As we move into the summer months, we have opened up the Farm Shop / Kete Kai for a few more days during the week.

You can now visit us:

98 Whitemans Valley Road

leave a review here.

Kia ora,

Welcome to the Mangaroa Farms Newsletter, featuring updates from our local ecosystem.

As the seasons have well and truly shifted to Spring, we are finding the soil is getting drier, and the longer days make for more daylight hours caring for our above & underground livestock (mycelium).

At the gardens, we've finally planted out our 6th 25m bed (see photo above), after the "chopped and dropped" cover crop had first been covered for a period of time with the black sheets.

With all the extra produce coming through, we're stoked to open the Farm Shop Kete Kai for extended hours over the Summer - see more below.

Top left in photo - there's now a new bed full of growing pumpkins for harvest next Autumn (with black mats) and a small grove of natives planted along the cottage fenceline.

We're enjoying watching growth of new trees and seedlings that have been planted in Aug - Oct, especially in riparian areas (along rivers) and to extend significant natural areas.

Big thanks to our team who have been working around the clock to keep the wheels turning of the Mangaroa Farms Food Hub & Education Centre vision.

Please find a list of our latest updates below,

In Gratitude,

The Mangaroa Farms Team

Join us on Sat 4th Nov for our inaugural opening of the Mangaroa Farm Shop Kete Kai. We're celebrating by offering a range of farm/garden tours, with live music, coffee & kai, plus showcasing our local suppliers & community producers.

Spaces limited for farm/garden tours - please register at https://mangaroa.org/products/farm-shop-open-day-ticket

EVENT TIMELINE:
9am - Gates Open (Farm Shop open & stalls)
10am - Tour 1 (Jules Matthews)
11am - Tour 2 (Cam Dixon)
11.45am - Live music, stalls, games & MF lunch served
1215pm - MF Announcements
1245pm pm - Tour 3 (Jules Matthews)
1.30pm - Tour 4 (Cam Dixon)
2.15pm: Raffles drawn & closing
Farm shop remains open until 5pm

Spaces limited on farm/garden tours - please register at https://mangaroa.org/products/farm-shop-open-day-ticket

KAI
Mangaroa Farms will be putting on our locally produced sausages on the BBQ for sale, and Jules' famous smoked lamb buns with our Mesclun salad will be available for lunch. Vegetarian options also available.

VENDORS
We look forward to showcasing a few of our local food vendors & suppliers. More details to come.

SHOP
We will be have multiple raffles, product bundles, and Mangaroa Merch available for purchase on the day.

The Farm Shop will be open as normal from 9am - 5pm.

We look forward to sharing the Mangaroa Farms community, gardens, kai, and trails with you.

Please get in touch with welcome@mangaroa.org if you would like to be involved.

Hosted at the Mangaroa Farm Shop / Kete Kai 98 Whitemans Valley Road.

Join the Mangaroa Farms team in the exciting role of Finance Manager.  This is an excellent opportunity for someone who has experience in all aspects of small business accounting. 

In this sole charge position, that is very hands-on, the Finance Manager will provide robust bookkeeping and financial and management accounting requirements for all Mangaroa Farm entities including:

• Budgeting, analytics and data insights

• Accounts payable/receivable, expense management, and all payroll activities

• Produce financial reports and develop financial modelling and data insights

• Have an analytical mind that sees beyond the numbers and can easily interpret the data

• Upscale the financial acumen of the team

• Achieve excellence by expanding the current financial requirements.

You’ll have a strong understanding of the functionality of Xero, and be familiar with Smartly payroll, as well as all the necessary IRD requirements such as PAYE, FBT and the like.

The ideal candidate will be an energetic and self-motivated individual who is looking for some flexibility in how they work as we offer a mixture of both working from home and at the farm.

If you have the relevant financial experience and are looking to make an impact, apply online at the link https://mangaroafarms.bamboohr.com/careers/28

Join the Mangaroa Farms team in the exciting new fixed term role of Market Garden Intern.  This is an exciting opportunity for someone new to the market garden industry, or you may already have practical regenerative garden experience.  We believe in regenerative agriculture and we are looking for an Intern to join our team on this journey. 

The Market Garden Intern will work across two key aspects of our Market Garden:

• working in the Market Garden providing hands on garden work.

• working in the Mangaroa Farm shop/Kete Kai providing front line retail support.

As our Market Garden and Farm shop/Kete Kai grow, we currently need to remain flexible around busy periods and seasonal growing periods centered around demand and capacity.

It’s an exciting opportunity to join our team as we move towards the spring/summer planting season, as well as delivering on and expanding our new retail offering. 

Last weekend we hosted our community tree planting day, working out in the pastures alongside a small stream that feeds into the Mangaroa river 🌳🌿

See the facebook post.

