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12 October 2009OPEN ORCHARD NEWS  Each of us cut a finger at least once! Pictured, Robyn, Eilis and DaveWe did it in 6 half days! Thanks to Dave, Jude, Steve, Eilis (Irish Woofer), Francesca (Italian woofer ) and Robyn 830 trees were grafted (2 of each variety) to secure the Southland Heritage varieties. They are all nestled safely in raised beds – each ‘orchard’ planted together. Hopefully most will take and by next year we should know a lot about their names and history. In late summer we will start on the plums and pears and catch up on gathering the early apples which weren’t assessed last year. We had a interviewer who came and recorded us at grafting time for the spectrum programme on National Radio and we talked about our Heritage Orchard project- it will be aired over the summer one Sunday morning Apple Grafting workshops Due to prioritising the heritage grafting this year only four grafting workshops were held this year compared with 10 last year- One in Otatara by Southland Community Nursery, two in Te Anau because they missed out in the last 2 years and one in Riverton last Saturday- we held it inside as the weather was wintry. Thus another 58 people have learnt how easy it is to graft apple trees. Many people who attended previous years workshops ordered root stock and are grafting their own cuttings from their local trees. Scion Wood from the Guyton's orchard of 65 named apples has been sent all over NZ Great to spread these heritage varieties around so there is less chance of them being lost. Help the Community Are you interested in helping Robert with the Community Orchard, School Orchard or school gardens. These are all great projects that need more people involved to make them a success. Phone him evenings 2348717 if you would have an hour or two to help each month. Wed 30th- Working Bee Behind Centre In spite of only being a team of three- where was everyone? We managed to build a new bath style worm farm, flatten out the site of the old ones and the old raised bed. Sift the plastic out of the compost and worm farms (from plastic tape from cardboard boxes!!) and build and plant a new herb garden. Not quite finished yet but looks much tidier. Big thank you for Tim who brought his grunty motor mower to take the rough of the back so we can tend to it ourselves with a push mower. RECYCLING AT CENTRE We only accept the highlighted items We have been returned our little 3 bay recycling shed (that we had installed in Taramea Bay) as now we have a proper recycling facility in the town- The 3 bay one it is now behind the environment Centre and it is to be a RECYCLING EXCHANGE. ,
The idea for section one is a cardboard Give Away-we have lots of cardboard boxes from the food co-op mainly and you are welcome to come and help yourself if you are shifting or want to use them in your garden (take the plastic tape of first!). We don’t want any more cardboard donated thanks! Section Two is a Jar exchange- This is for good lidded jars which we do accept- the type than honey, jam or pickles can be stored in. They must have lids unless they are the proper AGEE jam or preserving jars. Our Honey providers also appreciate them as do those making jam to sell. We accept one type of bottle only: Ceres or Chantals lidded fruit juice bottles which can be re used. No other bottles please!! You are welcome to come and help yourself to these for you and your family or friends to use. Section Three is a Undamaged Plant Containers exchange- bring along your unwanted plant containers and anyone can come and take them away- or you may want to swap some of different sizes. No broken or damaged ones please. Inside the Centre we accept good clean plastic shopping bags and inside out bread bags. (without the crumbs!) These are available for those who forget their reusable bags. We accept only Wild South Honey Plastic Containers – we use these plastic ones with lids for giving out worms. (no other plastic lidded containers please we have no use for them) We also accept good clean egg cartons but not egg trays. The egg cartons are re-used by our suppliers. NO OTHER or other random packaging please.- some people are bringing in all their plastic and glass and sometimes only one or two items are useful for us….. All other plastic, glass etc can be taken to the towns recycling facility in Havelock Street. Thank you for thinking about this and bringing in what we can use only. FOOD CO-OP NEWS Certified Organic Retailers- Robyn has recently replied to a questionnaire about this on this new Biogro Standard due to come out soon. This is where retailers like us who sell organic food can become certified as a place where the integrity of the organic status is upheld. It basically means that there is no mix ups between non-organic and organic- everything is labelled well etc. We are very close to the requirements for the draft standard ( we only have organic) except we would need to put the supplier and certification status on all goods we package ourselves which would be time consuming without a label printer. We could get around this as I suggested to them by having a label on the shelf beside the packages clearly showing these details. We