Sustainability
A couple of projects at The Barn
Ongoing Sustainability Efforts at The Barn
At the Barn we feel proud of our many little projects that work to connect us to the beautiful natural environment that we are situated in. These include a compost system which also feeds our free-range chickens, our worm farm, letting our cattle graze freely in our pastures and even our organic vegetable garden which supplies our on-site food truck.
We really appreciate you supporting us as a local business, we also try to do our part by selling local beers and wines at our booking office. From Eddyline in Stoke, to Townshend in Motueka, we are excited to showcase our local breweries for you to enjoy whilst sitting on our shady deck or swinging under our Kanuka in a hammock. This helps create a sustainable local community here in Tasman.
Food Waste
Our food-waste system was brought into the spotlight with the arrival of some new hens in the coup next to our vegetable patch. Both of these were getting an upgrade, so we needed more chicken food, and more composted soil to put back into the vegi beds.
We have bins in our kitchens that collect your food scraps, which then get fed to our chickens to keep their diet varied and fresh. It also gets feed to our worms in our worm farm. As such we receive delicious eggs and also fertile rich worm casings (soil/worm poop) for the vegi garden.
Vegi Garden
We are lucky enough to be in a very fertile valley. A such we grow great vegi here to help the sustainability of our staff and Guests. The garden is available to our guests under the Weed’n Feed concept. Do a bit of weeding or something useful and help yourself to a sittings worth of vegis! If you just want to indulge in the ‘Feed’ part of the equation then we put as many Barn grown products into our Food Truck as possible.
Beef
Whilst you’re here, you may notice our herd of Belted Galloway cattle which graze on the meadows in front of the camp. Not only do we recon these guys have the best view in all of the Tasman region, they also keep the grass short enough for us to enjoy the view too. Additionally, if you are after the most local meat possible, you can buy our beef from the reception and cook it on our various BBQ’s!
Drinking Water
Our rainwater supply also allows you to have refreshing showers after every beach adventure, as we store the rain in our various tanks around the site. When the tanks are emptied out in the dry periods we have a secure bore that lifts fresh water from the local Aquifer. Both sources of this go through a great water filtration and UV sterilising treatment. It will most likely be the best water you will get in NZ!
Waste Water
Our Two stage wastewater treatment system means that we are not connected to any council mains. Bacteria naturally biodegrades the water through several tanks, making it safe to release into and engineered underground discharge system.
Recycling
We do collect quite a bit of waste products on site. There are numerous recycling points around the site as we try and strip out as much as possible that doesn’t go into landfill.
Reducing Waste Generation
We try to actively reduce the amount of waste we generated onsite. For those coffee addicts, we can serve mugs if you are staying at The Barn, as well as takeaway biodegradable cups. We have biodegradable takeaway packaging for the Food truck to go back into our compost system. All of our cleaning products to keep The Barn in tip top shape are biodegradable and rubbish bags are biodegradable.
NZ Nurseries
Our Native tree are for sale to the public under NZ Nurseries, and we also supply conservation groups who are working hard to re-forest our environment. We look to add native forestry stocks around the country to sustainably expand native forests.
We try to eco source our seed as much as possible and some of our regeneration projects include The Barn, bordering the Abel Tasman. As of Autumn 2022, we have raised over 8 thousand trees.
Barn Manuka Honey
Being the closest property to the Abel Tasman our bees have the best access to our property and the start of The Abel Tasman. We have kept the Monofloral Manuka Honey (MGO 57) and is available for sale in the Office!
All in all, we are working quietly behind the scenes to make this campsite a more sustainably place and to do our bit to curb the impact we are having on this beautiful planet, so that you can get out there and enjoy it fully.
