July in Aotearoa finds people in a celebratory mood. It is around this time that Matariki rises in the night sky and marks the Maaori New Year.
Many celebrate with displays of Maaori performing and visual arts, kite flying and feasting. Matariki is also time for remembering those who have passed, reflecting on family and whaanau matters of the past year and planning for the future. Matariki has a very deep association with food. It is a time for giving thanks for all the food that has grown for us, storing and preserving food, tidying gardens and preparing the garden for the next year.
The summer saw our garden being very bountiful. For a long time the soil was covered with sprawling plants that produced summer beans, tomatoes, capsicum, lettuce, kumara, pumpkin and kamokamo. It has been cleared away now and the gardeners are building and replenishing the soil. Lots of available organic materials are being spread in layers over the garden. These include our own compost, hot compost from the primary school, sheeps wool, damaged hay, decomposing wood chips and sawdust from the Lion’s firewood yard, autumn leaves and raking from horse stables. All these alive with small animals, fungi and bacteria use water and oxygen to break down the bulky material into humus rich soil.
Maaori cultivated warm climate plants of kumara and hue (gourd) in their mara (gardens). While the winter weather was happening the soil was resting and small animals and other micro-organisms were restoring the soil. These days there are cultivated green leafy plants that can be planted and grown in the layers of resting soil, which is what we do at the community garden.
Celebrate Matariki with a feast by boiling up meats of pork or bacon bones, add in stored garden vegetables of potato, kumara, pumpkin, kumara and fresh green vegetables like cabbage, cauliflower, silverbeet. Sharing a pot of kai is a great way to give thanks for family, friends and the environmental forces that give us our nourishment and sustenance through lovely food.
From the Te Kauwhata Community Garden