With the 30x amazing volunteers that showed up, we planted 700 native seedlings, including Harakeke (Flax), Ti Kouka (Cabbage Tree), Oioi (Grasses), Houhere (Lacebark). All of these plants were fitted with natural woollen weed mats, a couple of staples, and cardboard protectors, to give them a leg up in the elements.

This month’s seasonal nutrition guide we take a look at the richness of iron present in vegetables grown at this time of year, and opportunities to improve iron absorption especially when our intake of iron is from plant based sources. 

What is iron and why do we need it? 

Iron (Fe) is an important nutrient that helps make haemoglobin  - a protein that transports oxygen around the body for our cells to make energy.  

We also need iron to support a healthy immune system as adequate iron stores are needed to help fight off infection.  

Low levels of iron can lead to lethargy (tiredness), paleness, bruising easily and making it hard to concentrate.  It can also mean a low immunity and resistance to illness as the ability to fight off infections and colds become weaker.   

This week 14 - 20 August is Conservation week in Aotearoa, which means a time to celebrate and get involved in efforts to protect our native taonga (treasured) bird, tree & flora species. 🌳🌿🐦

Join us for a volunteer tree planting day alongside the Mangaroa River on Saturday 26th August from 9am - 3pm.

Limited spots available - please RSVP here at the Facebook Event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1447784139408995

Be prepared for a day of digging, planting, wool matting, and cardboard protecting as we plant native seedlings in Riparian style alongside our local water streams. By participating, you will be contributing directly towards protecting and preserving the river bank, curbing farm runoff, and boosting the wellbeing of aquatic life and native birds in the area.

This is a day of learning, contribution, rejoicing and BBQing as we celebrate the milestone of getting plants in the ground, and coming together as a community as the lighter days of Spring begin.

Lunch will be provided for volunteers with kai sourced from gardens & pastures.

Limited Spaces - RSVP required.

Please only click "Attending" if you are actually coming to the event. 

BYO gloves and spades - and just a heads up, you will probably get pretty muddy.

Lastly please be on site by 9am sharp for our morning briefing in order to participate.

Contingency date: Sat 2 Sep

Our in-house regeneration specialist Liv Sullivan has been working her way up the stream with another 7000+ native seedlings, planting riparian style along the edge of the riverbanks.

Riparian planting helps to create solid root structures along the bank to help manage soil erosion, help soak up any farm runoff, and over time, encourage a healthy diversity of bird life - whilst boosting the health of water organisms in the stream.

We're excited to have opened the doors of the Farm Shop / Kete Kai to our local community, featuring a range of our latest Mangaroa Farms seasonal produce, ferments, pickles, poultry and our frozen collection of pasture raised Lamb & Beef

What are we focusing on during Winter?  

If you think gardeners wind down over the winter months - think again!  We make the most of the short days starting earlier and are thankful to experience more fine days than we normally would these last few weeks, as contending with too much rainfall can be problematic.  We’re also lucky Te Awa Kairangi / the Hutt Valley region has a temperate climate to grow a number of crops in the field even if their growing capacity slows down with less sunlight hours. 

These include our salad ingredients, root veggies, alliums and brassicas:

• Mustard mizuna

• Baby kale

• Rocket

• Parsnips 

• Carrots

• Garlic

• Leeks

• Spring onions and purplette onions

• Spinach

• Brassicas - Kale, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Red and white cabbage, Wong Bok (Chinese cabbage) and Pak Choi. 

With winter setting in, naturally we are programmed to crave foods that are energy dense to keep us warm, not to mention make us feel happier - what we often refer to as ‘comfort foods’.  For this month’s seasonal nutrition guide, Resident Nutritionist at Mangaroa Farms, Lydia Thomsen reinforces the importance of retaining nutrients when cooking and zooms in on the importance of Zinc and its richness in a surprising source. 

How to make the most of warmer foods in winter.

While we call on comfort foods to get us through the colder months, there is such a thing as ‘healthful’ comfort foods such as soups, curries and hotpots.  They’re carbohydrate rich, however they are the types of dishes where you can pack a lot more nourishing vegetables in;  which is necessary since some vitamins and minerals we need more of (i.e. Vitamin C) can be reduced when in contact with heat, light and water (see last month’s blog article).  

The good news is, some foods are actually better for us when cooked. Cooking in general does improve food digestibility and for certain foods can increase their nutrient content and make certain vitamins and minerals more bioavailable.  Cooked carrots for instance contain more beta-carotene than raw carrots, which is a substance the body converts into vitamin A. Furthermore, cooking spinach improves the body’s ability to absorb the calcium and iron content in spinach.  In this instance the cooking process reduces the oxalate content (oxalic acid) which is known to block the absorption of these nutrients.   

Just be mindful of the length of cooking time, and the amount of liquid used to retain water soluble vitamins such as Vitamin C and B vitamins.   While there is no perfect cooking method, cooking for shorter periods at lower temperatures with minimal water will maximise nutrient quality. When it comes to soups, the good news is these vitamins are retained in the cooking liquid which makes soups an important part of our diet to attain these essential nutrients.  

