The story continues...

To keep the story short, because it promises to be a long one - the land is around 35 acres (14.13 hectares) at Bennetts, inland from Christchurch near Oxford. The plan was to put it into productive orchard gradually over 10 years or so, 2 hectares at a time. The original idea was to crop walnuts, although this was modified once we had purchased the land to be a mixture of hazelnuts and walnuts - the hazels will cope with the frosts somewhat better. More information on the different tree types can be found here.

The plan is fairly fluid, and will change according to how things go. We are now finishing the first year's development which has involved preparing half of the land with cultivation and irrigation, and the start of hazel planting. We are currently preparing the front non-cropping area of the land and will plant native species during July/August 2004, and the orchard in the house block in September 2004. The ever-changing tapestry of our plan is here.

Originally we had thought of perhaps a couple of acres in native bush, and an acre or so in fruit trees. However, this has changed slightly and now the productive land will evenrually account for 30+ acres, with two acres of houselot, interest planting (feijoas, some stonefruit and pipfruit, maybe some chestnuts for home consumption...) and native bush. We figure that should help keep the bank manager, regional council, and DOC happy. Of course, it will keep us very happy also - which we mustn't forget is a large part of the reason for doing this!

Lots more pretty pictures - our photos.

Timeline