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Feb 2024

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Issue 8 (Jan/Feb 26) is out now

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In issue 8, we told of the story of @mikelilianbas

In issue 8, we told of the story of @mikelilianbasketmaker – a master weaver from Otago who has spent much of his life perfecting the art of making traditional French baskets out of willows.

Skilled and dedicated, Mike told us all about his life and journey; learning the craft by making baskets at A&P shows in the 1980s, travelling to France to watch traditional masters in the 1990s, and now running his artisan business from his home in Kakanui, where we grows and harvests all the willow himself.

Despite the difficulty and discipline required for weaving, Mike told us that using his hands to make beautiful crafts has brought him enormous satisfaction throughout his life, connecting him with the plants and skills of his ancestors.

He encourages anyone with an interest in handcrafts to forget about the money and follow their passions.

Subscribe to get Issue 8 and read the full story in print.

ontheland.nz

📸 @joe_harrison_photo
🖊 @mikeydescribes

#weaving #basketmaking #willow #handcrafted #artisans #handcraft #frenchbasket #willowweaving #printmagazine #longliveprint

In mid-2025, on a sunny winter morning in the tiny

In mid-2025, on a sunny winter morning in the tiny Waikato farming settlement of Te Mata (pop 187), a man named Clem Cornes stands outside the recently restored public hall.

Sitting opposite the local country school in the middle of Te Mata village, the hall is literally the centrepiece of the community – and there’s a lot of fanfare about its new life.

The school kids have gathered on the side of the road to bless the opening with some waiata, while the dozens of local residents who volunteered to help with the renovation over the past six months have come to watch the grand unveiling; the removal of the builders’ plastic from the building’s new facade and roof.

To everyone there, many of whom gave away dozens of weekends to bring
the hall back to life, it’s a very special moment. But for Clem Cornes, whose family have used the hall since his great great grandfather helped pay for its
construction in 1905 – 120 years ago – there’s a different kind of significance.

“It’s been such an important part of our history,” says Clem, whose family
attended dances and events at the hall for six generations. “It’s really great
to see it back and it’s looking bloody good.”

Te Mata is a place of longevity, and the hall is a record of it. Many residents,
like Clem, have long family ties to the area and can recall attending important
occasions at the hall when they were children. Dances, political events,
funerals, weddings, 21st, badminton tournaments – it even served as an illegal watering hole during the prohibition area – the hall has hosted hundreds of events over its 120-year life that have brought the dispersed farming community together.

For the locals, the hall is an iconic part of the community and its history – which is why they’ve worked so hard to keep it standing.

...........

An extract from Issue 8, featuring @te_mata_public_hall_1905 and their awesome restoration project of the iconic public hall.

Subscribe to read the full story about the project and the importance of country halls for rural communities.

➡ ontheland.nz

🖊 @mikeydescribes
📸 @katevanderdrift

Sometimes, when people hear about On the Land for

Sometimes, when people hear about On the Land for the first time, they think it's some kind of budget rural rag.

But when it turns up in their letterbox, they realise that they're getting some of the best photography and traditional storytelling in NZ.

And all of it is created and inspired by talented humans living lives of purpose!

#longliveprint #printforever #magazines #magazinephotography #noai #realstories #humantalent #livingontheland

In the acclaimed film, The Biggest Little Farm, Jo

In the acclaimed film, The Biggest Little Farm, John Chester and his wife Molly begin the journey healing their newly-bought land by introducing animal and plant diversity.

They plant 10,000 fruit trees and bring in pigs, chickens, sheep, cows and more – each chosen for a role in the ecosystem.

Almost immediately, nature pushes back. Slugs destroy their orchards, coyotes destroy their chickens, gophers destroy their cover crops.

They lose animals, wildfires lick the farm’s boundary, and weeds, slowly but surely, try to strangle everything.

It’s frustrating to watch. Yet through each crisis, the team finds solutions – and it’s always through natural means.

They bring in ducks to eat the snails, a livestock guardian dog to defend the chickens, and barn owls naturally appear to prey on the gophers.

Even the wildfires, unstoppable and ferocious in such dry Californian country, seem to avoid the farm, kept at bay by the moisture in the soil that John and Molly’s practices have built over the years.

