A community education and wetland restoration project just outside Martinborough, Ruamāhanga Farm Foundation, brought the gold of summer to its regenerating soils with a sea of yellow sunflowers which attracted scores of visitors to an inaugural Sunflower Festival.
There weren’t just sunflowers in the two planted fields which covered nine hectares of farmland. Another 20-plus “companion” plants surrounded the tall stems in a dense jungle of growth which was doing the job of replenishing the farm’s soil with the essentials for future crops.
Then the whole tangle of everything from beans and giant radishes to plantain, clover, oats, mustard and much more becomes animal fodder.
That’s only a small taste of the action at Ruamāhanga Farm, as sisters Lucy and Jane Riddiford explained.
“We were set up as a charity last year … with three missions. We are restoring the wetland on the farm, (and) we are working with three local schools at the moment: Martinborough, Kahutara and Carterton South End Montessori class,” Lucy said.
“Jane set up an environmental charity in London called Clover Generation and my brother-in-law Rod is a former primary school teacher. We bring the kids in mainly to work (plant and do sampling science) along the river. We work with Mountains to Sea as well and some of our neighbours.
“(Back) in the classroom the kids (use their experience at the farm to) do writing, maths and science. They plant when they’re here.”
Their on-farm activities include tree “planting, sampling and recording river water quality, (check and identify) all the different fish species, they catch eels – tuna – but return them in the wetlands.”
The classes also go down to Lake Wairarapa to check out the kakahi (freshwater mussels).
Other local conservation-minded volunteers also get involved as educators.
“As part of all this we’re going to push forward this year to set up a catchment group for Martinborough,” Jane said, as they build a riverside walkway on the farm.
“We’re doing the walkway on our farm first, we’ve resurrected the Truck Stop walkway and thanks to the (South Wairarapa) Lions and Joe Howells (Green Jersey Cycles), the Truck Stop walkway is now regularly being mowed and open.
“That’s the main one (river walkway) we can promote now,” Jane added.
A further three separate walks are also planned by the Aorangi Restoration Trust.
The farm foundation is to seek some funding towards the proposed riverside walkway, partly to help with structures like fence stiles to allow walkers access through “a working farm.”
Council is also supporting the plan, clearing its own riverside land and planting 4,500 trees over the past winter.
“That has been tremendous” as a boost to the walkway projects, Lucy added.
The initial sunflower crop was “accidental,” occurring as part of a regenerative farming programme.
But this year, “we’ve planted nine hectares of mixed species – it’s for the farm, and it has also given impetus to what we wanted to do – which is to work with the schools and get them engaged,” she said.
“But (the planted paddocks) are really about the third strand of the purpose of our charity – which is advocacy for the river, advocacy for public access and trying to find ways to open things (access) up in the right way.”
“If we are going to open a walkway with pockets of native (bush) restoration along the way we need to have people in the community connecting,” Jane noted.
“It is important for the Trust to work with mana whenua,” Lucy said, “and we’ve recently had really encouraging support from Iwi.”
The $50-a-head concert among the blooms was a bring-your-own-chair event “right in the middle of the flowers.”
Local businesses and individuals donated nibbles, wine, fence stiles, gates, and mowed paths through the flower fields in what Lucy said “has been a fantastic community kitchen contribution.”
She noted that all proceeds from the Sunflower Fest and Sunflower Sundowner Concert among the flowers will go towards Ruamāhanga Farm Foundation’s work and the nature education programme the group does with local primary schools.
The farm project, which includes wetland and riverside (riparian) forest restoration, began in 2021 when eight hectares of land was fenced off to exclude stock and protect the newly-planted native tree saplings, “eco-sourced from the Wairarapa.”
