Who We Are
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We are the
Koanga Institute, New Zealand's Permaculture Research Institute and for the last 30 years; NZ's heritage organic seed bank. More recently, we are focusing our efforts into the art and science of growing nutrient dense food and the regeneration of our soils. We are a non-profit charitable trust who rely on donations and the income we receive from our seeds and plant material and permaculture courses and workshops to continue our work and research.
The Urban Garden Project
A Model of Food Security & Nutritional Resilience for City-Dwellers
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In the rural and warm temperate climate of Wairoa, on the east coast of the North Island we have set up an Urban Garden model on 200m²; the size of an average suburban yard, to inspire and educate city-dwellers and those with small garden spaces around the world on the best ways to grow as much nutrient dense food as possible for the least amount of effort and with no chemical input. We are wanting to show that it is possible to feed a family of four a whole and natural food diet using
Weston A Price guidelines*, and make a small income, all from a typical sized backyard. It will become a model of sustainability for people who live in the city and have only a limited amount of land.
*Weston A. Price was a dentist and researcher who in the late 1920's and 30's worked in many traditional indigenous communities and discovered that they were achieving optimal dental and physical health through following a traditional diet of whole unprocessed fruit and vegetables, meats and oils, while the health of people in the westernised world was on the decline.
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The 200 square metre garden utilises vertical growing spaces and includes a concreted patio area and already has 40 square metres of productive bio-intensive vegetable gardens, 34 fruit and nut trees, vines and bushes in a food forest setting, chickens for egg production, rabbits and guinea pigs for meat production, a top-bar beehive, passive solar cloche for seed raising, biochar burner, temporary wicking beds, and soldier fly and worm farms.
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The Urban Garden has been established for just over a year now, but we are needing your financial support to further develop this model and share our findings and ideas with everyone so city-dwellers and people with small garden spaces can achieve food security and nutritional resilience.
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Why We Need Your Help
We have big plans to add aquaponics systems, tap water purification systems, permanent wicking beds, a safe and legal humanure and urine recycling system and to build structures to allow us to grow as much food as we can in every nook and cranny. We need to pay for materials, and we need to pay our urban garden apprentice to maintain the whole garden, feed the animals, record how much food is produced and share our methods so others can learn how to create an abundant Urban Garden too.
We regard this kind of documented
research as vital for the future of all city dwellers and we imagine
the results will be applicable all around the world in similar
climates.
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What We Need & What You Get
We are hoping to raise $19,000 USD (Indiegogo won't allow NZ dollars) to continue to develop and maintain the Urban Garden and to publish our results on our website and in print. Even if we don't receive the full amount we will do what we can with what we raise.
We will be using recycled materials where possible but still need to fund the following:
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8 wicking beds with an iron surround with a wooden seat to sit a cloche on when necessary. All 8 beds will be connected so there is only one water inlet Total $500
- Design and build aquaponics and grow bed system $500
- Design and build wicking bed
system for vertical growing $160
- Design and build 2 vertical drum
water storage towers with wicking beds on top to grow pumpkins to
cover roof Total $280
- Design and build fungi system $80
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Design and build roof and south
wall to protect concrete intensive production area $800
-
Add Robinia rails above all fences
to train grapes/vines $250
-
Design and maintenance of a
recording system so that all inputs and outputs are charted and
available to all, done by garden maintenance person 15 minutes per
day $1400
- Designing and building a chlorine &
fluoride filter that can be used to clean water so soil microbes are
not killed $250
-
Build a small passive solar drier
$180
-
Design and build a legal composting toilet so
that humanure can be legally recycled in the garden... and
get regional council approval so others can use the design and
model $1100
-
Management of the urban garden for 1
year by garden apprentice 16 hours/week $9500
- Caravan accommodation for Urban Garden intern $4000
TOTAL $19000 USD
What You Will Receive
In return for your grateful contributions, we are offering some exciting perks. We have been saving New Zealand's heritage seeds for more than 30 years, and have over 700 seed lines that are adapted to NZ's temperate/Mediterranean climate and volcanic soils. We have also published a number of booklets with information gained over Kay's 40 years of organic gardening and research.
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200m² Urban Garden Booklet & Ebook
This 22 page booklet is produced by the Koanga Institute and is available as a downloadable Ebook .pdf file or a softcover booklet on 100% recycled paper.
It explains the ideas behind the permaculture design of the 200m2 urban garden model at the Koanga Institute, and details how you can meet your nutritional needs of a Weston A Price diet through growing biointensive gardens and fruit and nut trees, implementing animal systems (chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, bees) for our vitamin A, calcium and fat requirements whilst regenerating and remineralising the soil.
Organic Heritage Seeds
At Koanga Institute,
we have been saving New Zealand's heritage seeds for the last 30 years,
and have over 700 lines of seeds that have been growing in our
ancestors gardens for generations- selected for taste, nutrition, and
disease resistance, and over time have adapted to grow in New Zealand's
soils and climate.
(Note: We do send seeds overseas but as we do not have any control over customs, we can't guarantee they will arrive.)
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Other Koanga Institute Publications
We will send you 2 Koanga Institute booklets of your choice. Choose from any 2 of the following with a $50 and $75 contribution.
We will be in contact with you at the end of the campaign (Feb/March) to find out
your choice of ebooks, booklets and shipping address. The preservation
seed packs we send out will be determined by availability.
The Beginner Gardener Booklet - A comprehensive 50 page booklet giving step by step instructions for
establishing a new garden from scratch using a 40m2 Bio-intensive model.
