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5 August 2009ORGANIC FARM NZA big thank you to Gary for letting us use his place an example of a property applying for OFNZ certification. The 14 page application document he had to fill in was very thorough and Andy and Kath, Otago OFNZ reps, walked us through the process and explained it all to the group, they then carried part of the property examination. For those of us that have been ‘in theory’ organic for some years it wasn’t as daunting as we thought but the paper work has to be done and kept up. For example every time you bring materials or stock on to your property protocols must be followed it must be recorded thoroughly! There are 200 OFNZ properties in NZ and 15 in Otago. We now hope to have 5 or 6 properties begin the process towards certification in Southland this year. If you missed out on this workshop we will have an evening session soon to catch you up and you are very welcome to come on board. Andy and Kath are available to come down for our first assessments and once established the peer assessment process with three small properties or farms working together is proving very effective and efficient nationwide. It costs around a dollar a day for OFNZ certification so great for small properties selling within NZ. OUR AGM was enjoyableIf you didn’t go you missed out on the great slide shows and yummy apple dessert and as usual the formal meeting was quick and smooth. We welcome Peter Aalders on as our new deputy chair otherwise the committee remain much the same but we still do have 3 spaces on our 14 strong committee. A big thank you to Karl who had filled the DC role over the last year. Come along to our monthly meetings the second Tuesday of each month at 7pm – they never last much more than an hour and are full of information and action- you would be very welcome to join. Every year we seem to get busier and busier as we can all be proud of everything we are achieving here in our small township of only 1500 people. Chances to socialise informally with other eco friendly folk in Southland ‘Green Drinks’ The last Thursday of each month 5.30 onwards upstairs at Zoo Keepers in Invercargill. Every Friday night 6.30ish ‘ Soup night’ around the fire at the South Coast Environment Centre (bring soup bread or a gold coin) OPEN ORCHARD NEWSThe bare footed Fruit Trees have arrived so from 10.30 to 4.30 Friday 6th and Saurday 7th we will be selling them in the Environment Centre. Most have been pre ordered at the special price of 5 for $100 but another 200 of mixed fruit trees are available on a first in first served basis @ 22.50 each. All need to be paid for when you pick them up and you will need to bring your own bag (e.g. large rubbish bag for them with wet material to wrap round the roots e.g. straw, newspaper, sawdust etc.) SCION WOOD GATHERING Robert, Robyn and Steve have had a busy time gathering scion wood from the 35 old Southland orchards and now have it stored away until late September for grafting. Robyn has recorded most of the details of the fruit from those trees and is working out where the double-ups are. Some can’t be identified until they fruit as the original tree is now gone or has stopped fruiting. Support our Orchard Project Fundraisers:Adpot a Baby (tree!) We graft two of each tree and are keeping one of each variety in our ‘living bank’ but if both grafts take, or we have found ‘double-ups’ we will have spares of ‘coded but yet un-named’ baby trees. They are small at this time of the year because they were grafted on to very young root stock but they will grow into a medium size tree. You can support the project by adopting one of these baby trees for $10 and we fill you in with the details as they come available. Your new tree could be something special and it means that if our one sample is damaged or lost we know that you are growing a copy in a safe place so we can get cuttings from it if needed in the future. You can choose trees that we have info on the fruit or you can have a mystery tree and in 2-3 years you can see its fruit for the first time. You can adopt one from an orchard near you. All proceeds from these ‘babies’ go back in to project and you get a special certificate to go with it. These will be available in September so keep an eye on our website. Buy a ‘super duper’ apple peeler Apples and other fruit and veges are peeled, cored and sliced in one action! In fewer than 10 seconds! Over $5 from every peeler sold goes to the orchard project. A great gift. $29 for one or $55 for two. We have had a good response to our request for more people to be involved in the Environment Centre, our sub groups and projects A big Thank You to those who have contacted us already to help. There is room for many more so don’t hold back. We would like to spread the work load and continue to offer all our services that are in big demand. Many hands make light work and you are sure to enjoy it and feel it is worthwhile. BIG SCREENINGSWe have been fundraising for some time, selling paintings to raise money for a Data Projector and calling on Estuary Care to ‘go in’ with us, for the purchase of a data projector. Even though we were still of bit short a great special came up that we couldn’t refuse. A data projector allows anything on a lap top computer to be screened on to a good sized screen. We were forever hiring one for talks and workshops so it made sense to have our own that we could have easy access to one whenever we needed it. We have already christened it last weekend at the OFNZ workshop, projecting the Management Plan on the wall rather than photographing the 14 page document for each person, and for showing DVDs and slides at a full day permaculture workshop in Gore on Sunday. We have a good range of very interesting and thought provoking DVDs on a wide range of eco topics and now we can show them to larger groups, so we are going to have fortnightly ECO movie nights. Would you like to come and when will suit you? Will we have a couple of regular slots or will we choose a different night