Pānui Ākuhata|
August newsletter

E iti noa ana nā te aroha

A small thing, given with love

Kia ora koutou,

Ellie here - I’ve been loving these fresh, clear frosty mornings! We do our CoShop harvest on a Thursday morning and there have been some sunny mornings where my fingers are FROZEN once we’ve finished bundling up everything for sale (you can get your hands on our veggies by ordering through CoShop.nz - orders are open Saturday through Monday!) - but despite the chilly hands, I do love the bite of the cold air. 

Our seedlings on the other hand do NOT like the frost. You might have heard that a few months ago, we lost one of our tunnelhouses to the southerly storm - we’ve had to buy a new one, and would really appreciate your help if you’re able to chip in to the cost. To be able to give veggies away to the community, we NEED to be able to grow from seed (rather than buying expensive seedlings). To grow from seed, we NEED a replacement tunnelhouse. Please donate now if you can. Huge mihi to everyone who has donated so far, and to Grassroots Trust who have granted us $3,000 towards the costs - but we’re still way short, and seed sowing season is almost upon us!!! 

The composting team have been busy closing down a project in a warehouse in Rongotai that originally attempted to upscale our composting capabilities but, sadly, things didn’t go quite as planned. We’ve been looking for a replacement tenant since March, with no luck. It’s reaching crunch time, so we’re sending out a *final plea* to please reach out to anyone who might be interested in renting warehouse space and/or a small office in Pōneke.

Ngā manaakitanga,

The Kaicycle team

We’re turning 10!

We’re going to be celebrating our 10 year anniversary later this year and we’d love you to join us on Sunday 16th November. You can expect cake, music and history of the farm - all on a lovely sunny day at the māra (we’re starting the sun-manifesting process early). 

PĀNUI | NOTICES

Tell your kids’ schools - free visits to Kaicycle on offer in term 4! 

Want your kids to have the chance to visit Kaicycle and learn heaps about all things growing and more?? Thanks to some generous funding from the Nikau Foundation we are able to offer a limited number of Kaicycle Educational Experiences FREE of charge until May next year. We’ll be taking bookings from term 4 so get in quick to secure a spot. From preschool to highschool, we’ve got hands on, fun learning experiences for tamariki and rangatahi of all ages. Find out more and get in touch through our website.

MAHI PU WAIRAKAU | Composting

Can't compost your food scraps at home (or don't have the time or know-how)?

We’ll gladly take your food scraps to make into gorgeous living compost. We have space available at our Newtown and Te Aro food scraps drop-off hubs - check out our website for more info and to sign up!

We're also looking into setting up food scraps drop-off options in the Eastern Suburbs of Te Whanganui a Tara - we just need to get a few things lined up. If you live in the wonderful Eastern suburbs, join our waitlist and be first to know when we've got something going!

Haere rā to our beloved HotRot machine

Kaicycle bought the HotRot nearly 3 years ago as a heroic attempt to upscale the volumes of food scraps we could process in Pōneke. Sadly, for various reasons, the HotRot wasn’t quite suited to Kaicycle’s needs and we decided to close down the project (explained in this blog post). It was a sombre moment watching the machine loaded up onto the relocation truck, causing some Kaicycle onlookers to tear up. But we couldn’t be more happy that she’s in safe hands and will be used to set up a localised composting system on Waiheke Island (reducing the amount of waste needing to be ferried across to Tāmaki Makaurau and sent to landfill!) Thanks to everyone for their mahi and support along the way - especially our staff, volunteers and funders, Wellington City Council, Clare Foundation and Wellington Airport.

Get your hands on some of our beautiful living compost

Did you know that we have some lovingly crafted living compost for sale? See our website for more info and to place an order. Despite having said goodbye to our HotRot machine, we have a fair bit of premium HotRot compost left. Get in before it runs out! We’ll also soon have our compost available for purchase through Co-shop - watch this space.

