Posts Tagged ‘local food production’
« Older EntriesCCS Master Gardening program winter 2012
February 8th, 2012
Then come along to the Master Gardener course – a practical, hands-on course which teaches people to become gardeners – and gardeners to become master gardeners. This course is accessible for every body.
The course is taught by a stunning line-up of New Zealand’s organic gardening experts and will show you how to create your own successful organic garden and contribute to a more sustainable and eco-friendly urban environment.
Basic topics covered include getting started and garden design using permaculture principles, soil health and how to maintain it by using various garden techniques, introductory botany, herb cultivation, composting, worm farming, growing fruit trees suited for our region successfully, managing pests and diseases by various organically safe methods, successfully saving seeds, creating food forests, and tools that make it easy.
The next course starts on Saturday 9 June and is held weekly 9:30-12:30 until 11 August for 10 weeks at CCS Disability Action at 14 Erson Avenue in Royal Oak.
Booking: Contact Scott Thiemann on 09 625 9811 or by email scott.thiemann@ccsdisabilityaction.org.nz for the extended course description. Registration closes Friday, 1 June.
Tags: Food Gardens, Gardening, local food production
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Upcoming Square Foot Gardening workshop, 19.02.2012
February 2nd, 2012
Square foot gardening with Ken Clark from Waiheke
Starting: 10.30am, Duration: 1-1.30 hours
Please rsvp to: Judith Holtebrinck
This is a unique chance to learn all you need to know to start and maximise food production in the city from one of New Zealand’s most successful square foot gardeners. Square foot gardening is a perfect solution for city gardens as it produces 70% more food than conventional gardens with less work. Ken will also share practical tips to improve your organic gardening skills and talk about soil maintenance, home-made organic fertiliser and seed saving.
What to expect:
The workshops cover everything from seeds and organic gardening.
You will get the chance to design your own Square foot garden on a map that you can take home.
A flyer with gardening and soil information will be handed out outlining the workshop.
After this workshop you can set up your own SFG garden and start your food production.
To set up your own Square foot garden takes one hour.
About Ken Clark and Square foot gardening:
Ken first learnt about square foot gardening about 20 years ago. He proceeded to do it his own way for 17 years. 5 years ago he retired to Waiheke Island & started SFG in earnest. Ken lives on a small size section and produces an abundance of fruit and veges using the Square foot gardening method. SFG advocates growing only what you need on a weekly basis. It is a fantastic system for busy people who wish to have a more sustainable life and organically grow food with the minimum fuss and effort.
Tags: Food Gardens, Gardening, local food production, Square Foot Gardening
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December newsletter
December 24th, 2011
Dear all,
This is definitely a last minute newsletter and one more proof that it has been a busy and successful year for the Mt Village People and now it is timer to look back.
First of all we would like to say a BIG thank you to everyone who is part of our network and supporting our vision of zero waste and a sustainable Mt Eden. We also would like to thank the New Zealand Lottery Board for their funding this year. In addition our local board has kindly supported our projects by funding 5 Hungry Bins for our local shops and 5 beehives for Mt Eden.
On behalf of our group the MEVP, we wish you a wonderful Christmas with your friends, neighbours and family and all the best for 2012
Judith Holtebrinck
Please find below a brief list of achievements in 2011 in the village:
- Frasers Café changed to free range eggs
- The Essential Deli has stated their commitment to free range happy and healthy animals and New Zealand made products in big letters on their window.
- City cake reported that they use free range eggs for their cakes
- Chapter tearoom offers fair trade and organic tea
- The village wine shop is selling 12 free ranged eggs for $6.00
- We are now recycling 100 x 10 litre buckets of coffee grains each month
- We are collecting one bucket per month of used household batteries from Civic Video
- Pig farmers collect food waste from Frasers and KC Loo.
- The Mt Eden Community garden has 6 more garden beds
- The Mt Eden butcher has a new owner who offers free range meat
- We planted a mandarine tree in front of the Mt Eden Village centre
- We donated 100 fruit trees to schools and kindergartens in July this year and are working on giving 1000 fruit trees to Auckland next year.
- Our sustainability workshops for 2012 are now listed on our website
- Since 13.12.2011, Maungawhau Mt Eden is bus free!
- We raised $470.00 for our project to plant fruit trees at our annual community celebration at the Mt Eden Community garden.
- We have observed more people in our community planting fruit trees on their grass verges.
Things we are working on and looking forward to in 2012:
A new local recycling station: We will offer the recycling of soft plastic in one of our local shops.
We are working on a submission for the Auckland waste plan, supporting community based recycling versus handing our waste over to the big players who send it to landfill.
We are looking forward to setting up our new Hungry Bins at our local shops
We are busy raising money and collecting fruit tree planting locations on our website: www.fruittrees.org.nz, our vision is to have 1000 community fruit trees for Auckland by July 2012.
