Welcome Waitakere Families.

[Thanks Waitakere for a action packed 4 days completing 80 family gardens. The introduction of 'accelerated workshops' got the BIG thumbs up from many and with that we will introduce some more new ideas into our next challenge installement 😀]

Come and TEAM garden build with us to prepare your backyard for 2017/18 spring - summer planting and ongoing harvests.
This is a huge TEAM build and we hope all registered families can work with us to make this happen - thanks .
A lot to read but jam packed with info to get us started and you guys off on the right track .

If growing healthy nutritious organic vegetables is something you want to time invest in with your growing family, then 50 - 100 families living in Swanson, Ranui, Henderson, Massey, and West Harbour have the opportunity to do so in this years MBGP Waitakere Challenge.

Back in March of this year we successfully teamed up with our Rotorua gardening friends and built 66 gardens in just over 1 week.
Healthy Families Waitakere [Michele Eickstaedt - Nutritionist] provided some voluntary support helping out on Saturday with the last of our family builds. Very shortly after arrival home MBGP sat down with Healthy Families Waitakere and mapped out what we are sharing with you now.
This exciting new format oozes challenge for families who want to connect with growing healthy vegetables from now on!

MBGP Waitakere TEAM Challenge
The goal in 1 week or less for MBGP WTC is to build and complete 100 FREE gardens, planted out by families and inclusive of a 2 bin compost system. Approximate price of completed garden $160 [don't forget you are getting them FREE].
Every registered family is an automatic 'team member' who will join our MBGP crew. As a 'team member' you will get the opportunity of accelerated learning [knowledge and skill sharing] with compulsory protein packed workshops and contribute as best you can as in our BIG Team to fast forward the project with soil/compost and compost bin delivery - many hands make light work.

MBGP is made up of a core group of volunteers who work incredibily hard serving the community. It is a passion to help others. We know that 'many hands make light work' and sincerly hope that registered families will learn and work with us with our workshops, delivery of soil, and compost bins.

118 family, whanau, community, and kindergarten gardens the TEAM have built in just over one year from Waitakere to Rotorua all in an effort to get families connected with growing healthy vegetables. All we ask is that you support our good will, co-operate with our working bee format explained below, and be a part of our exciting green thumbed journey together 😀

Working Bee format from Day 1 - Day 7
working bees

Days 1 & 2 - Thursday 6th - Friday 7th of July 2017 raised garden boxes will be delivered to all registered families. Raised gardens will be pegged and nailed in place ready for you to place your layers of old newspaper and cardboard in. One of the MBGP team members will call you one week out to confirm you still want your garden and inform what day we are going to be in your area subject to the interactive map we provide. See 'On the map' on the navbar above.
Raised garden boxes will only be delivered and placed on these two days so your co-operation is required. You don't have to be there when we do this, its less than a 15 minute operation. We've found in the past if you leave milk bottles filled with water and placed on your lawn, this will inform us where to place your garden. Click image below to view your 2 raised garden boxes to be delivered and pegged/nailed in place.

Here is how families have marked out where there garden is going for us - click bottles | markers

Families please make sure this is doable for us. This step has to be done before topsoil is delivered. We won't be installing any gardens when topsoil delivery starts. Please let us know if you have dogs loose in the vicinity of where your garden is going that could offset our going onto your property.

There is every possibility that a TEAM of volunteers will start delivering compost bins on Friday. We will inform on Facebook if this is to be.
Days 3 & 4 - Saturday 8th July and Sunday 9th July 2017
Venue: Ranui Community Garden.
Who attends: 1 x family member minimum from 50 registered families [or designated family member or friend].
Start/Finish time: 0900-1200
Health & Safety: There will be a site induction for all attending. H&S in the workplace is something we are all responsible for.
What to bring: Dress warmly with long pants, long sleeved clothing. Bring a coat just in case we have the odd shower. Boots or shoes to wear is compulsory for gardening.
Book your spot: We will place 2 event ads on our Facebook Group page. Please book your spot so as not to miss out.

Workshops: We request your presence to attend each of the great workshops explained below. Workshops are made up of presentations, demonstrations, and good ole kiwi attitude of 'giving it a go' with the main aim of empowerment through shared knowledge and skills. What you learn from our workshops you will be able to apply immediately in everyday life especially for your garden.
There is a theme with gardening that being the role it plays in 'waste minimisation'. You will get to share your thoughts on this 😀
It is super important to attend one of these 2 planned morning workshops. Despite all the good intentions of wanting a garden, if you show no interest in the educational/work aspects that we'll be covering then we'd rather see gardens go to families who will put in the effort to learn and work with us [TEAM].

Workshop A [17 attend]
- Love Food Hate Waste presentation with Lucy Pierpoint. Jam packed with 'make sense information' and things to take home to put to good use.
Workshop B [17 attend]
- Demonstration of how to make compost and lasagna gardens with Therese Mangos [Pacific Vision Aotearoa] and Buffie Mawhinney. Kerbside waste accounts for 40-50% green and food waste. Lets learn how to use it as organic rocket fuel for your garden 😀
  Each family will be issued with 2 x 40 litre bags of compost to take home to use as an activator or mix with your growing compound before planting.
  
