Four Otago University students are saving hundreds of dollars by growing, hunting and gathering their kai. RNZ podcast Thrift paid a visit to their Dunedin flat.
Kieran Halforty, Angus Henry, Jake Corney and Cam Pooley are all eating better than the average student by applying some thrifty smarts.
None of them had gardening experience, but by chance they stumbled on a gardening show on TV.
“It just popped up on our recommended I think after we were watching the rugby,” Jake told RNZ podcast Thrift.
Soon green veggie shoots were showing at their Dunedin student house.
“You wake up, first thing we do, open the door, see if anything's germinated and then water the garden,” says Jake.
“Gardening's a good way to start your morning instead of getting up and going on your phone or something. It's nice to come and do something that you've kind of worked for. I guess it's kind of rewarding.”
So, what’s growing in the student garden?
“We’ve got some parsley, got some mint. We've got some more broccolis over there that are coming through… it's pretty exciting,” Angus says.
“For the lettuce, we've got all the salads we've been making, so it's been real nice and fresh. The parsley has just been on basically everything we cook, so we've been hacking into that every day.”
Setting up the garden didn't cost them much.
“We went down to the hospice shop and bought these big drawers for $2 a piece."
Those drawers have been repurposed as raised garden beds.
“We grabbed a couple bags of soil which cost us about 20 bucks and then the rest was from seed, which cost us about a dollar per packet.”
Now they're using the veggies every day, they're starting to get their money back, says Jake.
“Because we don't have to buy those vegetables. But yeah, I guess the cool thing with a garden is it can continue to grow back."
“Instead of going, oh I need to make a salad, need to go to the shops, just go to the backyard and pick something out.”
While the boys are chuffed with their handiwork, they're also gaining fans outside the flat.
“My parents are like, 'What? You're gardening in Dunedin? But nah, it's actually been a pretty cool thing to do,” Jake says.
“More people should get into gardening. Yeah, that's the big message - gardening's fun,” says Cam.
Some of their student neighbours have caught the bug, they say, putting in their own gardens.
They're also proud winners of the gardening competition run by local student magazine Critic.
The flat is also enjoying nature's bounty in a different way, with the boys embracing some hunter-gatherer thriftiness.
Jake is the flat's main hunter.
“Obviously once you've got the gear, it's pretty easy to go get a feed of meat or fish and stuff.”
He recently landed a tahr in the Southern Alps which, when Thrift visited the flat, was in the slow cooker.
“Pāua are bloody expensive, so if we grab a handful of those each time we go out for a dive, it's real good food. The boys love them.
“And we're saving, I don't know, three pāua over $100 easily from the shop, which is something we just can't afford.”
He’s rounded out their diet with a bit of spear fishing.
“So I shoot a lot of butterfish and blue moki, which are real good eating. And again, way out of our price range if we were to buy them from the shop.”
Kieran says he's happy with the bougie bounty they are feasting on.
“If I sit down for lunch and suddenly there's a crayfish sitting there, when am I ever going to have crayfish?
"You know, I'm a student, I can't afford a crayfish. But these guys have gone and caught it and they're not charging me.”
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