19 September 2009

Coastline Newsletter

Southland Seed Savers

Dunedin network back in action A couple of years ago we were given a tired collection of seeds from the old Dunedin seed network to revitalize and organise and it was with great pleasure that we sent up a refreshed selection this month to the new Dunedin seed saving network to get them off to a great start. Hopefully between the two provinces we can keep the resource young and secure for many years to come. The more people saving seeds the better, as this is a living collection that is only valuable if it is diverse and young. Seed saving is super-easy and we have workshops every summer to show you how. With 95% of NZ gardening seeds being grown overseas and many varieties being hybridised or engineered, we should be concerned. You can’t save seeds from hybrids and have to rely on the company who is producing those seeds for the next years supply. If the crunch comes, what country would export seeds needed to feed its own people? Maybe they will, but at a price! It is only a small donation of $5-10 to become a seed saver and starter-seeds to set you up are only 50c a packet- then the seeds you don’t need, each year can be put back into the network so others can get started. Or start with Kings Seeds – they have many non-hybrid seeds of the original varieties that can be saved. Plant them now and in 2010 you can harvest your first seeds (you still eat most of the veges - you save your healthiest two for seed) Catalogue now on line at www.sces.org.nz – Seed Savers section or, for a posted copy, send a donation and a Stamped addressed Envelope to: Southland Seed Savers Network, 154 Palmerston St Riverton 9822

Tomatoes Galore We proudly boast about 30 varieties of tomatoes in our Seed Savers Network- red, orange, yellow, black, green and pink. Large and small, low acid and acid free, round and a variety of random shapes, even one from Siberia….. We thought we had it just about covered…..well…… that was until Keith came along one Monday last month… This old fella from Nelson turned up at the Centre to share his collection of 600 tomatoes!! It made our efforts seem feeble indeed… he left some catalogues for the Centre, so grab one if you would like access to his huge range. He also gifted us plants and seeds for our Seed Savers Network and included in that was capsicum seeds for fruit of almost every colour of the rainbow. So this year, leave those round red and tasteless tomatoes at the supermarket and start to enjoy the naturally occurring varieties- you will be amazed!

Quarterly Seed Saver Meeting and Working Bee - to bag up the last seeds and to decide which seeds are a priority to be saved for this year by our local team. Thursday afternoon 8th October 1.30-4.30 pm at the Centre.

OPEN ORCHARD NEWS

Fruit Trees Sold Out With a minimum of advertising, we sold nearly 500 fruit trees in just over 2 weeks from behind the Environment Centre. 1/8 of these were ‘Southland-made’ and next year we hope to have 2/3 Southland-made, that will be all the apple trees - the most popular heritage ones as well as some Southland treasures. We will buy in pears, apricots, nectarines, quinces and plums for another year – moving towards being totally independent by 2012 – (having local sources for all our fruit trees) The demand is high nationwide as people are returning to growing their own food which is great news for NZ but harder for us to source the varieties that we would like for Southland.

Grafting time coming up - we have got a big task ahead of us; the 2nd half of September grafting apple trees- we have around 600 grafts to make to secure the Southland Heritage varieties - if you would like to be involved in this project and become skilled in this technique you are welcome to help us. If that is not really your thing you could volunteer at the Centre so Robyn can be freed up more during this time.

Apple Grafting workshop

Come along and graft your own heritage fruit tree – workshops held in every corner of Southland. $10 and that includes your first tree- You can graft up to 2 more @ $3.50 each so for $17 you can go home with 4 grafted trees. Check out our scion wood list for the 60 varieties of apples available. Contact the Centre to register for a workshop near you.

Sad news You may have heard about the elderly gentleman Jim Dunkley from Palmerston who had been involved for 40 years collecting and identifying the heritage fruit trees from Otago. He had been helping us with our Southland project, sharing all his knowledge with us so we could identify our trees. He died after a car accident this week. We will always be grateful for having his mentoring and will miss his guidance deeply.

SCES NEWS

Need new committee members This is a commitment to a one hour monthly meeting plus 1 hour a month work in the background. Come and share your skills and ideas and be part of our effective management team. Not a big commitment but a very valued one. We have purposefully got a large committee of 14 so the load can be shared and many can be involved in the decision making. We are a well-oiled machine and the meetings are interesting and efficient- so come along and be part of our great team. We have room for 3 more people for this year and need to fill these spaces.

