Kaicycle Pānui Hūrae | July Newsletter 🌱

Pānui Hūrae| July newsletter

Ahakoa he iti, he pounamu

Although it’s small, it’s a treasure

Kia ora koutou,

We hope you’re all keeping cosy as the Wellington Winter fully sets in! Things are getting a bit boggy down on the farm as all this water tries to follow it’s natural pathways - namely the awa that now flows in a pipe underneath our farm site. We’re really excited that the incredible Ellie Clayton has joined our team as Community Farm Manager, replacing the awesome Alice who is now focusing on her studies (though we know we’ll see her around!). Ellie has been working up the road at Te Whare Hapori o ngā Puna Waiora / Newtown Community Centre for the last 7 years, so has big love for Newtown, and has experience doing bush regeneration in Australia. She’s excited to get her hands in the dirt and meet you all!

The other big news is that Rose is heading off on a little OE at the end of this month - heading to Canada to visit whānau and then to Europe for some bikepacking and WWOOFing time. We can expect her back - tanned and with so many stories to tell - in October. While she’s skipping winter, the farm will be going into a slight hibernation mode because of the reduced capacity (as we ALL should over winter!). Volunteer sessions will be going ahead as normal, but we’ll be pausing team experiences and doing a limited number of workshops for now.

We’re really excited to have some funding from the wonderful Nikau Foundation for our educational experiences, so if you work with tamariki or rangatahi we’d love to book you in for a Kaicycle field trip in term 4.

As part of our Matariki reflecting, we’d really love to hear from our community (that’s you!) about what you value about Kaicycle and where you’d like to see us focus our energies! We’ve put together a short survey (5 mins max) and would really appreciate your input. You can fill out the survey using this link: bit.ly/kaicycle2025survey

Ngā manaakitanga,

The Kaicycle team

HUIHUINGA | EVENTS

Earthworkers Course

There are just a couple of spaces left on the 5-day intensive Earthworkers: Regenerative Horticulture 101 course coming up week after next. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn real practical ways of making the soil beneath our feet healthier, and part of the course is going to be hosted right here at Kaicycle! Check out the deets here and sign up if you’re able to.

A huge thanks to WCC for bringing this course to Te Whanganui a Tara as part of Te Anamata a kai our city food future strategy.

MAHI AROHA | VOLUNTEER

Could you be getting FREE TIME with your volunteering at Kaicycle?

Did you know that Kaicycle is a Wellington Timebank member? Timebanking is a community of people who share all their diverse skills for timecredits instead of money. So if you sign up as a Timebanker and come along to one of our two hour volunteer sessions, you’ll be able to get TWO HOURS of help from someone else on the Timebank. Could be fixing up your bike, making a cake or much much more. Check out the Timebank website here and sign up.

Volunteer sessions are running as usual, keep up to date with session times on the Volunteer page of our website.

PĀNUI | NOTICES

Save Our Seedlings!

Do you remember that intense code red southerly storm a couple of months ago? We certainly do, because it left a biiiiiig tunnelhouse shaped gap in our lives! The storm blew down one of the tunnelhouses we use for growing seedlings, and it was smashed up beyond repair. Acts of Tāwhirimātea were NOT in the budget for this year, so we would LOVE some help from our community to buy a new one. We know it’s a hard time at the moment, but if you can chip in a few bucks, it’d be much appreciated. Here’s our Givealittle.

Co-Shop Local Harvest

We - Rose and Ellie - have been heading down to the farm early every Thursday morning to harvest veggies which can then be picked up at the Newtown and Brooklyn hubs later that very day - you don’t get much fresher and local than that! Co-Shop is an awesome new initiative where small scale growers like Kaicycle are able to sell our veggies to YOU at cheaper-than-chips rates. You can order between Saturday - Monday and then pick up on a Thursday - an awesome way to get fresh local veggies and support your local farmers. Check it out at Coshop.nz

Survey - we would love your feedback!

We’ve set up a survey to get our community’s whakaaro about the mahi that Kaicycle is currently doing, and our future direction. We’d love to hear from you - whether you’re a regular volunteer, lunchbreak visitor, workshop attendee - or even if you just admire from afar. Fill in the survey here - it’ll only take ya a couple of minutes!

