Soil & Health
Association of New Zealand Inc (est 1941) Healthy
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Levin Branch Newsletter - March 200701-03-2007Organic Growing News - Newsletter No 237 2007 AGM and visit to Tony Robinson’s - “Rambler’s Flowers” on Sunday 25 March Tony will tell us about his use of worm farms and compost tea in growing organic cut flowers for export, a market which demands perfect appearance and freedom from pests. We will be joined at the meeting by members of Farmers Unlimited. The meeting will commence with the AGM, starting promptly at 1.30pm. There will be a sales table and afternoon tea. There is no gate charge as the meeting incorporates the AGM. Please bring a chair if you can. Rambler’s Flowers is north of Levin on SH1, on the right hand side just past the Lindsay Road intersection as you are heading north. Please park in Lindsay Road as there is no parking available on the property. On 30 April we return to Common Property, Te Horo, for a follow-up visit including a compost making demonstration. For our May meeting we hope to visit a Manakau farm that uses Effective Micro-organisms (EM) to deal with the waste products of pigs, cattle and poultry. PRESIDENT’S REPORT It gives me great pleasure to present my first annual report as President of the Levin branch of the NZ Soil & Health Association. The branch currently has over 100 members, and is one of the largest and most active branches in the country. At last year’s AGM, members elected some new faces on to the Committee. Jill Scott, Annmarie Coote and Val Nicol have been valuable and active workers on your behalf over the last 12 months, and I would like to thank them for their contributions. I would also like to thank Barbara van der Valk, Liz Baucke, Emily Williams and of course Ray and Winifred Bourn for their continuing work on the committee. Ray and Winifred were honoured for their many years’ service by being made life members of the Association at the national AGM last year. I would also like to thank Teresa Johnston who handled the e-mail distribution of our monthly branch newsletter, and Lyn Hoskyn for her assistance with our financial records. Our first meeting for the year followed immediately after the AGM at Saarsha Holistic Healing Centre, Waikanae. Five practitioners gave us short talks about their respective healing modalities. In April we returned to Waikanae to visit Barbara and Leslie Bowen’s home garden, with organic herbs and veges, fruit trees and fuchsias. Dominion Post organics correspondent Hannah Zwartz attended this meeting and wrote an article about it for her column. In May we visited Jeff and Christina Paulin’s “Cackleberry Organics” poultry farm in Levin, where birds are raised organically for both meat and eggs. June saw us at the Storey family’s “Imago Organic Orchard” for a pruning demonstration by Colin Spicer, President of the Central Districts Tree Crops Association. This meeting was also the subject of a column by Hannah Zwartz. In July we began a three-month winter talk season at Thompson House, Levin. Claire Bleakley, president of GE Free NZ in Food & Environment, brought us up to date on the GE situation in New Zealand. In August, consultant medical herbalist Sara Hamer told us about her work, with a focus on treating our winter ailments. In September, Amor Walter gave a talk and showed us an excellent video on the fascinating world of the honey bee. We returned outside in October to visit Common Property, Te Horo with organic market gardener Rochelle Hopping. The Central Districts branch of the Tree Crops Association also attended, and helped us stir and spread a biodynamic Preparation 500 mixture. Our end-of-year social meeting was held in early December at Phillipa Martin’s country garden in Manakau. In January we had our annual stall at the Organic River Festival, which as always was our biggest event of the year. Thank you to all members who donated goods or volunteered their services. National spokesperson Steffan Browning attended the festival and spent quite a lot of time at our stall. We also had information stalls at the Otaki Lifestylers’ Field Day in May and at the Kapiti Garden Show on Labour weekend in October. During the year the committee made written and oral submissions to each of our four regional and district councils’ long-term community plans. We asked councils to prohibit GE field trials due to the risks to the environment, economy and public health, and raised concerns about the failure of central government to put in place a strict liability regime for GMOs. Although many other people made similar submissions, we were all largely ignored when the community plans were finally released. Our branch made financial donations to GE Free NZ and to GE Free Northland, to fluoride action groups in Wanganui and at the national level, and to Soil & Health’s national fundraising appeal. We decided to close our branch library, which was not being used, and instead donated eleven new books on organics to Levin Library so that they would be more readily available both to members and to the general public. These books are available anywhere in the country via the inter-library loan system. A press release about our donation appeared in the Kapiti-Horowhenua Chronicle. Over the last couple of years we have commissioned Kath Irvine to produce a month-by-month Growing Guide specific to the Kapiti-Horowhenua region. The seed money for this project was provided by the Johanna Oderkerk bequest. Kath spent a full year interviewing local long-term residents and organic gardeners about their monthly activities. That information has been collated and has been distributed to committee members for proof-reading and comments. We hope to publish the book this winter. This year we also entered the digital age, with our own web page carrying an archive of newsletters from April 2006 and colour photos from our meetings. Thanks are due to Hamish Hopkinson from head office for facilitating this. Our January 2007 newsletter was posted to over 200 Soil & Health