Friday, December 10, 2010

December Valley Voice

Hello Aro Valleyites

Kai o Te Aro keeps on getting stronger and we're loving the food that is appearing before our eyes. The three garden sites each have something exciting happening.

The corn planted at the Steps site is coming along well, along with lots of other edibles and some sunflowers. The Secret Garden is overflowing with greens - a lot of which appears to be self-seeded (or perhaps it's the elves?). The Orchard now is complete with all its trees, with an apricot and a macadamia being the last two that were planted.
Although it was absolutely heartbreaking to do, our baby pears and apples that were growing on our one-year-old trees at the Secret Garden had to be removed. We've heard that for new fruit trees, it's best to remove the first signs of tiny fruit, so that the tree can focus on making good strong roots and strong branches in its first year. Apparently it will produce much better fruit in later years after doing this, so the heartbreak will be worth it.

A kind person has generously given us some special kumara that is ready to plant. It is from an ancient kumara growing site on the coast near Martinborough where biologists have been working to look at the kumara's biological history. We're hoping this lot will like their new home in Aro Valley! Next year we'll be awaiting the kumara to be included in a Kai o Te Aro feast.

A big thanks to Fiskars who have just given us three new heavy duty spades. We're planning on doing a "double dig" garden at the Orchard this weekend, so they will be well used and appreciated as we attempt to break ground.

We've just had our last planning and potluck meeting for the year, including eating some of our community grown produce! We also figured out the watering roster for the next month. It's been an incredible year of growth for Kai o Te Aro - physically and as a group - and we're all super excited about 2011. Everyone is welcome to join in, and January/February would be a great time to join in if you're interested (we're particularly keen on encouraging those of you at the top end of Aro Valley so there's people who are close to the Orchard and the Steps sites).

For our monthly working bees, we meet at 12pm outside the Aro Valley Community Centre, 48 Aro St, on the third Sunday of the month. To get on our contact list or find out more about this project email us atarogardener@gmail.com. You can also find us on our ooooby page www.ooooby.ning.com/group/kai_o_te_aro

Have a fab summer and we look forward to seeing some new faces and a bunch of familiar friendly ones in the New Year.

Nga mihi nui, na Lillian and the Kai o Te Aro 9th December potluck and planning meeting crew.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Salient Article: Kai o Te Aro—A local community gardening group

by Marino Harker-Smith, Mon, 19 Jul 2010. 1

As the cost of living continues to increase faster than wages, many people are turning to growing their own fruit and vegetables as a way to save money. So it comes as no surprise that over the last couple of years there has been a rise in popularity of community gardens throughout New Zealand. Individuals in towns and suburbs around the country have joined forces to promote community building, food sustainability and horticulture education. One such group is central Wellington-based Kai o Te Aro, which currently has three community gardening plots in Aro Valley.

Kai o Te Aro started about 18 months ago with founding member Charles Barrie, and a collection of Aro Valley residents flowing on from the Transitions Town movement. It started with the Secret Garden, a private patch of land that has been provided for the group. But today there are three separate community gardening plots, with Victoria University providing Kai o Te Aro with two areas for the group to develop into fruit and veggie plots. Although no longer living in the valley, Mr Barrie is still an active driving force of the Kai o Te Aro gardening group.

Te Aro resident and Kai o Te Aro member Lynsey Ferrari says community interest in the group was still strong, with about 140 people on their mailing list, and about 12 actively involved in working bees. Ferrari considers herself the only “granny” in the group, with most of its members being relatively young—around 20 to 50—made up of mainly students flatting in the area and working professionals. Despite being one of the senior members of the group, she says she is probably learning more from them than the other way around in terms of different aspects of gardening, including soil maintenance and compost building.

She says a main aim of Kai o Te Aro is “building community and giving people confidence”, by educating each other on how to best grow things in Wellington, as well as things such as permaculture and seed saving. In their three garden sites, they have planted a variety of vegetable and herb plants as well as fruit trees. But having only been established for a couple of years, Kai o Te Aro is still in the development stage with members constantly learning .

“The whole point of it really is to start co-op gardens where people can work alongside each other, learn about growing vegetables, seed saving, building compost, worm farms and getting rid of food waste,” she says.

“It has a strong environmental message, but it also emphasises that you don’t need a huge area to grow gardens. A lot of people grow herbs in pots, and there are a lot of apartments around here that are developing roof gardens—I think that’s a great idea.”

In the early days, a major high for Kai o Te Aro was winning the Australasian section of a competition by international garden supplies company Fiskars, which awarded them with vouchers to spend on gardening products. Ms Ferrari said that prize money was “a wonderful boost” and very instrumental in getting Kai o Te Aro off the ground.

New people are always welcome to get involved with Kai o Te Aro. They hold a working bee on the third Sunday of each month, meeting at the Aro Valley Community Centre, 48 Aro Street, at 12pm. Every month, Kai o Te Aro also holds a pot luck dinner, held at a different member’s house each time, when they have their monthly meetings. People wanting to get involved in the community gardens can either come along to one of the working bees or email their interest to arogardener@gmail.com.

“We’d be delighted if people with more local gardening knowledge could come along and advise or help us,” Ferrari says.


http://www.salient.org.nz/columns/kai-o-te-aro—a-local-community-gardening-group

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Dominion Post writes about us!


See the below photos for this two page spread in the Dompost about Kai o Te Aro and community gardening in the Wellington Region.
Hoorah!!

(Sorry about the quality)








Friday, May 28, 2010

May... moving into winter!

Kia ora koutou,

Winter is here and the Kai o te Aro gardens are looking better than ever.

While there is plenty of work to do to keep the plants happy over the colder months, our last meeting was spent on a different kind of mahi.

Kai o Te Aro has decided to formalise (ever so slightly...) our admin tasks and divide them amongst the group. This is an exciting move for us as it will both stabalise the group and give enthusiastic members new opportunities to be involved in the development of the project.


We discussed that while some more formal structure was required for the organisational and administrative aspects of the group, we will still remain a non-hierarchical collaborative group who made decisions based on consensus. We don't know exactly where the group is heading, but we do know that we are heading there together.

As always, new gardeners and passionate Aro Valleyites are very welcome to join in on our monthly working bees, it's a great chance to learn new gardening skills and meet your neighbours. It is a exciting time to be involved as we are preparing for the planting of a fruit and nut orchard in July.

We meet at 12pm outside the Aro Valley Community Center - 48 Aro st. on the third Sunday of the month. Each month, a different member hosts the monthly pot luck planning meeting. To get on our contact list or find out more about this project please email us at arogardener@gmail.com.

You can also find us on our ooooby page www.ooooby.ning.com/group/kai_o_te_aro


As the roles have been spread out among different people, we have a new person on board for Garden Notes... Charles and Lillian will now be alternating to keep you up to date with what is happening in the Kai o Te Aro gardens.

Naku noa,

Charles and Lillian.