August Newsletter
Our Food Network August Newsletter
Healthy and resilient communities need healthy and resilient food systems
Kia ora koutou
The days are starting to get longer, and the fruit trees and garden are starting to wake up after a well-deserved rest. It is time to go through the seeds, find the old favourites and a few new things to try and dream of that wonderful summer bounty from the garden.
In this newsletter Emma-Kate Lamb from St. Kilda Seed Savers shares some tips for saving your own seeds. Claire from the North Easy Valley Crop Swap shares some tips for getting your own crop swap up and running. We hear about the Growers hui organised by Village Agrarians, Organics NZ and Good Food Dunedin from Sue and Ivan. It’s election time, so get out and ask those local body candidates about their thoughts on growing local food systems.
Check out the upcoming events. OFN has a networking hui and AGM on the 26th August and put the 5th of October in your diary for Digging In! – Feeding Ōtepoti through the years at Toitū.
Don’t forget we have some great growing resources on our website. And as always, if you have an event you want us to add to Our Food Network’s calendar or a story you want to share, please get in touch at ourfoodnetwork@gmail.com.
.
Kā mihi
Robyn Zink (OFN Chair)
Seed Sharing
Emma-Kate Lamb runs the St. Kilda Seed Library and Seedling Stall. She has always been interested in the natural sciences and seed saving combines this with her love of gardening and connecting with her community. Saving and sharing seeds is one way to encourage more people to try gardening. By saving seeds we are reproducing the genetics of plants that thrive in our environment and are adapting to the climate as it changes. Saving our own seeds is a vital part of food security and sovereignty. Emma-Kate says she often “thinks how valuable it will be to pass on seeds to the next generation that are specifically adapted to this area throughout its changes”.
Peas, beans, tomatoes, and capsicums are ideal veggies to start with when growing for seed as they only need one plant to produce viable seed. Peas and beans are easy because you can just leave pods on the plants until they go brown and dry, and just like that, there are seeds ready for the next growing cycle.
Emma-Kate’s advice for success includes:
Only save seed from healthy plants as seeds reproduce the traits they inherit from parent plants.
If you are saving peas or beans, tie a string around the strongest, healthiest plant, as a reminder of which plant to save from, so you don’t accidently eat your ‘future’ crop.
Store seed in a dry, somewhat dark space, and in paper envelopes. If moisture gets in, they will go mouldy.
Always label seeds, because you will forget what they are.
Growing for seed shows you a different part of the plant’s lifecycle than when you just grow for food. Emma-Kate has had Silverbeet grow taller than her as she has waited for the seeds to mature.
There are seed libraries all over town where you can share your seeds or find seeds from plants that have done well in a local garden. You can find a seed library near you here.
Ever thought about starting a crop swap?
The Valley Project has been running a crop swap on the last Sunday of the month from 3pm-4pm for the past five months. People bring things like excess vegetables / fruit, plant cuttings, preserves, jars, seedlings and seedling pottles, garden / cooking books and magazines etc. Claire, from the Valley Project has some advice for others wanting to start crop swaps in their communities:
People don't need to be market gardeners to participate! One or two things to share are plenty. You don’t even need to have a vege garden to join in – jars and containers are always in hot demand.
They have established a small organising team of volunteers to make sure there's always someone there to open up the room and facilitate the session.
Heidi starts the crop swap by asking everyone to introduce themselves and explain what they have to share. She sets the ground rule of first-time round, just take a small amount of what is on offer so everyone can have some. Then second time round, if there is still some left you can grab more.
Set a clear start time so everyone is there at the beginning and knows how things work.
Claire says the sense of connection and discovery is awesome. We're all learning new things from each other, discovering veges we've never heard of, learning about ways to make yoghurt or bread at home, how to prepare new kinds of food, or grow different things.
“I felt such a sense of love and connection for these people I’ve never even met because we had so much in common even though we never met before” Crop Swap participant.
