Kia ora

Living on an island certainly gives us plenty of opportunity to develop our capacities for resilience and adaptability. No one knew which season we were in over Christmas!!

And then the last few weeks of summer weather could be described as glorious but that is not necessarily nature’s perspective.

One of our pear trees nearly died over the course of these hot summer days, losing all its leaves while still trying to bear all the fruit. I tried my hardest to keep that pear tree alive, with regular watering, and an astonishing response rewarded my efforts: It regrew the leaves and burst into blossom, at the same time as ripening the fruit. After this stressful time came this burst of new life, showing off all its beauty so joyfully!!

Photo courtesy of Bob Zuur.

The garden and nature all around warmly welcomed the bit of rain we had this week. A big sigh of relief. What a beautiful time of year - harvesting bounty and abundance! Many flowers at their peak! Monarch butterflies all around! A delight to wander around the garden and discover all sorts of wonders. At our place it was all about apples, tomatoes and plums!

Photos courtesy of Bob Zuur.

Witnessing nature’s capacity to heal and regenerate and my involvement in local community initiatives keeps me optimistic and hopeful.

From this perspective, I read about our massive global challenges of climate change, always searching for the science that brings practical suggestions for effective action. My current absolute favourite is Ayana Elizabeth Jonsons’s book “What if we get it right? Vision of Climate Futures”.

This collection of essays, poems, and art, gives me so much fuel for energy for practical actions. When I look into the pure eyes of our 3 month old beautiful granddaughter, full of wonder and curiosity, I feel a huge responsibility: “We HAVE to get it right!”

We look forward to seeing you soon!

Ngā mihi,

Doris, for the Toru Education Trust

P.S. We have such an amazing array of events and opportunities to learn together across March and April on our website, check them out here and share this page with friends and whanau.

Resilience in Action: How a Food Forest Rebuilt After Disaster. Hella Coenen reflects on the first Toru Trail of 2025, hosted at Deb and Ray's food forest. Through their 20+ year journey, Deb and Ray Butterfield have transformed a bare block of land into a thriving food forest, embracing nature’s rhythms over control. With no weeds—only beneficial plants—nothing is wasted, and a “chop and drop” approach nourishes the soil. 

Even Cyclone Gabrielle’s destruction became an opportunity for regeneration, with fallen trees repurposed into structures and hugelkultur beds. This visit challenged traditional gardening views, highlighting food forests as models of resilience, biodiversity, and sustainable abundance.

Photo courtesy of Hella Coenen

"We were welcomed by Deb and Ray in the farm shop with shelves full of preserves, syrups and pickles, on a warm and overcast day. In 2001, the couple moved to an old farm house on the 4 acre bare block of land with their 4 small children.

Everyone was spell bound when..."

Will be at Matt and Carys Brenin's place, in Otaki on Sunday 23rd Mar from 10am - 2pm, including lunch.

We are looking forward to the next Toru Trail event in March, visiting Matt and Carys Brenin in Otaki. What will their harvest abundance look like? Matt has been one of our much treasured tutors at our past permaculture design courses, teaching a wide variety of practical skills, and is now so well complemented by his partner Carys’ engineering skills. Their consultancy business is what Toru Education is really all about: “Practical solutions for sustainable living” .

Over the last ten years, their land has been their ‘playground’ to translate the permaculture principles into practical reality, always striving for balance with nature. We will get to hear their story, wander around their property and help with some practical easy tasks, such as mulching the fruit trees or harvesting comfrey leaves for the compost. Some of you might be interested in their Council-consented compost toilet set up in their homes.

In ‘Toru Trail style’, there will be a ‘crop swap table’, we will share some kai for lunch and reflect on the morning’s practical learning experience through the lens of the permaculture principles. I bet in the course of the morning, you will discover practical examples of most permaculture principles, applied in an ingenious way. As always, the sharing round after lunch will provide plenty of opportunities for your questions. The finale could be a swim in their own spot along the beautiful Otaki River.

See you there!

Doris

We have a humble request of you (yes, you!): please share this newsletter with folks who would like to receive it. We would love it to be read by folks right across the lower north island. 

If you like our vision to connect those who want to learn and get involved in their community projects with those creating and hosting beautiful local events please take a moment to forward this newsletter to all your friends and family who you think might be interested AND ask them to sign up to receive it each month. 

And if someone forwarded this newsletter on to you or sent you the link? Are you interested to stay up to date with our events? Would you like us to promote your events (for free)?

