daily moving if that is what you need. They are not the horned variety, which makes them far easier to manage.The picture below are young ram lambs . For more details plaese contact Taiamai on 021 1436854

17/09/2026

Kōanga members - our rescheduled webinar is on TONIGHT, Thursday 17 September at 7pm.

Bob Corker will be joining us to talk about building your own low-cost greywater and composting toilet systems.

Bob will share practical ways to design and build simple systems without spending a fortune, while keeping valuable water and nutrients cycling within the land.

These are systems we have worked with here at Kōanga for many years, and this will be a very useful session for anyone interested in self-reliance, off-grid living, tiny homes, low-cost infrastructure or simply making better use of the resources already available around your home.

There will also be time to ask Bob your questions.

Members, please check your email for the link to join us live tonight at 7pm.

Not a member yet? You can find out more and join Kōanga here:
https://koanga.org.nz/subscriptions/

09/09/2026

UPDATE 17th September:

We have rescheduled this Webinar to TONIGHT - Thursday 17th September at 7pm. Members please check your emails for the link to join.

Apologies again for rescheduling.

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Tonight, Kōanga is hosting a live member's webinar with Bob Corker on building your own low-cost greywater and composting toilet systems.

Bob will be sharing practical ways to design and build simple systems without spending a fortune, while still keeping valuable water and nutrients cycling within the land.

These are systems we have worked with here at Kōanga for many years, and they can make a huge difference for anyone wanting to reduce waste, become more self-reliant and create more integrated household systems.

If you are interested in off-grid living, tiny homes, low-cost infrastructure, self-reliance or simply making better use of the resources already available around your home, this will be a very useful session.

There will also be time to ask Bob questions.

Thursday 10 September, 7.00 pm
The webinar is for Kōanga members - a link to join live will be sent by email today.

Become a member and join our Live Webinars, please visit:
https://koanga.org.nz/subscriptions/

Images:
1. Students on our last greywater and composting toilet workshop
2. Building the container for the primary treatment part of the system
3. Our composting toilet system in action: the finished compost is placed in rows beneath our forest garden support species, feeding the willows and other support trees. These are then chipped to feed the fruit trees, keeping nutrients cycling through the system. Our systems all follow tikanga.

04/09/2026