Sustainable intensive gardening might sound like a contradiction in terms, but small-scale market gardener Jodi Roebuck and his partner Tanya are proving otherwise.
From their 12-kilometre block near New Plymouth, Jodi and Tanya provide high-end microgreens and salad leaves to a select number of restaurants and shops and also Pak'n'Save.
Jodi Roebuck Photo: https://www.camillarutherford.co.nz/
When the couple set up the farm, it was really important for them to find the perfect site, Jodi tells Nine to Noon.
"We're within a valley and we have a river boundary. We're in a suntrap, we're protected from the prevailing westerly, but we get the winds back from the east quite bad. And we've got a half-acre intensive market garden and we direct market everything into retail and restaurant."
The operation is based on speedy growth and rotation, he says.
"Everything's super tight with minimal pathways. We do fast-rotation crops, we cover our soil at all times.
"On average, we're planting four to five crops a year on succession on rotation. And I guess the intensive part of it is we're really focusing on fast days to maturity crops."
Microgreens and baby leaf salads are the backbone of the business, Jodi says.
“The microgreens are currently six days [to harvest], our field baby mizuna has 17 days, pea shoots are 12 days, so everything's fast.
“If we divide our income by how many days it takes to grow that's really insightful for what are the crops that are profitable.”
The couple also grows a selection of root vegetables such as radish, Japanese turnips and carrots. Spring onions and coriander grow year-round.
“In the greenhouses in summer we train vertically, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes with a few other crops, which I call add on income, but the core of our business is baby leaf salad, we do it year-round.”
Focusing on the number of days it takes each product to mature enables the business to be more consistent as a supplier, Jodi says.
The indoor-grown microgreens currently take 6 days from seeding to harvest and that stretches out to 12 days in winter.
“So the days to maturity changes by 200 percent, the field crops change, they take two and a half times longer in winter.
“So, we grow two and a half times the area. It's pretty simple calculation.”
Fast-growing microgreens are a buffer when the other produce takes a hit from Mother Nature, he says.
“We just had half a metre of rain in two weeks and when we lose some crops the others are a buffer for the longer season stuff and it gets you back on production ASAP, we can see if we have a shortage coming in the field, we can double up on the fast stuff and it keeps us consistent year-round.
“Half-an-acre supplying four retail stores and six restaurants is a pretty busy gig.”
Small-scale farming has taken off in the last couple of decades, Jodi says, with urban farmers Curtis Stone and Jean-Martin Fortier at the forefront of the movement.
“That's really where I cottoned on to the small-scale tools, all our green harvest is run off battery drills, pretty much we’re a battery drill driven farm, we use precision seeders for direct seeding, we've got a stainless steel jacuzzi and a washing pack for processing the salad.
“Everything's got to be efficient, or there's not really a viable income in there. “
Jodi and Tanya's farm has 110 growing beds and they use specialty equipment such as fast salad-cutters, seed drills and a “tiny, tiny plough”.
The business model has stood up to even their toughest growing season, he says.
“We’ve probably just had our toughest growing spell ever, just come through a wet winter, extremely wet spring. Then it went hot and dry, followed by 500ml of rain in two weeks, followed by big devastating winds.
"We lost a lot of field salad, but we're able to just jump back on the super-fast crops. And we've kept all of our retail stores, our fridges, full across town.”