Sign up now! ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️

Summer Pruning ~ insights from Hella Coenen

We had a gathering as a Toru Workshop of 10 people at New Forest with various degrees of expertise, from complete beginners to very experienced fruit tree growers. A fitting beginning was a slice of homemade Dutch apple cake, made with Golden Russet (cider apple).

Jacob Verbeek introduced us to a radical new approach of pruning, which he has successfully applied for some years. This method was developed by Jean Marie Lespinasse, author of ‘Growing Fruit Trees’ and is the result of many years of research. 

It’s a fascinating new way of looking at fruit trees, at the bigger picture of how trees operate in the forest, and the natural shape they’re inclined to take on. Rather than forcing the tree into predetermined shape, this approach aims to train the tree based on fundamental understanding of what processes influence a tree’s growth i.e. working with nature rather than against it. It is particularly suited to apple trees but the principles can be adapted to the care of many fruit trees, to allow for a more harmonious and natural approach to pruning.

The workshop also focused on summer vs winter pruning. Summer pruning reduces photosynthesis, and thereby reduces the capacity for new growth the following year, versus winter pruning which encourages new growth in spring.

The timing for pruning fruit trees in New Zealand can vary depending on the type of fruit tree and the goal of the pruning.

Summer pruning is especially useful for containing growth (where the tree is being trained as a cordon or espalier, for example, or outgrowing the space available).

Summer pruning also encourages the dormant buds at the base of branches to quickly form fruiting spurs, increasing yield the following season.

Traditional winter pruning encourages growth at the expense of fruit – great in the early years when the goal is to establish a good branch framework and there is a lot of growth to work with, but not so good once the tree has become established.

There are some more notes on summer pruning here.

Coming up on March 8th, We have a Summer Pruning Workshop with Garry Foster and Helen Dew at Helen's place in Carterton, Wairarapa exploring these pruning techniques. 

There will be the opportunity to get your gardening questions answered and you'll also be welcome to check out Helen's orchard before or after the session.

Check out the workshop and book with the button below. 

Doris shares what is inspiring her about our partner organisation: WEAll Aotearoa

Toru Education promotes practical, face to face, experiential education opportunities, encouraging local community connections for resilience and social wellbeing.

However, Toru also encourages connection to the bigger picture and context, at national and international levels for the importance of everyone’s practical efforts, big and small, towards a more sustainable and fairer world.

We warmly welcomed WEAll Aotearoa as Toru Partner for those reasons. Because of its global connections, many of their events are online.

Please enjoy the recent interview by Science Communicator, and new Kāpati local, Elizabeth Connor with Gareth Hughes, Director at WEAll Aotearoa.

The next event by WEAll will introduce the concept of a Wellbeing Economy and the benefits of shifting to running our economy in a way that centres people and planet. 

More Toru Partners! 

Mangaroa Farms Annual Open Day

In collaboration with Open Farms, we’re hosting the 2025 Open Farms Day at Mangaroa 🎪

Our last event in Nov 2024 was our biggest yet with over 1000 people coming down - and this time, we’re looking to break that record. Our signature garden tour tickets sell out quickly, so be sure to book through our website to not miss out.

🍃Soil & Soul - Women's Syntropic Food Forest Retreat, Castlepoint 🍃

Head to the beautiful Wairarapa East Coast this March 21st for a weekend Food Forest Retreat with Janine and Sam. Tucked away in a beautiful forest setting, this small, intimate, and grounding weekend offers the perfect balance of rest, relaxation & learning.

This newsletter has come into being because we saw a disconnect in our bioregion. We knew there were many great locals with knowledge to share, and some of them were already creating great opportunities for learning, connection and community spirit.

We also saw that many folks didn't know about these amazing opportunities to wānanga together and grow connections in their own back yards. 

To address these needs, we have started with a few interconnected 'small and slow solutions': our new website to host and promote events (among other things), our series of Toru Trail events across our focus area of Kāpiti, Te Whanganui-a-Tara - Wellington, the Hutt Valley and Wairarapa, as well as this monthly newsletter tying it all together and telling the story. 

If you resonate with our vision, we would love you to be involved, this can be in many ways!  

- Please share the good news far and wide, Sharing really is caring, and we want to find our people!

- Do you have an event or educational opportunity? - check out our guidelines and if it fits in with our kaupapa, then sign up and list your event with us! We are promoting local events for free.

- Join one of our events! Learn with us and our partner organisations. Invite a friend along and learn together.

- Do you have ideas for us? Reply to this newsletter or email us at info@toru.nz with your bright spark!