Throughout the film, as an inexhaustible series of calamities is gently met with a limitless supply of solutions; as the farm and crops become more resilient and abundant, we see John evolve from an idealist with a camera to something steadier – a listener to the land, understanding that the presence of any pest is just a sign he needs to heed.

“The reality is we’re not getting out of this ‘pest’ thing until we re-establish our connection to the system,” John says.

.....................

An extract from Issue 8 featuring @john_chester_on_the_farm, who shares with On the Land the many ways he deals with problems on his farm without the use of synthetic chemicals.

See John speak in February at @undergroundfestivalnz 2026, and subscribe to On the Land to read the full story.

Subscribe ➡ ontheland.nz

Buy Underground tickets ➡ undergroundfestival.co.nz

🖊@mikeydescribes

After 37 orbits around the sun, I’m finally beginn

After 37 orbits around the sun, I’m finally beginning to understand that I am being guided by a benevolent force that favours me with abundance whenever I want it.

2025 felt turbulent, full of ebbs and flows. But amid the oscillation, I came to realise the truth – I am the architect of my own reality. The universe is working in my interests, I am free to live a life of purpose and passion, and create a living doing what I love.

2026 is the year I start harnessing that knowledge, committing fully to my mission and vision.

So this year, I will:

-Continue growing On the Land into a thriving independent storytelling and educational platform, an outlet for creatives to share their work, and a place where people can escape the miasma of digital tech and AI.

-Use my skill with words to champion the crucial role of small farms in New Zealand, and the power of growing your own food as a form of rebellion against avaricious corporate interests.

-Relaunch the On the Land podcast as a platform for inspiring discussions with people living off the land.

-Tend and nurture the beautiful whenua that I’m lucky enough to call home.

-Be the best father I can be to my little ones.

-Start working on something exciting and secret, due in 2027…..watch this space!

My sincere gratitude to everyone who has supported On the Land and allowed this lucky fella to live his dream.

Michael
On the Land founder

Issue 8 is out today - just in time for summer!

Issue 8 is out today - just in time for summer!

Weaving with willows, sewing with possum fur, keeping Dexter cattle, the best lettuce varieties, beating weeds naturally - this issue has the slow reads you need!

Welcome back to the cover @gillian.swinton

Order your copy today to get yours by Christmas.

》ontheland.nz

📷 @francinephotomachine

All our covers over the past year since On the Lan

All our covers over the past year since On the Land was first published.

You can definitely see a theme developing here! 🙃

Thanks to all our photographers for their exceptional talents – and our models for shining bright!

1. Lisa and Awa from @frogsongfarmer, captured by @francinephotomachine

2. Sonia from @urbanselfsufficiencynz, captured by @liv.vanleeuwen

3. Regina from @nics_mt_nicholas_honey, captured by @francinephotomachine

4. "The girls" from @threesistersfarm_ captured by @sophiemilson

5. Mati from @permadynamics, captured by @danescottcreative

6. Charlotte from @charlottegrahamarts, captured by @sophiemerkens

7. Caitlin from @wild.things.wanaka. captured by @ellepiggott

#photography #covershoot #longliveprint

For many people, there’s often a long time between

For many people, there’s often a long time between first viewing a property and making the decision to buy it. Caitlin and Max Ovenden did it all in a single day. 

It was 2020, just after the COVID-19. lockdowns, when the Wānaka-based couple accompanied some real estate agent friends to the property in question – a sprawling, six-acre “hodgepodge” of weed-tangled market garden beds and tumbledown greenhouses in Hāwea Flat.

Having just had their second child, and feeling rather “fishbowl-esque” in their newly built house in suburban Luggate, the couple were immediately enchanted with the scale and potential of what they saw. 

“It has an old station house from the
late 1800s and a little pond, and there are big trees everywhere, and so much land. We fell in love immediately and put in an offer that day.”

Originally from Washington State, Caitlin didn’t have much hands-on experience with growing food. But with a desire to be at home with the kids, and the generous mentorship of the property’s previous owner, she felt a strong calling to take the plunge into serious gardening.

“The old owner spent two months leading up to the settlement of the property showing me what she had been doing out here. She gave me lots of books to read – you know, Jean-Martin Fortier and others – and I read through all of them and then said, ‘Let’s give it a try’.”

