Kai O Te Aro
Kai O Te Aro is a community garden group in Aro Valley, Wellington, New Zealand. We have three sites in Aro Valley, one called "The Secret Garden", another "The Steps" and the third, "The Orchard". Any keen gardeners (or budding gardeners) can come along to join us on the first and third Sunday of the month at 10 o'clock outside the Aro Valley Community Centre.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
May Valley Voice
Autumn's back after an interesting summer harvest (anyone else have problems with their tomatoes this year?). We've had some great gardening Sundays recently, and all three of the gardens are looking fairly tidy and with bountiful crops either just been or soon on their way. I'm personally looking foward to the parsnips and jerusalem artichokes for some yummy roasts.
We owe some great thanks to Aro Valleyites that have been using the compost bins at The Orchard at the top of Aro Street. The bins are filling up and we're looking forward to using the compost for the fruit trees and veggies growing up that way. If you're keen to compost but don't have space or a use for it at home, you're welcome to contact us about getting rid of your fruit and veg scraps in one of our compost bins or worm farms in Aro Valley - send us an email and we'll let you know the details.
We are also extremely grateful for a keen kai o te aro gardener that has expertise in fruit trees and has been pruning them appropriately (as now is the time!). We're lucky to have you on board, and we're looking forward to seeing our fruit trees growing strong and healthy with an abundance of plums, apples, fejoa (to name a few) over the coming years.
If you've got a special skill you'd like to share with us, pop us a line. All sorts of skills welcome, or, like lots of us, you can come along to learn as we go.
Show up to one of our gardening Sundays to join in or give it a go. We meet on the first and third Sunday of the month at 10am outside the Aro Valley Community Centre at 48 Aro St. We're also keen for people to get gardening at other times and you can email us to make a time for us to show you around. For questions or to jump on our email list, email us at arogardener@gmail.com
Happy gardening everyone! Here's to log burners, dark ales, roast vegetables, and crisp autumn days in the garden,
Lillian.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
February Valley Voice - welcome to new Aro Valleyites
Sunday, November 6, 2011
November Valley Voice - it's all go!
Sunday, October 2, 2011
October Valley Voice - Spring is warming the earth!
Spring is definitely here and the earth is warming up. I am loving watching the tui feeding from the kowhai flowers outside my window, and the bumble bees enjoying my fresias and bean flowers. The three gardens are really livening up, and there are even blossom on the fruit trees in The Orchard (see the picture for our "Black Boy Plum" blossom).
We just can't keep up eating the over-abundance of lettuce, herbs and other greens in The Secret Garden and The Steps. You can see a small selection of the harvest from this last weekend at The Orchard, a red radish, some delicious fresh peas and one of the potatoes we accidentally uncovered.
This is a really exciting time of year for the gardens; we get to plant all the things we want to eat over the next few months and it is getting warm enough to see things grow quickly (vegetables especially, but also the weeds!). If you love a particular vegetable or plant and would like to see it growing in our gardens, why not join in? You could be the latest crop guardian for anything of your fancy, from courgette and aubergine, to blueberries and sugarsnap peas.
We are incredibly grateful for Victoria University putting in a storage space for our buckets and things at The Orchard site. We've also planted some natives in the area that used to attract all sorts of broken furniture and rubbish - and we're optimistic that this area will now be rubbish-free. Thanks guys!
We'll also be putting in new raised beds at The Orchard, so if you have any old materials lying around that could make good boarders, please do get in touch. Bricks, rocks and timber are all welcome.
If you'd like to join in or give it a go, you can just show up to one of our working bees. We meet on the first and third Sunday of the month at 10am outside the Aro Valley Community Centre at 48 Aro St. For questions or to jump on our email list, email us at arogardener@gmail.com
Here's to daffodils, fruit blossoms and long evenings in the sun.
Lillian.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
September Valley Voice: Thank you, mulch appreciated!
Monday, August 1, 2011
August Valley Voice - crop guardians and new community compost bins
Kia ora Aro Valley!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
June Valley Voice - our vision and Lillian's perspective
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
March Valley Voice - compost welcome!!
The orchard continues and is now definitely looking like a garden. Our fruit trees seem to be doing well in their first six months and some of us are already looking forward to next summer for when there might be fruit! We'd like to see this site being respected as a garden - if you know anyone that is leaving their old desks, mattresses or other unwanted furniture on the site, please kindly ask them to donate it to the Sallies as we don't really need any outdoor office furniture or beds (particularly not when it starts rotting).
Friday, December 10, 2010
December Valley Voice
Hello Aro ValleyitesKai 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
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!
Friday, May 28, 2010
May... moving into winter!
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_
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.