Pop your questions in a comment to this post, or flick me an email at katrina@blueborage.co.nz.

I have cool news to share tomorrow, with a whole heap of new flowers from Ecuador joining the community.

Chat soon,
Katrina

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But the mornings are chilly… there was a solid layer of ice in the wheelbarrow yesterday.

I don’t have a greenhouse or heating pads for seedlings, so I’m usually quite content for my spring seedlings to follow nature’s timing. There’s something rather lovely about letting the garden tell me when it’s ready.

And there’s quite a lot happening with the Floral Compost Activator as we move towards spring.

Two big events coming up:

1. Biodynamics New Zealand Conference 29-30 August in Christchurch. I’ll be running Floral Compost Activator workshops on Sunday 30 August. Tickets are available from BDNZ here.

2. It’s a joy to be working with the Land Art Collective, bringing a series of six sessions that we’ve called ‘Soil Solutions’ — the first session will be on composting in small spaces (including indoors), and is scheduled for Thursday 17th September (evening of 16th September in the UK/Europe). The Floral Compost activator will be the second session, either October or November. More information and bookings here.

If you’d like us to bring the floral compost activator method to your community or workplace, please get in touch: katrina@blueborage.co.nz.

Updates since 7th August 2026:

• 17 August: Big thanks to Peter & Gill Bacchus for the donation of about 70 Valerian plants. These are now planted at the Blue Borage Soil Farm & Research Centre, with about 40 babies tucked into seed snails for mobile transplanting in client gardens and other research hubs.

• I made up a batch of the QR (Quick Return) Compost Activator with Peter and Gill, and we had a lovely discussion on how Maye Bruce’s work is very different to traditional biodynamic, and what role it plays in the biodynamic movement. I’m looking forward to teasing this out even more at the Biodynamics NZ Conference next weekend.

• 13 August: We had a check-in session for the Seed Enterprise cohort working with Alex Edleson and Petra Derkzen on behalf of BFDI (Biodynamic Federation Demeter International). Winter has been a quieter season for my seed project, which has given me some useful space to tend to the plants, the research and the foundations of what is coming next.

• 16 August: Food scraps from my Te Wānanga o Aotearoa weekend Raranga class came back to the Soil Farm for composting in a tiny in-vessel system, with all odours being managed using the Floral Compost Activator method. I’m convinced this is just as effective as bokashi, and doesn’t smell anywhere near as bad. The next question is fascinating: could the floral compost activator enhance bokashi so instead of choosing one method or the other, we could use both together?

• There are two new research hubs coming online soon, including one in Latin America… stay tuned for updates!

Flowers from the garden for today’s batch include:

Yarrow, Stinging Nettle, Borage, Red Clover, Calendula, Puha (Sow thistle), Rosemary flowers, Mugwort leaves, Oxalis, Jasmine, Fumaria, Rocket, Daikon, Onion Weed, Lavender, Shungiku.

While I figure that out, here’s a written update:

Developments with the floral compost activator since the last update on 24th July 2026:

• Friday 31st July I went to a community weaving day in Tuakau at Ngaa Tai E Rua Paa and had a little bottle of the activator in the car. There was time to do a little bit of weeding and take a look at the compost with the caretaker George Herangi, who was happy for me to sprinkle the activator over the latest batch of food scrap composting. In terms of odour it was 1 or 2 out of 10. Not offensive at all, but as we all know, the floral compost activator is not just an odour minimising tool, but also speeds up the composting process. I haven’t yet met anyone who didn’t want to make their compost even better!

• Three hot compost piles built here at the soil farm / research centre in the last week. I’ve got seedlings coming along for the spring garden and nowhere to plant them, so for the first time, my weeding is actually pulling up favourite companion plants: yarrow, calendula, borage, honeywort. Each of these hot compost piles is getting some floral compost activator either layered in as I go or tipped into holes I make when the pile is finished.
  It’s been SO very useful to have the different bottles with the dilution ratio clearly marked. Let’s face it - once we get to 1:100, the dilutions all look like water! If I pick up the 1:10,000 bottle, then it gets used straight, and if I pick up the 1:100 bottle, then it' gets spread over several buckets of water. I don’t think the exact dilution is important, but if as Maye Bruce says, the effectiveness is better with higher dilutions, then we’d be silly not to make each batch go as far as possible. Right?