As we’ve entered the cooler and slow growing season of Autumn.  Resident Nutritionist at Mangaroa Farms, Lydia Thomsen highlights what veges are still in the ground from the summer months and what foods and nutrients to be mindful of this Autumn to keep us healthy.

What are we focussing on during Autumn?  

While it initially doesn’t feel like we want to let go of summer (especially when there hasn't been much of one this year in particular!), our minds have turned to prepping beds and planting our cooler seasonal veg and herbs to keep us healthy over the colder months.  

Fortunately you can still enjoy the last of the summer fruits and veggies.  While the air temperature does drop a few degrees, soil temperature stays warm from months of the summer sun, which means seeds still have an opportunity to germinate relatively easily.  With cool air temperatures and predictable levels of moisture, plants do not get as stressed as they would in the summer heat, which enables them to put energy into supporting their roots to absorb more nutrients.  It’s no wonder root vegetables are far more abundant over the colder months! There is also less weed and insect pressure; not that we are completely out of the woods with the presence of the pervasive white butterfly!.  Insect cloth and keeping up with our biological feeds for both the soil and plant health, ensures a healthy (and nutritious) crop when time to harvest. 

The Farm Shop exterior is now complete thanks to the hard work of local craftsmen Casey McNeil, Paul & Ground Up Fencing Ltd & co.

Over the next few weeks, as the freezers, chillers, and signage is being installed, Casey is working on the benches, shelving and joinery on the inside of the shop, upcycling old Tōtara fenceposts and pieces of timber from once-upon-a-time on the old dairy farms of Whitemans Valley…

Invented in Japan in the 1960s, this contraption allows farmers to transplant up to 264 seedlings in just minutes, making a quick solution out of what once would have once taken hours of back breaking work on hands and knees to complete.

The biodegradable paper chain pots (which the seedlings are growing in) arrive flat, and are extended out into a honeycomb grid pattern. Soil is then added and seeds are sown in each pot in the nursery, until the seedlings are ready to be transplanted into a garden bed.

Join the Mangaroa Farms team in the exciting new role of Market Garden Operations Manager. This is a crucial new role with Mangaroa Farms, as we launch and expand our Farm Shop / Kete Kai.

Reporting to the CEO, this senior leadership position is responsible for the day-to-day management and operations of the Market Garden Team, which includes the retail shop and garden.  Our Market Gardens Operations Manager will manage our small and dynamic market garden team to deliver amazing fresh offerings to our customers and community.

This role will play a pivotal role in delivering on and expanding our new retail offering, pulling on your entrepreneurial capabilities by overseeing this business within a larger organisation.

Our Market Garden Operations Manager will have practical regenerative garden and managerial experience, leading the market garden team in support of our mission to relocalise, re-engage, and re-emphasise ecological education through an integrated storytelling experience for our customers and the community.  We believe in regenerative agriculture and we are looking for a key member of our team to join us on this journey.

Celebrating some of our core team members

and Jacqui Bray as they move on from Mangaroa Farms, and on to greener pastures in the north.
Sam "Grow-Lord" Gibbins has been an essential figure in our market garden, working closely with Jules, Dan and Casey to lay the foundations for our

charge on the weekly vege bag operation, and setting up many of the systems we currently use today. With his help we have set up the magic and the beauty of the market garden, and we are beyond grateful to have had him on board in the valley for nearly 2 years.

Join us for the Open Farms open day on Sunday 12th March from 10am - 4pm for a variety of garden tours, planting & livestock demonstrations, and perhaps most exciting - a locally produced lunch! Bring a koha donation for some of Jules' smoked Mangaroa Farms lamb & fresh salad rolls + vegetarian options & more.

Tickets are necessary

Register by claiming a ticket here: https://www.openfarms.co.nz/event/mangaroa-farms-2/
You can arrive at any time and do a self-guided tour, or plan to attend to a few key activities across the day:

- 10:30am -11:30am: Guided market garden tour and demonstration

- 12:00pm - 1:00pm: Livestock handling demonstration and talk on how pastoral farming can contribute to rebuilding our ecological health

- 12:00pm - 2:00pm: Lunch. Please bring a cash koha (donation) - all proceeds will go to support those impacted by cyclone Gabrielle

- 1:45pm - 2:45pm: Guided market garden tour and demonstration

- 3:00pm - 4:00pm: Livestock handling demonstration and talk on how pastoral farming can contribute to rebuilding our ecological health

Landslides, flooding and high winds have decimated farms, communities, homes, and businesses. Countless families are without homes, dry places to sleep, and a plan for surviving the next few months.



Many people’s lives will never be the same.

As communities band together to clean up the mess, and we see the real extent of the damage - it seems a huge amount of Aotearoa's main fruit & vege production areas have been heavily impacted. Some are not even sure where to begin with cleaning up - the question remains of the viability of even continuing at all.