Soil & Health
Association of New Zealand Inc (est 1941) Healthy
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New Zealand's leading source of information on Organics & Sustainable Living
Organic Growing News - Levin Branch Newsletter Oct 200619-10-2006On Sunday 29 October we visit Common Property - 123 Hautere Cross Rd, Te Horo - see photos below. Rochelle Hopping leases about 2 acres of land at Common Property, where she grows certified organic vegetables using biodynamic and permaculture principles. Rochelle will enlighten us on her plans and preparations for the upcoming growing season, which started last autumn with compost making and sowing a green manure crop. The afternoon will include stirring and spreading a biodynamic “500” preparation. We will also have a look inside Common Property’s nursery greenhouses, where an extensive range of organic vegetable and herb seedlings is raised for the home gardener.  The meeting starts at 1.30pm. A $2 gate includes afternoon tea, and we will have a sales table with produce and plants. Common Property’s seedlings will also be available for purchase. We will be joined by our colleagues from the Central Districts branch of the Tree Crops Association. The meeting is open to the public, so please feel free to bring a friend. DIRECTIONS TO COMMON PROPERTY
BEES WITH AMOR WALTER About 30 people attended our September meeting to hear Amor Walter talk and present a 45 minute video on the subject of bees. The video opened with a shot of a man covered in bees. He was holding the queen in a perforated tin, and the rest of the hive swarmed around him. Bees which fell to the ground crawled back up the man’s legs to rejoin the swarm, rather than flying up. Fortunately he was wearing tight shorts. With his free hand, he was able to scoop up handfuls of bees without being stung. The video then proceeded to enlighten us on every aspect of the bees’ life, taking us deep inside the hive and out into the fields with amazing close-ups and action shots. The life of a new colony begins when the old one gets too overcrowded. This leads to a breakdown in the bees’ complex communication system, in which the queen’s messages are passed through the hive from bee to bee using pheromones. With too many bees in the hive, the messages do not get passed on to all the bees efficiently. Eventually the existing queen leaves, taking about half the colony with her to found a new hive.  The workers left behind must now raise a new queen. They do this by feeding larvae with royal jelly. The first queen to emerge kills all the other queen larvae to take control of the hive. Having accomplished this, she sets off on her mating flight. High above the ground, she mates with a handful of “successful” drones from her hive, which promptly fall to the ground dead. The queen then returns to the hive, where she will remain laying eggs until her own colony becomes too overcrowded and she leads a swarm to a new location. The queen lays eggs in chambers prepared by the workers, and fertilises them herself with the sperm which she keeps separately in her body. At her peak she can lay 1500 eggs a day, more than her own body weight. Within sixty seconds of emerging, the new worker bee commences duty. First it cleans its own cell of any detritus left behind, and then starts cleaning neighbouring cells. After a while it progresses to its second role, as a nurse bee feeding and tending the growing larvae. The third tour of duty for the worker is as a field bee, collecting nectar and pollen. On each trip, the bee will visit only type of flower. Nectar is stored in an abdominal sac or “honey stomach”, and pollen in baskets on the legs. To make one teaspoon of honey, a single bee would fly the equivalent distance of Auckland to Wellington and back again. Back in the hive, the bees communicate their finds by tapping and caressing each other’s feelers while exchanging nectar, and by dancing. The direction of the bee’s dance across the hive shows the angle of the nectar source relative to the sun, and the duration of each dance gives the distance.  