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.

11/10/2026

Big thank you to everyone that came to World Rivers Day 💧🌿

What a nice day to celebrate our rivers, food resilience and the communities that bring it all together!

09/10/2026

🌿Forming great connections and learning about other projects within our motu; 🌱👉🏽 We were delighted to welcome a conference tour to Ōtākaro Orchard 🌳 during Te Whatu Ora's national hui held in September 🌳 Health NZ – Southern
👉🏽Participants from around Aotearoa joined us for a tour of the Building and Food Forest 🌳beginning to burst with life! 🌸
👉🏽demonstrating permaculture design principles in action 🌳🌼
🌏 Looking at the interconnections between land health, soil health, plant/food health and our own health ;🙏🏽 and what we can do to positively effect this web of life 🙏🏽🌳🕸️

07/10/2026

🌿Sending a huge ngā mihi nui to Murray for helping us clear the Peterborough St farm carpark🥬👉🏽 Bringing a forklift, flat bed trailer, and digger 👉🏽 to load and unload the heavy pallets of blocks, bricks, planter bins, and resources 🐛
🙏🏽 Ngā mihi nui to Cultivate Christchurch for helping clear spaces, sort rubbish, and stack blocks, and Fawzi for the onsite help and support 🙏🏽🌱

05/10/2026

🌿 Sending a huge shout out to all the wonderful volunteers joining us Wednesday morning's 👉🏽 10am-12pm at 47 Trent St 👉🏽 for our 🥬 Urban farm Weekly Working Bee 🐝 It has been great to unpack our container and build our little polytunnel; create more garden beds;🌱 plant and landscape. 🙏🏽Ngā mihi nui Hamish, Fawzi, Christine, Simon, Jill, Shane, Ivan, Emily, Gavin, Ry, Colin, Sarah, Eli, Nhi, and Lalo for all the great mahi

01/10/2026

🌿 After waiting for a prolonged period of dry weather to dry the land out; we were finally able to get our buildings craned and transported to our new Urban farm at 47 Trent St 🥬 mid September. 🙏🏽 Big shout out to for all the help transporting, Rob and Murray for helping prepare the buildings for moving, Fi from Cultivate Christchurch for collecting and returning ground protection mats; Fawzi, Colin, Ry and Hamish for helping with new foundations. 🥬
👉🏽 The new site is looking great!

29/09/2026

🌿Last Wednesday we sadly farewelled the fantastic Cultivate Christchurch crew who came to the end of their 8 week course🌱👉🏽 Russel, Claire, Robyn, Andrew, Alex, Sheldon, and Junior; 🙏🏽 Thank you being incredible helpers during these last few months; 🚛🚜👉🏽 helping to dismantle, move, and rebuild a new farm! 🥬 👉🏽 Taking on new challenges and learning with enthusiasm 🐛 Gaining their level 2 horticultural certificate 🌱🥬
🙏🏽 Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou for all the amazing mahi, and support!! We could not have done it without you all! 🌸🌼

27/09/2026

🌿After some very busy weeks moving 🚜🚛 and rebuilding a new Urban farm,🥬 it was very special to join our wonderful volunteers and collaborative partners; 🌱Cultivate Christchurch Waka on Avon Edible Canterbury Avon-Ōtākaro Network
👉🏽On a journey by waka from Ōtākaro Orchard 🌳 to our new farm on Trent St 🥬 🛶 👉🏽 Bringing along a kahikatea tree to represent the strength and resilience of communities when they are united. 🐝🌳 👉🏽 the kahikatea's shallow roots form interlocking networks with it's neighbours; providing mutual support; 👉🏽allowing the trees to withstand strong winds and flooding. 🙏🏽 👉🏽🥬 poignant for our opening ceremony at Trent St Urban Farm 🌱 Celebrating the collaborations and expansion of this food corridor along our Awa 🙏🏽🥬
👉🏽Acknowledging the soil, built by the community over several years, now on this new site🪱Along with new beginnings, Spring Equinox🌸🌼
🌿Big thank you to all our volunteers, Hayley for the BBQ trailer, and delicious cheese boards! , for bringing a bar for refreshments! 🍻🥂 Fi cooking up a tasty stew for incredible songs and stories on our journey 🙏🏽🌿 Everyone for coming and making it such a special day 🙏🏽

25/09/2026

🌱 FREE SOIL! COME AND GET IT! 🌱

Spring is here — time to get those gardens, raised beds and planters topped up! 🌿

We have TONNES of beautiful soil available from the old Cultivate / Ōtākaro Orchard urban farm at the corner of Peterborough & Manchester Streets — and we’d love to see it put to good use rather than go to waste.

This soil has been built up over 12 years of organic urban farming, so it has had plenty of love, compost and growing happening in it. 💚

Perfect for:
🌱 Topping up raised beds and planters
🌱 Filling new garden beds
🌱 Seed raising and planting projects
🌱 Community gardens
🌱 Home veggie gardens
🌱 Giving your spring garden a boost!

📍 Where: Enter via 152 Peterborough Street
🚜 Access: Take soil from the Manchester Street side
🪣 Bring your own: Wheelbarrow, buckets, spades/shovels and whatever else you need to load and transport it.

⚠️ The soil is NOT screened, the soil will need to be screened or weeded of twitch, convolulus and oxalis.

💚 FREE — help yourself!

If you've been thinking “I really need to sort out my garden this spring” — this is your sign! 🌻

22/09/2026

🌿 Happy Spring Equinox 🌸🌼 Where day and night are at equal length. 🌞🌚
Known to our Celtic ancestors as a festival of balance 🙏🏽🌏
Reminding us to find balance within our own lives 🌳🌸🙏🏽
A celebration of union, and fertility, honouring the awakening Earth 🌍 with blossom and swelling buds bursting 🌱🌼🌸
New life all around 👉🏽 So too with us; forming many new relationships and collaborations; Cultivate Christchurch Waka on Avon 👉🏽 New Urban Farm 🥬👉🏽 final stages of Ōtākaro Orchard coming together 🌳🌱 🌸🌿 Woohoo!

Address

227 Cambridge Terrace
Christchurch
8013

Website

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

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