Crooked Vege, Waitohu Valley Road, Otaki (2026)

23/02/2026

We've lost a so much genetic diversity in vege - somewhere around 80% - since industrialisation.

Modern plant breeding has improved yields, management efficiency & disease resistance. For those following the incoming relaxation on GMO legislation, GMOs will partially focus on pesticide & herbicide resistance (with all the environmental issues attached).

Modern breeding focusses on the needs of convoluted, globalised supply chains. Produce has to store for a long time & travel huge distances. The commodification of kai + our increasing disconnect from kai systems means that uniformity is key - wonky carrots don't sell very well.

The loss of our heirloom varieties comes at the cost of flavour, texture + often nutritional value - e.g. modern tomatoes lack tetra-cis-lycopene.

Breeding is typically hybridised, meaning growers can't save their own seed - you have to keep purchasing from seed companies. This isn't a slight on work seed producers do - it is technical, skilled work.

But a localised kai system, where eaters are connected to growers & whenua, doesn't have the same pressure. We CAN grow some heirlooms. Kai is mostly harvested & collected/delivered the same day - it doesn't need to survive forklifts, trucks, planes & boats.

Complicated industrial supply chains need firm tomatoes to survive this - which is why supermarket tomatoes are often pretty bland & "mealy."

So why don't we grow more heirlooms?

An example from last year: an heirloom zucchini we trialled yielded 90% less than a modern variety. It's hard enough to earn a fair wage. We can't increase prices 10x to cover increased labour cost in management, reduced yield, increased risk from diseasess.

BUT we're always trialing a few heirlooms. This season is edamame, pumpkins + squash trials. Alongside our usual heirloom radicchio, tomatillo, chillies, tomatoes & collards. It’s a commitment to better kai & a step away from dependence on the trappings of industrial kai. Varieties that yield well-enough & are able to command a fair price (e.g. some are willing to pay more for the improved flavour + appearance of heirloom tomatoes), will make it into the crop plan the next season.

05/02/2026

Kia ora Ōtaki Vege Bag whānau & friends, Bella here! I’ve been floating around in the background of the Ōtaki Vege Bag & Crooked Vege kaupapa over the last few seasons since I left Ōtaki and I wanted to pop up to say hello and share a wee bit about what I’ve been up to.

I was in Europe over the last six months, spending time mostly in Latvija and Denmark and now I’m back on Dharawal Country in Australia. During this time, Jon and I have been navigating timezones to work on a cool project.

The project has been about re-designing our systems to allow Ōtaki Vege Bags to grow and run smoothly into the future. As the Ōtaki Vege Bag kaupapa began to take shape, we went from using pen and paper record keeping to now using some pretty nice looking spreadsheets on Airtable (we use this for crop planning, harvest records, Vege bag organising, etc.). However, over the last year we’ve felt how janky our current system is, spending too much time on computer tasks and less time in the māra. When we were lucky enough to receive funding from MSD to upscale and improve the sustainability of this kaupapa, we wanted to use some of that money to research different ways of running Ōtaki Vege Bags, so I’ve been chatting with similar projects and farms here in Aotearoa, learning about CSA’s from around the world and getting into some nitty gritty CRM system design and legal framework bureaucracy. Doing this mahi is definitely a different vibe from having my hands in the soil, but I’ve really enjoyed the feeling of slowly creating a strong system that will support Ōtaki Vege Bags to thrive into the future. The way we run Ōtaki Vege Bags is pretty niche, with the pay-as-you-can system, so we’ve had to be quite creative to design systems that work for us. We hope that in spending the time to come up with something good, we’ll be able to share our learnings with our kai growing community and support each other to build local food systems that are people and planet first.

And while we’re here, there’s some more spots available for the Autumn Season of Vege bags, 14th Feb to 2nd May (sign up link in bio). We’d love to have you join the kaupapa! 🌱

03/02/2026

Kia ora e hoa mā, Merryn here :)

We are two weeks out from the end of our summer season, and we have the capacity to be producing more pay what you can/pay it forward vege bags.

We’re super keen to expand our little community and sign ups are open for the autumn season if you (or maybe someone you know) would like to collect a bag of organic kai each week.

You can sign up here: www.crookedvege.co.nz/otaki-vege-bag

I was away for a couple weeks, visiting whānau and friends, which felt like home and was cup filling. Yet it’s the most wonderful privilege to come home to the māra. My mind tends to wander through the gardens when I find myself away from them, imagining the changes and what might be fruiting or in bloom when I return. To have my hands in the soil once again returns me to that same feeling of home.