Wellington City Council makes big decision on organics processing for the city

On Thursday 7 August, WCC agreed to progress with the next stage of establishing an organics processing facility (e.g a big composting plant, worm farm or biodigester) to deal with Pōneke residents’ food scraps and green waste (that will start being collected in 2027/28). They decided the best option (mainly because of cost) would be to contract an external provider - someone who would build a facility somewhere in the lower North Island to take organics from a few different districts including ours. We (and sounds like even many Councillors) would have much preferred to have us build our own facility here in Te Whanganui a Tara, but at least something is happening which means Wellington can continue implementing its Zero Waste Strategy. You can read more of the nitty gritty details of the Council's decision here. 

We at Kaicycle are still super keen to see composting continue and grow in the city, and there will certainly be a need for it. The new organics collection service won't cover the central city, big apartment blocks, businesses, institutions and narrow and steep streets where wheelie bin collections aren't viable. We are keen to play our part in ensuring everyone in Pōneke has an option to compost their food scraps, growing our community's food and climate resilience, and helping to restore and regenerate our urban soils. 

TŪTAKI AI I TE TĪMA | Meet the Team

Meet Ellie!

Ellie Clayton (she/her) is the new co-Farm Manager alongside Rose! She’s Tangata Tiriti - born in Australia, grew up in the UK and moved to Aotearoa 10 years ago. She’s been in the job for a couple of months - having worked in community mahi and bush regeneration - and is super stoked to be part of Kaicycle. She’d like to be in the ocean right now.   

What’s something about working on the Kaicycle Farm that brings you joy?

Being outside and getting my hands in the soil brings me so much joy, especially when it’s alongside our awesome volunteers - I love having a kōrero while we’re all out weeding or planting! I also feel super stoked that this mahi is making the soil healthier and that we’re able to feed some awesome people - I’m always excited that some of our kai goes to the Newtown Community Centre for their Free Soup Friday, so lots of my friends and community get to eat the kai I’ve helped grow - PROUD! Soup Fridays are at 1pm every Friday and everyone is welcome - it just so happens to be after our vollie session, so what a perfect combo - grow the veg, then eat the veg. 

What are 3 things you find useful to spend time doing?

• Getting in the ocean - this is so useful for my brain and body - I’m looking forward to summer when it’s a bit warmer and I can handle going snorkelling again, but for now it’s just the occasional chilly dip!! I also feel super useful volunteering for Mountains to Sea Wellington on their community snorkel days  - it’s particularly special getting into the water with tamariki who haven’t seen the wonders of what’s happening under the surface of the water before - cos it’s COOL down there!!  

• Catching up with my friends - this is SO USEFUL! Pretty much every time, we solve every single one of the world’s problems. Not sure why those pesky problems are still hanging around, but we’re just the ideas people I guess. 

• Reading - I’ve long since decided that non-fiction just isn’t for me, but I love to learn through reading fiction. Last month I read Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton, which is about an urban farm…hoping it’s not too true to life though as it gets VERY dark! Another recent highlight was A Piece of Red Cloth, which is about Te Whenua Moemoeā / Australia, pre-European colonisation. It gave me a glimpse of a totally different way of thinking about the whenua and how we interact with it. 

What sound or noise do you love?

Well, I love biking around Te Whanganui-a-Tara while listening to music on my little bluetooth speaker - so one sound I love is the combination of the cycleway under my tyres and whatever track I’m listening to that day (sprinkle in a bit of my singing on the top haha). Chase Woods - Maiden Speech comes up a lot on the rotation at the moment. 

What is your favorite word?
‘Yallah’ is one of my favourite words - it’s Arabic for many things - let’s go, hurry up, okay, come on and more - I learned it while I was in Palestine in 2012 and I’m trying to refresh my very very rusty Arabic this year (though the duolingo owl is the bane of my life). ‘Yallah’ reminds me of harvesting olives, solidarity and steadfastness.

A reminder that we are a registered charity!

This means that when you donate $5 or more to support us, you can claim tax credentials.