A grey yet still and dry day, welcomed us to our first winter working bee - perfect weather for our gardening tasks.
Janet and Bill took care of the 'washing up' - cleaning the used pots so they are ready for re-use.
All clean and ready to go again.
Meanwhile, Jenni cleared-out the tunnel house.
John and Sarah lift the remaining kumara.
The kumara -is collected into bins.
Gabriel lends a hand.
Trevor piles the kumara foliage to begin composting in-situ.
It is already becoming dense and matted.
The now empty harvested Mara kumara beds.
Ann helps dig over a communal plot for the new Spinach crop.
Bev brings the Spinach seedlings out for planting
and is ambushed by the paparazzi!
Steph also helps with the planting out.
The preparation of the communal garden by;
Karine
Benedicte with help from Timothe and Lucille.
Mr. X is hard at work on his makeshift kneeler.
Naomi
Chris, Maddy and Benji
Many hands making light work...
Carla brings a bucket of compost.
Meanwhile, the green waste is processed into a new compost pile
by Judy, VJ and Melissa.
Mike adds some heft to the proceedings too.
Plenty of 'go-forward' from the compost team!
In the food forest...
Tamarillo are starting to ripen.
Helen, our Hugelkulter...
keeps on gently decaying into the soil whilst providing a passive water store
and slowly releasing nutrients.
A shockingly blurry image of Benjamin, Seamus and Riley!
Wearing their Camo gumboots.
Louise, Caitlin and Lucille help weed and plant the front garden.
With Carla - great result!
Sinead
And new allotment holder Charlotte - welcome.
Deborah and Diana do the dishes after our delicious shared lunch.
With some produce for the Working Bee workers...
Citrus
Kumara - white
Kumara - purple
30 kg of Kumara was harvested on the day, which gave everyone who
came to the working bee 2-3kg each. Many members have received a quantity of the earlier harvested kumara previously.
Trevor estimates that in total 188kg was grown with approximately 20kg (or around 10%) being lost to rats eating the tubers in the ground. Unitec and the ADHB Manawanui Marae were gifted 30 kg from the first harvest.
(F) Artichokes
and some Casimiroa.
Happy Gardening everyone!
