Sunday, November 6, 2011

November Valley Voice - it's all go!

Kia ora koutou Aro gardeners,

we had a great working bee this week, as we finally found time to get back to the secret garden. We have been so busy up at the orchard dealing with our rubbish issues, planting natives and getting the compost sorted that our special secret garden was somewhat neglected -much to the delight of the weeds and broadbeans (which are probably almost 2m tall!).

However once we cleared away the nasturtiums and bolting brassicas it was reassuring to find
that all those perennials we planted three years ago now are thriving. The grape vines are crawling along their wires and the espaliered apples are covered in baby fruits (which we had to pull off to help them grow up strong). Our 'crop guardian' strategy (in which different members of the group take responsibility for raising seedlings of different crops) is now coming into full effect as healthy looking patches of tomatoes, yellow pole beans, kamokamo, sunflowers, peas and other spring/summer plants are appearing throughout the three gardens. As we no longer have the safety net of our Fiskars grant to fall back on we have to be a little more self/community reliant in the way we source our seedlings, and while this can mean a little more work for us, it is helping out group to develop better communication and cooperation- which is what community gardening is all about!

Up at the orchard we are thrilled to find that the monster rubbish pile has not returned, as people appear to be respecting the changes we have made and effort we are putting in. However, a few rogue items like office chairs are still popping up in there so we can't rest on our laurels just yet. A big thank you to everyone who has been helping to keep an eye on the gardens for us and spreading the word in the community about what we are trying to achieve with the Kai o te Aro project.

Its come to our attention recently that we can be a little over dependent on email and social
networking for our communications, which means we can lose people who prefer not to use
computers. Over the next little while we will be doing some work to ensure we can be reached in other ways and that our community continues to grow offline as well as online.

It is time of change, in the garden and in society. Regardless of what happens at the upcoming
election we'll keep doing our best to grow kai and grow community in Aro Valley and while we
are apolitical as a group, one thing we will say is - whoever we vote for at the election, lets vote for strong communities :)

Happy gardening everyone

Charles

Ps- as always you can email us at arogardener@gmail.com, or find us outside the Aro Valley
Community Center at 10am on the first and third sundays of the month.