only use paper and cellophane for bagging up. One thing we will need to do from now on is keep the Organic Bananas in their box- as even thought they are certified organic this status has been compromised by the fumigation required to get in the country. So volunteers no more putting bananas in a basket – baskets are to be kept for totally organic produce! Otherwise we seem to ready to be a Certified Organic Retailer- as long as it is not to expensive to do so- Robyn mentioned a sliding scale to match a retailers turnover- it always makes us cross that we pay the same amount to the Southland District Council to register as a food premises as a big supermarket! Future Plans for getting around Southland Do you want to walk, use a wheelchair, or cycle more around Riverton and in the surrounding area? Frustrated at a lack of well designed routes or just can’t find a place to park your bike? Then Sustainable Transport Southland wants to hear from you. Over the next two months Ken Wuschke, the project manager for Sustainable Transport Southland, will be at the South Coast Environment Centre once a fortnight to discuss with residents of Riverton issues about walking, cycling and disabled access around the community. For October he will be here between 10 am and 2 pm on Wednesdays the 14th and 28th. In addition, he will be in Riverton on other days talking with various groups. Whether it be a lack of wheelchair ramps, no bike lanes or missing footpaths he is open to all concerns. And if you can’t make it on a Wednesday, either email him at Sustainable.transport.southland@gmail.com , phone him at (03) 217 2571, or leave him a note at the South Coast Environment Centre and he’ll arrange a time to talk with you. Out and About It’s not often we get to work with both ends of the spectrum in just one day, but recently, we did! Two groups of gardeners, very different from each other in age and circumstance; the Gore Garden Circle – polite, restrained and elegantly dressed, and the children of the Mataura Holiday Programme; rough and ready and full of beans, the way young gardeners should be. We showed images of our food forest and heritage orchards to the women of Gore, shocked some of them with our support for cleavers and other ‘marginal’ weeds and delighted them (we think) with photos of the heritage apples of Southland, many of which were remembered from their childhoods. We were presented with a coffee cake as thanks for our talk and we had a lovely time. (They’d even reserved a parking space for us with a sign in the car park!) The children of Matuara were just as welcoming, the enthusiasm of those young gardeners was rewarding, as they poked their pea, carrot and radish seeds into the soil in their brand-new bucket-gardens. We’d brought them lettuce seedlings as well, green and red and they were a great hit with all of the children. Some raced off to snap sticks off shrubs to poke into the soil for the peas to clamber up. There was only one mishap, astonishingly, considering the number of children (45) and the tender age of some of them, when one sincere 8 year old boy tripped and fell with his bucket, spilling the lot. There were tears, but a quick re-plant dried them up quickly and away he went, happy, as did we. As we drove out of Mataura every side street had a group of children carrying their mini vege gardens home!  Three little Matuara Girls with their garden in a bucket.Ohai Big Day Out Robyn went up with 100 sets of vege seedlings, beans, peas, lettuce and beet to the Ohai big day out- She helped promote and plant bucket gardens for the 75 children that came over the 3 hours- most were keen but some older boys thought it wasn’t cool – there were lots more exciting things happening with rugby hero’s on the other side of the building. All we need now is to get the All Blacks to be gardeners and we would be on to a winner to get all the boys and men of NZ gardening. We also organised 10 fruit trees which were planted on the day- 4 raised instant garden beds complete with veges for prizes. It was a great day promoting healthy lifestyles and very well attended it was great to have been part of it. Coming up: SCES Committee meeting is on WEDNESDAY 14th October this month- a night later than usual. Come along and join us at the Centre at 7pm we need more keen people to join us. Wednesday 14th and 28th 10-2 come and talk about your transport needs with Ken Monday 19th at the Southland Museum – movie ‘In Transition’ 6.30pm followed by panel discussion. (Cost $5) Bountiful Backyards workshop we will be holding another one of these full-day workshops in Riverton in the second week of November- date and time to suit those interested. The Coastline is being emailed out each month, then every two months we will post a bi-monthly copy out to those without emails or who have said they would like a printed copy. Posting out 150 coastline was costing us $75 in stamps each month as well as copying costs so we will try and send it just to those who want it- and we don’t mind at all if you prefer a printed one as most people are preferring an emailed link. If you want it emailed then let us know your email address- if you want it posted instead or as well just let us know. |