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00:00The best of New Zealand's rural heartland, Hyundai Country Calendar.
00:17They left their jet-setting lives for a tiny piece of paradise.
00:24We quickly learned we're not farmers.
00:26It's a modest living compared to what we were earning, but spiritually, this is priceless.
00:32Every time I come in here, it's like a mystical wonderland.
00:35It never ceases to amaze me.
00:56In nature, mushrooms grow on rotting logs.
01:07This is soy hull pellets.
01:09OK.
01:10And what we're using that for is basically nitrogen content.
01:15Hit that.
01:16At Brent Williams' mushroom farm near Levin, he makes grow bags that mimic a fallen tree.
01:26This is the grain spawn, so we've got the mycelium of the mushroom.
01:31If that's the nitrogen, now we're adding carbon into the mix.
01:35Oscar Remedian is a Canadian woofer, here to help and to learn.
01:46I used to use oats imported from the States, because in nature these sorts of mushrooms would grow on deciduous hardwood trees.
01:53Because the pine has, you know, naturally anti-fungal, anti-microbial type properties, and certainly in nature oyster mushrooms would never grow on pine trees.
02:06But turning pine into pellets neutralises the anti-fungal compounds, making it more like the hardwood mushrooms love.
02:13We've been able to perfect a method of growing it on pine.
02:17I'll just wait it and just see what we're at.
02:20And one of the benefits of that is we're using an agricultural waste product, and wherever possible we try and recycle or upcycle.
02:28So, for instance, this may look like a simple concrete mixer to most people, but I assure you this is a high-tech piece of mushroom mixing equipment.
02:36Everything we use on our business is low-tech, and yeah, we try and just repurpose and use available materials where we can.
02:44Okay, you can turn that off now.
02:47Even the incubation room door is recycled.
02:51Other examples would be this structure that we're in is made from recycled polystyrene, old packaging from microwave volumes or television sets, and it's insulating the space.
03:02I require minimal heating to keep my incubation space at a temperature where the mushrooms continue to colonise.
03:14Push that through there, and then I've got these hooks made out of a good old number eight wire.
03:20This is a Kiwi innovation.
03:22Push that through there up there.
03:27Okay.
03:30Okay.
03:31Now I punch holes in it.
03:33It takes two weeks for the mushrooms to sort of colonise, and then the next step after that is pinning.
03:40Oh, those are the pinning holes?
03:42Yep.
03:43The little mushrooms will detect the oxygen and just grow out of those holes.
03:47As soon as we see that, we move into a grow room where they've got much higher humidity.
03:57These bags have done their business, and they're ready to go onto the compost heap.
04:01Because it's high in carbon, what we add to it is some of this waste stuff I pick up at the markets on Sundays, which is basically coffee grounds and a lot of paper stuff.
04:22So we mix that in with our bags here.
04:29The compost heap generates quite a bit of heat.
04:32So wrapped around this IBC tank is about 150 metres of polythene pipe filled with water, and that water heats up, and then it goes into our grow rooms to heat our grow rooms in winter.
04:45This is all part of the permaculture principles that we use to run our farm.
04:48When we have a waste from one system, an output acts as an input into another system.
04:53So in this case, this is our heating system.
04:58The main waste that we can't recycle easily is all of this plastic waste that we use to grow our mushrooms.
05:04But we're hoping to turn that big IBC tank into a biodigester to make our own natural gas, where we can melt our own plastics down.
05:12Once the mushrooms are in the grow rooms, they become the responsibility of Brent's partner, Jude Horrell.
05:23Here you go.
05:25Cool.
05:26I've been harvesting oyster mushrooms for, well, this is our eighth year.
05:36Every time I come in here, it's like a mystical wonderland.
05:42Mushrooms never sleep.
05:44They will be fully grown in five days.
05:46So this part of their life cycle is very, very fast.
05:51That's why I'm checking the grow room sometimes morning, noon and night, because in a five-day fast growing life cycle, eight hours or even four or six hours is quite a long time.
06:02These are the pink oyster mushroom, otherwise known as vegan bacon, because when you sizzle fry them, they go crispy and take on a smoky bacon flavour.
06:19They are the tropical cousin in the oyster mushroom family.
