Otakaro Orchard

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Otakaro Orchard

Otakaro Orchard, a project by Edible Canterbury, intends to serve as a destination gateway to the local food movement growing in Canterbury.

16/06/2026

🌿 Last week we enjoyed our last market of the Season at Peterborough st 🥬🥕🥦 👉🏽Slowly harvesting the last fruits of the land before covering it; awaiting being moved to Trent st. 🚜🚛
🥬 Ōtākaro Orchard Urban Farm Wednesday Morning Working Bees 🐝 @ 156 Peterborough st will continue until June 24 👉🏽 9.30-11.30 with kai and refreshments shared afterwards 🥕☕️🧁
🙏🏽Ngā mihi to all our wonderful volunteers; Hamish, Kryska, Fawzi, Christine, Alan, Colin, Elijah, and many more travellers from 🌏 Along with Lani and Fi with the Cultivate Christchurch crew; helping with clearing and dismantling. 🙏🏽

14/06/2026

🌿Big shout out to the crew from ; doing a fantastic job helping us unload the huge trailer of green waste from our 🥬 Urban Farm on Peterborough st to our new site on Trent St 🥦🌱👉 Hot composting, and filling all the compost bins built by the Cultivate Christchurch crew. 🙏Thanks to our board members Murray, and Stu, for lending the trailer, and for facilitating the group🐛

12/06/2026

🌿Following on from 🌿Part 1 in Plant Propagation 🌱 with ; where we looked at how seeds are formed and various ways of propagating plants 🌱🌺 We next explored different plant families and how to save seed from the different Vegetable plants 🍅🫛🌾👉Choosing our best and tastiest fruit, greens, or beans to save seed from; 👉 Making sure they mature on the plant; scooping and fermenting seeds from the flesh; or drying, threshing and winnowing; removing seeds from their stalks and chaff.
👉🏽 Labelling and bagging them up ready to sow again in the new season 🌱🌏
🌿 Completing the cycle of life and creating food resilience and food sovereignty 👉 Seeds grown and learning your environment year after year🌱 🙏🐛

10/06/2026

🌿 Ngā mihi nui to all the Volunteers who joined us for May's 🐝Weekend Working Bee 👉 Held at the Ōtākaro Orchard Urban Farm 🥦🥕 👉 Clearing and dismantling the big polytunnel, dismantling planters, and stacking pavers; all in prep for moving off site. 🙏😍A huge thank you to .cafe Vic's Cafe for the delicious bread to go with our very own pumpkin and celery soup for lunch 🥖🍲
👉 Our next 🐝Weekend Working Bee 🥬 will be held at the Urban Farm, 156 Peterborough St, 👉Saturday 27 June, 10.30-12.30, with lunch provided afterwards!
🥕🥦🥬🥗🍲🥖🍞☕️ All Welcome 😊

09/06/2026

🌿Tomorrow we run our last Wednesday Lunchtime Vege Market 🥕🥦12.30-14.30 at 156 Peterborough st 👉 Baby leeks and carrots, greens; kale, chard, silverbeet, potatoes, pumpkin, rhubarb, broccolini, artichokes, and herbs are still available 🥦🥕🥬👉 As we continue to clear the beds during our Weekly Urban Farm Working Bee 🐝 9.30-11.30 every Wednesday Morning, with kai and refreshments shared afterwards 🥕🍪☕️ All are welcome 😊
👉 Working Bees will continue at Peterborough st till the end of June, before the big move to Trent St in July 🌱🥦🥕🥬🍅
🙏 Ngā mihi nui to all our wonderful volunteers, customers 🥰🙏 and Edible Canterbury for the support as we move 🚜🚛

07/06/2026

🌿 For our fourth educational session with the Cultivate Christchurch crew we met at the Ōtākaro Orchard Urban Farm 🥬 to look into plant propagation 🌱
👉🏽 Starting with flower 🌺 and seed anatomy and physiology; dissecting flowers and germinating seeds; looking at how different plants are pollinated and fertilised; how seeds form and germinate, carrying an incredible amount of information to grow and produce fruit 🍎 and seed of their own. 🌱
👉🏽Then looking into other ways of propagation such as from cuttings, layering, and division 👉🏽 followed by hands on practical as we begin to dig up perennial plants to move, propagating as we go.

05/06/2026

🌿 We are so grateful for all the help we received from foundation students, who came and spent an afternoon at Ōtākaro Orchard 🌳 👉🏽 Helping us to clear away the last of the bricks which couldn't be moved by forklift; shovel the last of the wood chip; 🐛 and move other heavy items needing several hands to make light work! 🙏🏽 Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, with a special thank you to Watson for helping to stack the bricks neatly and securely 🐛

02/06/2026

🌿As we wind down production at the Ōtākaro Orchard Urban Farm 🥬 and begin to dismantle and clear the site we are super grateful to all our incredible volunteers who are supporting us so gracefully during this shift. 🙏🏽 Ngā mihi nui Hamish, Fawzi, Kryska, Alan, Colin, Christine, Sarah, Charlie, Cameron and the many other volunteers from who come along to our Wednesday Morning Working Bees 🐝 to help; 9.30-11.30am with kai and refreshments shared afterwards. ☕️🧁
👉🏽 We still have produce to sell today at our Wednesday Market 🥬🥕12.30-14.30 👉🏽 Pumpkins, greens, leeks, baby carrots, herbs, broccolini, potatoes, artichokes, eggs 🥬🥕🥔 👉🏽 with our last market at Peterborough st next Wednesday June 10.
🥬 Wednesday Morning Working Bees 🐝 will continue till the end of June, when we will hopefully be ready for the big move! 🚜🚛

01/06/2026

🌿 Students from joined us at Ōtākaro Orchard Urban Farm for a morning of volunteering and did a fantastic job helping us to empty compost bins and fill our planters, 👉🏽 ready for our move off site. 🌱 Along with pricking out seedlings into modules; to grow on until they are ready to be planted at our new farm on Trent St 🥬 Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou for all the awesome mahi 🙏🏽 It is hugely appreciated 😊🐛

30/05/2026

🌿Following on from our previous weeks observation of our new farm on Trent St 🥬with Cultivate Christchurch ; (where we observed our natural environment 👉🏽 winds, sun, shade, water 🌧️🌱 Along with the greater environment 👉🏽 Our neighbours and river, proximity to the city and local resources. )👉🏽 We focused on observing and learning all about our soil 🐛
🌿 Investigating soil type, texture and pH; learning why these things are important. 👉🏽 Carrying out various experiments and soil tests from different parts of the farm.
👉🏽 Digging holes to smell, look and feel the soils profile, checking out the water percolation rate, soil life 🪱, root depth, and texture.
👉🏽 Determining soil type by manipulating hand fulls of soil to see if they will form a ball, sausage, or ring; adding soil into a jar of water and allowing it to settle; showing us the composition of sand, silt, and clay; and testing the soils pH.
🐛 With all the results being recorded onto another layer of our base map.

Address

227 Cambridge Terrace
Christchurch
8013

Website

http://www.otakaroorchard.org.nz/

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