Reflection on the year

Reflection on the year - Date: 27/06/2024

One year is only a short period in the story of an organic production system, however each action , input and piece of learning can be seen as building blocks for the future. It is good to look back and reflect on the year, it helps provide the basis of plans going forward and acts as a guide when making choices in following years.

This is your chance to reflect on the year on your site. It can include your personal thoughts, observations and insights. Record what you have learned, how your thoughts may have changed. Look at where you may go in the future and how what you have discovered throughout the year, may be of help. Use links, photographs, references where necessary.

THANK YOU! - Acknowledgements

Ngā mihi maioha and heartfelt thank you's to everyone involved in my studies and project. It has been a joy to have you along with the process and all your help has been so deeply appreciated. I have learnt so much across a year in the world of polycultures, organics and growing systems. I am excited for the future of horticulture as we navigate an ever changing world and diversity projects give me hope for restoring our whenua. I look forward to carrying this knowledge with me into a bright career and connecting with more people sharing wisdom and ways forward for a robust and accessible health food system. Here's to the future of kai here in Taranaki - tautoko!

Thank you so much!: Carl Freeman (Tutor) Jordan Millen (Fellow Student and Friend) Level 3 Horticulture students for their super helpful mahi, Ostler's Garden Trust and Parininihi ki Waitotara for their support annd generous scholarships awarded, WITT + Te Pūkenga for providing high quality educational systems, For the Love of Bees team for their incredible Earthworks course and amazing work they do in this space, Ryan Williams, Penny Williams, Michael Williams, Kelly Hemingway for being awesome humans and fantastic veggie pickers and salad spinners ;), last but not least papatūānuku and our beautiful planet - Kia ora 💚

"Nāku te rourou, nāu te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi"
- Māori proverb

"With my food basket and your food basket, the people will thrive"

UPDATE! REVISITING THE MĀRA - KŌANGA, September 2024

Biodiversity thriving on neglect - This garden has not been touched since completing the course in June 2024. Over 3 months later, the winter crops have come to fruition and the garden continues to wildly thrive!

GO POLYCULTURES!!!

The patch continues to stand as a living testament to the success and thriving ecosystem that multispecies and biodiverse polycropping creates. The garden continued to thrive, produce health kai and strong plants, as well as provide an oasis for life above and below soil, even when nothing else was done after planting 3 months prior. Minimal signs or disease or distress, as well as minimal pest and weed pressure. It is a lesson in nature that I will hold close and take with me throughout the rest of my life on a personal and spiritual level but also one that will guide my interactions with the earth and gardening forever.

I love that this experiment in dense planting and diversity based gardening, even in it's early stages proved it's efficacy and worth ten fold. I look forward to continuing this exploration as I move throughout my career with plants, gardening and horticulture and look forward to the many biodiverse oppportunities it opens up along the way.

It is with a grateful heart that I leave behind a small legacy at the WITT māra, along with all those who helped me in the pursuits of diverse food spaces, to show future horticulture cohorts, WITT and Te Henui students and residents, those who see this portfolio or similar work by polycropping pioneers, how a small space can be turned into a blossoming oasis of biodiversity and healthy food that is giving back to the earth, the whenua in the process. If even one person can seek inspiration and a snippet of hope from this project, the ripple effect will continue to grow, akin to hyphae of micorrhizal fungi, creating a network of earth workers, committed to kaitiakitanga and our restoration and care of our land and Papatūānuku.

Te hei mauri ora 💚

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