06:24And so growing them here in winter, we need a little heat for these guys using the heater recycled from a local school, which has hot water coming from our compost heap.
06:39Once I've harvested, I take them into the kitchen where I grade them.
06:44A grade for selling fresh trays at the markets, and for our product, and B grade for our stock.
06:51What I'm looking for in the pinks is a nice shape, lovely colour.
07:12That's absolutely beautiful.
07:15Perfect specimen.
07:17I'll just pop him straight in here.
07:18Some lucky customer.
07:22Once they're picked, I want to be able to process the A grade pretty much the same day.
07:27Timing is critical.
07:29If the grow isn't to schedule, then we come to the weekend markets and we won't have enough fresh stock or any fresh stock.
07:37That is the vagaries of growing the mushrooms.
07:39Horel whenua mushroom grower Jude Horel makes gourmet food products in a commercial kitchen on her tiny farm near Levin.
07:52The venture's called Oho Gourmet Mushrooms.
07:53The venture's called Oho Gourmet Mushrooms.
07:54We grow two varieties, the phoenix or grey oyster mushroom and the pink oyster mushroom for sale, both fresh at our farmers' market.
07:55And then we also make food products from them.
07:56We also make food products from them.
07:57A pink oyster mushroom and the pink oyster mushroom for sale, both fresh at our farmers' market and then we also make food products from them.
07:58Horel whenua mushroom grower Jude Horel makes gourmet food products in a commercial kitchen on her tiny farm near Levin.
08:06The venture's called Oho Gourmet Mushrooms.
08:11We grow two varieties, the phoenix or grey oyster mushroom and the pink oyster mushroom for sale both fresh at our farmers' market and then we also make food products from them.
08:25A pink oyster mushroom, a pink oyster mushroom kimchi and a delicious, fresh, zesty, pickled oyster mushroom.
08:37At the moment I'm making our oyster mushroom with black garlic risotto.
08:42We include our mushroom stock powder and our dehydrated oyster mushrooms and our dehydrated black garlic.
08:51Every mushroom we grow is precious.
08:55The stumps or any second grade gets dehydrated and then I powder it.
09:00So it's a really rich stock powder.
09:03Nothing is wasted.
09:05So there's one I've finished.
09:09Mmm, smells super umami.
09:13Making risottos every week is part of my role on our little farm.
09:23Our mushrooms are growing all the time.
09:26It's not seasonal because we're cultivating them indoors.
09:28That's great in terms of constant product.
09:33Not so great if you want a break.
09:37So yeah, I'm always busy.
09:39But I don't mind this type of work.
09:42It's really rewarding.
09:44It's almost a little bit meditative.
09:46And at the end you've got all these wonderful products sitting ready to take to market.
09:57Jude also makes other food products including fermented yakon with yuzu.
10:02Yuzu is a Japanese citrus fruit.
10:08Has a beautiful, refreshing flavour.
10:12It's not mandarin, it's not grapefruit, it's not lime.
10:16Yeah, it's in a league all of its own.
10:21I'm off to meet with William Chung whose family has the only organic yuzu orchard in New Zealand.
10:2820 years ago my mother actually brought some seeds back from Japan with her.
10:38And that was sort of the spark that started the whole orchard.
10:42And they didn't really know it was going to be a thing.
10:45It was just mum wanted something from her home country.
10:48They had no idea about how popular yuzu would become at all.
10:53All of a sudden it's starting to trend up really high now.
10:55You see I've done a lot of restaurants, craft brews and things like that.
11:01Hi Jude.
11:02Hey William.
11:03Hey.
11:04Good to see you again.
11:05Yeah, nice to see you again.
11:06Hey.
11:07Beautiful day.
11:08Yeah, no, no.
11:09So I've just picked your yuzu for you, huh?
11:11Oh, it's so good.
11:13It's a lot more fragrant than any other citrus.
11:16We've had such a wonderful crop of yakon this year.
11:19Really?
11:20Bigger than we thought.
11:21That if you've got any spare, I'd love some more.
11:23Sure.
11:25Have you tried yakon before?
11:27That's the beautiful raw ingredient that goes with this.
11:31That's the end product.
11:32Yep.
11:33So we ferment it with your yuzu.