• 3 August 2026 - perhaps the most exciting news this week, I’ve been accepted into a 10 session business mentoring programme with Startup Aotearoa. The intent is to learn how to take the various products and services coming out of the Blue Borage Research Centre to market. I’m literally in startup mode with this, after eight years of focusing on community led development & education.
  This new direction is not about the commodification of nature, but more a question of how to engage with those who are not yet composting, which for me means learning to speak ‘their’ language. How do I pitch my work to politicians, mainstream scientists, town planners, architects, accountants, engineers, chefs… I’m told each group needs a slightly different version of my reality, which in some ways this feels like the start of my Russian or Japanese language learning journey.
  In some cases this work will be in collaboration with formal soil amendment companies and academic researchers, but I think in the case of the Floral Compost Activator it’s going to be deeper work with on what this global community could become (is already becoming), and how we better support our various research collaborators. I just had a colleague in Ecuador say ‘yes please’ to joining in with the field trials.
  If you have ideas/suggestions/requests, please reach out at katrina@blueborage.co.nz - thanks!

• 30 July 2026 - thanks to for putting together a sample pack for Akil Mesiwala of ‘Box of Life’ in Ottawa, Canada. Akil is going to test the floral compost activator in his commercial worm farm operation, hopefully also the various worm farms he is connected with in the community, which I think includes schools and apartment buildings.
  Go take a look at Akil’s work here: https://www.theboxoflife.com/pages/our-mission
  I met Akil on LinkedIn through Tim Steckel’s work to ‘Make Compost Mainstream’, so want to also shout out to Tim Steckel as being one of the most community minded, generous people I have ever met in the global compost network — a true role model.

• For those in New Zealand - there’s an opportunity to come and learn the method at the Biodynamics New Zealand Conference in Christchurch at the end of August. This will be a super special workshop because we’ll have leaders of the biodynamic movement in New Zealand in the room, and my hope is we start to finetune what role Maye Bruce’s work plays in biodynamics for the future.
  More information here: https://biodynamic.org.nz/conference-2026-new-seeds
  I’d love to offer another workshop in Canterbury while I’m down there — let’s talk if you’d like me to bring the work to your community!
  Email: katrina@blueborage.co.nz

• The plant calling to me this week: Gorse. There’s something about these stunning yellow flowers in winter, I mostly want to make a gorse syrup and drink them, but also know that what I enjoy drinking will be good for the compost too.

  

To summarise:

The question today was: “Do you think/know if there’s a difference between the efficacy of May Bruce’s recipe, or a random ‘daily pick’ from what we have in our gardens?”

Such a good question! I don’t have the definitive answ…

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When: Thursday morning 9am (NZ) on 30th July 2026.

Please drop your questions in the comments below or send by email to katrina@blueborage.co.nz

Here in New Zealand I can almost smell spring… time to get seeds ready to plant!

Up in the Northern Hemisphere I suspect it’s time to get focused on harvesting and storing your flowers to last the cool season?

Wherever you are, whatever the scale or purpose, if you have a question about the practicalities of making your own Floral Compost Activator, let’s get them cleared up.

Talk soon,

Katrina

PS: for free subscribers and followers, if you’d like to upgrade, then the details are below:

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Topics and links covered today:

• Future of Cities summit with Tony Cho -

  https://www.tony-cho.com/

• Section for Agriculture Living Farms Podcast episode with Darren Doherty (episode #33) - https://www.sektion-landwirtschaft.org/en/living-farms/podcasts

• Regrarians -

  https://www.regrarians.org/

• Retrosuburbia -

  https://retrosuburbia.com/

• Simple Dilution methodology -

• Food scraps from the caterers at weaving noho update six weeks on.

• Humanre hot compost build done 22/7/26.

• Challenges with drying winter flowers - need to get a dehydrator.

• Aotearoa Composters Network, Waste to Wonder session with Liam Hoffman from Otago Polytech -

Today’s batch made live with the following flowers: honey + lactose, fresh nettle, fresh yarrow, oak bark, rosemary, dead nettle, fumaria, rocket, daikon, mugwort (leaves), borage, geranium, calendula, honeywort, lavender.

Coming soon, the Full Moon Q&A for paid subscribers next week Thursday 30th July 9am (NZ), Wednesday afternoon in the US, Wednesday evening in the UK/Europe.

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I don’t think so.

When I began, I was actually using it straight, or in a 1:10 ratio. Not because I wasn’t following Maye Bruce’s instructions, but because it felt like each batch was a new experiment, and I wanted to keep blending more combinations. Plus, I don’t have access to thousands of compost piles.

Things have shifted a little recently: my own composting is humming far more than ever before, and I’m taking the activator out into the community where it IS important to make each batch stretch as far as possible.

