Sorrel plant

Mashua (Tropaeolum tuberosum)
Also known as Añu, Isaño or Cubio

Mashua (pronounced Mah-shwuh) is a colourful Andean tuber closely related to the garden nasturtium. Exceptionally easy to grow, highly productive, and one of the most cold-hardy Andean root crops, it produces generous harvests of delicious tubers with very little care.

The tubers range from the size of small potatoes to large yams and develop a pleasantly sweet, slightly peppery flavour that becomes milder and sweeter when cooked. Even the young leaves and flowers are edible, making Mashua a truly versatile perennial vegetable.

A valuable companion plant, Mashua is traditionally grown alongside other crops because its aromatic foliage helps deter many insect pests, nematodes, and soil-borne diseases.

Each order includes either one large tuber or two medium-sized tubers, ready to plant. Simply place them in the garden when you receive them and watch them emerge in spring.

Growing instructions, harvesting advice, and culinary uses can be found below.

Chinese Artichoke / Crosnes (Stachys affinis)
Family: Lamiaceae

Chinese Artichokes, also known as Crosnes, are a delicious and unusual perennial root vegetable grown for their crisp, spiralled white tubers. Easy to grow and highly productive, they return year after year, producing abundant harvests from late autumn through winter.

The distinctive tubers resemble tiny grubs but are a gourmet delicacy with a wonderfully unique texture. Eaten raw, they are crisp, juicy, and slightly sweet, with a flavour reminiscent of water chestnuts. Cooked, they become tender, creamy, and subtly nutty, somewhere between a young potato, kūmara, and Jerusalem artichoke. In France, where they are known as Crosnes, they are traditionally braised in butter and fresh herbs—a simple preparation that beautifully highlights their delicate flavour.

Your order includes a starter pack of approximately five healthy tubers, ready for planting. Once established, the plants gradually multiply underground, providing increasingly generous harvests each year.

Chinese Artichokes are hardy, frost tolerant, and winter dormant, making them an excellent perennial vegetable for New Zealand gardens. Growing instructions, harvesting advice, and culinary tips are provided below.

Earth Chestnut (Bunium bulbocastanum)
Family: Apiaceae

Common names: Earth Chestnut, Pignut, Great Pignut, Earthnut

Earth Chestnut is a fascinating and productive perennial root vegetable, prized for its sweet, chestnut-flavoured tubers. Every part of the plant is edible—the small underground tubers can be eaten raw or cooked like potatoes, the delicate fern-like leaves have a fresh parsley-like flavour, and the aromatic seeds can be used as a substitute for cumin. A hardy and long-lived addition to the edible garden, Earth Chestnut is ideal for gardeners interested in unusual perennial food crops.

You will receive a healthy seedling with roots and young shoots (see images below). Plant it into its permanent position as soon as it arrives, and it will establish over winter before producing fresh growth in spring. Growing instructions, harvesting tips, and culinary uses are provided below.

Perennial Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica)
Family: Urticaceae

Stinging Nettle is one of the world's most valued medicinal and edible perennial herbs. Highly nutritious, vigorous, and remarkably versatile, it has been used for centuries as a nourishing food, traditional herbal medicine, natural fertiliser, compost activator, and livestock tonic. Once established, it forms productive patches that provide abundant harvests of tender spring shoots year after year.

Your order includes 3 dormant rhizomes (approximately 20 cm long each), ready to establish quickly and send up vigorous new growth in spring. Planting instructions, harvesting advice, medicinal uses, and processing information are provided below.

Lovage (Levisticum officinale)

Family: Apiaceae

Lovage is a hardy, long-lived perennial herb treasured for its rich, celery-like flavour and remarkable productivity. Every part of the plant is useful—the leaves add depth to soups, stews and salads, the stems can be enjoyed like celery, the seeds are used as a spice, and the roots have a long history of culinary and traditional herbal use.

Order is for 1 dormant crown with healthy growing buds. Simply plant it into your garden upon arrival and watch it burst into vigorous new growth in spring. Growing instructions, harvesting tips, and traditional uses are provided below.

Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus)
Family: Lamiaceae

Rosemary is a beautiful evergreen Mediterranean herb, treasured for its fragrant, needle-like leaves, stunning blue flowers, and wide range of culinary and medicinal uses. Hardy, drought tolerant, and long-lived, it makes an attractive addition to herb gardens, food forests, edible hedges, and pollinator plantings.

Flowering from late winter through spring, Rosemary provides an important early nectar source for honeybees and other beneficial insects when few other plants are in bloom. Its aromatic foliage is indispensable in the kitchen, pairing beautifully with roasted vegetables, potatoes, breads, lamb, poultry, and many Mediterranean dishes.

Your order includes one healthy bare-rooted seedling, ready to establish quickly in your garden or a large container. Growing instructions, harvesting advice, and traditional medicinal uses are provided below.

Valerian Crowns (Valeriana officinalis)

Valerian is a well-known medicinal herb traditionally used to support restful sleep and help with insomnia.*

Each order includes 1 healthy valerian crown cutting with a growing tip. Plant directly into your garden over winter and it will emerge again in spring. See photos below for examples of the growing tips.

Organically grown at KoruKai Herb Farm without synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, or herbicides.

White Ginger (Hedychium coronarium)
Family: Zingiberaceae

White Ginger, also known as Butterfly Ginger or Himalayan Ginger, is a striking perennial from the ginger family grown for its lush tropical foliage and highly fragrant white flowers. The blooms resemble delicate butterflies in flight and release a rich, sweet perfume often compared to gardenias, making it one of the most aromatic ornamental gingers.

Despite sometimes being mislabelled in trade (including in New Zealand), White Ginger is distinct from culinary galangal species. While its rhizomes are edible and carry a mild, ginger-like flavour, it is primarily grown as an ornamental and fragrant garden plant.

This vigorous plant produces large clumps of upright stems and spreads gradually via underground rhizomes, forming a bold, tropical presence in the garden. It thrives in moist to boggy soils and performs best in full sun to partial shade, especially where soil moisture is consistently high.

Your order includes one healthy plant, ready to establish and grow into a lush flowering clump. Growing instructions and care details are provided below.

Woundwort (Stachys sylvatica)
Family: Lamiaceae

Woundwort is a hardy woodland perennial from the mint family with a long history of use as a traditional first-aid herb. For centuries it has been valued for supporting the healing of cuts, wounds, bruises, and skin irritations, earning its common name through generations of herbal use. In summer, it produces elegant spikes of deep purple flowers that are highly attractive to bees and other beneficial pollinators, while its lush green foliage makes an excellent addition to woodland gardens and food forests.

Your order includes 3 dormant plants with healthy growing tips, ready to establish quickly and send up vigorous new growth in spring. Please see the photos and growing information below.

We may have more Tarragon plants available. We will assess and count up what we have available on Monday. So check back again. 

French Tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus var. sativa)

Family: Asteraceae

French tarragon is one of the finest culinary herbs, prized for its delicate anise-like flavour and fragrant, narrow green leaves. An essential ingredient in classic French cuisine, it is delicious in béarnaise, hollandaise, and tartare sauces, as well as with chicken, fish, eggs, potatoes, salads, and homemade herb butter. The leaves can be used fresh or dried.

Growing to approximately 30–40 cm tall, this hardy perennial forms an attractive clump and returns year after year with very little maintenance. Tiny yellow flowers may appear in summer.

You will receive one dormant first-year plant with visible growing shoots and little or no foliage, as French tarragon naturally dies back over winter (see example photo below). Simply plant it into your garden or a pot and it will emerge vigorously in spring. Regular harvesting and light pruning will encourage a dense, bushy plant.

Growing instructions can be found below.

Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla vulgaris)
Family: Rosaceae
Common names: Lady’s Mantle

Lady’s Mantle is a beautiful, hardy perennial herb cherished for its soft scalloped leaves, delicate chartreuse flowers, and long history of use in women’s herbal medicine. Known for its astringent and toning qualities, it is especially valued for supporting menstrual health, digestion, and wound healing. Easy to grow and highly ornamental, it thrives in a wide range of garden conditions and makes an elegant addition to the herb garden.

