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Promoting sustainable living and growing food this page has a Christianity as its moral compass. I was born in West Auckland. I grew a garden in Papamoa’s sand.

One day, Uncle John asked me, “What are you going to do when you grow up?” I was about four years old, and I had just discovered his impressive veggie garden. “I'm going to grow vegetables.” “Well,” he said, “people will always need to eat.”

I grew a garden in Auckland’s volcanic soil. I grew a garden in the High Country above Rotorua and Tauranga, with frosts and thin, gravelly soil. I had two children in my 40s, and grew a huge garden in Hokianga’s heavy clay and high humidity. I stored lots of vegetables, milked a cow, bottled everything, made cheese, and raised poultry, which my husband and children processed for the freezer. I grew many sacks of spuds, onions, and kumara every year. We had plenty; we fed many, and we gave away food. I grew and dried maize, millet, and amaranth. We had more than we needed. But you don't stay young forever. Seeing the need for many to feed themselves, I have written down what I learnt. In my mind, God was showing me ways of doing things when the supply chains broke. And I know so many of these skills have been lost. Support each other through this time. Pray and rejoice, and the Lord Jesus be with you. The book A Change of Season will soon be available through this page.

29/10/2026

Good evening!
all is quiet here in the shoe box on the hill....
I get the tiny fire cranking about 6.30 am, cook the porridge, boil water and fill the thermous. make a cuppa, boil a half bucket of water for dishes. on 3 days a week, I boil a bucket full for laundry.

This morning was not a laundry morning. I used the extra hour of heat to start something special.

I had 2 sheeps hearts in the freezer. I thawed them out overnight.
This morning I fried off a good handful of shallots and a few carrots. I still have shallots harvested last January.

Then I browned off the sheeps hearts. fancy folk stuff them, yeh nah, not today.

I went searching for stock, found some mushroom stock, oh that might be nice. some sage and thyme, pepper n salt and got the lot simmering for a bit then almost to a boil (boiling can be spoiling the stew LOL)

Then I put a padded winter shirt and a pure wool blanket in my basket, a wooden or even thick cardboard box is better. I added my hot stew and I wrapped it up very well.

That was around 7am? by 6pm it was just luke warm, but the meat was tender and the veg all cooked down nice. I used to have a small steel rubbish bin, I lined it with straw and put in a preserving jar of very hot water to warm it up before putting in a glass jar of yogurt starter and milk..... set it under my cooker and in 12 hours we had a nice fresh jar of yogurt. But back to the meat. Got a few pictures here, nice to get to the end of a crazy day and have the meat all ready. I took out a heart, sliced the tender end and set that aside. I heated the stock with the shallots and carrots and thickened it for gravy. Hubby needs very soft food, so this dinner he enjoyed very much. Had a pot boiling with spuds and kumara, and some broccoli in a steamer. mashed up the spuds and kumara, and well that was our soft, tasty and fairly nourishing dinner.

The other heart and some stock, carrots and shallots went in my tiny chest freezer for another day. The top part of the heart I will cut the tender bits off and add that to a salad sandwhich for our lunch tomorrow. There was quite a bit of veg left over, so this will be soup dinner tomorrow night, I will add chicken stock, and make a wee stack of garlic bread!

So with a bit of thought, here is a dinner that for us was low cost, low fuel use and suited hubbys needs nicely.

Tomorrow I will do a tiny bit more on my kitchen. very slowly I am building it myself. I will have a fella fit the bench top... that is not quite where I am up to with the DIY!!!

Kia Kaha
Denese Sheree.

I'm Denese Sheree, creator of Growing Skills to Survive, where I share practical gardening, food preservation, self-sufficiency and simple living skills to help everyday families become more resilient. Follow for practical tips you can use every week.

26/10/2026

Good morning.
Its wild outside. but we all cosy in our shoe box!

I am having a quiet day, I will go for a few groceries shortly.

I love to look to the past to live frugally and learn old skills.
Hubby and I are binge watching Wartime Kitchen and Gardening. You can utube this and see the interesting way food shortages and rationing was managed during WW2.

LEARN FROM THE PAST TO SUPPORT YOUR FUTURE.

As I am inside today, I have time to have our little fire going and cook up liver and bacon. smells jolly good! so thats all sorted for dinner this evening.
I will serve this with potato and kumara all mashed up together! adding some parsley at the end of mashing. Hubby needs soft food, and this is a favorite of his. I have always thought parsley is an over looked superfood!
I might make a little garlic butter to pour generously over my veg!!

Have a lovely day.
Denese Sheree

25/10/2026

Good morning!
its sunny and quite windy here today, laundry day, as is Wednesday and Friday.

Yesterday afternoon i got into the garden! I had planted some dwarf beans and tall tomato seed a few days back, not the finest days according to the moon, the beans are doing very well. There is so much live critters running around here, many years ago I would lay big twigs and branches over seedlings to protect them. You can manage this problem without buying stuff. My best practice was laying gorse or barberry twigs over newly planted seeds.

