Category: Community Garden

Kia ora koutou,

A quick pānui this week: you may notice subtle changes to our weekly newsletters over the coming months – a spring cleaning of sorts! We want to make sure that these emails are useful and relevant to as wide an audience as possible. This means inspiring stories, learning material and practical tips from Growing Point will appear up top, and job lists for Dignan Street Community Garden will be further down for the loyal readers who read right to the bottom (we see you, we love you 💚).

As always, we’re want to ensure this is useful for you so simply reply to this email if you have any feedback!

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Kia ora koutou,

Nau mai, haere ma ki Tama-nui-te-rā – we welcome in a week of clearer skies and bright light, helping both us humans and the more-than-human world gently wake from the winter slumber. While the sun is out the southerly winds remain, so stay cozy and let the changing season begin to defrost those parts of your māra that need a little love.

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Kia ora koutou,

Thanks to those who joined yesterday for our rongoa planting session at Pourewa. Not only did we have a great turnout from our rōpu (plus a few friends from Kelmarna) but we were joined by visting reo groups from Ngāti Whatua Orakei’s local marae and the planting was finished in record time. We also got to work weeding and reforming the kūmara puke, where tupu will be planted in kōanga as part of Matua Rob’s exciting kumara project – more on this to come…

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Kia ora koutou,

Happy Rāhina/Monday! It seems like our spell of fine, settled weather is passing and being replaced by wild winds and incoming rain. Stay warm, stay dry, and enjoy a slower week of indoor activities.

We are cancelling tomorrow’s Tuesday AM working bee due to forecast heavy rain, however if you’d like to still do some gardening this week read on for info on tree planting at Pourewa this Saturday.

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Kia ora koutou,

Arohamai for the delay on this newsletter. Hoping your weeks are off to a great start! The mornings are incredibly crisp, but the sunshine’s making everything glow. Here’s what’s happening i tenei wiki:
• TUESDAY WORKING BEE with Bex & Rob
9.30am – 12.30pm
• THURSDAY WORKING BEE with Luke & Bex
4pm – 6pm
• SCREENPRINTING & PIZZA
Sunday 11am – 2pm, screenprinting from 11, pizzas cooked and ready from 12-2pm.

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Kia ora koutou,

Thanks to those that came along for our kids school holiday session last week. How fantastic it was to have a māra filled with the humming energy of tamariki hunting for snails! The Growing Point team have also just finished and submitted our final Hua Parakore diary that marks the completion of our Puāwai year – one (giant) step closer to becoming fully verified in time for the māra’s 10 year anniversary 💕

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Kia ora koutou,

This coming Tuesday is our kids’ event at the māra – please read on for info about the session, and feel free to share with friends of whānau who might like to bring their lil’ gardeners along. We’re also kicking off our first Microscopy & Compost course session on Tuesday, so it’s set to be a busy week.

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Kia ora koutou,

Wow, what an incredible event we pulled off yesterday hosting over 70 people in the māra to grow a deeper relationship with Matariki and te tau hou Māori. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou! We are so proud of and impressed by all of the support from this lovely māra community. There’s so much work behind the scenes: hours prepping kumara, soup-making, learning waiata, stringing lights, lending us a brazier, and much more. We’re deeply grateful for the volunteers putting in the extra yards and giving so much time and love. If there was ever a time the community part of community garden was at its best, it was yesterday. Thanks for choosing to be a part of the garden whānau.

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Tēnā koe, 

As you’ve likely seen, the weather for tonight and tomorrow morning is not great. As such we’ve made the call to postpone our Matariki Dawn Ceremony by one day. We really hope you’re still able to make it, and if you haven’t registered yet there’s still time: click here

New date & time: Sunday 29th June, (this coming Sunday)
Please note we have a new 6am start time

Unfortunately, the ground will be too wet to dig and light a hāngi pit in time, so we’re pivoting to roasting the kumara in our pizza oven. Aside from this change, the rest of the ceremony is going ahead as planned!

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Manawatia a Matariki!

As this year comes to a close and we welcome in Te Tau Hou (the new year) we’re sending love and gratitude to all of you who are so important to our māra – we are only a thriving hub because of YOU and all of the generosity, manaakitanga, hard work, patience and passion that you bring.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please register via the yellow link bow below if you’re joining us for Matariki. It’s vital that we have a handle on numbers to keep everyone fed, happy and spaced. Registering also provides us a way to contact you directly in case of postponement (a call will be made late this week if the weather looks poor).

Submissions for the Regulatory Standards Bill close at 1pm tomorrow – run, don’t walk!

It’s absolutely vital that as many of us as possible make submissions to tell the government that it’s a (clearly) terrible idea to put the rights of overseas corporations and private propety over the rights of people and erode protections for both Māori and the environment. Submitting is easy:

1. Use Greenpeace NZ’s submission generator tool (click here to head straight to the site)
2. Adapt an existing submission, adding a few of your own thoughts or tweaks as appropriate (ngā mihi Ally for sharing yours as a guide)
3. Write your own submission (link to Parliament submissions page) making sure to include a few key statements
4. Read more on the bill:Great article by Otago Daily Times
   A in-depth submission against the Bill by Professor of Law Jane Kelsey
5. Share with friends and whānau! We got this!

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