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5 April 2009Coastline Newsletter:March Highlights HERITAGE HARVEST FESTIVAL With only 6 weeks of preparation, the inaugural Heritage Harvest Festival was a resounding success. With 32 quality workshops, a school-hall full of striking displays and a family dance all going to plan the organisers were pretty chuffed. Praise has been flowing from every sector of the community and plans for next year are already under way; offers of help from outside our group to help organise next years are appreciated as the 6 committee members (with the help of four WWOOF’ers) were a small but the hardworking team. If you didn’t make it to the festival, seeFestival Photos link for sample photos of; the 61 varieties of apples, 16 varieties of tomatoes and 24 varieties of potatoes on display with historical information the 73 school children’s vege and fruit creations that were the stars of the show, and the wonderful atmosphere as people from all over Southland and further a field lingered and enjoyed the weekend. A big thankyou to Steve Nally from Invercargill Breweries and Diacks Nurseries for their support during the weekend as well as all the Riverton Businesses that supported us in many ways: Mrs Clarks, Maori Art Studio, Hammer Hardware, SPG (Stationary, Presents and Gifts), Stem-side-up, Riverton Pharmacy, The Globe, Earthware, Dawn Barry Studio, Aparima College and the Riverton Primary School. Please send in your comments and suggestions to help makes next years event even better. SOUTHLAND SEED SAVERS 10 YEARS OLD Ten years ago Henry Harrington called in to our Envronment Centre with his huge collection of seeds. He hoped we would be the Southland base for a seed network, so all varieties could be kept going for the next generations. Thus the 'Southland Seed Savers Network' was born...Henry has been a mentor and guide ever since, teaching the art of seed saving to all who were willing to learn. It was very appropriate to have the first Heritage harvest Festival this year, and for Henry to be tutoring a seed saving workshop! Thanks to Henry we have gone from strength to strength and now have a large team of seed savers involved insuring the living collection will be here for a few more generations. Want to join us? The next organic groups meeting at the end of the month is focused on seed saving. ELLERSLIE FLOWER SHOW Robert was invited by ‘New Zealand Gardener’ to speak at the flower show in Christchurch as part of their speakers series. One of the topics they wanted was our Southland Open Orchard Project. We were proud to be able share our project and what we are achieving with people from all over NZ- hopefully we have inspired other provinces to follow suit and get those lovely old heritage fruit trees back into schools, backyards and roadsides. TIME BANKING TALK We had a wonderful talk at the Centre last month (19th), but unfortunately the information about this came after our Coastline was out. We hoped many would catch it on our website or in our local school newsletter. We also rung a few people we thought would be most interested, Sorry if you didn’t know about it… We were fortunate enough to host Jules Lee from Littleton speaking, she co-ordinates their time banking network with 120 members. What is time banking? ‘A time bank is a community initiative that recognizes the value of everyone's work - but not with money. Instead workers can be paid in time. Everyone's time is equal, so an hour of your time with your skills will be paid back to you with an hour of someone else's time and skills. Time banking is happening all around the world and there are no concerns about tax. Some people need work doing for them just for a while, while convalescing for example, others are involved continuously. Time banking is a way to match the available skills with the particular needs.’ Even with only 10 people at the talk we did a draft outline about what skills we could trade with each other and we were amazed even with that small number, endless transactions were possible. Geoff Dembo came across a similar initiative in England and is looking for a way to manage a ‘Time Bank’ for Western Southland on a website for those interested in starting to network. Leave your contact details for him at the Centre if you are interested. OTHER ENVIRONMENT SOCIETY NEWS: Teacher Training Day We hosted another Southland Teachers Training day in Riverton for those schools that are starting out with School Gardens on the 19th of March. Three of the Guytons presented workshops on all aspects of school gardening. The weather wasn’t so kind this time so we showed them the ‘Welcome to the Food Forest’ mini movie but they still got to see the Environment Centre and one of the school gardens. ORCHARD PROJECT: Orchard Visits
During Autumn we will be visiting as many orchards and trees as possible to ‘earmark’ the worthwhile varieties we will take cuttings from this winter. We will be contacting all of those we know about and doing it area by area. Please keep 4 apples in the fridge of any early apples (mark the trees clearly) and if we haven’t contacted you about your trees by the end of April please contact us to make sure we don’t miss you out. RIVERTON ORGANIC GARDENERS Our March Meeting saw us all on a ‘walking bus’ down Palmerston Street where our first stop was Anne and Bob Whites raised garden beds. It was great to see what they were producing in such a small area and with protective netting to keep the birds away from their berries they had good crops of both fruit and veges. Next across the road we called in to see Kevin O’Conner and his new tunnel house- In his first year growing he was boasting 10 varieties of heritage tomatoes all lusciously hanging of the vines. We also admired his vegetable patch and his liquid manure barrel! We then returned to the Centre and planned the next 6 months- top of the list is farm and garden visits to the top Southland organic properties. So as well as our monthly meeting on the 4th Tuesday of each month 7pm- , we will organise some tours- get your name down on the list at the Centre if you want to be contacted about these. This months topic is SEED SAVING. Please indicate your preference for weekday or weekend trips. FOOD CO-OP NEWS We have over 20 varieties of apples available for sale this month- branch out- try some new varieties and start enjoying natures diversity. There are too many to display- just ask at the counter. OTHER THINGS COMING UP Organic Farm NZ - is an organic certification system for smaller growers and producers. This is a cheaper way to go when selling for the NZ Market only and is working successfully in other provinces. Andy Barrett from Otago OFNZ came down to Southland to speak to interested people last year. He will return and do a workshop on how to apply, using a sample property in May. Please email the Centre (office@sces.org.nz) if you would like to attend and spread the word to the small growers you know. Our workshop will be at a small farm and we will walk through an assessment for a proposed certification. |