Below you’ll find growing instructions, medicinal uses, and herbal preparation ideas.

Lady's Mantle dies down in winter. You will receive a dormant plant without leaves, but with growing shoots in place.

Evergreen Dwarf Comfrey (Symphytum grandiflorum)
Family: Boraginaceae
Common names: Dwarf Comfrey, Creeping Comfrey

Evergreen Dwarf Comfrey is a low-growing, spreading perennial valued for its lush evergreen foliage, early nectar-rich flowers, and exceptional usefulness as a living mulch and groundcover. Unlike Medicinal Comfrey, this smaller species is primarily grown for its ecological and soil-building benefits, helping to suppress weeds, protect soil, and feed beneficial insects. Hardy, resilient, and easy to grow, it is an excellent addition to food forests, orchards, and regenerative gardens.
Due to its smaller size and more compact growth than regular comfrey it is ideal for smaller gardens, urban environments and small food forests. It makes an excellent border plant and ground cover and does well planted around fruit trees.

Can be grown throughout New Zealand. Frost tolerant. 

Below you’ll find growing instructions, uses, and harvesting ideas.

Order is for 1 plant, bare rooted. 

Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium)
Family: Asteraceae
Common names: Wormwood, Absinthe Wormwood, Green Ginger

Wormwood is a hardy, aromatic perennial herb prized for its striking silvery foliage, intense bitterness, and powerful medicinal properties. Traditionally used as a digestive tonic and vermifuge, it is one of the classic bitter herbs of Western herbal medicine. Easy to grow and drought tolerant once established, Wormwood thrives in poor soils and makes a beautiful structural plant in the herb garden.

Wormwood dies down in winter. You will receive a dormant crown with established shoots.

Below you’ll find growing instructions, medicinal uses, and herbal preparation ideas.

Myoga (Zingiber mioga)
Family: Zingiberaceae

Common names: Myoga, Japanese Ginger, Mioga

Myoga is a beautiful, hardy perennial ginger grown for its edible flower buds rather than its roots. It produces lush tropical-looking foliage throughout summer, followed by striking pink and cream flower buds that emerge at ground level in late summer and autumn. Harvested just before they open, these tender buds have a delicate, aromatic flavour with hints of ginger and citrus. They are delicious eaten raw, pickled, or lightly sautéed, adding a fresh, zesty flavour to salads, stir-fries, soups, and traditional Japanese dishes.

Your order includes 1–2 dormant rhizomes (depending on size), each with healthy, well-developed growth buds ready to produce vigorous new shoots in spring (see sample image below). You will receive either one large rhizome or two to three smaller rhizomes of equivalent size.

Because we only dig this plant every 2 years, we will not have it available in 2026, but we will have heaps in 2027.
Available again in July 2027. Sign up below to join the waiting list.

Elecampane Crowns (Inula helenium)

Elecampane is a striking medicinal perennial traditionally valued for supporting respiratory health and herbal wellness practices.*

Each order includes 1 healthy elecampane crown with active growing tip(s) (see images below). Simply plant into your garden over winter and watch it emerge vigorously in spring. Under good growing conditions, a single plant can often be lifted and divided the following winter, producing approximately 3–6 new plants within a year.

Yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius)
Family: Asteraceae

Order includes 1 crown (see sample images below).

Yacon, meaning “water root” in the Inca language, has been treasured for centuries in the Andes as a refreshing, thirst-quenching food for travellers. This vigorous perennial, related to the daisy family, produces crisp, juicy tubers with a uniquely sweet flavour—often described as a blend of fresh apple, watermelon, and pear.

Traditionally grown from Colombia to northern Argentina, Yacon is prized for its delicious edible roots, which can be eaten fresh or processed into the increasingly popular Yacon syrup. Its sweet juice can be concentrated into syrup, while the crunchy tubers make a refreshing and nutritious addition to the kitchen garden.