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Community Garden
The Moera Community Garden is a project of Moera locals learning and sharing how to garden and build community.
Keep up-to-date with this and other Hutt Valley gardening groups. We meet every Saturday 10am at the garden - 105 Randwick Crescent, behind the Moera Community Hall, which is behind the Moera Library.
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RECENTLY15 January 2013 - we're still here!It's been a long time since I've update this site - but the gardens are still there and we're still meeting every (fine) Saturday. We're currently looking at planting some more fruit trees: Proposed site for community fruit trees What do you think? Email paul at kennett • co • nz with your thoughts. 12 March 2011 - mural completed
Over the two weeks month students from Randwick School have been working with Petone artist Phil Waddington to create this wonderful mural next to the Moera Community Garden.
6 Nov 2010 - Planning and a bit of plantingMore plantings today of Maori potatoes and Agria(?) potatoes, also yams and Jerusalem artichokes - all underground stuff! More peas and beans planted as well. Planning meeting to sort out upcoming plantings including: carrots, parsnips, onion, tomato, lentils and grains.
10 Oct 2010 - Moera Community Garden planting and picnic day The weather was a bit cold but everyone had a good time on 10-10-10 day. The Moera Community Garden had some community planting fun, followed by a bring-your-own picnic on the grass. We also swapped and gave-away a few seeds. Another compost bay was added and existing compost turned. This event was also part of the 10-10-10 climate action day.
2 Oct 2010 Martin and kids installed a new planter box. Matt, Karin, Jaz, Finn, Paul, Adam, Alex, Martin, Ella, and Rea planted and weeded. Paul tidied up the compost station a bit to prepare for adding a new bay next week. Last week we had a pot-luck lunch at Martins house to celebrate two years since our first beds went in.
The web editors took a long holiday from updating the website (but not the garden!) 2 Jan 2010 New Years tidy up. Matt, Karin, Jaz, Finn, Michelle, Adam, Mary and Paul all got stuck-in and clean out all the vege's we'd allowed to go to seed. The compost was turned. More compost was added to the beds - the four beds which had been filled with plain soil were rock hard from drying out so the mulch/compost should help keep more moisture in.
1 Jan 2010Someone mowed the edges. Thanks!
31 Dec 2009Mary wrote: Today between showery spells I transplanted into the garden some 12 or so selfsown green sprouting broccoli that were surplus to my own needs. These went into the spaces in the new bed with the lettuce/cabbage (which is doing brilliantly) and along the side of the bed where the broad beans were. At the north end of the bed where the new dwarf beans are coming up I’ve heeled in some of the broccoli seedlings. If anyone needs these for their own garden, please take them. Or even some of the others – we want more than broccoli in the garden! Not sure if I’ll be around on Saturday 2 Jan, but the lawn does need cutting. The plants in the 2 new beds (lettuce/cabbage, and tomatoes) are doing so well, with the fresh soil. Some of the other beds seem to be solid clay, and need aerating with either a large or small fork. I think we need some gypsum to lighten up this soil. It would also be good to sow a cover crop in the ‘School’ bed, to get the soil in good condition for when the children start their gardening.
Enjoy the sunny spells! Mary Z.
20 Dec 2009 Hutt Horticultural Society donationThe Hutt Horticultural Society have generously donated $50 towards miscellaneous garden needs.
12 Dec 2009 A quiet day at the gardens. A quiet day.
5 Dec 2009 More compost added to some beds. Paul borrowed Sam's jig-saw to cut the top off two of the truck tires. It was very quick and easy and the tires look look a lot bigger now! (Much more earth surface area.)
21 Nov 2009 A wet day so no gardening today. A wet day.
12 Nov 2009 Financial updateWe received our bank statement recently which shows we have $352.79. That includes $250 from the Vogel Trust which is earmarked for rain water tanks. Plus! Paul and Michelle put in an application to the Community Engagement Fund. He asked for $490.42 to buy all the connecting bits for a rain water tank setup and we got it. Next step is to review the plans, confirm permission from the Council, and buy the bits. Then hopefully sometime in the next few months we can start building a rain water collection system. We can use the Vogel Trust $250 to buy two 1000 litre tanks to get us started, and if we found another $1500-$2000 at any time - we could put in a huge 10,000+ litre round tank.
