October Valley Voice - Spring is warming the earth!

Kia ora Aro Valley,

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.

September Valley Voice: Thank you, mulch appreciated!

Kia ora e hoa mā,

It’s been so great to see our community compost bins at 'the orchard' (225 Aro St) filling up over the past few weeks. We really appreciate the people who are bringing their food scraps

down and covering them so nicely with mulch—our fruit trees will appreciate it too in a few months.

At our last working bee we put together a little sign to let people know that they could use the bins, and how we prefer them to be used...not that we're control freaks, we just want to

make sure we make food for the noke (worms) rather than the kiore (rats). If you're unsure about what goes in the bins, check out the sign, and if you're still unsure, flick us an email.

Regarding our fruit trees, you might notice that they've recently been pruned and staked. It’s really important to start a good pruning routine with trees early on, as it’s hard to re-

shape them once they get big, and the distribution of branches has a direct impact on the fruit yields. We are by no means experts on fruit trees, but are certainly enjoying learning. If you

however are an expert, we'd love to hear from you and pick your brains...we promise to share our peaches with you :)

While in general things are going great in the orchard, we are still facing an old challenge—rubbish!! A constant pile of household refuse (old TVs, beds, broken junk etc) miraculously replenishes itself each time we clean it up. This is a real burden to us as it not only takes up valuable gardening time, it makes our garden look shabby and potentially unsafe and toxic. We're working on a solution, closing off underneath the stairs and planting out the dumping zones, but we would love your help with this. If you ever see people dumping rubbish in the orchard, please go and tell them that it is not OK. Not only is it illegal, but it is holding back a project that is there to benefit our whole community. Once this issue is resolved the orchard will really take off. We'd love to get more fruit trees in there, more natives and more raised beds.

On the note of raised beds, we are definitely on the lookout for suitable materials to build them from, so please let us know if you have spare: bricks, timber, concrete scraps, pipes, rocks...or anything else you think might be useful. Please let us know about it first rather than dropping it off though...just to make sure someone doesn't think you're dumping rubbish and tell you off!

Happy gardening everyone, until next time.

Charles,

Kai o te Aro

August Valley Voice - crop guardians and new community compost bins

Kia ora Aro Valley!

Hope you've all been seeing our beautiful posters around the valley, with a spade, a fruit tree and tui. We're excited to have them. At each of our three gardens, The Orchard, The Steps and The Secret Garden, you'll see a sign up too so you can tell that they're Kai o Te Aro Community Gardens (not other amazing private veggie gardens!).

Do you need somewhere to put your food scraps or compost? We now have a community compost bin at The Orchard, and we would love ongoing veggie scraps and dead leaves. Please email us at arogardener@gmail.com and we can give you the details and let you get composting as you wish. The compost will be highly valued to build up our veggie beds and to feed our fruit trees.

At our last potluck planning meeting, we discussed having crop guardians, whereby different people may take a special interest or guardian role over a particular vegetable or plant. Their task will be to note things like what time of year seeds should be sown and seedlings should be planted and what other plants make good companions (hopefully supporting growth and reducing pests). We can then all share this knowledge with the group. My crops are jerusalem artichokes (something I've never grown but am looking forward to eating!) and silverbeet (perhaps not the most popular, but a veggie I love). Anyone keen to join in and be a crop guardian? Join us at our working bees or emailarogardener@gmail.com to get on our mailing list for our monthly potluck planning meeting.

While it's definitely winter and the weeds aren't growing so fast, we're keeping on going with our fortnightly working bees to keep our garden beds in good shape, prepare them with compost, and looking after green manure crops (such as lupins, peas and beans). There's even great things to harvest and, amazingly, we still have an abundance of coriander and other tasty herbs.

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

Cheers, and here's to crisp cold days outside and warm nights by the fire!

Lillian.

June Valley Voice - our vision and Lillian's perspective

Kia ora Aro Valley,

Winter's arrived (my mum

blames my birthday for the

arrival of winter every year!). We've planted broadbeans and lupins to feed our soil, pruned

the fruit trees so they'll prosper next spring, and we've harvested

lots of cauliflowers and

coriander.