Based on Kay Baxter's life journey in the garden, this simple system teaches
beginners and not-so-beginners, how to systematically improve soil and
grow nutrient dense vegetables, in an efficient way. Whether you follow
this exact model or another of your choice, this booklet will give you
the confidence you need to move forward.
Design Your Own Forest Garden- This 28 page
booklet by Kay Baxter, contains a step by step forest garden design process, diagrams from Kay’s own
forest garden stages, charts to fill in as you go through the steps, a
database for the New Zealand home gardener, and much more. You will go from having the idea of planting fruit trees to having a complete forest garden design that will
fit your own micro climate, needs, desires, and vision.
Growing Nutrient Dense Food- This booklet is a guide to the patterns and principals of growing high brix food for complete nourishment and optimum health. A few of the main topics covered are the 'Laws of Nature' and using a Refractometer to monitor the nutritive value of your plants and gain insight to your soil health.
How To Build a Rocket Stove Oven- This booklet written by Tim Barker, describes in simple terms the principles involved in
building and using rocket stoves as a clean burning efficient source of
heat for multiple uses in the home. It then goes on to show how you
can use rocket stoves to heat simple ovens that you can build yourself
in a modest workshop. Tims strength as a writer and designer is that
he likes to work with simple easily sourced low cost materials that will
provide a good result. He also gives you a clear desciption of the
principles and enough hints at how you might go about making more
sophisticated models should you wish, with the ‘Barkerism’ that some
times the extra effort of squeezing that small amount of extra
efficiency and performance is not worth all the trouble This book will
easily get you past the line in designing and building a Rocket Stove
Oven that you and your family can be proud of, and it just might
inspire you to get started on more ambitious projects – the Super
Deluxe Mach 2.
Save Your Own Seeds- A 34 page booklet available as an ebook or hard copy teaching you the basics of everything you need to
know to save all your own seeds based from 25 years experience in
this land. Written by Kay Baxter, co-founder of the Koanga Institute.
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Urban Garden Workshops (New Zealand Only)
Kay Baxter will be doing two Urban Garden Workshops; a 1 day workshop
in Hamilton on June 1st 2015, and a 2 day workshop at the Koanga
Institute in Wairoa from Monday 2nd - Tuesday 3rd November 2015, where
you will have the opportunity to see our Urban Garden model in person.
These workshops are about getting maximum nutrition in a regenerative
way from tiny spaces. We will begin with the principles involved and
work through strategies and techniques for various situations, including
your own.
Koanga Institute Gift Membership
Koanga Institute members are the life blood of our organisation. With
the generosity of our members and volunteer supporters over the past 30
years we have saved around 700 lines of New Zealand heritage food
plants. We are the only organisation in NZ specifically doing this work.
By gifting a membership of the Koanga Institute, the lucky person will:
- Be
supporting the work of the Institute to maintain our Heritage Food
plants including around 700 vegetable varieties and 300 Northern
Bio-regional fruit trees and a growing collection from a wider area.
-
Receive copies of the 2 Institute Catalogues each year. The July
edition has a full seed list, the February issue focuses on our heritage
fruit trees (digital or print)
- Receive 6 free Preservation Packs of seed when paying your annual membership
- Receive a free copy of your choice of a Koanga Booklet on joining and each time you renew your membership
-
Receive a monthly e-newsletter full of inspiring and instructive
information about what’s happening in the garden, with recipes and tips,
as well as updates about what is happening at the Institute.
- 10% discount on seeds
- Discounted workshops- be able to attend Koanga Workshops at a discounted rate (bookings essential).
- Member only online promotions
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For a
$1000 contribution you will receive enough seed to start your own Urban
Garden and grow $2500 worth of nutritious food with our 40m2 Soups, Stews, Salads & Stir Fries Collection
which includes 52 packets of seeds from our ancestors; selected for their taste, nutrition and disease resistance, a carbon crop
oats pack to make high quality compost, Garden Action Plan, Crop
Rotation Planner, and Garden Map. This collection is accompanyed by the 'Beginner Gardener' booklet; everything you need to grow your own nutrient dense food in a regenerative way.
(Note: We do send seeds overseas but as we do not have any control over customs, we can't guarantee they will arrive.)
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Your Own Urban Garden Designed
The 'Te Kakano' design team from The Koanga Institute will spend a day designing your own Urban Garden according to your climate, available resources and needs and wants.
$10,000 Major Urban Garden Sponsor
We are looking for a major sponsor for our Urban Garden project. We will feature your name/logo on all Urban Garden e-booklets, hard copy booklets and our website.
The Impact
By donating to our crowd-funder, you will be making an important contribution to our Urban Garden project so we may continue to maintain, develop and record the results and information for all to see. Because the majority of people live in cities with only small garden spaces, we believe it is crucial that we set up this model of regenerative and sustainable living in cities, so we can educate and take control of our families health and the health of our soils.
We are a non-profit charitable trust so rely on donations and the sale of plant material, books, and workshops courses and events to keep doing our work.
On our website at www.koanga.org.nz we have more background information on the design and rationale of the Urban Garden, and we have regular progress updates on our Urban Garden blog so make sure to sign up to receive updates through liking our facebook page and subscribing to our email newsletter and blog feed.
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Other Ways You Can Help
Please help us spread the word about our campaign so we can reach our goal and continue to develop our Urban Garden model, by sharing this on social media using the buttons under the video at the top.
We need to get this information out there so people living in cities with limited space have the opportunity to produce their own nutritious food for themselves, their families and their neighbours, whilst living a regenerative and sustainable lifestyle that is fulfilling in every way.
Kia Ora from Aotearoa!
As seen in...
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The New Zealand Herald, Element Magazine, Jan 14th
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The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia Blog, Jan 21st