Tags: Community Garden, Fruit trees, Gardening, local food production, Mount Eden, Mount Eden Village People, recycling, Workshops
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February: Sunday 19.02.2012
November 3rd, 2011
Square Foot Gardening
Starting: 10.30am, Duration: 1-1.30 hours
Tutor: Ken Clark, SFG master from Waiheke
Location: Mt Eden Village
Contribution: $20.00
Please rsvp to: Judith Holtebrinck
Square foot gardening with Ken Clark from Waiheke
This is a unique chance to learn all you need to know to start and maximise food production in the city from one of New Zealand’s most successful square foot gardeners. Square foot gardening is a perfect solution for city gardens as it produces 70% more food than conventional gardens with less work. Ken will also share practical tips to improve your organic gardening skills and talk about soil maintenance, home-made organic fertiliser and seed saving.
What to expect:
- The workshops cover everything from seeds and organic gardening.
- You will get the chance to design your own Square foot garden on a map that you can take home.
- A flyer with gardening and soil information will be handed out outlining the workshop.
- After this workshop you can set up your own SFG garden and start your food production.
- To set up your own Square foot garden takes one hour.
About Ken Clark and Square foot gardening:
Ken first learnt about square foot gardening about 20 years ago. He proceeded to do it his own way for 17 years. 5 years ago he retired to Waiheke Island & started SFG in earnest. Ken lives on a small size section and produces an abundance of fruit and veges using the Square foot gardening method. SFG advocates growing only what you need on a weekly basis. It is a fantastic system for busy people who wish to have a more sustainable life and organically grow food with the minimum fuss and effort.
Tags: Food Gardens, Gardening, local food production, Mount Eden, Square Foot Gardening
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March: Sunday 11.03.2011
November 3rd, 2011
City chooks – keeping chickens in your backyard:
Start time: 1pm, Duration 1-1.30 hours,
Tutor: Gail Batten
Location: Epsom
Contribution ; $20.00
Please rsvp to: Judith Holtebrinck
Chickens in the city, with Gail Batten
This is a site visit at Gail’s garden where she will tell us what you need to get started, what they should eat and how to raise your chickens from a fertile egg. You will learn the guidelines of keeping chickens in the city, tips on housing them and other titbits of information.
This workshop covers:
* Benefits of having chickens
* Housing requirements and rules
* Feeding
* Hatching and rearing
* Health and wellbeing
* All about eggs
* Miscellaneous and troubleshooting
* Benefits of different breeds
* How to adopted a chicken
About Gail Batten:
When Gail came back from a woofing (working on organic farms) holiday a year ago, she was given some fertilised eggs as a farewell present. Back in Auckland she managed to borrow a hen from a friend of hers to sit on the eggs. A few weeks later she had baby chicks, a chook house and later lots of eggs for breakfast. In December last year she obtained more fertilised eggs and now the chook house is full of life, eggs and entertainment.
Tags: Chicken, Healthy food, Keeping chickens, local food production, Mount Eden
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April: Sunday 22.04.2012
November 3rd, 2011
Square Foot Gardening
Starting: 10.30am, Duration: 1-1.30 hours
Tutor: Ken Clark, SFG master from Waiheke
Location: Mt Eden Village
Contribution: $20.00
Please rsvp to: Judith Holtebrinck
Square foot gardening with Ken Clark from Waiheke
This is a unique chance to learn all you need to know to start and maximise food production in the city from one of New Zealand’s most successful square foot gardeners. Square foot gardening is a perfect solution for city gardens as it produces 70% more food than conventional gardens with less work. Ken will also share practical tips to improve your organic gardening skills and talk about soil maintenance, home-made organic fertiliser and seed saving.
What to expect:
- The workshops cover everything from seeds and organic gardening.
- You will get the chance to design your own Square foot garden on a map that you can take home.
- A flyer with gardening and soil information will be handed out outlining the workshop.
- After this workshop you can set up your own SFG garden and start your food production.
- To set up your own Square foot garden takes one hour.
About Ken Clark and Square foot gardening:
Ken first learnt about square foot gardening about 20 years ago. He proceeded to do it his own way for 17 years. 5 years ago he retired to Waiheke Island & started SFG in earnest. Ken lives on a small size section and produces an abundance of fruit and veges using the Square foot gardening method. SFG advocates growing only what you need on a weekly basis. It is a fantastic system for busy people who wish to have a more sustainable life and organically grow food with the minimum fuss and effort.
Tags: Food Gardens, Healthy food, local food production, Mount Eden, Mount Eden Village People, Square Foot Gardening, Workshops
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July: Sunday 22.07.2012
November 3rd, 2011
Fruit tree pruning
Starting: 10.30am, Duration: 1-1.30 hours,
Location: Mt Eden Village
Contribution: $20.00
Tutor: Ken Clark
Please rsvp to: Judith Holtebrinck
What to expect:
Kens workshops are designed to show you how easy it is to feed your family with a maximum food production on minimum space. Ken keeps his trees small as he lives on a small section. Keeping his trees small makes it easier to reach the fruit and leaves space for more trees.
In this workshop you will learn how to prune and maintain your fruit trees to get maximum food production. When is the best time to prune and how to do it so the tree does not get damaged. This is a practical, hands on workshop with a simple how to do it yourself handout.