Growers’ hui
Otago Organics with the support of Village Agrarians and Good Food Dunedin ran a local growers’ hui recently with a focus on how to grow a living from growing food. Sue and Ivan from OFN were among the 60 participants at the hui. They were both struck by how generous the existing growers are with sharing their knowledge and skills with those just starting out. While the growers talked about the joy and satisfaction they find with growing food, they also talked about the challenges of making a living from this.
Challenges included being time poor, the isolation they feel as a small grower and the limited good outlets for their produce. Some of the things that they felt would help would be a coordinating body to advocate for local food and represent their voices. There was a lot of discussion about how the community disconnect from food leads to people not understanding or valuing what is involved in growing healthy, fresh produce.
Angela Clifford from Eat NZ was the keynote speaker and commented on the rise of ultra processed food, with less than 50% of people buying fresh food in Aotearoa. Angela suggested several possible ways to build better food systems such as tax or rate rebates for local growers, local councils adopting a local food procurement policy, and the need for a national food strategy. She ended her session with a series of provocations to get the group talking. Sue’s favourite was “what if we finally connect food and health”?
There will be on-going work on establishing a coordinating body. It is a good time to be talking to council candidates about how local and regional councils can support more local growers growing for the local market. To find out more about the links between food and health in Aotearoa have a look at the Rebalancing the Food System report.
It’s election time!
Let’s find out what candidates think councils can do to support local food systems
Now that nominations have closed for the local body elections, OFN is going to be surveying the candidates on their views on how councils can support more food being grown here to feed local people in a way that nourishes growers, communities and the environment. We are posing two questions to council candidates.
1. Do you think it is important to have a strong local food system that supports wellbeing, is mana enhancing, improves environmental outcomes and community resilience?
2. What role do you think the City Council and / or the Regional Council have in a food strategy supporting a strong local food system?
We will post their responses on the OFN website as they come in. Let the candidates know that healthy, resilient communities need healthy, resilient food systems. The more they hear us talk about this, the more they might start asking what councils are doing already and what else councils can do to support growers and improve food security for everyone in our area.
A Snippet of local food history
The image below is of a farm in Dunedin in 1850.
The artist is looking from Forbury Hill. The farm was owned by early pākehā settler William Valpy. It was located in present-day Forbury/St. Clair in South Dunedin (then called “The Flat”) on cleared wetland. The harbour, Ōpoho, Signal Hill, Pine Hill/Mt Cargill, and Waverley are visible in the background.
The farm was built and run by human and animal labour.
Drawing by Ellen Penelope Jeffreys(1827-1904).Hocken Library Accession No: 7,764.From an article by Claire Bibby athttps://gardenhistoryresearchfoundation.com/2022/02/02/a-dunedin-garden-and-orchard-from-1850-1905/
Upcoming events
OFN Networking hui
26th August - 5.30pm at the Dunningham Suite, DCC City Library
Come and find out about how to set up a no-dig garden from Criag McGeady.
Join us for a cuppa and our AGM All welcome
Save the date
5th of October for Digging In! – Feeding Ōtepoti through the years
Join Toitū Otago Settlers Museum and OFN to celebrate the wonderful world of food! From 10am, take part in awesome family activities in the Josephine Foyer. Play “The World in a Lunchbox”, make a smoothie while riding a bike, make seed tapes and lots more. Then join us in the auditorium at 1pm for a special talk about the history of feeding the local community. We are going to hear about the Chinese market gardeners in South Dunedin, Harraway’s history and vegetable growing on the Taiari. Keep an eye out for more information over the next few months.
Upcoming working bees!
Buzz along to one of many local community garden working bees, help dig out some weeds, plant some vegetables, and watch nature grow!
Check out the calendar here!
If you would like to list an event, please get in touch!
Got a story or announcement to share? We'd love to hear from you!
Send us your updates, and we'll feature them on our social media, website, and in our newsletter.
Email us at: ourfoodnetwork@gmail.com
