NEWSLETTERS |
NEWS FROM THE KOANGA INSTITUTE JULY 08
It’s spring here in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, the cherries are in full flower and the peach buds are swelling. Winter is over, it’s time to seriously plan the next season in the garden and begin getting the seeds ready for the new moon which is only two weeks away.
It was great to come back from our month away in June writing to find that the Brix levels of our garden crops had continued rising and are now up to between 12 and 17 for most crops! That is a phenomenal improvement which I put down totally to following the instructions as published in the Growing Nutrient Dense Food brochure recently published by the Institute.
I now feel happy that I’m eating veges that are really nourishing me, and I will continue to work to find the most appropriate ways of maintaining that level of nutrient density.
I’m in the final stages of writing the new cookbook , and we have just held a Permaculture Design Course here on the marae which was an outstanding success. Geoff Lawton was our main teacher, supported by Bob, myself, Trish and Nadia and others.
The students were a combination of people from all over NZ and overseas together with around 10 locals, and many, many more who popped in each day to check out what we were up to and to awhi us in many ways. All those attending were welcomed onto two marae, Tutewaki and Pahaoa. The cultural learning was strong and very special.
Moki are the sacred fish of this iwi
We had a wonderful time, and out of this two weeks I feel a lot will come in the future. Bob and I are looking at ways the Koanga Institute can work far more closely with Geoff and Nadia through their Permaculture Research Institute in Australia. Check out their website The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia, and keep an eye on the Koanga Institute website for the shape in which this relationship expresses in the near future. We have nothing to lose now, we must all work together for a safe future for our grandchildren… it is time.
I hope you have received your copy of the new catalogue by now, I’m very happy that this catalogue reflects a strong organization that is doing a very important job well, considering the resources available. As you can see in the editorial we are quite a diverse organism now with lots of integration happening which all makes for strength and sustainability. Although our shape is feeling strong and more sustainable than we have felt for years, we are still struggling to keep alive all of the seeds we hold. This is always going to be a big challenge, and over the past few years we have managed to find enough money to pay part time gardeners in various ways. Last year we had a little money left when we sold the title and paid back the mortgages we had. This paid for Craig’s time in the garden. The year before we were given a large donation by a member.
This year we absolutely need to find a way to keep a part time gardener in the team. We need a gardener for two days a week who can manage our orchards and seed growouts (those that are not being covered by our seed multipliers and growers).
I would like to ask for donations to cover these wages, which will be $320 per week. This is a call to all of you to see if we can come up with a combination of weekly or fortnightly direct credits to our bank account to cover these wages, together with 1 off donations. Please email info@koanga.org if you need more info or can help in any way.
We are also looking for someone in the Kaiwaka area who is a skilled website operator, who would like to work as a volunteer to support Gail to keep things up to date.
It’s time to organize your seeds and plan the garden and begin the action…. have a wonderful season, growing nutrient dense food with heritage seeds and our Growing Nutrient Dense Food brochure and support us to save our NZ heritage seeds by using Koanga seed.
I thought I'd share some magic moments with you as we put down the hangi on the celebration night of the PDC. The food was all organic and grown from Koanga seed, potatoes, pumpkin and kumara, plus wild harvested watercress and our own organic mutton, Halal killed by taiamai and Geoff so that Geoff and Nadia could eat it. The plum puddings which were also cooked in the hangi but were not made from our own ingredients but next time we'll make them with our own corn meal!
This is how you can ferment them:
your early lettuces. I love this picture of our Odell's lettuces, very similar the Lightheart lettuce in the Institute catalogue. It clearly shows how crunchy and thick the stems are. My favourite sweet lettuces, which are very fast growing!
Arohanui Kay
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Trish and I, with loads of support from Lisa and Nadia, had a wonderful time in the kitchen and we cooked following the principles of traditional diets as propounded by the Weston A Price Foundation. This was a very powerful experience for all of us as the cooks and the course participants as well. We had loads of positive feed back, and the learning continues, I’m loving that.
We have really enjoyed our Aomaru Koshin Japanese radishes this season, they are great autumn winter and spring vege and are great eaten raw, cooked or pickled. Traditionally in 
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