In our potluck before last, we had a visioning session which

was inspiring for the group and led us to ask, what do we like about the Kai o Te Aro community gardens? Why are

we each involved? And what's our vision for the future?

So I thought I would share with you my very own personal perspective on why Kai o Te Aro (and community gardens in general) are so phenomenal.

I grew up in Auckland and my parents have always grown fruit trees, but we only ever had a short stint with vegetables when I was young. The taste of my first home-grown fresh peas direct from the garden still lingers in my memory. After leaving home, I travelled and was blessed to WWOOF on a few farms in France and Argentina, for a few weeks each (that is, "Willing Workers on Organic Farms"). I was amazed at how easy and fulfil

ling it was to grow my own food and eat each meal according the seasons and whatever was growing in the backyard (I also learnt to milk goats but that's another story!). Coming back to New Zealand, I wanted to make sure that this new-found love of growing food became part of my everyday life.

So I made veggie plots in my back garden. But being a renter meant that I was moving flats often, leaving behind pumpkins that would be ready in a month, green tomatoes and soil I'd carefully composted. Community gardens were the answer!

Kai o te Aro sprung up three years ago and I heard how it was going through a few friends of friends. So I braved it one Sunday, and joined in at a working bee. What I found was an easy going bunch of people, lots of laughter and people all learning from each other. If I don't know if a little sprout is a weed or a vegetable, I ask and someone will know. If someone has a great idea, we all listen, chip in and run with it. We're a collaborative group that is non-hierarchical which is pretty amazing to see in action.

And aside from the pure joy of watching food grow on trees and appear out of the ground,

we garden organic so I know there's no nasties when I eat it. Eating local food means not eating so much oil - no transport over roads or across oceans. I haven't done the sums, but it feels good to know I'm part of something that is a tiny wee baby step towards reducing climate change.

Anyway, I'm sure there's more or different things others in the group would say, but that's my personal story of why I keep coming back each month or fortnight to the working bees and potluck planning meetings (did I mention that there are some incredible cooks in the group...?).

We welcome new gardeners and passionate Aro Valleyites to join in our monthly w

orking bees. We meet at 10am outside the Aro Valley Community Centre, 48 Aro St, on the first and third Sunday of the month. Just show up to join in! 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

Have a good one,

Lillian.

PS. Here's a before and after shot of The Orchard after a recent working bee (and I'm holding a proud potato!)

March Valley Voice - compost welcome!!

Got compost but nowhere to put it? Or perhaps you want to help feed our worms?

We're looking for more compostable materials for our compost bins and food for our worms that live in the bath at the secret garden. All our compost will be used in our garden sites, and the truth is, we just can't get enough. If you have food scraps (not meat), coffee grinds, tea bags or grass clippings that you would like to donate, please get in touch with us by emailingarogardener@gmail.com or phoning 3846998. We welcome other materials, seeds or seedlings - please get in touch with us if you've got something you think we might want.

Of course you could also join us as a gardener - everyone is welcome to come along to our monthly working bees to check it out. You don't need to have any gardening skills, just a bit of enthusiasm, a good laugh and willingness to get your hands dirty. We learn skills from each other every time we garden. Working bees happen on the third Sunday of every month, meeting at midday outside the Aro Valley Community Centre in Aro Park. Just show up on the day to join in.

We're stoked about the progress of all our sites - a bit of sunshine and some decent rain does wonders for all things edible. The steps garden has sunflowers that look onto Aro Street, and I have never before seen so many pumpkin plants. Perhaps our next potluck meeting will be filled with pumpkin pie, roast pumpkin, soup, stuffed pumpkins... (contact us to find out when the next potluck planning meeting is!). We've also been enjoying the harvest of sweetcorn, beans, tomatoes and a variety greens.

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).

The secret garden is just amazing as usual, and the self-seeded plants and herbs just keep on going. We've got fresh delicious coriander coming out our ears, as well as an abundance of silverbeet, kale, lettuce and other veg.

That's all for now! We look forward to seeing you in the coming months.

Nga mihi nui, look after yourself,

Lillian.

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.

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

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)

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.