Here’s a quick way to dilute the activator without needing the 10,000 litres of water on hand:

Step one: the mother blend

This is the batch that sat for 24 hours fermenting, bubbling, and getting all the crystals, sound healing and other vibrational healing modalities at the point of blending.

Step two: Find yourself four containers - I used 1 litre juice bottles.

Step three: take 10% of the volume of your container from the mother blend, and add to container number one and give it a little shake. This is now a 1:10 dilution.

Step four: pour out 10% from container one and add to container two. This will be the 1:100 dilution.

Step five: Repeat to get 1:1,000 dilution.

Step six: Repeat to get 1:10,000 dilution.

At this stage, you have a range of dilutions to use for different purposes. If meeting up with colleagues or friends, then a 1:100 dilution is a good one to grab and share out in a way that each person can carry on diluting and using at home.

For a workshop, the 1:10 dilution offers the potential to treat even more compost piles.

But at home, popping out to make up a compost pile, the 1:10,000 dilution is perfect, and the 1:1,000 dilution also a good one to tip into a bucket of water in small doses over and over and over if making a hot compost pile.

As soon as any batch is used up, then just add 10% from the previous dilution, and you’re good to go again.

Hope this helps!

Also - if you’re like me and prefer working intuitively, then carry on doing so!

Feels like a whirlwind a lot of the time, even for me as a Sagittarius Sun Sign!

But I do so love to travel, to explore new places, and to meet the friends & colleagues I usually talk with through DMs, emails and voicenotes.

It could be that the next phase of this work is nomadic — truly nomadic, with no fixed abode.

Recent Developments:

Monday 29 June: Q&A call for paid subscribers, we touched on the use of the floral compost activator in tree paste and I offered some suggestions on how to source flowers (or rather, how we help everyone source the flowers they need)

You’ll find the recording in the content for paid subscribers.

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Tuesday 30th June: Paa Harakeke cleaning day at the Auckland Botanic Gardens, where Shaun Pettigrew came with his partner and one of his students, and gave a presentation on Harakeke composting with the data from the radish trials at Franklin Agritech. They used the floral compost activator for one of the groups of plants, and I have a feeling that both the floral compost activator and the biodynamic cow pat pit preparation (CPP) measured up well against the commercial seaweed tea formula. WE LOVE IT WHEN DIY SOLUTIONS ARE AS GOOD AS ANYTHING ELSE

The full research summary will get shared with the Ko-Fi members who are supporting the Blue Borage Research Centre, and I’ll also update the Harakeke Composting ebook that’s on the Ko-Fi shop.

Wednesday 1st July: Went down to Dunedin to babysit little Hazel, my four year old granddaughter. It’s been almost two years since my last visit!! She’s a great help with making the floral compost activator, we literally spoke positive thoughts into the bottle for ALL of Dunedin’s compost. I then took that batch to Liam Hoffman at Otago Polytech for his compost, going back for a second visit to show him how it’s made from scratch. I saw two other colleagues, but will share more about those people when things start to line up a little clearer.

You can read more about Liam’s work in this issue of Mise Magazine, in the article ‘Soil Stories’ about hospitality composting.

Thursday 9th July: Off to Melbourne to visit a friend for three days, it was partly to reconnect after a few years being out of touch, but also to see if Melbourne ‘up close’ feels like somewhere I could do more work in the years ahead.

I reckon it could be!

I’ve made a batch of the QR (Quick Return) compost activator, and it’s sitting on a shelf in an apartment in Fitzroy North ready for a compost enthusiast to help spread the word.
I haven’t yet figured out who the Melbourne distributor/advocate is - if you’re reading this and want to help spread the word, do get in touch. You don’t have to be into composting or biodynamics, just the kind of person who enjoys networking. Email: katrina@blueborage.co.nz

There’s a link here to a reel on Instagram showing how I made the first Melbourne batch — it was SO good to have a friendly videographer in the room at this moment.

I’ll share more about Melbourne in the next few weeks, as I’m still recovering from the whirlwind of packing/unpacking/travelling etc. I’m quite an anxious traveller, so arriving home means taking a few days to recalibrate and catch up with the actual gardening/composting/weaving homework/housework.

Saturday 11th July: We created a new WhatsApp chat group for ‘worm farmers of Canada who are researching the Maye Bruce floral compost activator’, it was really neat to be able to connect a LinkedIn colleague from Ottowa with Kate Heming in Toronto. Bit by bit we are growing a community who can support each other regionally. Exciting!

My brain is sort of wired for connectivity, should have been a systems analyst - if you’d like help finding someone near you to help you refine your composting, do reach out!