each time? Please contact us with your thoughts. We will advertise these big screenings on our website and on our events board in the Centre so keep and eye out. There will be a gold coin donation for these nights to fundraise for the balance of the purchase. SEED SAVING NEWSTo be a member of the Southland Seed Savers Network and have access to the ‘50c a packet locally saved seeds’, you need to make an annual donation of home saved seeds, stamps or money. This ensures or costs are covered and we know who are actively interested in seed saving. We used to have a one of life membership which grew over 10 years to over 200 people and sending catalogues out to them all was not sustainable- we only ever heard from 40 of them so we changed to a small annual donation of $5 or more or seed contributions so we just deal with active people now. The catalogue is nearly finished and should be out in the next two weeks. It will be loaded on to our website and available in the Centre but if you would like your own copy please send your donation or seeds, stamps or money and a stamped addressed envelope. We can also email it to you if you prefer. So when you come and get your seeds for this season please make your annual donation and receive a receipt so you are on our active list. If you want to buy seeds to grow but aren’t interested in seed saving we have a few lines for sale to gardeners that we have lots of and we also stock a good range of Kings seeds, mainly their organic range. MORE NEWS FOR GARDENERS:DALTONS ORGANIC SEED RAISING MIX, COMPOST AND POTTING MIX is available for sale at the Centre. We think we are the only stockists in Southland of these top quality products. Everyone raves about it! Want to start some plants earlier this spring? We have bell-shaped plant protectors for sale ($10 each) complete with ventilation dial on top. CHILDREN'S VEGE CLUB Some of you may remember the Boys and Girls Agricultural Club, where for a small cost, children could receive packets of several vege seeds and instructions for their own little garden. They kept a diary and an experienced gardener from their area came to visit it in late summer with praise and wise advice, then presented them with a certificate. We are launching this again in Spring. We are presently running a competition in schools for a modern catchy name for it. Then in late September we will send the seeds out to all interested Southland children. In January we will need some kindly experienced gardeners to visit these children so if you are willing and able please contact us. You would arrange to visit when the children are home and spend 5-10 minutes with them talking about their garden, checking their diary and presenting them with the certificate if they made a good effort. You can choose how many you can fit it from your area. Be part of helping the next generation know of to grow their own food. IN MY OPINION Nick Smith, National Party MP, held a series of 'consultations' around the country to 'educate the public about Nationals plans for a response to climate change and New Zealand’s green house gas emissions. They were a sham, at least in my opinion. I watched the progress of the 'consultations' as Smith made his way around the country, say the same thing at each meeting to large crowds of people who wanted significant action to be taken. At each meeting, Smith talked them down and repeated his intentions not to do as they asked. The Queenstown meeting that I attended was the same, no consultation, more a defence against a wised-up crowd. Smith's graphs and figures have since been shown to be incorrect and self-serving and his responses to questions slanted to suit his agenda. The recent announcement that National will likely cling to a paltry 15% target, where 40% is being called for by all but the farming and business lobbies, confirms that Smith's meetings were a waste of time, aside from the message that they sent to him and his government that they are not reflecting the will of the people with their decision on green house emissions. ROBERT NO MORE EASY ACCESS MILK! And while we are on the feeling of powerlessness as mere civilians… Di you know Organic Acres are no longer and never ever allowed to drive their refrigerated truck around Southland with raw milk again until there is a change of law! I made a start by writing the following letter to the Organic NZ magazine- maybe someone somewhere may see it and start the process of changing the law? Common Sense v's outdated laws Here in Southland we are surrounded by dairy farms and most of the milk produced there takes a 900km round trip to Christchurch to be pasteurised, sometimes homogenized and usually ‘plasticized’ (single-use containers) before we can purchase it. It is however legal to travel to a farm and buy 5 litres of raw milk to fill your own containers. For a couple of years we had easier access to the best milk you could wish for - once a week we could meet a refrigerated truck to get fresh organically certified raw milk poured into our own ‘thousand-use’ glass bottles in several locations in Southland. You may have seen Organic Acres recently on Country Calendar - unfortunately this exposure attracted the attention of bureaucrats and now Organic Acres’ more than 200 customers have to go back to driving to the farm individually. Some could car pool, but it now means that instead of small truck doing a circuit of Southland, say 250km each week, there will be at least 100 cars driving on average 50km to the farm, some 5,000km of unnecessary travel. In the interest of sustainability we need to put pressure the Government for some obvious law changes. Robyn Guyton to Organic NZ Magazine. Pip’n Stone Fruit Tree Care Steve and Chris Cole provide fruit tree, berry and currant bush owners with a quality service to assist with:
We would be delighted to give you competitive quotes to get our business established. All jobs whether big or small deserve our best effort. Please phone Steve or Chris on 03 931 2312.... Mobile 021 075 0814.... Email coles@woosh.co.nz |