Working in harmony with nature

Carl Mather outside his home with its greenhouse extension. Photo / Mike Barrington

The term permaculture was first coined by Australians David Holmgren, then a graduate student, and his professor Bill Mollison in 1978.

Mollison has said: "Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system."

Carl Mather has a well-thumbed copy of Mollison's book Permaculture - a designer's manual in the home where he and his wife wife Jenny and their 8-year-old daughter Doreen have lived since the couple bought 12.5ha near Kerikeri in late 2013.

Mr Mather, 56, is an Australian who in the past worked as a civil servant and spent several years in China tutoring people learning English. Now retired, he bought his family to New Zealand in search of "somewhere isolated with plenty of rain - I'm sick of living in a drought country" where he could put Mollison's ideas into practice.

New Zealand also suits his political views with "less fascism than in other Western countries, mainly because of the Maori Treaty [of Waitangi]."

Mr Mather has remodelled the property's two-storey house, extending it upstairs, and building a greenhouse 2-4m wide around the northern and western sides of the building.

Critics warned him the glass would roast the family in summer, but time has borne out his belief that the glasshouse would keep the house warm in winter and create a cooling draught in the living area in hot weather.

And under the glass he now has a ring of banana plants bearing fruit along with babaco, papaya, tomatoes, vegetables and other plants flourishing in the warm humid conditions.

The land, which has views of Te Puna Inlet, is largely gently rolling around the house near the top of a ridge but becomes progressively steeper as it falls into bush-clad gullies that carry water down to neighbouring swamp flats which drain into the sea.

Swales follow the contours of a hill on the Mather property. Trees will be planted on the excavated soil piled along the swales' lower edges.

Using a laser level, tractor-mounted implements and a digger, Mr Mather has cut narrow trenches called swales that follow the contours of the hillsides, holding rain water in their drains and ponds from where it can overflow into a lower swale.

Holding water in the swales allowed it to penetrate the podzol and clay under the topsoil of the land, formerly covered in kauri forest, he said. It also provided plenty of moisture for the 1000 fruit, nut, legume, shelter and timber species he has so far established in soil excavated from the swales and piled along their lower edges.

A four-page printed list of plants already in the ground begins with almond, apple, arrowroot, atemoya, avocado, banana, thornless blackberry, Queensland box, boysenberry, bunya, Cape lilac, carob, casimiroa, cedar, cherimoya, cherries (3 types), chestnut, claret ash, cypress and moves on through the alphabet.

The plants, all seedlings no more than 30cm tall when put in the soil less than two years ago, are thriving with some citrus fruit evident and most plants now a metre or more in height.

"We are seeking to improve the soil of the compacted pastures here. When the topsoil dried it was rocklike and smashed into dust. By establishing the swales and using mulch we are trying to make the soil more friable," Mr Mather said.

A small number of pigs, chickens, ducks, a few alpacas and sheep and three cows complete the pastoral picture, which he expects to be far more impressive when "this place is covered in forest" in a few years.

Mr Mather is a member of the NZ Tree Crops Association, which is holding its annual meeting at Wesley College in Pukekohe tomorrow and a field day at Own Schafli's pineapple and banana plantation at 100 Lamb Rd, Parua Bay, at 11am on Saturday.

The association will also begin its three-day 2016 National Permaculture Hui at a property beside Lake Karapiro on Saturday.

Late registrations will be taken on-site if there is space available.