The Little Insect Farm opens garden to public via garden-share platforms

Aaron and Melissa Jacobson offer garden tours and workshops to people interested in learning more about the gardening techniques they use at The Little Insect farm. Photo / supplied

"Nobody likes me, everybody hates me; I'm going down the garden to eat worms."

These opening lines from an old nursery rhyme take on a new meaning when you visit Melissa and Aaron Jacobson's home in Rawhitiroa.

For starters, visitors to their property find plenty to love rather than hate, thanks to the informative and fascinating garden tours and workshops the couple offer through the newly launched Secret Gardens online platform.

As for the worms? Well, actually they are mealworms which are the larval stage of beetles from the Tenebrionidae family but they can be, and are, eaten with Melissa and Aaron planning to eventually farm them on a commercial scale for both livestock and human consumption.

Melissa says when she was a student at Massey University specialising in entomology, insects turned up on the menu more than once.

"There were quite a few times as a poor students that the mealworms bred for lizards and birds were baked into cookies, and one of the professors often roasted up locusts for us post grads."

Mealworms are the larval stage of beetles from the Tenebrionidae family and can be used as both animal and human food. Photo / supplied

While Melissa is no longer a student, but in fact a teacher at Taranaki Diocesan where Aaron also works, insects and mealworms haven't dropped off the menu completely.

"An awareness of environmental issues and the issue of food security with a growing population led us as a family to research and discover the wonderful world of entomophagy [eating insects]. Many people think we are weird, but we don't mind, and are excited to challenge people's mindsets, and provide an alternative protein source in the near future."

The Eltham couple are passionate about sharing their knowledge with people, and say partnering with Secret Gardens is a great way to ensure they reach as many interested people as possible. The website connects passionate gardeners like Aaron and Melissa with potential visitors who want to learn more about their specific skills and areas of expertise. It enables gardeners to operate a micro tourism venture in their own backyard, with visitors to the site able to browse the wide range of gardens listed and book visits or workshops through it.

The couple have been transforming their 1.2ha hillside section for 10 years. Photo / supplied

Melissa says they were approached by the team at Secret Gardens just after their garden, called The Little Insect Farm, had been part of the Sustainable Backyards trail in November last year. It had been their first time entering the trial and they had gained a lot from it, she says.

"We just loved the whole thing, sharing what we were doing with people. We have learned so much from others and it was nice to give back. The Secret Gardens opportunity was a way of doing that even more."

It's been a learning curve of over a decade says Aaron, who says when he and Melissa bought the 1.2ha hillside property 10 years ago, other than a few roses and shrubs it was just a house on top of a hill surrounded by paddocks.

Now it boasts far more than just a few shrubs or flowers, with an extensive tiered vegetable garden, a large food forest project, Hügelkultur (hill mound) beds as well as a custom-built composting toilet and humanure system along with the mealworms and numerous animals.

Everything has a purpose, with their chicken and ducks producing eggs for Aaron, Melissa and their three children to eat, to the children collecting their pet pony's manure for the compost piles on the property. They grow plenty of fruit and vegetables with an orchard currently "ripening up well", says Aaron.

"We have guavas, cape gooseberry, elderflower, apples, peaches, plums, nectarines, apricot and feijoas."

Vegetables include everything from the summer usuals such as tomatoes and courgettes to alpine strawberries, choko, yams, to various herbs and edible flowers.

They don't eat much meat, says Melissa, but when they do it's home grown.

"We eat very little meat, the children about once a week, Aaron and I maybe once or twice a month. When we do...we get beef from friends and use our sheep - if the kids can part with them."

The entire family are constantly learning as they go, says Melissa, and with their eldest son, Lucas, home-schooled, a lot of his learning is based around what is happening at their property.

"Lucas did a science fair project last year comparing mealworm waste (frass) with other fertilisers which won several prizes......he also designed insect hotels for his digital tech, and then created them for hard tech. He also wrote a business plan, marketing and selling the hotels."

A couple of Lucas' insect hotels that he designed and built. Photo / The Little Insect Farm

Lucas' younger siblings, Cohen, 9, and Alinka-Jean, 6, are also very involved in the garden, planting seeds, watering and weeding whenever needed, and learning all the time, says Melissa.

"Lots of maths opportunities, especially angles, when they helped us build our Hügelkultur beds and times tables when we are working out how many potatoes to each row."

The learning isn't just for the junior members of the Jacobson family however, Melissa and Aaron can give plenty of examples over the years of where they have encountered problems or had ideas that didn't work out as they envisioned. Melissa says they try to focus on closing the loop - turning the problems they encounter into opportunities to do things better.

"A great example of this is the septic system we inherited with our property. Although historically legal, so technically still legal, it was not at all ideal environmentally. There was no grey water system, it just emptied into the surrounding paddocks, while the toilet emptied into a hole in the ground, often leading out into the paddock."

The couple have now installed mulch basins to deal with the grey water and converted to a composting toilet in the house.

"It is the ultimate responsibility being able to take care of your own waste, in fact we don't see it as waste, but rather an important resource. It is one hundred per cent possible to close the loop in this way safely."

There have also been several "near misses" over the years, she says.

"Where we had plans and for whatever reason - not enough time or money perhaps - we didn't get to it, and then when it was time we did things totally differently. So a big tip we give others when they get a new property is to just wait, get to know the weather, the climate, the feel of the property etc. Have dreams and plans but don't be in a rush to do everything straight away."

The details:
Secret Gardens: a garden share platform where visitors can book garden visits and workshops - www.secretgardens.co.nz
Follow Melissa and Aaron's garden adventures on social media: www.facebook.com/thelittleinsectfarm or Instagram #thelittleinsectfarm