October 2006

Spring is here and it’s looking pretty good in the Institute gardens. Elaine has done a fantastic job of taking care of the seed gardens around the shop over the winter and we now have many crops heading up to seed, and another generation being planted.

Right now the shop garden is a real educational experience with Golden Ball Turnips around 2m high and covered in bees and other insects, Garden Cress flowering at a metre high (garden cress seed pods are exquisite)  The red cabbages look stunning (especially with the yellow and orange calendulas amongst them) and when they head up to flower they will really attract everyone’s attention.

The heirloom Kale is flowering in a pollen cage and the bumble bees are doing a great a job of pollinating that and the Ruapehu Cauliflowers are at their peak of flowering now. Because the kale is in a pollen cage, and the Red cabbages have not yet begun flowering we have not had to cover the caulis

 As soon as the red cabbages begin flowering we’ll cover the caulis with a double pollen cage and then we won’t have to cover the red cabbages. There will be enough seed set on the caulis that we won’t need to put bumble bee hives in their as well.

This will be the first time we’ve been able to grow out and save seed from such a good crop of cauliflower or cabbage seed. We’re particularly excited about the cabbage seed because we had three lines of red cabbage seed in our seed bank that were really old and almost stopped germinating (ie dead!).

We decided if we grew one at a time we would not have enough plants to contain the genetic diversity to keep the seed strong for the long haul and the other cultivars would have all been dead by the time we got to grow them out. We decided to grow all three together. We’ll collect the seed together from all three,. The cabbages we grow from the seed will be very variable, over the years we’ll continue selecting for the characteristics we like.

We have Miner’s Lettuce flowering along with heartsease, Ruby Port Columbine,, Early Grey and Bluebell Larkspur, Some of our special garlic lines, along with Tree Onions and Potato Onions, Hullless Oats, Heirloom Poppies and Red Boy Cornflower. The Dalmation Peas are flowering along the Scorzonera and all the summer crops are going in. The shop garden will be full of Institute rare and endangered seed lines going to seed over the summer so call in if you’re going past to see what it all looks like.

Most of the Institute summer seed lines are being grown by families as a part of the process of growing their own food. Here in the Kohatu Toa Ecovillage  we’re working together to grow Kaanga Ma corn as a staple to eat but also for seed, we’re also growing Blue Hopi to eat and for seed. Many of our other grains and pumpkins and food crops are also seed crops, just as the Lands are doing up in the Hokianga..

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If you’re interested in joining us here in the north to save the seeds for our own climate and conditions then join us at the Lands in February for our Summer Seed Hui or next Winter here at Koanga Gardens for the Winter seed /Tree Hui.

Coming on a guided tour will give you a good look at what we’re up to as well. Guided tour dates are all on the Koanga Gardens Centre for Sustainable Living website www.koanga.co.nz if you’d like to check them out.

Another option for checking it all out would be to come to the Summer Heritage Food Tasting day here at Koanga on  February 17th 10:00 – 3:00