In the five years since, that casual try has turned into unmitigated success. Each summer her garden beds bulge with tomatoes and salad greens which she sells to local restaurants and through her own farm shop – an outbuilding at the end of the driveway.

Meanwhile, thanks to hard work and a commitment to creating a closed-loop system, the once-tired property has come to life, providing an abundance of food for the family. The sheep and cattle grazing the pasture provide a supply of meat, while 70-odd hens out in the paddocks yield a steady supply of eggs.

.................

An extract from our lead feature in Issue 7, featuring the family from @wild.things.wanaka

Pick up a copy at your local store to read the full story!

🖊 @mikeydescribes
📸 @ellepiggott

#marketgarden #marketgardener #smallfarm #regeneration

A note from On the Land founder and editor @mikeyd

A note from On the Land founder and editor @mikeydescribes on the future of the magazine.

Making On the Land has been one of the most fulfilling things I have ever done. It’s difficult to describe the satisfaction I get when a new issue is nearing completion; when the spreads have been designed, and I see all the beautiful words and images – the brilliance of so many people – laid out and ready to be printed on paper.

But like many print media businesses, we are feeling the pinch of increased production costs and diminishing advertising revenue.

This year, NZ post has once again raised its prices by 30%, and more businesses are choosing to give their money to Meta and Google, rather than locally owned platforms.

Despite this, I am determined to keep On the Land going. I love this magazine, I love what it stands for. I love the community it serves, the fact that we use human writers and photographers over AI, and the eternally appealing subject matter we cover – people living off the land.

But to give On the Land a future I need your help. To keep this magazine going – and to grow it to a financially viable level, I need to increase our subscribers from 1500 to 4000.

Every subscription matters, and 2500 extra ones will allow me to offset the loss in ad revenue, invest more time and energy into the magazine, and continue commissioning brilliant photographers and writers across NZ to produce high quality content.

If you’re keen to support old-fashioned, non-AI, print storytelling in NZ, go to our website, subscribe/buy a gift, share about this campaign, and be a part of something increasingly rare and special in today’s digital world.

➡ www.ontheland.nz

Gratefully,

Michael Andrew

In a lush hilly vineyard, a Clydesdale named Duche

In a lush hilly vineyard, a Clydesdale named Duchess pulls a plough through the soil beneath the vines. Behind her, steering the plough, walks Emma Rossignol, a French native doing the same job her great-grandparents might have done.

But this isn’t 1910 Bordeaux – it’s 2025 Marlborough.

People have told Emma she’s stuck in the past. She says it’s quite the opposite. “I truly believe that there is a place for me in New Zealand with this work,” she says.

The work – undervine management using a horse and plough – is both traditional and radical in a fast-paced, mechanised, chemical-heavy industry. But for Emma, it’s as much about the future as it is about tradition.

“People are starting to understand the impact on soil and that we need to come back to something a bit more soft,” she says.

.............

An extract from Issue 7, featuring Emma Rossignol and her awesome business @terroir_and_us. Originally from France, Emma is passionate about offering traditional horse and plough vineyard management, which used to be commonplace before agrochemicals and machines began dominating the industry in the early 20th century.

Subscribe or buy a copy to read the full story ➡ ontheland.nz

Note: AI was not used in the production of this story – only talented humans! ✨

🖊 @madeleine_anetta
📸 @peanutbuttervibesphotography

#soilhealth #regenerativeagriculture #horseriding #horsesofinstagram #vineyard #winelovers #winelover #organic #carbonneutral #traditionalagriculture

A visit to Beverley Swanson’s property in the Poha

A visit to Beverley Swanson’s property in the Pohangina Valley is a journey of smells. First, I’m greeted with the citrus-like notes of Mexican marigold and pineapple sage growing on either side of the front gate. Next, I smell the alluvial Pohangina River, only a stone’s throw away, holding the narrow and long property in its curve.

Then, when I step into the house, I’m engulfed by the herbal odours that have soaked into the walls from the four decades this home has been used to make Kereru natural products.