11:35Yep.
11:36Oh, it looks amazing.
11:37So this is an underground root crop from Peru.
11:40So there we go.
11:41That's the...
11:42Oh, okay.
11:43The raw organic yakon.
11:46Oh, wow.
11:47Mmm.
11:48That is so sweet.
11:50So you've left some on the trees.
11:52Yeah, so there's still a little bit left on the trees now.
11:54But most of the fruit that's left now is probably a juicing grade.
11:57Okay.
11:58Because we've picked all the first quality for restaurants and retailers.
12:02Yeah.
12:03Or take any you've got left over for juice as well.
12:05Yep, yep.
12:06That'd be fantastic.
12:07When you're picking, you want to make sure you always have these long sort of gloves just
12:12because of the thorns.
12:13They do get you.
12:14They'll get you pretty bad.
12:17The yuzu is fermented with yakon that Jude and her partner Brent grow at home.
12:24We're going to be moving this compost onto our hugel beds that we use to grow our yakon and garlic.
12:37Yeah, just bring it straight in here, mate.
12:44Building a hugel bed, it starts off with a load of old rotting logs and when it rains those logs will soak up that water and during the drier months it'll release that water back into the soil.
12:58And, of course, over time those logs will break down and turn, you know, back into soil.
13:03That would take about six or seven years.
13:05And then the heat will start to compress slowly or compact down.
13:09Yep, about there.
13:10And then we just rebuild it back up.
13:12This is a beautiful property.
13:14We've got a lot of sand dunes so we need to put as much organic matter back into that sand as possible to grow anything.
13:22This bed we are probably going to put yakon in it and then in another one of our hugel beds we're going to start planting garlic again.
13:36This bed is the first one we built when we came to the property.
13:39We are planting out our garlic.
13:42We grew garlic for a couple of years and then we got hit with the old garlic rust.
13:46It was pretty disheartening, wasn't it, Brent?
13:49Yeah.
13:50Because it was looking so magnificent, but we did plant it too closely.
13:54So, yeah, we're trying again.
13:58To be honest, we don't really know what we're doing.
14:00We've just learnt all of this as we've gone along.
14:02So, we like to do something, see that we've made mistakes and then, yeah, the next time hopefully we do a better job.
14:13This is a lifestyle business and we don't really consider this work.
14:16It's just part of what we do.
14:18We might have our chores, but yeah, it's just an absolute joy to be, you know, live a lifestyle like this.
14:24Jude and Brent came from high powered corporate careers overseas.
14:28By the time we made the decision to come back to New Zealand and live the sort of homesteading lifestyle, I was pretty much corporate burnout.
14:38So, it's wonderful to not feel like it's work.
14:42One of the things I was looking for after living in big cities was really connecting with nature and Kaitiakitanga.
14:49You know, we see ourselves as custodians of this land.
14:52We would like to, you know, we've left it in a better condition than when we found it.
14:56And it was a pretty good condition when we did find it.
14:59It's an absolutely gorgeous little property.
15:03This garlic is destined to become another of Jude's gourmet food products.
15:07So, with our garlic, I make black garlic.
15:13We harvest it, clean off the bulbs and then put them into these machines.
15:17And they're in here for six days on very low temperatures and high humidity.
15:24The Mallard Reaction.
15:27The Mallard Reaction works with the amino acids and the sugars in the raw garlic bulb.
15:33And it turns it from a very acidic, crunchy texture into a beautiful, sticky, date-like texture.
15:41So, this is the final product.
15:43Mmm.
15:44Yeah.
15:45Perfect.
15:46Tamarind.
15:47Molasses.
15:48And almost a little bit of chocolate.
15:49And most of our customers have never tried it and they cannot believe how sweet it is.
16:07And then they just invariably fall in love with it.
16:10Mmm.
16:11I reckon we'll get that one there.
16:24Just get your shovel and just dig down and hopefully...
16:29Harvesting tubers on a steep bank sees Brent Williams and his volunteer Oscar working carefully around each other.
16:37Beautiful.
16:38Interesting.
16:39Yep.
16:40We're not on a lot of land.
16:43We've got three hectares here.
16:45So, we don't have much in the way of arable soils that we can work with.