7 Nov 2009 New plants starting to grow, and older ones bolting. Planted a few more things and weeded the beds.
17 Sept 2009 Hutt Valley Community Gardens meet-up Hutt Valley Community Gardens meet-up. St Martins Church in Taita hosted a get together of community garden folk around Hutt Valley. Martin, Paul, Elton and Alex went along. Here's a list of known gardens:
 A quick check on things. On our way home we popped in to the garden to check on things. We're leaving some things to go to seed so that we can collect the seeds. And later in afternoon Elton trimmed the grass around the Moera beds. Thought for the day (from Peter): Community building is always risky - and every community project is bound to be abused at some point. 26 Sept 2009 Seed swap Swapping seeds. The seed swap event went off superbly well. We had several new people from around the neighbourhood come along plus a few from the Pinehaven Community Gardens and Lower Hutt Transition Towns folk. It was fortunate that Martin had hired the hall as the weather was cold and showery. All up we had three full tables of seeds to swap and it looked like a lot of trading was going on. At the end of the day the Community Gardens was the beneficiary of several boxes full of seedlings. If you missed out come along at next Saturday and we should have some available for a small donation.
19 Sept 2009 Another two raised beds go in. After several missed weekends due to rain we've finally manged to install another two raised beds. We've filled these with compost form the Seaview recycling station. We used this for the first four beds and had some success with it. The zucchinis and broccoli loved it. Tomatoes did very poorly though. We now have; 10 wooden raised beds and 4 truck tyre beds. The first two beds went in on 13 September 2008 - so the garden is just over 1 year old.
12 Sept 2009Rained out.
5 Sept 2009Built two new raised bed borders out of some packing boxes that Martin picked up from Viridian (Pilkington Glass) down the road.
22 Aug 2009Small turnout - four, but also one new person from the local area expressing interest. Just put on raised beds themselves, and want to learn more. Soil conditioner mix (lime, dolomite, phosphate) applied to rest of area - up to 2 metres north of current beds. Planted pak choi, celery and silver beet.
15 Aug 2009Applied mulch and our first bulk quantity of homegrown compost (yayyy!) to all the beds. Got yet more small broccoli flowerlets.
8 Aug 2009 Another beautiful day at the garden. We had 11 adults plus kids. Mary brought along her comfrey to swap and Chester brought some raspberry stems to give away. We turned the compost from bay 1 to bay 2 and watered.
1 Aug 2009
Karyn, Martin, Alex, and Paul turned the compost from bay 2 into bay 3, and checked on the rest of the garden. Adam "helped" too.
25 July 2009 A beautiful day at the garden. We finally added some boards to the front of the third compost bay so that we can now turn our second bay compost on to the third bay, then turn the first bay into the second, giving us room for fresh compost in the first bay.
18 July 2009A visit to Chester and Anne’s garden in Woburn. The ‘pushchair brigade’ (five adults and three very young children) visited to find out how Chester prunes his espaliered apple trees (trained to grow partly against a wall, like a vine). Also some trimming of his peach tree, and strolling round to see what else is growing – different varieties of gooseberry, hazelnuts, blackcurrant, abundant raspberry canes, broad beans (using recent tree trimmings as stakes), leeks, bay tree, chervil (Chester’s favourite herb) and more. Chester’s backyard was vaguely reminiscent (to this writer) of ‘The Good Life’ - with backyard totally transformed into a productive growing centre. Front yard also featured a raised bed (cared for by their 6-year old daughter), feijoas and Chinese walnut tree. No photos from the visit - but an inspirational time. Thanks Chester & Anne. 11 July 2009 Ella and Martin working on new planter boxes in front of the bunker. Paul and Alex emptied the Ripe coffee into our compost. Then Martin and Alex placed new planter boxes in front of the bunker. We'll be planting some spring flowers soon. As this is the south side of the bunker, it's never going to get a lot of sun.
4 July 2009 Martin, Adam, Karin, Ella, and Alex working in the garden under a light drizzle. After working in the garden for a bit we reconvened at Paul's house for a planning session:
Krya, Mary, Martin, Karin, Alex, Young Mae, Gwen, Paul
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