Praise from MFE

We were pleased to get a lot of praise from one of our funders the Ministry for the Environment for being such a proactive and active Enviro Centre- next year whe have to reapply for funding from them so lets keep up the great work and our excellent reputation might bring us more funding next round rather than due to our geographical position we could only get half funded.

A huge thank you once again to the Community Trust of Southland who gave us enough funding over the three years of shortfall to continue our Centre and Projects- without them we would have been history- just at the time we are needed most.

SITUATION VACANT – We have a part time paid position for an experienced skilled 'CEO' someone with admin and organisational skills. (could be job shared) If you have more advanced skills and experience in this area and are ready to work with us to streamline our office and/or programmes we want to hear from you. We can tailor a part time hours to suit - We presently have 20 hours work available for the right person or people. Robyn has been doing 20 hours paid and 20 hours voluntary but she hasn’t enough hours in the day to cover the workload, there are also times when there are up to 20 hours project work that also needs to be covered. We are just so much busier than we used to be and there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Robyn also needs to have holidays and a second ‘very busy and organised’ person will enable this to happen as they can take turns keeping the programmes and office and Centre running smoothly.

Bountiful Backyards workshop We will be holding another one of these full-day workshops in Riverton in the second week of October- date and time to suit those interested- register your interest and timing preferences now.

Worm farm workshop Wednesday 30th Sept 1.30 -3pm Come along and help set up the Centre’s new worm farm in an old cast iron bath- learn how to set up other styles of worm farms, how to care for them and use their products. $10 waged, $7.50 unwaged

Followed by: Redesigning the Centre’s back yard With the neighbours Hammer Hardware putting up a fence for their nursery it has made the back section at the Centre more useful- we were able to use the fence to stand our fruit trees on in their bed of straw for a start! Now we can beautify our ‘new corner’- so out with the old worm farms and garden frames and into the new- a classy wrought iron bath on posts for the worms and a landscaped herb edged sitting area- a big thanks to all those involved in the ‘out with the old’ and we will be doing some herbal landscaping on Wednesday 30th 3.30pm, after the worm farm workshop.

We sell…. Kings Organic Vege Seeds, instant garden beds, organically certified potting mix, seed raising mix and compost, Victorian bells (to get seedlings off to a great start) Seedling potters to create you own bio-degradable newspaper seedling containers, Bio-feed liquid fertilsers – we are also getting stocks of dolomite lime and Reactive Rock Phosphate, Niwashi garden tools, neem soap (natural insecticide), planting by the moon charts, Southern ‘What to plant when guides’ Intro to gardening booklets and have a good range of gardening info sheets for only 20c. What else could a gardener need? By the best for us and support the centre, as all proceeds go towards the Centre’s running costs.

OFNZ Riverton Workshop is coming up for those who missed out in the last one – see last Coastline newsletter for details about this small farmer Organic certification System and register you interest ASAP.

Herbicide Choice Now is the time to write to the Southland District Council and register your roadside as a spray free zone and in return you keep your roadside free of noxious weeds. Encourage your neighbour to do the same! A letter H with a line through it is being recognised as a herbicide free zone. Do it now- next week may be too late.

A big thank you to Andrew and Adrienne Lamb for donating a set of padded fold up chairs for the Centre-for when we have larger meetings- they will be much softer than our old wooden ones which we have tucked away in the shed for emergencies.

RIVERTON CONCEPT PLAN- If you have ideas about how you would ike to see Riverton Develop you must attend this community workshop day this Saturday (26th) - a great chance to have your say and be listenined to.

RIVERTON ORGANIC GROWERS Metting Tuesday night 22nd - Topic keping your plants healthy this summer- how to feed them, alternative pest control etc 7.30pm All welcome.

'The Green Fingers Gardening club' is being launched the first week in October - We held a competition for the name and this one came up from several schools and we think it sounds great. This week we are preparing the garden packs for the children to take home. We can remember own own joy of getting the packets of seeds when we were young for our very own garden....lets hope this generation can enjoy it too.