After its days as a field bee, the worker’s next role is to air-condition the hive by standing at the entrance and fanning her wings. This maintains the hive at a constant 34˚C summer and winter, and helps evaporate the 80% water content of the nectar to turn it into honey.The last task in the life of a worker bee is to protect the hive from intruders. The bee’s sting has a number of barbs which work to pull the sting into the victim. Attached is a poison sac which is wrenched from the bee’s abdomen, killing her in the process. The poison sac keeps working independently of the bee, pumping poison into the victim. The toxicity of bee venom is the same as a cobra’s, but in a much smaller volume, and works by clotting the blood. The lifespan of a worker bee in summer is about six weeks. At the end of this time, when her wings have become too frayed to enable her to do her duty, she walks away from the hive to die. Every product and secretion of the bee has a beneficial use for mankind, with the sole exception of the bee’s dead body. These include honey, wax, venom, pollen, propolis and royal jelly. ORGANIC RIVER FESTIVAL Next year’s Organic River Festival at Kimberley Reserve, Levin, has a new date. It will now be held on the last weekend in January (Sat 27th and Sun 28th), not on Wellington Anniversary weekend as previously. We will be having our usual stall, with plants, food, drinks, literature and so on. This is our major fundraiser for the year, and also our main opportunity to present ourselves and our message to the public. We regret that Merv Williams will not be available to oversee our site this time, as he has done so ably in recent years. That means that, more than ever, we need your help to make our stall a success.  Now is the time to start planting seed, taking cuttings, and preparing for the big event. Our plants and seedlings donated by members sold out last year, so this year we will need even more. Fresh organic produce is also popular, or perhaps you can provide fresh herbs and flowers, or packets of seed from your garden. Home baking is always welcome, using organic ingredients as far as possible. Please note however that Health regulations are enforced at the Festival, so please limit your contributions to cakes, biscuits and slices. We also require used supermarket bags for our customers to take their bounty away in. Perhaps most of all, we need volunteers to run the stall. We need to have at least three people rostered on at all times, plus people to help set up on the Friday and pack up on Sunday evening or Monday morning. Please make a space for us in your diary now if you can help, and call Winifred to put your name down. WEEDS NOT SO BAD Pasture weeds such as Californian thistle and hairy buttercup have a high mineral content of nutritional benefit to grazing animals, says Massey University’s Kerry Harrington. Harrington, a weed expert in the University’s Institute of Natural Resources, studied the mineral content of weed species chicory, narrow-leaved plantain, dandelion, broad-leaved dock, hairy buttercup and Californian thistle. Some of these are grazed alongside perennial ryegrass and white clover pasture species on the University’s organic dairy farm. Magnesium, manganese, copper, zinc, boron, cobalt and selenium were found in significantly higher levels in the weeds. The crude protein levels of these species, as well as in Yorkshire fog, were also higher than those in ryegrass. “Advisers and farmers within the organic industry are often keen to increase the diversity of plant species within pastures, with mixtures called herbal leys that have a higher mineral content,” Harrington says. He says cows on the farm graze hairy buttercup, broad-leaved dock, dandelion and Yorkshire fog, and Californian thistle will also be eaten if it is mown prior to grazing. For weeds often avoided by cows, Harrington recommends block grazing over winter to ensure they are eaten. - from Rural News, 19 September 2006 MOON PLANTING GUIDE FOR NOVEMBER
For root vegetables – carrot, beetroot and parsnips – sow on 7th, 10th, 11th. For leaf crops – lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, parsley and silver beet – sow or plant on 24th, 25th, 26th. Weeds are said to come out more easily on the barren days between last quarter and new moon, 13th to 21st. Ray Bourn S&H LEVIN ON-LINE A reminder that our branch now has its own web page as part of the Organic NZ website. Our address is http://www.organicnz.org/page/Levin. Our page will soon be featuring photos from our meetings in glorious living colour. So next time you’re online, check us out. You never know who or what you might see.  UPCOMING MEETINGS Our end-of-year meeting will be held on Sunday 3 December in Phillipa Martin’s organic country garden, Martins Road, Manakau. The $10 gate charge includes a garden visit and catered afternoon tea. This is our branch’s relaxed, “social” meeting for the year, and numbers will be limited, so the meeting is restricted to members and a partner or guest. To book your spot, please contact Winifred or Singa. The next committee meeting will be on Monday 13 November at 10am with Val Nicol, 178 Lindsay Road, Levin. All members are welcome to attend. ADVERTISING 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 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.organic4you.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 |