16:49So, we try and maximise what we get from our small property.
16:52When we first came here, we could see this bank and it was otherwise land we couldn't use.
16:57So, we had the idea of running these terraces here.
16:59There we go.
17:01These are working out really well for our yacon.
17:04They just love it in here.
17:05These are the yacon, otherwise known as the Peruvian underground apple.
17:12They're related to the Jerusalem artichoke and a member of the daisy family.
17:18They're awesome because the sugars in there are so complex, we can't digest them.
17:24So, they actually act as a good prebiotic.
17:26So, when you're eating them, it essentially ferments in the gut.
17:31Brent's partner, Jude Horrell, will ferment these in her shipping container kitchen.
17:44A ferment product is a probiotic.
17:46So, it's got the lactobacillus bacteria in it, which is really good for gut health.
17:51These are really fresh and crisp, so it's lovely to work with them while they're like this.
17:57This is one of the fresh yuzu that we picked up from the orchard.
18:02And I use the zest and the juice.
18:07Food has always been important to me growing up with mum and dad always cooking.
18:14And some beautiful Thai red chilli.
18:18And the culture, which kicks off the ferment.
18:22And then it all goes in a big bag and sealed up and then it ferments for at least three weeks.
18:31I make all of our food products.
18:33So, this is my safe little happy kitchen.
18:36And I find it meditative just to work with my hands and I can hear the trees and the wind and the birds.
18:43We've got our business on this property.
18:49And then we've got the property.
18:52Three hectares is a lot to look after.
18:55Come on boys.
18:57But we allow a lot of time to spend caring for the property and looking after our animals.
19:04And that's kind of our happy space.
19:07When we first inherited the property, we had a couple of just regular type of sheep.
19:12And we quickly learned we're not farmers.
19:14So, we found our apawa sheep, which are absolutely great.
19:18Easy to maintain and care for.
19:20We don't have to intervene with anything.
19:22We don't dock them.
19:23I occasionally have to crutch them in the summer just to keep the blowies away.
19:27But there's not a lot of maintenance or care required.
19:30And it's really, I guess, to help us feel in our own ways connected with nature and what we're doing here.
19:36I'm good at mowing the lawns for us.
19:39Oh yeah.
19:40And of course, yeah, they are quite delicious.
19:47Until recently, there was a forest next door.
19:50It's been logged, exposing Jude and Brent's trees to the nor'wester.
19:57We've had a lot of things come down.
20:00So, our focus is, you know, to deal with that damage and kind of get some shelterbelt plantings in place.
20:06We're dealing with things like pampas grass, for instance, which is not appropriate here.
20:11We'd like to get toitoi in.
20:13And also a lot of the deciduous trees that are around the actual pond itself and the high leaf load from those.
20:20So, potentially in the future, cutting those back and planting natives on the water's edge.
20:26This is a long-term commitment. Yeah, that's absolutely sure.
20:34Each week, we do a whole bunch of markets.
20:40We are at Parapara Umu Beach Saturday Market this morning.
20:44After spending all week with each other on the farm, it's a chance to go out and actually meet people.
20:48And that's something Jude and I enjoy tremendously.
20:52Hello. Hey, good to see you again.
20:54This is where I grew up in the 1970s.
20:58And when we came back from Australia, I guess I wanted to be closer to home.
21:02And yeah, we just fell in love. Well, Jude fell in love with it, I think.
21:06I re-fell in love with it.
21:08We love this market. This is the first market that we came to eight years ago.
21:16With our first few humble trays of mushrooms and our little grow bags.
21:21We evolved into doing interesting and maybe complex variety of products.
21:28We offer tastings.
21:30We always start with the black garlic, which gets them hooked in.
21:35And then they're like, what else have you got? What else have you got?
21:37Oh my gosh, that's yum.
21:39Since we made this transition to build this business, we really enjoy the quietness of the four to five days on our property.
21:47And then coming off to the bustling markets.
21:49We're people people at the end of the day.
21:51And we love reconnecting with community.
21:54It's just wonderful.
21:56Lovely to see you. You got your mushrooms? Oh yeah.
21:59Okay. Bye bye.
22:09Country calendar was brought to you by Hyundai. Future positive.
22:39All right.
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