members in Wellington, Wairarapa and Wanganui, in addition to our usual distribution of about 130 copies. As the only active branch in the lower North Island, we wanted to reach out to our colleagues in neighbouring regions, to let them know of our existence and activities. Many visitors to our stall at the Organic River Festival said that they had received the newsletter, and a few talked about (re-)establishing their own local branches, which we would be happy to encourage. All in all then, we have had a very active twelve months. I commend to you the work of the committee and our numerous other volunteers, and I trust that the coming year will prove just as productive. Ian Sheen March 2007 AGENDA for the AGM of the Levin Branch of the NZ Soil and Health Association to be held at Tony Robinson’s “Rambler’s Flowers”, Levin on Sunday 25 March 2007 at 1.30pm: * Apologies * Minutes of AGM held on 19 March 2006 - confirmation of minutes - matters arising * President’s Report - acceptance of report * Annual Accounts - acceptance of accounts * Election of Officers - Patron - President - Vice Presidents - Treasurer - Secretary - Minute Secretary - Committee - Auditor * General Business “Biological Farming” in the news The recent visit of biological farming proponent Dr Arden Andersen has attracted positive coverage in the rural papers. Dr Andersen has been teaching his “Balancing Soil for Profit” workshops in NZ for two years, and has taught similar workshops in Australia for nine years and in the USA for 25 years. When not running workshops or acting as a soil consultant, Dr Andersen is a medical GP in Indiana. Dr Andersen dismisses the conventional view that food and fibre cannot be produced in bulk without the extensive use of synthetic chemicals, saying growers can “clean up their act” without compromising profit margins. “It is a way of thinking and doing that helps farmers to gradually step off the treadmill of agricultural chemicals and onto a path of managing soils, crops and animals in a profitable and sustainable way,” he says. NZ farmers are implementing his techniques with “great success”. “We have farmers who were using a lot of pesticides who are now are now … off them completely or have reduced them significantly”. Dr Andersen says biological agriculture preserves the productive capacity of soils as well as providing residue free, high nutrition food, produced in an environmentally friendly manner that the market is increasingly demanding. During his New Zealand seminars he outlined how to grow such “nutrient-dense” produce while increasing profit per unit of input. He discussed tackling weeds, diseases and insect pests appropriately and safely, and ways of rehabilitating the environment including building carbon stores in the soil as humus. Biological agriculture is an approach that emphasises the need to balance, and make available to plants a range of soil minerals, especially calcium and phosphorous. The goal is to achieve a diverse, robust soil microbe population that creates active humus. Active soil humus means more fertile and friable soils, better water utilisation, reduced need for fertilisers and pesticides, and greater nutritional density of the product. This translates to better animal health, less erosion, no leachate, greater profit, and more satisfaction for the farmer. The focus is on supplying oxygen, water, food and comfort to the most important farm livestock - the underground ones. For more information, visit www.bioagnz.com - sources: Country Wide 19.2.07 and Rural Press 21.2.07 The next committee meeting Monday 9 March at 10am with Singa, 8 Kitchener Street, Te Horo Beach. All members are welcome to attend. MOON PLANTING GUIDE - APRIL 2007 Full moon 3rd Last quarter 11th New moon 17th First quarter 24th Harvest pumpkins, squash, marrows and melons when growth has ceased and the stem has begun to shrivel, and store in a warm, dry place. The 5th-6th and 22nd-23rd are good times for harvesting all above ground crops. Harvest root crops, including potatoes, and make and apply compost on the 12th-13th and 20th-21st. The period between full moon and last quarter favours root growth. This is the best time for sowing all tree and shrub seed, for taking root and stem cuttings and planting out bulbs, corms, tubers and rhizomes, including garlic. The best dates are the 5th, 6th and 7th, with the 4th and 10th also being good. The best days for sowing and planting leaf crops are the 22nd and 23rd, including green crops of oats, barley, rye, mustard and lupin. The 30th is advantageous for sowing and planting fruit, flower and seed crops, including late lettuces and salad greens such as mizuna and mibuna. FARMING PARTNER/S WANTED Shareholding opportunity for one or more in 50% of 74 acres at Weber 38km East of Dannevirke
Contact Debra Walkley on (06) 374 3445 phone/fax/answering machine ORGANIC BLUEBERRIES FOR SALE 41 Arcus Road, Te Horo, phone (06) 364-2181 A1 SHELTER BELT TRIMMERS For all your shelter belt and hedge trimming. Height reduction and decrowning now available. Competitive prices, prompt service. Phone Marty (06) 362 6737 MAWHENUA FARM - organic since 1986. Beef, hogget & lamb processed & packaged under MAF licence.Craft & knitting wools available. For price list and inquiries contact Warren and Trish Gilbert, RD 7, Dannevirke (06) 374 8281. AGRISSENTIAL NATURALLY BETTER FERTILISERS BIOGRO certified Rok Solid and Organic 100, available from IMAGO ORGANIC ORCHARD For information phone Ann (06) 368 3858 CACKLEBERRY ORGANICS Organic chickens, pieces and pies. Organic chicken manure/sawdust mix. For inquiries contact Jeff & Christina Paulin (06) 368 8961 cackleberryorganics@clear.net.nz World’s first fully certified organic SKINCARE, BODYCARE AND COSMETIC PRODUCTS 100% free of synthetic chemicals. Discount and free shipping available. Order on-line www.organics4you.net.nz or phone Louise (06) 364 2190 |
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Soil & Health
Association of New Zealand Inc (est 1941) Healthy
Soil - Healthy Food - Healthy People |