And - subscribing as a paid member helps keep the lights on (literally).

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Overall

• It was a huge relieve to declare the activator at customs on arrival into Australia, describe what it is, and be allowed to bring it in! If they had said no, it would have been three days researching seeds and herb suppliers, but instead we are hitting the ground running with the first batch of activator that could easily treat 1,000 compost piles, and with a bit of coordination we may be able to get it down to Tasmania and over to Mornington Peninsula, as well as a few schools, community gardens and (fingers crossed) the botanic gardens. Can you help with this distribution exercise? Get in touch by email at katrina@blueborage.co.nz

• I’ve done a full cost analysis of the last 18 months of research and development, in response to my Melbourne friend insisting that I should know exactly how much it costs to make. The grand total is frightening… and a good wake-up call to make every bottle count. Aren’t we lucky we don’t have to pay bees and flowers an hourly wage?!?

• Minor disaster: I did a stocktake of my ‘basic six’ herbs, and the 2026 valerian flowers have gone mouldy, meaning all I have to use till the end of 2026 are the blossoms I picked last year. Eeeeeeekkkk!! That was a nasty shock. I know it’s possible to buy valerian root tea, but not valerian flowers, and certainly not biodynamic valerian flowers!

• I’ve begun the work on costing the time/materials to set up a new teaching space (or growing space), so that if and when I find a way to fund it, then there’s a clear budget on how much is actually needed — along with how much the finished activator is worth. I have no experience seeking investment funding… if you have ideas to share, please get in touch: katrina@blueborage.co.nz, but the big problem is that this product probably won’t ever be a traditional business model promising a return on any investment - it’s literally just doing the right thing for the earth. Have not yet met any philanthropists willing to support that sort of work!

• I’m getting a stronger sense of who it’s ‘not’ for, and strengthening my rejection sensitivity to the extent that a ‘no thank you’ or a ‘no way’ or a ‘hell no’ feels like there’s more activator left for those who DO want to learn. My challenge is then staying in conversation with people who don’t think like me… More and more I feel it’s important to not let flowers, honey and compost destroy a friendship, even if I’m dangerously close to burnout.

• While away from home, I’ve had some neat conversations with different people, learning more and more about the barriers to effective composting - it’s not just the flies, fruit flies, the smell or the mess, it’s also how ugly compost bins look!

  
  I’ve always known that, but the last year or so I’ve been spending more time with people who really, really, really want to learn, that I’ve lost touch with those who refuse to learn. We humans are a strange bunch.

I also learned that there’s a true waste crisis looming in Australia, with more rubbish than there is space in landfills.
Read more here:
https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/environment/2025/09/21/australia-waste-rubbish-crisis-reuse

Hello Melbourne - I’d love to come help you manage food scraps and garden waste without those green bins that don’t seem to be working.

If anyone on campus wants to see how it works, then I’m happy to do a demonstration and make a fresh batch for compost that I’m visiting over the weekend.

The more compost piles we treat with flowers, the better off the city will be.

Free to attend, koha welcome, and if you want to take some home with you then please bring a bottle or jar (preferably labelled ‘floral compost activator’ so you don’t accidentally drink it).

Register here: https://events.humanitix.com/floral-compost-activator-demonstration-in-dunedin

Questions today:

• The recipe for biodynamic tree paste, and how I would make a tree paste without any of the biodynamic ingredients.

• Ideas on sourcing dried flowers - it’s a long game plan, and I don’t yet have an answer. If people want to purchase dried nettle, yarrow, oak bark or dandelion then I can help, but I need to hang onto all my chamomile and v…

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I know that one day this method will sit alongside bokashi as a simple way to make great compost, but for now it’s a hard slog!

I’d love to have a session each month that is not public facing, but more of a private insider chat for those committed to implementing this method in their garden, on their farm, or in their school, workplace or community.

Pop your questions below.

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I thought the winter solstice on June 21st would bring clarity, a deep dive into the darkest point of the year, and that I’d come out of it with some clarity.

I haven’t.

Looking back to December 24th 2024, there was a similar moment, a readiness to give up on my dreams and create a blank slate - that day I first read Maye Bruce’s book ‘Common Sense Compost Making’ was a point when I chose to turn my back on traditional biodynamic prep-making, and instead be nomadic, and work with the six compost herbs ‘above ground’ as a response to accepting that I have no place to call home, no patch of earth to bury a pot of nettle or a set of cow horns.

