Adrian Roche with a barrow load of "black gold" – Kelmarna's organic compost. Photo / RNZ, Ross McNaughton
By RNZ
Along the short path to Kelmarna community farm, visitors are transported from suburbia to a rural oasis.
The 1.8ha block of land is nestled between the affluent Auckland suburbs of Ponsonby and Herne Bay, the last place you’d expect to find a farm.
The section is full of fruit trees, flower gardens, vegetable plots and animals.
As Adrian Roche shows RNZ’s First Up around, chickens crowd around the gate of their coop, hoping to be fed.
Bees swarm around their hives in the spring sun.
“We really love having the bees here to help make all that pollination happen, and we love having the honey to sell,” Roche said.
There’s even room for a few sheep.
The breed, Wiltshires, was chosen because they’re self-shedding, which means they don’t have to be shorn or docked.
Kelmarna is completely organic, and produce, including fruit, vegetables and eggs, is sold at the farm shop.
But plants aren’t the only thing being nurtured.
The farm has a therapeutic gardening programme for people with mental health needs or intellectual disabilities, and participants in the programme can cultivate their own small plot of land.
“Some people need support and advice, and some people, like the woman who looks after this plot, need absolutely no advice because she’s an amazing gardener,” Roche said, pointing to one plot that is bursting with spring growth.
The farm’s compost is made on-site, referred to as the “Soil Factory”.
To cut down on emissions, an ebike is used to collect food scraps from local restaurants and households.
The scraps are then composted at Kelmarna and either used on the farm’s garden beds or sold.
Kelmarna’s history is almost as rich as the soil.
The land was part of 1215ha Ngati Whatua gifted to the Crown in 1840.
In the 20th century, it was part of St Vincent’s Home of Compassion.
“In modern-speak, you might call it an adoption processing centre,” Roche said.
“So this was common throughout New Zealand, where women would be pregnant, out of wedlock, their families would generally organise them to go to places like the Home of Compassion here and have their babies, and then the babies would be adopted out.”
Some fruit trees from that era remain, while the shed where nuns once milked cows is now the lunchroom for volunteers and workers.
The farm started in 1981 when Paul Lagerstedt leased the land from the city council.
Adrian Roche began volunteering at Kelmarna in the 90s, before becoming an employee in 2003.
“I’ve studied sustainability a lot, and they always talk about the importance of social goals and environmental goals,” he said.
“That’s why I love this project so much, because it’s doing both things.
“It’s got really strong social goals of supporting people, supporting the most vulnerable, and then communities, community space, and then also environmental goals about how to produce food that kind of improves the world rather than detracts from the world.”
With Jo-Anne Hazel, Roche has written Growing Together, the story of Kelmarna Farm’s first 40 years.
While they were researching the book, old gardening diaries were uncovered, detailing early attempts at improving growing conditions.
Using fish for fertiliser didn’t turn out so well after the nuns complained.
“They had to put the kibosh on that because the smell was sort of wafting over the neighbourhood and attracting a lot of flies, I suspect.”
Fish wasn’t the only animal fertiliser tried.
“One of the most bizarre things was they were taking ashes from cremated animals from the zoo and using it.
“Very high in potassium, maybe, I’m not sure, but it’s recorded there in the diaries.”
More recent history hasn’t been without controversy, including 2019’s “cowgate” episode.
“We had a bit of a moment in the glare of the media about selling some of our cattle for meat, and then people complaining that the cattle were being turned into meat,” Roche said.
The three steers were eventually rehomed – and Kelmarna escaped its own brush with death last year.
Community fundraising saved the farm, and a new 20-year lease was signed with Auckland Council in April, ensuring Kelmarna will continue thriving and growing into the future.
Kelmarna Farm will be hosting a series of “Growing Together” farm tours on December 5 and 6, led by co-author Adrian Roche.
– RNZ