  The Lasagna Garden Challenge is a new for this intake and is a successful form of gardening that has been around for many years. It has a tremendous waste minimisation theme.
  Please read more about Mitre10 MEGA Henderson Lasagna Garden Challenge via Challenges on the navbar above.
  There is a link at the bottom of this page on Lasagna Gardening - see 'Great web pages to visit'
Workshop C [16 attend]
- Plant your seedlings demonstration with Buffie Mawhinney from Ranui Community Garden. Be prepared to get your hands a bit dirty 😀 Each family takes home 2 punnets of Mitre10 Mega seedlings for their own garden.
At workshop completion light refreshments will be available and opportunity to network.
Please choose and book your spot below to attend.

Where is Ranui or Massey Community Garden?

Delivery of topsoil - run simultaneously to workshops above
Start/finish - 0800-1730
- When the workshops are being held a crew of volunteers will be out delivering topsoil and compost bins to families. The aim with 4 trailers, 3-4 volunteers per trailer is to fill 30-50 gardens per day.
- All families not attending a Saturday workshop are encouraged to help out with topsoil and compost bin delivery. This is repeated in kind when Saturday families help on Sunday with delivery duties.
- Not only are we following the 'many hands make light work' principle [TEAM] but we really want families/individuals to feel what it is like to contribute back to communities in a BIG positive way.
For the fitness keen, Abha and Brent vs Naomi and her crew of women with a trailer each would complete about 10 gardens per day. Their effort was sizeable for they had to hand dig and soil fill their 1m³ trailers, fill 2 x 200 litre barrels with mulch before setting off to do 2 houses at a time. Now we can do upwards of 25+ in a day with fit and able volunteers 😀

Great news for soil delivery: Bryan Hunter from Western Recycling on Bruce McLaren Road is providing 5m³ truck and driver for a day to help us out.
Click images below to enlarge - thanks Bryan!

Families please make sure that soil/compost delivery is doable for us. There will be NO special trips to accommodate if we place your garden either Thur-Fri and can't place soil from Saturday 10th June onwards when we are in your area as defined by our map. Momentum is key here and just because it is FREE, please don't abuse our combined community good will.

What you will be receiving garden wise, where to place etc.

Raised garden sizes will be approximately 1.2m long x 0.8 wide x 200mm. Each family receives 2 of these garden boxes. One garden box will be filled with topsoil/compost and the other garden box will be used for your Lasagna Garden Challenge. All families will receive 12 minimum seedlings to be planted.
A 2 bin compost system is optional for all. We 100% recommend all families to get a 2 bin system. It will save you money in the long run. Organic nutrition is a vital component for your garden soil structure and the food scraps, lawn clippings, autumn leaves, cardboard/paper, coffee grounds, manures etc collected are super ingredients that work towards enhancing your soil.

Families own their raised garden boxes and compost bins outright once placed. In the event that you move or are evicted it is the families responsibility to remove the above items if requested.
Where to place your garden? Vegetables have an appetite for sun in order to grow well. How your garden is placed relative to how the sun tracks over your property bears in mind plant shade. Please view these next pictures to decide placement of your raised garden beds - click here
Please place water bottles [or markers] as shown in the pictures that identify how you want your garden placed in your backyard so our MBGP crew knows... thank-you. To view bottles | markers
Where to place your and compost bin? In a place that will get plenty of sun even if it is up against a fence. Please place 1 water filled bottle in your backyard where you want your compost bins placed.
It would also be really great if you mow the grass as low as possible where your garden and compost bin will be placed before we come - thanks!!

Placement of these bottles means with your permission our 'working bee' garden crews knows exactly where to place your garden and compost bins ☺

Days 5,6,7 - Monday 10th - Wednesday 12th July 2017
Subject to how many gardens are filled with topsoil/compost on the weekend, these 3 days have been catered for to finish.

This super effort can be summed up use of the graphic below. Super BIG thanks to all who can help to make this happen... and welcome to our...
team

Day 8 - Saturday 15th July 2017. Shared celebration meal.

Start time: 6pm
Venue(s): TBC

With the hard work over, all of your seedlings planted, this is a perfect way to get together and celebrate what's been achieved. This is a warm invite to all families, volunteers, funders, sponsors to bring a plate and celebrate with us all.

We know that this will be the start of a 'green thumbed journey for many'. One with which 'hand on heart benefits' your family with time continuum harvests from now on.
See you on the night - MBGP Team

What does NFii, SWYS and BGGF stand for?
In context to what we are trying to achieve with building Rotorua family gardens each of the acronyms above work in partnership with each other.

Click here

Friendlies on the ground
The definition of the above is if you like what we're about please share us with family and friends inclusive of those who are business bosses who may want to positively join us all as well. You can share us using the icons on the left of your monitor/device... BIG thanks ☺

We'd love to repeat what we're doing in a few other cities like Hamilton and Tauranga so every little bit counts.

Gardening is about networking with families and community and just doing it and making it happen!

We grow for:

health and nutrition > love sharing healthy nutritious organic vegetables > fitness > improving soil nutrition > reducing landfill by using recycled materials - negative carbon footprint > we love to share skills and knowledge... especially with youngsters > it's an essential life skill that many overlook its merits - dependency on fruit and vege store (produce laced with residue chemicals) > network building a vibrant vege gardening community > green thumb sense of organic achievement > we like to have our hands in Mother Earth
wordle interpretation - click here

Like our gardens this website will change with content.