Introduction

Hi, my name is Bridget and this blog is about Cabbage Tree Farm, and aims to describe some of the day to day goings on of life on a 10 acre piece of rural land in Northland, New Zealand.It may be of interest for those city dwellers who dream of moving to the country to be self-sufficient or living the “good life”. That was the dream that my husband and I had several years ago, and we are now trying to turn the dream into reality. Our priority is to produce for ourselves as much fresh, natural food (i.e. not sprayed with pesticides) as we can.A little over a year ago, we moved from the city onto our ‘block’ (short for lifestyle block, the common NZ description of our land). We have yet to build a house, and since moving here have had a baby, now 10 months old. We are all living (happily) in a garage and a caravan until the day comes when we can afford to build our new house.

Meanwhile we are working on the land: trying to establish an orchard, maintain a good supply of vegetables and herbs in our garden, landscape our surroundings for privacy and wind protection, and raising some stock. At present we have our own supply of fresh eggs and some meat from our chickens.

Looking forward to sharing our stories with you and some recipes too for all the food we manage to grow, hunt and gather.

Anyway, here we all are, me, my husband Graham and our son Dylan: