NZTCA Franklin Branch Sep 2016 Newsletter

NEW ZEALAND TREE CROPS ASSOCIATION FRANKLIN BRANCH NEWSLETTER

In this edition...

Volume 37, Issue 5 - September, 2016

Resources at grafting workshop

Forthcoming events...

Sunday 25th September 2016 Franklin Food Forest practicum: building an insectary

Selecting root stock

BBBs at the FFF

Franklin Food Forest practicum Building an Insectary

Saturday 29th October 2016 Field trip: Changing circumstance for an iconic property

Saturday 26th November 2016 Field trip: Franklin Treecroppers’ Christmas Do in a glorious Garden

Reminder All TCA members are welcome at other meetings so look at the web site to see Events coming up www.treecrops.org.nz Articles appearing in this newsletter may be reproduced in whole or in part provided that credit is given to the Franklin Branch of the NZ Tree Crops Association and the Author.

TCA Branch Newsletters

Each area Newsletter Editor receives a copy of the other branches Newsletters by email. If you are interested in getting these forwarded to you, please let me know at franklin@treecrops.org.nz

Welcome to New Members: Bronwyn Hunt (Auckland) Cathy Kenkel (Pukekohe) Karyn & Daniel Pilling (Pukekohe) Petra Simpson (Takanini) Justin Robbins (Pukekohe)

Sunday September 25th 2016, 1.30 - 3:30 pm at the Franklin Food Forest, Pukekohe High School orchard (entry off Glasgow Road). Free entry.

Encouraging beneficial insects in to the orchard is an artful alternative to the use of various poisoning ‘cides’.

The art in this permaculture approach, is not only in providing the habitat for those beneficials, but also in creating the structure.

So do come and help us build an insectary or two at the Franklin Food Forest. Bring the materials to give expression to your artistry and stuff the insectary with - bamboo, breeze blocks, clay tiles, branches, hay, etc.

Changing Circumstances on an Iconic property

Saturday 29th October 2016, 1:30 to 3:30 pm 60 Kauri Road on the Awhitu Peninsula.

Previously known as Earthtalk, this property has changed hands and is now the home of Alison Brown and Steve Harsnape. What do new owners do with the property when their interests, values, skills and knowledge are so different from the previous owners of this iconic lifestyle block?

Franklin Treecroppers’ Christmas Do

Saturday November 26th 2016, 12 noon at Leigh and Brad’s garden showpiece at 58 Puketutu Road, Bombay.

Please join us for a relaxed tour of this glorious garden that is to feature in this year’s Franklin Hospice Garden Ramble.

Bring a Christmas plate for a shared afternoon tea, something to sit on and a story or two of your 2016 year and some ideas for activities in 2017.

Yacon growing in the Franklin Food Forest

After 2 years of producing our bimonthly newsletter, John is leaving us to focus more time on the food forest.

Franklin TreeCroppers TCA Franklin newsletter

So a new editor we need. The skills required include writing, editing, photography and typesetting.

Letter from the Chair

Able to help?

Contact Raewyn on 09 292 5051

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A very well attended grafting workshop again this year with all 100 apple rootstock and 50 pear rootstock sold and grafted by our members. A very big thank you to Sandy Cooper for his knowledge and instructions on grafting.

GRAN’S SULTANA CAKE RECIPE

Sandy also offered us some very rare scion wood from 3 varieties of apple he is developing, so to those that managed to graft that wood we look forward to hearing how it goes in the future. If anyone has a particular kind of fruit tree that they would like to see in our grafting workshop please let a committee member know and we will see how doable it is. In the future we are looking into grafting avocado & persimmon. Obtaining the rootstock for this is not easy but we will keep trying.

500 grams sultanas 225 grams butter 3 eggs 1 ½ c sugar 2 ½c flour 1 tsp baking powder Lemon essence

September, 2016

For those of you who enjoyed the Sultana cake at this workshop, I have put the recipe in this newsletter.

Isomate 4Play. There are still a few sticks available.

Contact Raewyn if you would like some, $1 each. These can be posted if required. Ph: 09 292 5051 e: rjarkie@ gmail.com Ted Lever has reported a great result from using Isomate 4play in a very old pear tree. The first year using Isomate he had a zero result with codling moth in nearly every pear, but the second year of using Isomate he has fruit 70%-80% free of codling moth. So, for those of you who had thought it was a bit useless try again for another season and see how it goes.

Ingredients:

Method: Just cover the sultanas with water and boil 5 minutes. Strain, add 225 grams butter.

Beat eggs, add sugar, and beat until thickened.

Sift flour & baking powder. Add ½ sifted dry ingredients in with the eggs & sugar, add essence, add hot buttered fruit & mix.

Add remaining dry ingredients.

Bake 1 ¼ hours at 175 deg C.

Raewyn Jarkiewicz -------At Conference 2016, the NZTCA appointed a Research coordinator who’s job is to, well, coordinate research trials. We’d like to get a trial or two underway in Franklin, so get your ideas for a beneficial research project to me.

Biofuel crop trial anyone? Miscanthus? Hemp sounds interesting.., There’s so much we could do.

Sandy Cooper offers advice to Raewyn on pruning a dual-grafted apple tree at the FFF

Year 1 of the Franklin Food Forest Today (September 15th) is the first anniversary of the commencement of plantings at the food forest. Such a long way in a short twelve months has the project come as this potpourri of pics shows.

Franklin TreeCroppers

There is no one project that Tree Croppers have undertaken, that epitomises the Objects of the NZ Tree Crops Assoc more than this.

Just a few existing trees populate the urban area in Sep 2015

The composting workshop

TCA Franklin newsletter

There a year ago planting trees, and still with us today.

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We’ve had our first Harvest Festival

Pukekohe High School students got themselves involved

Lifestylers Food Forest

From one of the earliest crops

Growers Food Forest

to the first product...

The biomass belt has sprouted

Shelterbelt Food Forest

September, 2016

The Hugelkultur bed is now in flower

So many metres of mulch to be spread and so beneficial it has proven to be.

Franklin TreeCroppers TCA Franklin newsletter

Field trip report

Franklin Grafting Workshop 2016 20 August 2016, held at Ian Laings property.

This was again well attended and many new faces, some visiting from out of the Franklin area. Sandy Cooper again brought along a large variety of scion wood, as did many members. Plenty of spare wood to practice grafting on before choosing which variety to graft and take home.

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There were inter stock pear and apple rootstock. They all sold out, some taking just 1 and some up to 20, all depending on how much land there was yet to fill back home!

September, 2016

This is always a great workshop, some members also able to take home the left over scion wood to graft onto trees already growing and increase the variety at home of types not easily found.

We also had a belated birthday congratulation for Ian Laing, celebrating his 80th. We forgot to take a photo, too busy eating the cake that Raewyn made.

Heather Douglas

Above: The grafting workshop information board

Right: Greg with his version of the “Tree of 40 Fruits�

Field trip reports

Training & Pruning Young Trees

For the first time in my experience with Tree Crops we cancelled a workshop because of inclement weather.

So here’s a run down on Stefan’s approach (an extract of an article in the September edition of Tree Cropper).

Stefan’s first pruning step is to maintain a ‘chimney’ around the tree’s trunk. This is an area in which laterals are cleared of all growth for a distance of around 150mm from the trunk.

This chimney method was developed by the French author Jean-marie Lespinasse and is described in his book Growing Fruit Trees: Novel Concepts And Practices For Successful Care And Management (available on Amazon and at Fishpond). This technique allows better air and light circulation into the core of the tree which yields better fruit quality and reduces disease. It also makes it easier to see what branches, if any, need to be removed.

The second pruning step is to keep only 12-14 branches on the trunk. In deciding which branches to retain or remove, Stefan follows the LBL principle - remove Low branches, Big branches and in Line branches.

Stefan sizing his ‘chimney’ in the core of the tree (a 150mm column in which all buds on laterals are removed) and the training to get branches at the horizontal.

In-Line means branches that are aligned along or at a right angle to the row. Removing them maintains an X pattern for easier access at harvest time.

This sounds like a simple approach and in orchards where I have used it, the chimney + LBL method is simple.

John Allen

Franklin Food Forest practicum Build a Bird Nesting Box

Held on Saturday August 13th at the Franklin Food Forest.

Birds are an essential part of the permaculture orchard so here was the opportunity to build a bird nesting box for your own orchard.

There are a few of these easy to assemble bird boxes left @ $20 kitset, $25 ready-assembled. All proceeds go to the food forest project.

Lifestyle Block magazine have kindly given us permission to print copies of their August 2016 special feature on “The Birds in your Garden”. One free with every birdbox.

John Allen

Lois’ big smile says how pleased she is to have made her own

September, 2016

Pruning out Big branches with a diameter greater than half the diameter of the trunk will reduce competition for nutrients within the tree.

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Why? Branches Lower than 1.2m may bend to touch the ground when laden with fruit, so removing them will reduce fruit losses to animals or decay.

TCA Franklin newsletter

Sunday July 31st was to be an opportunity to prune and train young trees (2-year olds) at Graham Wheeler’s property. The workshop would have included a look at the approach of Stefan Sobkowiak (aka The Permaculture Orchardist).

Franklin TreeCroppers

Franklin TreeCroppers

Field Day driving directions.

FFF Practicum Sunday 25th September, 1.30 pm Franklin Food Forest. Pukekohe High School orchard

TCA Franklin newsletter

Franklin Branch Committee Queen Bee: Raewyn Jarkiewicz 09 292 5051 Email rjarkie@gmail.com Honey Bee Secretary Dianne Smith dismith@xtra.co.nz 09 238 7996 Honey Treasurer: Ian Laing Ph 09 236 3796

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Hive Vice Chair Heather Douglas Ph 09 232 1103 Email heather.douglas12@gmail.com

September, 2016

Bee Chatter Editor Vacant

Hive Coordinator Stephanie Coles 09 236 3554 rosscoles@xtra.co.nz

Changing Circumstances on an Iconic property

Saturday 29th October 2016, 1:30 to 3:30 pm The ex-Earthtalk property at 60 Kauri Road on the Awhitu Peninsula

Honey Gatherer Convener: Stephanie Coles 09 236 3554 rosscoles@xtra.co.nz Worker Bees: Graham Wheeler 09 239 1177 graham@thewheelers.co.nz Greg Quaife 022 310 2807 gregquaife@xtra.co.nz The date on your NZTCA newsletter label shows the renewal date of your membership.

To log on to the membership section of the web site http://treecrops.org.nz, you will need your membership number which is also given on the newsletter label.

Franklin Branch Christmas do Saturday November 26th 2016, 12 noon at Leigh and Brad’s place 58 Puketutu Road, Bombay. Don’t forget shared treats for afternoon tea.

SAFETY DECLARATION. For the purpose of Field Days, the properties we visit are designated as work places. As there are multiple hazards, please take particular care.

Parents are responsible for their children.

Fr a n k l i n T r ee C rop p ers Not ic e s Can you help?

Buy Se ll & Swap

Franklin TreeCroppers To ad ve rt is eh C o n ta ct H ea er e, fr ee to m em b er s, th er D o u g la s at H ea th er @ co ld o u co ld o u g .c o

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We are planning a couple of small scale permaculture projects to complement the food forest areas. They will be part of the learning and demonstration features.

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TCA Franklin newsletter

Used food-g rade 20 litre buckets - $5 contact Hea each ther at H ea th er @

One is a herb spiral.

The other is a keyhole garden

If you have some stone (Auckland bluestone would be great) or scoria, please call John on 021 46 36 86 or email franklin@treecrops.org.nz.

Many thanks.

Member web sites:

Do you have a Web site that we can put a link to on the Newsletter? Please email us and we can add it on the next Newsletter. Include a short note on what the web site is about. https://www.facebook.com/ groups/treescrops/ https://www.facebook.com/ groups/FranklinFoodForest/ RuralConnect.org.nz Assisting rural people and businesses in the broadband society

September, 2016

These use quarry rock to create the form which will cover an area of around 10 square metres.

In this edition...

NEW ZEALAND TREE CROPS

Field reports on: the grafting workshop

FRANKLIN BRANCH

the BBB at the FFF Advice of Field Days in September, Oct, Nov One year of the Franklin Food Forest update

NEW ZEALAND TREE CROPS ASSOCIATION FRANKLIN BRANCH NEWSLETTER Secretary: P O Box 1200, Pukekohe 2340