Two weeks boasts a whole heap of change for both farms, especially this time of year. Carb Club planted maize and pumpkins out two and a bit months ago, you can no longer wander through them, the maize now standing far above head height. The flowers are in full bloom and the greenhouse hosts tomato plants laden with heavy trusses.

It was my first summer co-ordinating vege bags, and while winter has its beauty, the garden really sings when it's filled with people and sunlight.

The collection mornings have become so dear to me. It’s been a real joy getting to know everyone who collects a bag, (and those who I deliver to!) Hearing cooking ideas being shared, plant questions asked, garden tips being passed on. To so clearly see gardens, growers and the kai that comes from them foster such a safe and strong little community is exciting, like goosebump kind of exciting, and I look forward to it every week.

Anyways, that’s all from me :) Vege bag spots are filling up fast, sign up here:
You can sign up here: www.crookedvege.co.nz/otaki-vege-bag

26/01/2026

We're part way through our 3rd summer, beginning to gain a semblance of "normal work hours." No hugely intimidating infrastructure projects & we're not redesigning the crop plan (or farm) every 6 weeks.

But growing (and earning enough to pay wages) is always unpredictable.

Summer is where (most) market gardens earn a buffer to pay the bills the rest of the year - winter cash flow is lower, and it's a period of "hanging on." But we need kai (and jobs) all year, so we produce 52 weeks a year.

Turbulent spring & summer weather has been rough on some financially important crops. Cucumbers have bounced back from a very wet spring (55 kg harvest this morning!), but total yield will be about 50% of a better year.

Zucchini are normally really important, but wholesale prices have been unpredictable this season. Sadly it made more sense to remove 50 meters of healthy plants and grow something else (we're still producing them for Ōtaki Vege Bags + a few outlets).

Cucumbers and zucchini are our most important crops. So winter will be tougher than we hoped - but we’ve got better plans & more experience than a year ago. And excitingly, our tomato season should be much better than last year - though hornworms arrived early, so we’re working on that.

We're now working on improving (rather than building) infrastructure & systems:
- A mate installed a level(!) pack shed floor, which has made harvest mornings much more comfortable.
- We've upgraded the salad spinner (modified washing machine) to process twice as much salad greens.
- We've automated our nursery irrigation, which means we can sleep in a little longer on our "days off."

We've started sowing ~70,000 carrots for winter harvests, along with other staples like celery, fennel, kohlrabi and beetroot.

We've had more capacity for locals to join the Ōtaki Vege Bag Kaupapa, and increased membership 20% since last summer. We're aiming to have another 20% over the Autumn season.

Personally I'm looking forward to our first harvest of heirloom edamame (a 2 year seed saving project), winter radicchio, some unusual chillies, a bumper pumpkin, squash & maize harvest, and daily tomato & basil salads over the next few months!

- Jon

22/11/2025

A big mihi to those who came along to our "carb club" planting out!

We planted about 400 heirloom crown pumpkins and Butternut Squash from and local seed saver, Ecoseeds. Along with about 1000x hokianga maize, from seed we saved last season.

We started a new area, about 400m2, which involved moving 60 or so wheelbarrows of compost (as much of that as we could with our friends' lawnmower trailer) a tedious 100-150m from the compost pile.

This is a new area, outside of the main market garden area. Although laid tarps a few months ago to knock back the w**d pressure, they're mostly perennial w**ds and they'll return quickly. So we've planted through w**dmat. We don't love the plastic, but the it will save a HUGE amount of time in w**d management. It also can help ensure a good harvest - pumpkins are more prone to rot if they're sitting on wet grass while ripening.

This is a kai sovereignty kaupapa, where we grow as many "calories" as we can using simple, low-tech approaches. These crops are financially marginal for small-scale market gardens - which is why so many small-scale organic growers focus on crops like salad, radishes, carrots, cucumbers, zucchini etc. Free market wholesale prices on crops like pumpkins and main crop potatoes are so low that large scale machinery + (often) cheap fossil fuels and fertilisers are needed to "compete." BUT we think its important to produce what we can locally, and although we do grow a great salad, we want to be producing a more substantial part of a local diet. This crop is for Ōtaki Vege Bags, and is being grown with their (and some of our mates) help - working together makes it more possible, and a lot more fun.

We don't think *we* could grow all of Ōtaki's pumpkins this way. We'd need to do this at at least 50x the scale (if the average person in Ōtaki eats 1kg of pumpkin a week). But maybe 50x other "carb clubs" can crop up around Ōtaki? There's plenty of underutilised paddocks and large back yards.

Finally, we're growing exclusively growing heirlooms this year for carb club , so we can save the seed and share it with other locals - if we're talking about kai sovereignty, we can't ignore seed sovereignty.