Bev’s journey on the land goes back to the 1980s, when she was in her early 20s with her first born Huia on her hip. Browsing the local paper one day, she saw a for-sale advertisement for a three-acre block of land, bare except for the old Komako school house, built in 1901. “It was cheap, $9,500, that’s how we decided it was for us,” says Bev with a grin. She and her then-partner Rex Swanson bought the land, and the tumbledown building, with all its rats and history, became their new home.

They moved in with very little money, no power and no plumbing, but a huge capacity for adventure. “It was basically like camping,” says Bev. “We were young and it just seemed like a lot of fun. You get swept along and you can see a life being made that’s your own.”

..........................

An extract from Issue 7, featuring OG permaculture advocate Bev Swanson and her business @kererunaturalproducts, which has been supplying natural body care products from her Manawatu property for 40 years.

Purchase the magazine to read the full story or subscribe to receive it directly to your door. Link in bio.

📸 @reneemmaphotography
🖊 @carlyjthomas

#naturalproducts #naturalbalm #permaculture #herbalmedicine #herbalism #livingontheland

On the Land Issue 7 has left the printers and is o

On the Land Issue 7 has left the printers and is on the way to letterboxes across the country – one year since our first issue was released.

Dreamers, pioneers, hunters, gatherers and growers – this issue is filled with stories and advice from people creating businesses from the land, nurturing their resources and living abundantly.

→ Market gardening in Central Otago with @wild.things.wanaka

→ Making natural body products in Manawatu with @kererunaturalproducts

→ Using horse and plough to weed vineyards with @terroir_and_us

→ Cooking rabbit with @alesha_tomasi

→ Poultry basics with @gillian.swinton

→ Using eucalyptus in a food forest with @permadynamics

....and much more.

Subscribe to get your copy: ontheland.nz

Cover 📸 @ellepiggott
Cover model @wild.things.wanaka

Every morning, for seven months of the year, Charl

Every morning, for seven months of the year, Charlotte Graham walks a few hundred metres from her home in Piha to the Pā Hue – a cultivated gourd garden.

She fills watering cans at Marowhara, her ancestral stream at the base of her tūpuna maunga (ancestral mountain), then begins watering up to a hundred plants by hand, connecting with the taonga and the whenua.

Hue (Lagenaria siceraria) are part of the Cucurbitaceae family and are heavy feeders. To nourish them, Charlotte uses homemade fertilisers made from seaweed, fish frames and guts, kina, manure and compost.

Above her, Te Wao Nui o Tiriwa, the great forest of Tiriwa – also known as the Waitākere Ranges – towers in lush, dense greens.

Charlotte, now in the fourth year of a ten-year revitalisation project, works alongside her cousin Josie Wall (Kaiārahi Mātauranga for Te Kawerau ā Maki), with the endorsement of their iwi Te Kawerau ā Maki.

“The project is called ‘Hue as a Taonga – the revitalisation of taonga species and a taonga people’,” says Charlotte. “It centres on sharing Mātauranga Māori and the deep cultural and spiritual significance of hue, alongside traditional practices of growing, preserving and drying them.”

……..

An extract from Issue 6 (on sale now), featuring @charlottegrahamarts (Te Kawerau ā Maki, Ngāti Whanaunga, Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki, Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Tamaoho, Te Ākitai Waiohua, Ngāti Kotimana), and her incredible project growing hue.

Subscribe or purchase Issue 6 to read the full story about this amazing wahine connecting with the taonga of her ancestors.

Link in bio.

🖊 and 📸 @sophiemerkens

There are so many seeds that led to the creation o

There are so many seeds that led to the creation of On the Land magazine, but the main catalyst was the magnificent piece of land that my wife and I purchased in 2021.

A bare block in rural Waikato with epic sea and sunset views, the 2.5 acre property became my classroom and canvas, inspiring me to learn everything there was to know about being a good kaitiaki of the land, growing plants and food, and creating sustainable closed-loop systems.

So when the job for editor of NZ Lifestyle Block magazine came up in 2022, it seemed like the perfect way to fast track my journey of discovery and learn from clever and resourceful New Zealanders across the country.

Over the years, as we saved our dollars, filled our minds with knowledge and I purchased NZ Lifestyle Block and rebranded it as On the Land, our whenua gradually evolved – from bare block, to family campground, and finally – last year – to the building sight of our very first house.

