Latest highlights:
Nursery working bees still buzzing!
Proudly Paparoa Showcase event
Waikato water quality debate
Planting sites for next year
Nursery working bees still buzzing!

I see its just over a month since my last update, I guess its proof how time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana (according to Groucho Marx, I think…).  We have had several very successful working bees, mostly dealing with a heap of plants which we had got propagated from our seed by Nga Rakau Nurseries.  They are so much quicker to pot up.  With pricking out seedlings we would normally consider 600 in a session to be good going.  With these Nga Rakau cells we cracked 1,500 a couple of times, then two weeks ago, the Big One when the team got 3,761 manuka potted up in one 2 hour session.  A great effort by our team of regulars.  Maybe it was the prospect of strawberry muffins that did it…  We will be having another working bee this week, mostly to do the rather more laborious task of pricking out karamu seedlings.  Let me know if you’d like to be put on the nursery working bee list.

Here’s a couple of short clips showing some of the activity:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7OSRH4q-JTkMUJHVFZoNFdqWW8

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7OSRH4q-JTkVV9rdHBFNFYzbHc

Proudly Paparoa Showcase event

Thanks to “the Donalds” (need to be careful how I put that) we had a gazebo for our site, and thanks to Sue for minding our site when I had to go and strap on my guitar and do some music.  There wasn’t a huge turnout, but we have at least five more people on the mailing list now, and I’d certainly be keen to attend the next one.  Hopefully they will make it an annual event.

I’d like to have a similar presence at the North Kaipara A&P Show (Paparoa) in early February next year.  If you are interested in lending a hand, please let me know.  There would be some information to hand out and a signup list for Updates.  Nothing too onerous.

Waikato water quality debate

James Parsons, the chairman of Beef and Lamb NZ (who just happens to farm elsewhere in the Kaipara Harbour catchment) recently commented on the proposed new regulatory environment around water quality in the Waikato.  He is critical of the uneven-handedness of it, and the potential for unintended consequences.  He concludes: “It’s at times like this that one pauses to think there has to be a better way. I haven’t met a farmer yet who doesn’t want cleaner rivers. If farmers were given the right framework and clear measurable targets at a sub-catchment level, I have real belief that communities could work together and exceed the 10-year water quality targets. History shows when the heavy hand of regulation is applied it drives all sorts of perverse unintended behaviours and a very negative culture. Yet when deregulation occurs but clear boundaries are set it creates an environment for innovation, a culture which NZ farmers are famous for. Take a look at what we have achieved since the mid-80s compared with our British farming cousins who operate in a highly regulated environment.”

I included this for your information as something for you to think about.  Our HarbourCare group operates in a non-regulatory space, and I have no intention of entering into the debate myself.

Planting sites for next year

Finally, we are looking for planting sites for next year.  These things can work best by word of mouth, so if you know someone in the local area you think might be interested, please let me know.  If it’s a toll call to phone them they are too far away.