About Ken Clark:
Ken has been gardening all his life with the main focus on food production. He grew up on a farm and back then you relied on your own garden to get your dinner on the table. When Ken was 12 his parents divorced and he had to take over all the major digging in the garden and his mum did the planting.
He now lives on Waiheke on a 850 m section and produces food in abundancy to feed himself and his wife. The beauty of Kens food garden is that he has a wide variety of different fruit and vegetables for the entire year.
The benefit of having your own vegetables and fruit trees in your garden are simple:
You know where your food comes from and you don’t spend money on oil to get the food from wherever into your kitchen.
Tags: Fruit trees, Healthy food, local food production, Mount Eden, Mount Eden Village People, Pruning
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July: Sunday 22.07.2012
November 3rd, 2011
Grafting on fruit trees
Starting: 1.pm, duration: 1-1.30 hours,
Tutor: Ken Clark
Location: Mt Eden Village
Contribution: $20.00
Please rsvp to: Judith Holtebrinck
Grafting with Ken Clark
In this workshop you will learn:
The different ways of grafting.
What you can graft together, success and failure stories.
What tools you need to get started
What to expect:
Ken is a master grafter and has managed to graft seven different sorts of plums onto one tree. Grafting on existing trees is one way to get a wide variety in your garden if you don’t live in an orchard. This is a great way for people in the city to get all different kinds of fruit on your trees.
About Ken Clark:
Ken has been gardening all his life with the main focus on food production. He grew up on a farm and back then you relied on your own garden to get your dinner on the table. When Ken was 12 his parents divorced and he had to take over all the major digging in the garden and his mum did the planting.
He now lives on Waiheke on a 850 m section and produces food in abundancy to feed himself and his wife. The beauty of Kens food garden is that he has a wide variety of different fruit and vegetables for the entire year.
The benefit of having your own vegetables and fruit trees in your garden are simple: you know where your food comes from and you don’t spend money on oil to get the food from wherever into your kitchen.
Tags: Fruit trees, Gardening, local food production, Mount Eden, Mount Eden Village People, Workshops
Posted in Workshops | Comments Off
September: Sunday 16.09.2012
November 3rd, 2011
City chooks – keeping chickens in your backyard:
Start time: 1pm, Duration 1-1.30 hours,
Tutor: Gail Batten
Location: Epsom
Contribution ; $20.00
Please rsvp to: Judith Holtebrinck
Chickens in the city, with Gail Batten
This is a site visit at Gail’s garden where she will tell us what you need to get started, what they should eat and how to raise your chickens from a fertile egg. You will learn the guidelines of keeping chickens in the city, tips on housing them and other titbits of information.
This workshop covers:
* Benefits of having chickens
* Housing requirements and rules
* Feeding
* Hatching and rearing
* Health and wellbeing
* All about eggs
* Miscellaneous and troubleshooting
* Benefits of different breeds
* How to adopted a chicken
About Gail Batten:
When Gail came back from a woofing (working on organic farms) holiday a year ago, she was given some fertilised eggs as a farewell present. Back in Auckland she managed to borrow a hen from a friend of hers to sit on the eggs. A few weeks later she had baby chicks, a chook house and later lots of eggs for breakfast. In December last year she obtained more fertilised eggs and now the chook house is full of life, eggs and entertainment.
Tags: Chicken, Healthy food, Keeping chickens, local food production, Mount Eden, Mount Eden Village People, Workshops
Posted in Workshops | Comments Off
October: Sunday 21.10.2012
November 3rd, 2011
Square Foot Gardening
Start: 10.30am, Duration: 1-1.30 hours
Tutor: Ken Clark, SFG master from Waiheke
Location: Mt Eden Village
Contribution: $20.00
Please rsvp to: Judith Holtebrinck
Square foot gardening with Ken Clark from Waiheke
This is a unique chance to learn all you need to know to start and maximise food production in the city from one of New Zealand’s most successful square foot gardeners. Square foot gardening is a perfect solution for city gardens as it produces 70% more food than conventional gardens with less work. Ken will also share practical tips to improve your organic gardening skills and talk about soil maintenance, home-made organic fertiliser and seed saving.
What to expect:
- The workshops cover everything from seeds and organic gardening.
- You will get the chance to design your own Square foot garden on a map that you can take home.
- A flyer with gardening and soil information will be handed out outlining the workshop.
- After this workshop you can set up your own SFG garden and start your food production.
- To set up your own Square foot garden takes one hour.
About Ken Clark and Square foot gardening:
Ken first learnt about square foot gardening about 20 years ago. He proceeded to do it his own way for 17 years. 5 years ago he retired to Waiheke Island & started SFG in earnest. Ken lives on a small size section and produces an abundance of fruit and veges using the Square foot gardening method. SFG advocates growing only what you need on a weekly basis. It is a fantastic system for busy people who wish to have a more sustainable life and organically grow food with the minimum fuss and effort.
Tags: Gardening, Healthy food, local food production, Mount Eden, Mount Eden Village People, Square Foot Gardening
Posted in Workshops | Comments Off
