A quick intro

Tena Koutou Katoa,

My partner and I have just bought a 4.6ha block between Welsford and Whangarei. We currently live in Palmerston North so will be planning, building and establishing our block long distance until the middle of next year.

First thing will be getting a shelter belt in the ground (although we may have missed our best planting window for this year) and sorting drainage as it is quite wet in the lower parts. Intention is to lease parts to the neighbour for grazing (a continuation of the existing arrangement) until we start our planting and build.

Once we are on-site we plan on having some meat animals, lots of pets and a small orchard. It is going to be a learning curve and a big drain on time and money but we are looking forward to it excitedly - Hopefully your advice will help!

Nag mihi nui,
Adam

Kia ora! Nau mai ki tēnei wānanga ipurangi. (For anyone wondering, wānanga ipurangi is apparently an online forum!)

Watch how many animals are grazed and how often, to get an idea of how many grazing days can be had from the land. That'll give you some good information about how much pasture is produced during a season/year/however long before you put your own animals on.

We always hope our advice will help.

Good luck with it all!

Hi Adam & family, sounds like you are doing things right already!
Shelter is essential and it's good to rip the ground to make planting easier later. If you can water young seedlings, now is good to plant as soil warms up. Be really careful when you plan your plantings and keep well away from power lines and boundary fences. Seedlings look small but grow and expand fast.
Make sure you know exactly where your boundary is and don't rely on fences as proof. Any easements should be checked out thoroughly and any water supply arrangements studied carefully.
Good luck and keep us informed of your progress!

Ok so here we are a year on (I though this forum ceased to exist, hence the long time between drinks).

We didn't manage to get any planting done last year before summer set in, and with us not being around to water plants we decided to wait.
We made an agreement with a local farmer to grow maize on our property and then return it to pasture and re-fertilise which went brilliantly. It turned a boggy pugged-up mess (in parts) into some quite nice pasture.

We moved to Auckland about six months ago so are now living about 90mins drive from our LSB. We have done quite a lot of work since buying the place a little over a year ago.The building site has been cleared, prepped, compacted and foundations laid for the 221m2 4bdrm house and the 132m2 shed. Over the last three weeks the shed has been thrown up (and is looking amazing!), just needs some flashings, gutters and downpipes and then it's ready to go! The plan is to stay in the shed over the summer and spend time and energy on the land. The house slab is in, frames and trusses arrive in the first week of Jan and we start building proper.

The land has been largely untouched other than a few sections of crappy fences have been removed. We are going to have a lot of fencing to do before we are able to have any livestock! At the moment we are thinking we will run a few small and docile cows when the time comes, as well as a few sheep and a goat or two. I would love to have some fallow deer, but not sure what this entails and therefore how realistic it is.
We have run a big bund along the boundary between the roadside and the house (3m wide X 2m high and 150m long) which we will eventually plant out in harakeke and maybe some other interesting grasses and flaxes. We also plan a single row of Karo inside the bund to give us a bit more privacy. A good friend of mine has cultivated a few Puriri for us, so we need to pick some good spots for them too. Again, we have probably missed our planting window for this year. Although we will have power and water on site in the next couple of weeks and will be able to water manually a couple of times a week (could possibly hook up some form of timer or automatic watering system).

I'll throw up some photos when I figure out how - Not that there is much to see yet.

Not sure this is going to work but here goes...

(there's supposed to be photos here)

This time?

How exciting starting out with a clean canvas so to speak and planning your build around your own tastes. Your driveway will look smart too once you have it fenced and planted out. All the best for your summer on the job.

Another update...

House is all finished, we moved in about 6 weeks ago. We have replaced the roadside boundary fences and now just have one boundary fence to go (about 120m), it is currently sheep netting held in place with steel warratahs. I need to talk to the neighbour about splitting the cost of putting in a decent fence, although he doesn't have stock on that boundary so may insist I pay for it.

We have fenced off where our orchard, vege garden and lawns/gardens adjacent to the house will be, and have finished half of the post and rail fence along the driveway. That proved to be quite a mission (something to do with my wife being 35 weeks pregnant and insisting she help).

Next steps in order of priority are:
Mulch septic dispersal field (last thing needed for CCC)
Finish P&R fence
Finish boundary fence
Plant orchard and boundary hedge (Red Robin)

I've still got a few things to sort before we get stock in spring.
Water is going to be an issue as we have very dry summers. Thinking I might dig a pond in the lowest part of the property, there is a stream just outside my boundary which is about the same height as where the pond will be so I expect the water table should allow it to fill year round. If that's not going to work, I may need to put in an extra tank, catching off the house/shed, and feed troughs from that (we currently have 2x 27,500L tanks but are worried that's not enough for stock as well as the house in summer).
No one within cooeee has yards or a loading ramp (I'm not sure how they cope because they all have some stock) so I want to figure out what I need as a minimum credible solution.

As far as stock goes, we're pretty much set on getting a small herd of polled Dexter cows. At this stage the plan is to get a few heifers in calf then raise the calves to an age to slaughter for homekill and then get a bull (either buy or lease) and do it all again. The wife wants a pet goat and maybe a couple of lambs (although we will need a dedicated paddock or two with appropriate fencing). I want bees as a hobby and for the honey (not planning on making any money out of it).

I will be working from home/daddy day care for at least the next few years and Kate will be the main bread-winner, so I should have a bit of time to really get the place humming. It has been and will no doubt continue to be quite the journey.

hi , HOW EXCITING for and your family !!!!, sounds like u are doing a great job !!!
a couple of concerns though , dexter cattle and fenceing , one boundry fence wire netting and waratahs ... mmmn wont hold cattle if theres other cattle nearby , need electric fencing , even one hotwire along the top ??
yards will be needed and loading ramp especially if u are going to be onselling them. but yards are a must have ,vet visits , nait tagging , drenching , heaps of reasons for having yards , theres some info on this site on a small set of yards
lifestyleblock.co.nz/lifestyle-file/runn...5-cattle-or-30-sheep
hopefully thats a link ,
BEST WISHES for your new adventure

Thanks @STAPLENZ. I definitely will be sorting the boundary fence before we get any stock. The rest of the boundary is new 7 wire conventional so we'll stick to that to finish the one side that currently has sheep netting/warratahs. We'll also run a single hot wire the whole way round as our orchard fence is 4 wire electric and we'll need a hot wire to keep them off the P&R too.

Thanks for the link, I'll check that out. I was hoping I'd have a neighbour with yard and a loading ramp but I guess I'm going to be that neighbour for everyone else.