Finished in late 2024, our little off-grid house has been our home for almost 12 months. Perched on a hill over the wild Tasman sea, our home and land provide an endless source of inspiration, for both the magazine and our lives. It shelters us from storms, incubates our dreams, and nurtures our family.

My son was born in one of the rooms, and my daughter’s whenua is buried under a pohutakawa –the first tree we planted on the property – now growing strong against the wind with hundreds of others.

To be able to “own” land and a house is an incredible privilege, and we are grateful for the opportunity to be good stewards and students, to honour the people who came before, and leave it in a better way for the people who come after.

@mikeydescribes
Founder and Editor

Few places in New Zealand are as isolated as Mt Ni

Few places in New Zealand are as isolated as Mt Nicholas Station, especially if you’re in your third trimester of pregnancy.

The 36,000 hectare run is one of the country’s largest – and most spectacular. The eastern boundary is 18 kilometres of lakefront on the western side of Queenstown’s Lake Wakatipu.

Head west and you’ll travel nearly 30km before reaching the farm gate. The only way in is a boat ride across the often-choppy Wakatipu, or 80km over a bumpy gravel road towards Te Anau.

It’s where Regina Bernbeck has called home since 2010. Originally from a small town near Munich in Germany, Bernbeck moved to Mt Nicholas with her partner who grew up on the farm.

The couple settled in a cottage on the station and Regina learned the ropes as a shepherd, working with the farm’s 29,000 merino, and got a job spinning wool for tourists at the neighbouring Walter Peak,

But when Regina became pregnant in 2015 she found herself increasingly confined to the isolated farmhouse and began looking for a way to contribute to the farm closer to home.

The answer: honey. She began studying beekeeping remotely via Telford (Southern Institute of Technology) and got her first hives while her first-born, Heidi, was a baby.

After a year, with the number of hives growing, she decided to go into business, launching Nic’s Honey with mentoring from an experienced apiarist from Alexandra.

“I enjoyed it, I was passionate about it, so we started to make it bigger.”

Regina now has about 30 beehives, which produce up to a tonne of honey each year. The couple’s three children – aged 5, 7 and 9 – have their own beekeeper suits and also help check-up on the hives.

The station has plenty of bee food, with a variety of wild flowers and native plants, including manuka, as well as clover in the pasture.

“It’s just beautiful to eat your own honey; to watch the bees, work with them and harvest it and eat it. Without these pollinators, we wouldn’t be here.”

.....

An extract from Issue 3, featuring the amazing @regina.bernbeck from @nics_mt_nicholas_honey.

Purchase the back issue to read the full story. Link in bio.

🖊 @georgefdriver
📸 @francinephotomachine

One of the biggest issues when building a house is

One of the biggest issues when building a house is dealing with all the construction waste. But for Matt Low and Melissa
Burleigh-Low, building a house from hempcrete on their 10-acre lifestyle block allowed them to recycle much of the
waste back into the land.

“There’s not a lot of waste from hempcrete,” says Matt. “It was created from natural materials with hemp, lime and water to get the main mix. A lot of the waste we used out on the farm as organic matter.”

Matt and Melissa purchased the property in 2012, having run out of space for vegetables and chickens on their 800m2 urban property in nearby Bell Block.

With only bare paddocks and a feijoa orchard on their new property, the couple started with a conventional build in 2012, before Matt decided that building with hemp was the right way to go.

“We were always conscious of what we were about to do and how we could align with sustainable or reusable principles with little impact on the environment. We wanted lots of natural material in the process, with little use of synthetic products.

“I’m an engineer not a builder, but the process was simple once we knew what we were trying to achieve and the
systems to build it.”

..............

An extract from Issue 6 of On the Land, featuring the couple from Taranaki's Kahu Glen and their amazing hemp house.

Including a thriving feijoa orchard, Kahu Glen will be part of this year's @sustainablebackyardsnz, opening up to the public to learn all about hempcrete.

Subscribe to read the full story about Kahu Glen and other properties on the trail.

📸 @emmalouisab
🖊 @mikeydescribes

#sustainabletaranaki #sustainableliving #sustainablebuilding #ecobuilding #hempcrete #hemp #passivehouse #passivehaus

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