Koanga Garden Seeds

Koanga is Non Profit organisation registered with the New Zealand Charity Commission. They are home of New Zealand’s largest heritage food plant collection providing 100% organic, regenerative and NZ grown seeds, trees, perennials, workshops, apprenticeship opportunities and guided tours when not in lockdown.

During covid-19 their website remains open for seed orders and their range of e-booklets to provide essential information to help you up skill. You can spend time reading through their very informative knowledge base on all aspects of gardening.

There are a number of online workshops also available, in addition to videos, databases and webinars “to inspire and support us all to be the change we wish to see in the world“.

Their History

Historically the Koanga institute and its founders have focused on saving our heritage food plants, including vegetable seeds and fruit trees. As a result, the Institute and its founders have brought together, New Zealand’s largest collection of NZ heritage vegetable seeds (800+), and a northern bio-regional heritage fruit tree and national berries collection (400+) over a 30 year period.

 It has become one of the leading practitioners, researcher and teacher of bio-intensive gardening and nutrient dense food production for home gardeners, and has developed a wide range of educational courses in self-reliance and ecological design which attracts students from around the world. 

Vision statement

Our Vision is that through our research, living experience, and service, we are able to strengthen people’s ability to create regenerative environments and self-reliant cultures

Click here to watch a short Youtube Video of Heritage plants at Koanga Institute.

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Their story began when Kay and Bob moved from Auckland up to Bob’s family farm in Kaiwaka, in 1980. Kay could see that the wild fruit trees growing along the roadsides and around the Kaipara Harbour were healthier and more productive, with far better tasting fruit than anything in the garden she inherited, in other people or the Garden Centres. They were all of that without any sprays or fertiliser being applied!

Kay set out on a mission collecting these heritage fruit trees, with their stories. Many of  them, at that time, were on their last legs and dying or being cut down fast.  That collection is now a large Northern Bioregional collection that is still growing and now including collections from a wider area as the Kay and the Koanga Institute have moved around finding a new place to settle. In the process of collecting these trees over time Kay realised she had not only saved the physical trees but also the stories of the people whose lives they were entwining with , that this work brings life  to the younger generations looking four links back to who they are.

Koanga Institutes national organic seed collection which now stands at over 800 distinct cultivars, more than 80% of which are specifically NZ heritage lines, and all important for our future. “The longer we spend with these heritage food plants the more we become aware of their importance, the stronger we feel about their value, and the stronger the case becomes for the need to save them”.

Sowing seeds of hope: Kay Baxter, Nine to Noon 11 Feb 2020. Click to listen here.

“We are the ancestors, We are the seeds, the seeds are us, we have co evolved together. Together we stand, together we fall.”

Have a look through their website for more information on membership and benefits, business sponsorship and how to donate. Whether you want to learn more just for yourself or to find out how you too can get involved in saving NZ’s genetic and cultural heritage, by supporting or promoting the work at Koanga in a variety of ways.