Book in your ākonga for a Term 4 farm field trip!

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. When you visit our farm, tamariki and rangatahi get the chance to learn about food production, challenge the way they think about food and what kinds of plants we eat, and think critically about the relationship of the food system to global issues such as freshwater pollution, climate change, and soil degradation. We offer ākonga a chance to connect with nature and the food system in a hands-on, solutions focused, and fun way that engages all the senses! Our experiences can be tailored to your rōpū and are suitable for preschool through high school ages. You can find out more and get in touch through our website.

MAHI PU WAIRAKAU | Composting

Subscribe to our compost drop-off hub

New spots have opened up at our food scrap drop-off hub in Newtown. Our head composter, Liam, recently salvaged a second-hand wheelie bin from Palmerston North (which he painstakingly rolled down by hand and by train to the farm!) meaning we now have increased capacity and are accepting new sign ups. Email us at compost@kaicycle.org.nz if you'd like to subscribe to drop-off up to 20 litres of your households' food scraps per week.

We're phasing out single-use plastics

Historically, Kaicycle provided single-use bin liners for the convenience our drop-off subscribers. While marketed as 'compostable plastic' and 'derived from plant-based materials' such as cornstarch, we found that these types of liners did not fully break down in our compost. Emerging research also points to some compostable liners being more toxic than traditional plastic liners - negatively impacting soil biology. Following survey feedback from 50 of our subscribers, Liam and Alex are currently working to provide options for subscribers to wash their buckets at the hubs, and trialling a bucket swap system at the Te Aro hub to help us move away from the liners.

ĒTAHI KAWE PŪRONGO | Other news

Mānawatia a matariki! It was so wonderful to celebrate Matariki with heaps of our community a couple of weeks ago - thanks to everyone who pitched in harvesting veggies and cooking up a delish soup, and to everyone who joined us to compost the things we wanted to leave behind in the old year, written on rangiora leaves. Ngā mihi o te tau hou ki a koutou.

TŪTAKI AI I TE TĪMA | Meet the Team

Meet Alex!

Alex Hawkins (they/them) joined the team 2 months ago replacing Kate Walmsley as "back-of-house" support for the composting arm of Kaicycle, helping with logistics and administration. If you've signed up to our food scrap collection/drop-off services, you'll probably hear from Alex from time to time. Get to know them in this interview!

Spring, summer, autumn, winter: tell us something you like to do in each season that is special to you.

In Raumati/Summer you can find me melting in the sun at Princess Bay, dancing at festivals or camping in my van. Ngahuru/Autumn is full of grounding activities: walks in the bush, foraging for mushrooms, playing board games, and of course heaps of soup and tea! In Hōtoke/Winter I tend to hibernate among blankets, and sometimes brave the outdoors for trips to the sauna or to collect pine cones/cabbage tree leaves as kindling for the fire. By Kōanga/Spring I can't wait to get outdoors! Swimming in the moana, practicing yoga in the fresh air or planting seedlings in the māra.

Your favourite food/recipe and why.

It sounds a bit basic but pizza is probably the food I crave most often. It's just so satisfying and comforting! Although, I can be very particular about the quality of the base... which has to be sourdough, of course. Perhaps I love it so much because it reminds me of my mum's homemade sourdough back in the UK. Usually I rotate between Med Foods, Bambina or Scopa to satisfy my pizza cravings.

What sound or noise do you love?

I live surrounded by bush so for me it's got to be waking up to the birdsong of kākā, tūī and the occasional roaring lion from Wellington Zoo.

What is your favorite word?

The Spanish word "extraño" is my favourite - I have it tattooed on my right arm! I think it's such a beautiful sounding and visually appealing word. It also has various meanings depending on the context. The most common translations are weird or strange, foreigner or stranger, and "te extraño" means I miss you. I was born in Chile, grew up in England, travelled/lived in Latin America for 2 years, and have now settled in Aotearoa (for as long as possible). For me, "extraño" encapsulates the complicated, multi-dimensional feelings of being on the move, feeling like a stranger in strange places, living away from home and simultaneously missing so many humans and places that make me who I am and connect me to my whakapapa.

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