Chur chur

18/11/2025

Kia ora , Merryn here :) Our summer vege bag season has started, with heat settling in and cicadas starting to emerge from warming soil. We still have a few more spots available for the summer vege bag season, if you're keen on some local kai you can sign up here www.crookedvege.co.nz/otaki-vege-bag

We've been harvesting from our zucchini plants for a couple weeks now, there's flowers blooming on the tomatillos, cucumbers forming on vines and tomatoes spitting out the very first trusses. I'm really excited to see tomatoes in vege bags once more, it will be somewhat of a marker for me, when I first joined this kaupapa I saw the very last of the tomatoes. And that's the last time I ate one too. Getting giddy for summers abundance :)

Ka kite ano x

03/11/2025

It's been a tough spring to be a plant! Harvests have been slim - but that's given us some time to reflect on the last year.

12 months ago we were still relocating & rebuilding a 1990s greenhouse. And feeling pretty stressed, as our summer greenhouse plantings were ready to go before we'd even set the foundations!

We already have all summer greenhouse crops planted this year.

A year ago, we were prepping the pad our chiller would be delivered onto. We'd spent the first 18 months wheelbarrowing harvests 100m away, to a rescued & inefficient single-door fridge, plugged into the landowners' shed. Anything that couldn't fit needed to be harvested before sunrise.

Those harvests wouldn't get close to filling a walk-in chiller. We were producing about 1/4th what we are now. We're still working on the same staffing capacity & more of our hours are actually compensated (maybe in another 12 months, all of them will be??)

Although we've made a lot of progress in 2.5 years, we still have bumps in the road.

A month of constant rain & heavy winds have put a lot of stress on crops. We've improved our soil & we're better able to withstand heavy rain than a 2 years ago. But we're fundamentally limited by a heavy clay soil. Saturated soils are low in oxygen, slowing the microbial activity we rely on for nutrient transformation. When the air is saturated, plants can't respire (breathe), hindering vital metabolic processes. With constant cloud, photosynthesis slows to a crawl. The last month of growth has been worse than the depths of winter. Finally, constant high humidity + plant stress creates the perfect conditions for disease outbreak. Our early cucumbers have had it a tough, but we think we've made it out the other side without significant crop loss. But it remains to be seen how yield will be affected.

A few days of pleasant weather have raised spirits. We just had our first full share of zucchinis for Ōtaki Vege Bags. We weren't even attempting to run Ōtaki Vege Bags through winter a year ago. We relaunched ŌVB in late November, after taking the winter off that kaupapa to focus on infrastructure. Next week's zucchini shares will (hopefully) be more generous!

26/10/2025

Our summer Ōtaki Vege Bag season starts soon, with the goal of growing our community by 50%. The waitlist’s nearly full — if you (or someone you know) want in, head to www.crookedvege.co.nz/otaki-vege-bag

As we come to the end of our “spring” Ōtaki Vege Bag season, we’ve been reflecting on our first attempt to run 52 weeks a year.

We knew it would be hard — growth slows right down over winter, and crops like broccoli and cabbage don’t love our heavy clay soil. As the winter crops bolt and spring ones wrestle with the weather, we’re right in what growers call “the hungry gap.”

A few months back, we reached out to our community about bringing in other local organic growers to help bridge the gap. With support from Mingiroa Farm, Live2Give Organics, Kai Ora Initiative, Warren and Common Property, we’ve managed to keep the kai diverse.

We're in the worst of the "hungry gap" now, and are little less proud of the last couple weeks of vege bags. We run on a "Community Supported Agriculture" model, where committing to get produce through us simplifies some of the planning, ensures no food waste. Members get kai that is fresher than anything available at the supermarket, from growers they know have a commitment to sustainable and ethical production.

Ōtaki Vege Bags run on a Community Supported Agriculture model. Members commit to a season, helping us plan, reduces waste, and keeps food local and ethical. We run on a pay-what-you-can model because anyone who cares everyone should be able to know where their kai comes from.

But the flip-side exists. Margins are razor thin. Growers are chronically underpaid. In the conventional commodity-kai system, the middle-person doesn’t care what values imbued in your kai. Bad seasons put growers out of business. The CSA model is different: it’s built on shared risk, shared values, and community support when things get tough.

We’re so grateful to everyone who’s sticking with us through the hungry gap. Abundance is just around the corner. Our first zucchinis are being harvested and the cucumbers aren't far behind.

The waitlist filling up.

www.crookedvege.co.nz/otaki-vege-bag

Chur chur.

Crooked Vege

23/02/2026

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