I plant very little in trays or little pots. These are real handy, but dont feel this is essential if you have little money.
Over the years I have aquired old bits and bobs. I did buy some nets for over seedlings. Years ago old net curtains were very cheap at opp shops, sadly now they seem quite expensive.

in a few days it will be ideal to plant carrot/root veg.
I am not a very big fan of companion planting, I did all sorts of tests years ago. One thing that does benefit very much from companion planting is onions and carrots! Follow this advice and plant them together, the worms that attack carrots dont like onions, and the worm that gets into the base and roots of the onions, dont go near carrots! win win.

I know this would not be the perfect time to plant shallots. I have planted these at various times of the year and got some return. except from mid summer. So carrot seed went in yesterday, lined on each side with shallots, as this is the only onion thing handy right now. This bed is a dump of top soil the lovely digger man put here for me. Sadly there was kikuyu under and all through it.
A few days ago I took the spud fork and worked very deeply to get up the roots. took many hours!
This is where I planted the tomatoes and beans.
Yesterday I spent all afternoon doing the same for the row of carrots. The benefit of having to do this, I have a wonderful soft deeply dug plot for carrots, I hope I have removed the roots!!!

I mixed my carrot seed with a cup of sand, this makes it easier to spread and reduces clumping and bald spots.
after planting i dusted the soil thinly over the seed, and using the rake on its flat end I 'tamped' the soil down firmly. This is very beneficial for carrots.

I am considering a nice organic source of mulch for my new tiny garden.... we have a big stand of totara that I could look for mulch, there may even be an old cow pat there!! Its a big deal to start again as you get older!

I have a huge bit of thick old polythene. I am considering rolling it out over a big clear patch in the orchard.... in the autum this may be a good plot for a garden. I see heaps of buttercup there. I will need to dress with lime, dolomite and some clean ash/bones.

Have a lovely labor day.

Kia kaha
Denese Sheree.

22/10/2026

Hello again!
Its been a strange sort of day, busy busy has caught up with me!

I rose early and got hubby up and going for the day, Then there is the morning walk to the Long drop. We do have a toilet in the cabin, but in order to save water till the next rain, and keep me walking LOL, I go on this lovely walk, talk to my trees and feed my chookies.

I have been sorting timber and reviving old corrugate for a chook run. My plan is to first get the girls, and Prince out into this run and get their bearings. They have spent a very comfortable 2 weeks in the little garden shed, deep littler, lots of nice w**ds tossed in. nice nests etc. But plan is they can free range most of the time. In the summer they will have the paddocks, in the winter they can range in the orchard. The orchard contains close to 30 trees, some are getting very mature now, many have been bashed and broken by cattle who have got in and left their mark over the years.

Chickens can eat the blossums off fruit trees, and peck at the fruit in summer. In winter, they can scratch up all the bugs and beetles that often winter over in the soil below the fruit trees. 'Let nature do the work" It will be a little while before I can do some much over due maintenance on the orchard trees.

The apples are really flowering hard out this year. so lovely.
I have a fella who comes and does a few hours most days building infrastructure, Long drop, chook run, he is soon to make a wee deck near the cabin to set out my many flower pots and tubs. and next on the list is to put together some shelves, I have had a large set of beaten up old steel shelves, the sides are long past it. I will purchase some sturdy ply and we will make sides for them.

We have an old green shed with some very aging tools - they need sorting and putting in some sort of order, every day I am looking for a hinge, a wire brush, a screw or tool.... painting stuff, its all in there but in a heap of boxes! shelves will make like life better!

I had a busy morning, then this afternoon I had a big need for a nanna nap! wow where did the day go! I have a large tall boy in the new garage, I am off now to unpack a few boxes and settle some treasures in there and my heap of empty boxes grows by the day... all good w**d mulch I say!

I am waiting for the full moon, 2 days after I will plant carrots and perhaps beetroot.

Have a read by each photo. xx
Happy homesteading people

21/10/2026

Good evening.
Its 9.30, thats just a bit past my bedtime! but tonight is chilly, so I lit the fire to heat some water. Normally I do the dishes after breakfast! there is only 2 of us. and as we dont yet have a functioning kitchen, I heat the water on the fire. Its often too warm in the evenings to get the fire cranked up, so the morning is my usual laundry and dishes time!

Hubby comes out and sits in his chair, the sun has been shining but not yet too hot, the pheasants are screeching and its a lovely time of day.

This morning was totally crazy and upside down! no dishes done. I had to zoom to town, do some urgent stuff, I had a huge load of laundry, big clean up, so I decided to go to the laundromat. Town was so full, no parking anywheres. I drove in a wee lane by the laundry, no parking, got to the little loop around by the post office, Told God this gonna be a long way to carry my laundry sack!! did a multi point turn in a silly place and drove back past the laundry, Wow! park right by the door! God is good eh.

