Nothing gives Annabel Langbein more pleasure than growing her own food.
She’s been doing it since she was a hippie living up the Whanganui River at age 17 and since that golden time, it’s been a passion that has become a lifestyle.
Since making the permanent move to Wanaka from Auckland four years ago, she’s never been happier. “Living off the land is a lot of hard work but it’s also fun. It’s a very engaged physical life. My life is busier now and I’m fitter,” she says.
The lakeside 27-acre property that Langbein and husband Ted have owned since 1996 is now a swamp-free mecca with a beautiful garden as well as a view over the lake. Planted out with trees over the years on frequent family holidays south, Langbein admits Ted had a vision.
“He bought it without telling me. We were married and had small children and honestly I wanted to kill him. ‘What do you mean you’ve bought a bog on the side of the lake?’ It was just bracken, blackberry and rosehips. I looked at this land and I thought you have to be mad. And honestly, it was a feud for months. I was just furious with him because we didn’t have any money,” she says. “And now I’m the luckiest person in the world because he had the vision and it’s absolutely gorgeous. So I have to be very humble and say ‘thank you’.”
While most people – north and south – give up on gardening over winter, Langbein’s vegetable garden has fed the family through the colder months. “We’ve seen winter all the way through without having to buy vegetables. I’ve got rocket, lettuce, mâche, Brussels sprouts and broccoli – which I covered up so it wouldn’t freeze – beetroot and carrots. In the store, I’ve got garlic, onions and potatoes. There’s about 32 different plants that I can grow here during winter,” she says.
With a diploma in horticulture, Langbein understands the cycles and seasons of plants, and knowing daughter Rose and her boyfriend were homeward bound from New York, she planted a big winter garden in February.
Rose and Langbein produced Together which won a best book award at The Foodies NZ Food Media Awards in 2019.
A foodie, Rose, 27, shares her mother’s love of cooking but not gardening, though she is learning.
“It was
