Ten hours of mahi a week – can you handle off-grid life?

Source: Radio New Zealand

When the owner of a Mākara lifestyle block just 30 minutes from Wellington’s CBD, moved there in 2009, everyone doubted he could live off the land.

“When we arrived to the place, people told me ‘you cannot grow vegetables in Wellington and fruits’,” owner Eran Benn says.

But Benn made something resilient to not only the Wellington weather, but the economic climate too.

The Makara home has three bedrooms, and a standalone unit downstairs.

Supplied / Michael McGee

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He spent 15 years nurturing the land, planting trees and a vegetable garden, building personal water and sewage systems, including a hot water system that runs without electricity.

The 3.1 hectare property and its 1950s aquamarine-coloured hillside home is currently listed for sale at $1.44 million.

As you drive in, a small stream rushes softly under a wooden bridge.

Green nets cover 20 garden beds where Benn grew an abundance of vegetables, including cucumbers, zucchinis, capsicums and spinach.

With feijoa season coming to an end, one lone fruit sits on the ground below the branches of the tree. Lemons, peaches, apples, and berries wait for their turn to ripen.

By the garden beds, a small greenhouse sits facing another quadruple the size.

Garden beds covered in green netting sit in the Makara home’s backyard.

RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

Benn believes being self-sustained makes you less constrained by the political climate.

He invested everything into the property over time – tallying about $500,000.

“To be honest, most of the investment was experimenting… until you find out what is the right way to do things.”

With no one living on the property for about four months now, the crops aren’t looking quite as well-loved as Benn kept them.

But about 60 tomato plants still live inside the large shed, converted from a horse and sheep barn.

At least 60 tomato plants are growing in the large greenhouse.

RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

He wants the next owner to appreciate and take care of his plantation.

“If a tree is not in the right place, you actually feel it and you need to move it to relocate it to the right place.”

Benn’s five kids helped nurture the property when they lived there.

“They were raised very close to the land, in the garden doing experiments, and stuff like that, planting trees.”

His eco-friendly ways rubbed off – they all now work as scientists overseas.

The home’s water system works with the shape of the land – a DIY water catcher made of wide roof sheets tilts into pipes that fill one of five water tanks.

The Makara property has five off-grid water tanks.

RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

Above the original home, where the sealed road stops, old tracks lead to a flattened hilltop ready for a new house to be built. Twenty solar panels with cords tidely wrapped up wait to be plugged in.

Many solar panels were put in place in preparation for a new build on the Makara property.

RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

The plan was for Benn and his wife to have their own place here, but the pair now live in Sydney, deciding to leave New Zealand after the kids moved.

Maintaining this lifestyle is no small task, particularly for those working full-time. Benn made his passion project happen while working full-time in IT.

He predicts the new owners will need to spend about 10 hours per week tending to the property.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand