Country Life

Chefs at Waimauku's The Hunting Lodge can be found digging, weeding and harvesting in the huge permaculture garden just across the driveway from the kitchen. The Hunting Lodge now grows about 60 percent of all the vegetables it uses in its restaurants and conference centre.

Hawkes Bay is looking for rain to freshen things up and get autumn growth moving. There is plenty of feed on farms but it is not good quality. Calf sales have got underway in South Otago and prices are back a bit on last year.

Westland Dairy Products farmer shareholders are mulling over whether they should sell their co-op to privately-owned company, Yili.

Southland Mosque Imam and dairy farmer Reza-Abdul Jabbar, Josh Mainwaring and Des Harris from the Hunting Lodge at Waimauku, Westland dairy farmer shareholder Richard Reynolds and the Regional Wrap.

After suffering an accident 20 years ago Chris Ashwell could no longer drive trucks so, for something to do, he started planting vegetables in his back garden. The joy of growing food quickly turned into an organic market garden business that has spread across 13 hectares of fertile land near Rangiora. His most successful vegetable is the award winning Tuahiwi Gold potato. Chris was given a tonne of the previously unwanted chipping spud and he now has the only seed stock for it in the country.

Waikato farmer Henk Smit had to kill 800 cows and calves when mycoplasma bovis was detected in his herd. He has put his property on the market and wants to leave the country.

Paddocks are greening up in many North Island places while in the South Island Marlborough is going quickly from brown to green.

Jeff Grant is New Zealand's Red meat Sector representative in London. He puts a human face on some of the implications of Brexit.

Unwanted spuds become Tuahiwi Gold, Henk Smit's cows leave his farm after M Bovis found there in spring,  New Zealand's Red Meat Sector representative in London Jeff Grant and the Regional Wrap.

After suffering an accident 20 years ago, Chris Ashwell could no longer drive trucks. For something to do, he started planting vegetables in his back garden. Quickly, the joy of growing food blossomed into an organic market garden business spread across 13 hectares of fertile land near Rangiora.