A New Plymouth couple - far too young to remember the TV sitcom The Good Life - are channeling its suburban self-sufficiency ethos regardless.
Carl and Kati Freeman have converted their quarter-acre section into a small-scale organic market garden and now they want to teach others how to do it too.
Tucked down a right of way in suburban Frankleigh Park you'll find Freeman Farms - an ex-state house proudly surrounded by beds of organic veggies with chooks and ducks thrown in for good measure.
Carl Freeman has spent the last two years working on his dream project - one he describes as an urban farm.
"We moved over from Australia. I was on a six-acre organic market garden in Australia and we moved over to Taranaki for the fantastic lifestyle and yeah wanted to try out urban farming because I've seen a lot of stuff online and YouTube videos and stuff like that of people converting backyards and I wanted to see if it could really be done."
Mr Freeman is not one for half measures.
"We've got 50 veggie beds that are 5m wide at our urban plot here. We've got 26 fruit trees, we've got two beehives and five chickens and three ducks.
"The chickens just help us by eating all the veggie scraps that don't go to the Farmer's Market each Sunday. They are our recycling system and in exchange they give us a few eggs, which is very kind of them."
The garden follows organic and no-dig farming principles and is topped up with about three cubic metres of organic compost a month.
The Freemans grow a range of vegetables from seed, which they sell via order, as well as at the market.
Carl said he worked in the garden three-to-four days a week and was able to pay himself a basic wage.
"Your not going to get rich off it but it is the good life. You know it's really nice to be close to home and we've got a four-year-old son and many fathers unfortunately are away at work, whereas I've been really close to him the whole time and my partner, my wife, has been able to head off and do amazing work as well."
Rather than the English sitcom, Mr Freeman's inspiration was closer to home.
"I remember visiting my granddad's property and he had every square inch in fruit trees and everything like that. You know, lines and lines of preserved things on the shelves and chicken eggs piling up and they are such fond memories to me."
Mr Freeman said the neighbours had taken a keen interest in his progress.
"To the north we have a new neighbour and we quite often have a chat over the fence as I'm gardening. To our east we've got some neighbours who have taken down a section of the fence and we have a dinner with them once a week and to our south is a lovely lady that we've formed a great relationship with and she buys some vegetables every now and again."
The suburban environment was great for small-scale market gardening because it was generally fenced and all the infrastructure such as access to water was in place, he said.
"So people can start up without any real capital investment and you can just start small and aim to double each year. So if you start with one garden bed and keep doubling every year pretty soon you'll have an urban farm."
The 35-year-old had even found a use for his redundant lawnmower in dealing with wood chip used in his garden beds.
"The lawnmower actually acts as a sort of helicopter suction thing and sucks everything up and chips it and puts it down as a fine till. I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. You need to put on your goggles because there a few chips flying around but it is really working for us."
Now he had proven to himself it was possible to set up an urban farm in New Plymouth, Mr Freeman said he wanted to share what he had learned.
"I want to help create a new business model where people can access their most direct neighbours. Maybe each urban farm has got its little neighbourhood that they deliver their veggie boxes off too or something like that along with a local egg person, someone baking bread. This is a kind of vision I'd like to see in the future."
The Freemans have received a $15,000 grant from the Provincial Growth fund and want to begin offering short courses at their property and 10-week one-on-one internships for people interested in urban farming.
Ultimately they would also like offer training at local tertiary education providers.
