I decided to shout Haare and myself to some nail therapy. Been about 4 years since I did this but she talks about stuff like this all the time and with a wedding for me tomorrow… and she’s going to a parent/child christian camp this weekend it was a spur of the moment idea that worked. We did this from 10-11.30 and it was fun, though I did nearly kick the girl in the head when she started to scrub my heels. Poor girl. I’m sure she was a little gutted when I took my socks off and she saw I had hooves. My feet get very little care and I ‘occasionally’ garden bare feet.
Next stop was *Naida, but everything was locked up and no sign of anyone so we left gloves and seeds on an outside chair and will pop in another day. Jo wasn’t able to get hold of the next three so basically a cold call for them.
*Taimani didn’t expect us but was delighted to see us again, (or I should say Haare) as her face lit up seeing her. She was so proud of her garden and its growth. You may not see clearly from the pics but it’s flourishing. She is partially deaf and hard to understand as well as English Second Language, but she was soo excited and showed us another garden bed made from an old pallet, and things are also flourishing in there. She then showed us some seedlings she had started, though she couldn’t remember what they were. I could see they were Bok Choy and sunflowers, and both were ready to plant out, so we discussed a spot that would be right for them. She was keen to show us her Bokashi Bin and it was just full. She had done everything perfectly and we talked about leaving for the 6-8 weeks sealed up and how to use it from there.
Makamae was next. This lady is also a sweetheart with English Second Language but her bokashi was excellent and the garden looked amazing. She also had a 2nd bed made from an old pallet. She firstly said Tricia had done it, but later said Tracy.
*Ailana is Makamae’s friend, but her giant of a son answered the door and despite me hearing what sounded like Ailana’s voice responding, he said she wasn’t home. I asked to have a look at her garden and the pic is below. Ailana was away when I delivered the seedlings, so I had left them with Makamae, (just across the road) and they are not as lush. It could be she left them in their seed raising trays for a week or two or hadn’t watered enough, but they are more stunted. She has placed water bottles in there presumably to keep cats or dogs off, (which doesn’t work), and she also had an extra pallet bed. I didn’t ask to see the bokashi bin. The son wasn’t very friendly. It is a definite disadvantage of me not being one of them, or at least from the community. Haare commented he was wary of me, but I said it doesn’t matter. I can only just be me…
I was super excited to see the gardens full of lush growth and hear their excitement as they are eating from there. We are starting to see these wonderfully positive results. It’s also very telling seeing the ‘just planted’ and ‘now’ just over 6 weeks later.
Something that is particularly exciting for me is Verity’s whanau enjoyed that first flush of growth so much that when she saw some newly built garden troughs down the road outside a house for dumping, they lugged them home and bought some fresh compost and filled it, transferring the seedlings to the new beds. She had come to the conclusion herself that being on the concrete wasn’t good as the bed was constantly dried out. She also noticed the huge amount of mulch in the bed as they moved the old bed onto the grass and didn’t think this could be good. We discussed this at my second visit which was done by ph in the end as she wasn’t home when I called. They plan to get more compost and plant Taro in this bed. This is not only incredible learning but an investment of their own energy and money into setting up new beds. SO an investment in their food security! It gives me goose bumps thinking of the difference this has made to their lives and their future.
Anyway, from my foot spa treatment…. to these wonderful results, it was a particularly amazing day for me!
Rākau Tautoko 