This week Country Life is visiting a vegie patch on the Canterbury Plains and takes us to Nightcaps- a tiny coal mining town in the foothills of Southland's picturesque Takitimu mountains.

Strange fishy sculptures made out of recycled stuff are popping up on the shoreline at Riversdale. They're the work of country plumber Jeff Burnett, who can't keep his hands off junk.

When Jeremy Naylor bought Okainamu farm in the Upper Wairoa Gorge in 1982 it was a neglected grazing unit. Over time he's planted heaps of trees on the secluded property and transformed it into a BioGro certified orchard and market garden. He also runs beef cattle and sheep and sells his produce at the Nelson Farmers' Market.

Scion's new $14m building has been designed to welcome in the public and to showcase the sustainable use of wood.

Matamata dairy farmer Tracy Brown is among a batch of Nuffield scholars taking a closer look at New Zealand agriculture with overseas travel out of the question due to Covid-19. The Nuffield programme is one of the agricultural world's most prestigious.

Taranaki is looking lush and in the South Island kiwifruit vines are being very carefully pruned in Nelson.

Mid Canterbury farmer Rhys Roberts was badly hit in the floods last weekend. As CEO of Align Farms, he farms mostly dairy on two properties on the south side of the Ashburton River. The river was still surging through one of the farms at the end of the week.

Country Life talks to a farmer picking up the pieces after the mid Canterbury floods and takes a tour of a multi-million-dollar Rotorua building designed to showcase the sustainable use of wood. And while Cosmo fights off sandflies at an organic farm near Nelson, Sally meets a country plumber with artistic talent.

Kim Spencer-McDonald says she knows a number of women who, as she did, have fallen in love with the farmer but not necessarily the farm. She says meaningful, stimulating off-farm jobs are difficult to come by in rural New Zealand. Over the years she's had to create her own opportunties to earn an income.

Chocolatier Johnty Tatham and his brother Paddy who is experimenting with chillies are forging new paths as the sixth generation on a sheep and beef farm on the Wairarapa coast.