The Home Of New Zealand’s Largest
Heritage Seed Bank & Food Plant Collection
We are a not-for-profit charity, here to inspire and support your journey in regenerative living.
Take a look around our website for 100% organic, regenerative and NZ grown seeds, trees, and perennials.
We also have workshops, guided tours, publications and a wealth of other useful information.
What is a Heritage Seed?
A heritage seed is one that has been grown by a person, family, or group of people in a certain area over a period of time, meaning their is connection between people, place and seeds, The longer the period of time the greater the connection between people, land and food. Connection is the critical thing if we are looking for human health, community resilience, and ecological health. Heritage seeds ’read’ the earth and the sky where they grow, and then pass all that information to us via a healthy gut.Our vibration then raises the life around us.
Without the connection to people and place over a long period of time there is no advantage to ‘’heritage’ seeds that have been grown in industrial systems for many years disconnected to their original people or place of origin.
2025 Seed Catalogue
Download a free copy of our beautiful, full colour 2025 Seed catalogue.
Our Shop
Explore a diverse array of New Zealand heritage seeds and plants, cultivated through regenerative and organic practices. Complementing this botanical richness are a curated selection of books, informative booklets, engaging workshops, and more.
Kōanga Monthly Moon Guide
We provide a monthly moon gardening guide that works in conjunction with lunar placements. It is available to view online or download as a PDF.
Saving New Zealand’s Heritage Food Plants
Kōanga’s story begins in the early 1980s when founders Kay Baxter and Bob Corker moved from Auckland up to Bob’s family farm in Kaiwaka. Kay noticed that the wild fruit trees growing along the roadsides and around the Kaipara Harbour were healthier and more productive, with far better tasting fruit than anything available in the Garden Centres. Kay realised that these trees had been brought here by early settlers and that they were mostly neglected and dying out. This prompted her to start collecting these heritage fruit trees, and in the process also began to collect and realise the importance of their stories and their whakapapa.
Kōanga’s Points of Difference
Over 95% of the seeds in the Kōanga Collection are Aotearoa/ New Zealand heritage seeds/food plants.
They are connected to the people, the land and the sky of this place Connection/whakapapa makes a difference to the way our food nourishes us. Our experience points to that meaning a minimum of 3 generations. Most of our NZ heritage seed however has been here for 5-7 and the pre European seed clearly far longer.
All of our seeds and trees are grown by us on site here near Wairoa, Aotearoa/New Zealand
Creating resilience and food security for all NZer’s in unstable uncertain times. We can only find one other very, very small seed business in this land growing more than a handful of seeds here, Seeds being sold in NZ as heritage seeds are almost all industrial seeds imported from the rest of the world. NZ grown seeds could be absolutely critical for a resilient food future. Buying our seeds supports not only the saving of this seed but also the holding of the skills for the future.
All of our trees and seeds are grown in biological systems, BEYOND ORGANIC systems
We have records to show crop BRIX levels and soil microbe levels, and all soil amendment and foliar applications. All of our production systems build ecological health.
All of our soil and plant health inputs are made by us here at Kōanga
Building models of local self reliance and regeneration for this land
We understand that growing seeds and food in these conditions builds and strengthens human DNA/health, along with ecosystem health.
There is plenty of data from science in this land to show that food grown from our heritage food plants and seeds contains far more nutrition than food grown from industrial genetics. https://www.heritagefoodcrops.org.nz/
All of our seeds are open pollinated seeds
So you can then save your own seeds so long as you follow the principles, and laws of nature for each seed crop, relating to genetics.
Our heritage seeds grown in living systems forever contain the memory of climate change and contain the genetic potential to adapt, they are more resilient
Our seeds are packed in 100% recyclable materials no plastic or aluminum
Our seed packets include a lot of cultural information
incl origins and planting info in detail