Join us on a journey into soil - its formation, the diverse life within it, and how to look after and nurture this precious life-giving resource. More information can be found on our website.

Summer Raranga Sessions, Sunday 2nd March 12pm - 4:30pm

Te Motu Kairangi, with the support of Kaicycle, warmly extends an invitation for you to experience the joy of learning and refreshing your knowledge of flax weaving. No prior experience is necessary; we welcome participants of all skill levels. Basic weaving skills and weaving tikanga will be offered, providing an opportunity to share time, skills, and support with fellow enthusiasts. Connect with Māori arts and crafts as you learn and create together. More information here.

WCC Community Garden Open Day and Open Farms Open Day, Sunday 9 March 10am - 2:00pm

A chance for you to explore Wellington’s central city urban farm. We'll have staff onsite to show you around, or you are welcome to explore the māra and ask questions at your own speed. We will have official farm tours at 10am and 12noon and you are welcome to drop by anytime between 10am - 2pm. There will be a station where you can pot up a seedling to take back to your own garden and a do-it-yourself scavenger hunt for tamariki.

We are super pleased to offer yoga sessions at the farm on Thursday evenings in February - weather permitting. These will be skillfully led by Marcelly Ribeiro, a professional yoga instructor at Awhi Yoga. Bring your own mat and water bottle. Koha donation. Maximum of 12 participants. To book your spot email community@kaicycle.org.nz

Our volunteer sessions are at the same times: Tuesdays 10am-12pm, Thursdays 4pm-6pm, and Fridays from 10am-12pm. These are a great opportunity to be in nature, meet new people, do mahi māra, learn about regenerative horticulture and climate action! Please sign-up on our website here: https://kaicycle.org.nz/volunteer

Recently, as well as bed maintenance we’ve upgraded our hardening-off area for seedlings, extended the Pick-your-own bed and made a raised bed for asparagus. You can read more in this blog. A new project we’re getting underway, that we’d love some help with, is a rain water harvesting and storage system!

And we’re starting our autumn seed raising and planting, so it's a great time to get involved.

Farm Whānau. Whilst we no longer sell veggie boxes, you can get our organically grown, tasty produce by joining our Kaicycle Farm Whānau membership scheme. Being part of the Farm Whānau allows you to harvest seasonal veg at the farm (all the joy of harvesting without the hard work!) and invites you to exclusive events.

You can also get a bucket of compost, seedlings and awesome discounts and benefits from some of our business friends. Regular giving (as much or as little as you would like) helps us to deliver our outreach and education programmes, demonstrate regenerative horticulture, create a just and resilient local food system, and provide nutritious food to those in need. Please support us if you can. Check out all the information here: https://kaicycle.org.nz/farm-whanau.

Position on our governance group. The role of Secretary of the Kaicycle governance group is opening up. If you are interested in our strategic direction and governance, find out more by emailing hello@kaicycle.org.nz

Change in the team. We’ve farewelled Michael, who was Kaicycling with us for three years, now stepping down from regular cycling to focus on a very exciting music project. Watch out for his series of ensemble concerts coming to Pōneke later this year!

Coming back into weekly Kaicycling is Liam Dakin, our former longest-riding Kaicyclist who we are stoked to have back in the team!

Compost getting smelly in this amazing Pōneke summer weather? Here are some things you can do:

• Move your bucket out of direct sunlight, and into a cupboard if you have the space.

• If you’re doing fridge clearouts at the end of the week, consider shifting these to the day before your collection day (Wed/Thu), so dubious leftovers have less time to get more dubious…

• Avoid liquids going into your bucket, like the tail ends of coffee plungers.

• Keep the bucket lid clipped on properly: We find that the lids usually get left loosely sitting on top rather than clipped on. This is usually fine, but if smell is an issue, you could have a smaller benchtop caddy for people to add scraps to that gets emptied into the bucket a few times a week (and the lid clipped on tightly afterwards).

HotRot compost for sale! Over the last few months we’ve been carefully maturing compost from our HotRot operation, and we finally have plenty for sale!

How to buy:

• Fill out an order request form on our website. Collection is from our Rongotai Compost Hub or Kaicycle Urban Farm.

• Pick up a bag or three at our Community Open Days, on the first Saturday of the month at Kaicycle Urban Farm. No order request form needed!

Adding compost to your garden in summer is a way to help retain soil moisture during the warmer, drier weather. Good compost acts as a sponge, holding onto water when it’s scarce, while letting it pass through when it’s plentiful! Late summer is a good time to start prepping the garden for autumn and winter crops and replenishing nutrients used in spring and summer growth.

The summer abundance is still upon us - our zucchinis and cucumbers have had a truly bumper season, our tomatoes are ripe, and we look forward to harvesting our corn soon! Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the sun is setting earlier in the evening and we’re starting to transition our garden beds to their autumn and winter crops, or a nitrogen fixing cover crop where heavy feeders had been.

We’re pleased to say that we’ve had more volunteers than ever generously sharing their time and skills with us, and we’re stoked to have composting back on the menu at our Thursday evening volunteer sessions. Recently volunteers have helped us to upgrade the seedling hardening-off area, harvest oats and make a raised bed for asparagus.

If you’ve been to the farm recently, you might have noticed that many of the plants are going to seed. Fear not, this is not neglect but intentional. Seeding plants make a great talking point for school and education visitors and we can do seed saving activities with them and volunteers. We are saving and reusing more of our own seeds, to increase our self reliance on the farm.

We enjoy everyone’s company and time so are pleased to offer them some of the tasty produce of the māra. It also feels wonderful to donate masses of produce to the Newtown Community Centre’s meals and the Home of Compassion Soup Kitchen - sharing the aroha and nutritious fresh kai with those in need in our community.