Community Nursery Christmas Break- Up Friday 16 December 2022

Its been another challenging, but good year, for the Community Nursery and we will be celebrating its conclusion on Friday. So…. bring yourselves, some nice food and enjoy the festive atmosphere. There will also be some work as the Nursery never stops! On that note, and due to the dry spring/early summer if you can spare a few hours over the holidays to help with watering that would be appreciated. Let me know by email or on Friday. If you haven’t been to the Nursery for a while come along and re-connect on Friday – it always amazes me how popular volunteer Fridays remain after doing it for over 25 years! Last week I mentioned “living Christmas Trees” so give that some thought and take away a totara (which you can then plant out – Bushy Point or the Oreti Dune forest are a couple of locations if you haven’t got an area yourself). We are also reprinting the Community Nursery recipe book which makes a good stocking filler ($20) and includes sections on foraging etc which has become very popular. In the New Year Geoff Dembo will be running some full day “Permaculture Workshops” so if you are interested in these let me know and we will have a list of people to contact once we have decided on a date. Similarly for Foraging workshops. Come and get native plants for planting out over the holidays or seedlings to pot on – we have an abundance. There will also be an abundance of fruit and vegetables soon (or now) so bring along any spare plants for swaps on Friday and we will also have Sanguine Peach plants for sale ($5) – about the only peach variety to grow well in Southland and a great bonus for any orchard (see photos of the flowers and fruit).

If you are out and about in Nature over the holidays look out for orchids and other special native plants and birds nesting (I found my first tui nest with 2 fledglings only a few weeks ago after looking on our property for 25 years! and saw two tui juveniles this week). Check out seed collecting sites – seed is likely to be early this year due to the spring weather.

Thanks to all the volunteers who have helped out this year, we couldn’t do it without you!

See you Friday or if not have a happy and safe Christmas and see you in the New Year.

Chris