I had asked my fiend to meet at a wee cafe for a treat while I waited for the load to do its thing, so I had been rushing to get there in time. As I was shoving my rubbish sack of clothes into the washer, i realized I had forgotten to bring 'town' bubbles... oh bother. I was muttering about this and this lovely lady gave me a lavender laundry sheet! Oh double blessings today!

So I pushed lots of buttons and paid for the load... wandered just a few shops down to "Pipsqueak's" its a cool we cafe with amazing salads and just a few cakes.

I sat and waited with my single shot soy mocca LOL, It's ages since I drank coffee, and this was a real nice one! - consequences being i was buzzing along till this evening! but wow, I have done so so much today!

My friend came and we chatted at a zillion words a minute, we carried on together to pick up laundry and off to bunnings for plugs and bits and bobs that are needed for projects, then off to the drs to sort a Hubby thing, zooming home by 12.30 to do hubbys lunch and then the real work began!

way too much to bore you all with, but the garden shed roof had heaps of nail holes, thanks to a tube of sillicon and a crazy ladder.... more about that tomorrow.

2 huge loads of laundry done, old iron moved, pile of timber moved, another wee building issue sorted, flower pots moved and sorted for around the cabin, all the domestic stuff sorted, dinner was a slightly burnt offering, but actually tasty and nutritious.

So now the dishes are all done, there is a hotty on my sore back, the cabin is quiet, stray cat has sneaked past and the moreporks are around somewhere calling...Hubby is settled in and sleeping.

What a lovely crazy productive day!

Life begins at 60 LOL

Much love and blessings to you all
Denese Sheree.

18/10/2026

Hi again. what beautiful hot sunshine we have had.
For big chunks of my life I lived fairly self reliant, the last 5 years or so that had diminished due to full time care giving and this year, just as I had an empty tank and a few health issues, I decided to build a wee off grid cabin! just to live in while we build our for ever till Jesus comes back home.

I was asked by friends to teach them how I grow food, without fancy gear, equipment or expensive infrastructure. So month by month They came to visit while I wrote stuff down to show them what I did. A Change of Season - Growing Food to Survive was written, edited beautifully by my friend Susanna Schollum, if you want any editing done....Sue is particularly good at bringing out 'YOU' in Your book! www.linebyline.co.nz

I then started this face book page, gave it a similar 'flavor' to my book which was at the time still being printed...
I talked about milking and caring for a cow and other livestock. I talked about making babies nappies and how to use them, how to make true vinegar, simple natural remedies, storing food. all that stuff that has become very popular! People started to ask if all this stuff was in my book, "well no, my first book is about growing food"

So I wrote another book, full of these very old skills.
Nothing in these books are AI, no fake photos, all just me doing stuff and taking a few clicks along the way. Actually when you are full on into self sufficiency, you dont have time to take photos and blab on socials much LOL.
Just add Salt - Growing Skills to Survive is the one for all this stuff.

A year later, I noticed lots of posts about fires, cooking on fires and wood lots etc. I was just a bit bothered about the lack of solid knowledge about looking after a wood stove, I was really concered that people waited till autumn to cut and gather fire wood, and then I was talking to lots of people about cooking the food that could be foraged, grown or harvested etc on fire.
So the last book Cooking with Fire - Cooking Food to Suvive.
1/3 of this book is a cook book. Heaps of info about trees, wood, smoke, house design, all sorts of stuff.

If you are looking for all the old school info as many of your great grandparents survived by, these books are for you.

Written in New Zealand, by a New Zealander. many people have read and loved these home style hand books. check out the reviews and grab your copies,
Message Me, Denese Sheree for your set. If you purchase the whole set of 3, you get a free moon calendar. the books are $35 each.

17/10/2026

Hello again!
well, Starlink is up and running, so after 2 weeks of no internet, no shower or running water, no toilet, we have returned to the land of the living😂 no actual kitchen yet.

The tiny house is cosy, the tiny fire has been essential as we have had some really chilly nights, and yes, its great to cook on for just 1 pot.

Plumber Zeke came yesterday and hooked up our water and gas, so we now have a hot shower, wow what luxury! we have a working toilet and very little hand basin. My husband needs a wet area/disablity bathroom, and to have this in a tiny house is wonderful, He is enjoying being here, but for an older bloke its been a huge change for him. He spends his days studying the wild life, he has named 2 hawks and enjoys hearing the pheasant's do their morning and evening calls.

Kitchen is still a very cluttered camp site... Just thinking about how to tackle that. we will need some shelves etc here and there. I have added a few very reveling photos of our little shoe box.

The view is wonderful. The air is cleaner, I also poked in a very few seeds and a very little garden.
So here we are, a photo dump as they say. Totally un edited LOL

As we work on projects I will keep you updated.

Keep mulching your gardens to reduce moisture loss for the summer, Now is the time to be thrifty with water so you will get through the coming summer heat.

Kia kaha
Denese Sheree

04/10/2026

Moving house day! well, might be moving house week really.

I will be off line for a week!

Nga mihi
Denese Sheree xx

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