Latest highlights:
The planting programme is underway
Nursery happenings
More from the media
A great day out
The planting programme is underway
I was keen for us to get started with the planting programme before the end of May, and I am pleased to report that we did achieve that last Saturday with a small planting at Sue and Mike’s off Te Pahi River Drive, in a small erosion-prone gully quite close to the harbour edge. While it was only about 175 plants, as Mike said, it was a good ‘loosener’ for the planting season (excellent coffee too, Mike). The weather didn’t seem so promising first thing, but then it turned into such a warm day. We just had Josh adding to his Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme community service component, along with dad Wayne.
This Friday there will be a team from Spark Foundation coming out to the Roadleys at Batley to do planting along some of their 9kms of foreshore, and then next Thursday the Matakohe School students will make a start on the ‘Ruatuna project’.
The Reconnecting Northland team will be on site in the week beginning 27 June, with planting on four farms on the Bickerstaffe peninsula. Keep an eye out for a community planting day in the first half of July.
Nursery happenings
To keep you in the picture from last time, now the houhere is coming through, along with the first of the kohekohe. The carex secta might also have started – I’m not sure what it looks like in baby form. The mahoe is tucked up in bed(s), yet to put in an appearance. I was rapt to find another source of mahoe seed alongside the Paparoa-Oakleigh Road the other day – I was able to pick all I wanted without getting my street shoes dirty. The karamu has been cleaned, and is now chilling out in the fridge. I went around to Jacque and Jeroen’s in the weekend too and came away with two bags of ake ake seed, which I am in the middle of cleaning. According to the book (well Google anyway) it needs to be sown pronto.
More from the media
On last week’s Country Life National Radio (7 am on Saturday mornings) featured a riparian planting initiative using crowdfunding to help pay for it. The property is in the Te Arai (!) area, in the headwaters of the Hoteo River, which feeds into the southern half of the Kaipara Harbour. The Sustainable Business Network came up with this Million Metres Streams concept, which methinks we might just need to develop a project for. Here’s the link to the programme: http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/201802339
Thanks to Dylan for providing me with the link – saved me having to look for it.
A great day out
Last week I had the privilege of attending the Beef+Lamb field day at Oneriri Station, along with nearly 200 others. I was interested to learn more about the work they have been doing to get the 45km foreshore fenced off, along with progress in fencing off the 700 acres of bush remnants and the pest eradication programme. I was mightily impressed, and the tucker was great too! Their production is impressive, and everywhere was evidence of attention to detail – even if on a larger scale than you are likely to see anywhere else in Northland. It was a really well organised and informative day. Great people doing a great job.