Back then, through the holy nights of 2024/25, I had no idea that I’d spend most of 2025 gathering data to present the work of Maye Bruce at the 3rd International Biodynamic Research Conference in the UK. I had no idea that I’d put the house move off to the side while I raised funds to travel to the other side of the world.

I had no idea the extent of the disappointment I’d experience when visiting the role model biodynamic farms of the UK and meeting the international leaders of the biodynamic movement… I think I’m still processing the disappointment.

I know we can do so much more.

And so, I know that right now, as I sit with the question of ‘what now?’ there could well be a similar experience about to unfold, and I may look back in two years with wonder and amazement.

But for now, I’m heading into a couple of weeks of stillness… deep listening, a few days babysitting little Hazel (my granddaughter) down in Dunedin, and working out the logistics for another project that could be magical.

As always, the flowers are leading the way on this.

As for Blue Borage the business - it will be sort of energetically dropped into a bucket like a ball of BD500 horn manure, stirred into chaos, and we’ll see what emerges in a couple of weeks - what’s worth keeping, and what needs to be simplified for the next phase.

Exciting times ahead!

But right now - stillness.

Stillness with flowers and honey.

‘The divinity of the flower is sufficient of itself’
- Maye Bruce (1879-1964)

Stay tuned for a solstice gathering, there will no doubt be special blends of floral compost activator being made around the world.

Each garden is unique, and so are the compost activators.

Get more from The Flower Project in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

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Kate and I will go live for the one year anniversary, and would love to share YOUR stories:

• what flowers have you been growing, picking, drying and using?

• what compost or worm farms have you treated with the floral compost activator (or the Quick Return compost activator), and what effects did you see?

• have you run any parallel trials, and if so, what learnings would you like to share?

• do you have any insights to share about Maye Bruce’s life, or the work of others promoting her method around the world?

Send all your stories and messages to katrina@blueborage.co.nz, along with photos if relevant, and we’ll do our best to share it all, and follow-up with an article so they are in written form as well as read out loud.

Thank you for your devotion to the soil, the flowers, the microbes we work with, and all of life.

72 hours till we celebrate.

I know the different strands of Blue Borage overlap, and the floral compost activator research is of use in the Harakeke composting developments. I hope it’s of use to see this journey ‘in the middle’, before everything gets connected up.

Biggest update - ‘The Flower Project’ is nearly one year old! The official launch date here on Substack was June 2nd, so next week Kate and I will hop on for a birthday party celebration. More details coming soon, but for now, if you have a story to share, please send by email to katrina@blueborage.co.nz

Here are some highlights of the last couple of weeks:

• Sat 16th May - harvested material for a Taatua (tool belt) for a colleague here in Tuakau.

• Sun 17th May - New Moon, with a platinum offering placed in the Paa Harakeke in Tuakau, along with the ‘New Earth’ blend made the week of 11-15 May, when there was a real ‘Ascension’ feeling in the garden. I added in some Agnihotra Ash from an Agnihotra ceremony done on the morning of Sunday 17th.

• Sun 24th May - Floral Compost Activator demonstration with children and families at Michael Park Kindergarten in Auckland at their working bee. Lots of positive feedback from parents, teachers and school staff. Yay!

• Mon 25th May - online meeting with Nature Communication study group in the Auckland area. I brought the question of how plants respond to being harvested at the full moon, after an interesting experience with the Harakeke in Tuakau’s Centennial Park.

• Tues 26th May - operational upgrade here at the soil farm: I pulled all the flowers out of storage from 2025, replaced them with all the flowers from the 2025/26 season, which will make it easier to do a stocktake/inventory of what’s avaialble for this season.

• Wed 27th May - visit to the research team at Franklin Agritech, to see the Level 4 Horticulture assignment in the middle of their 10 week trial of Harakeke compost in radish seedlings. They are interested in testing the Floral Compost Activator (the QR blend as taught by Maye Bruce), so there’s interesting learnings ahead while they analyse what the activator does for the soil, the seeds, and the plants.

FAQ: Is the floral compost activator useful in a compost toilet?
(Basically - the answer is YES!!! and I go into a little more depth on this)

Invitation: this work will reach more people if I can get my car back on the road. Warrant of Fitness is due, with no funds to cover the cost of this.

Get more from The Flower Project in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

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Yesterday’s demonstration was mostly a photoshoot, to gather a few more pictures for a proposal to apply for funding to get this work out there.

If you are an ECE centre with funds available to bring me in, then I’m ready to implement the work. Email: katrina@blueborage.co.nz

Here are some snippets from the proposal document:

Why Early Childhood Education?

ECE centres are ideal environments for this work. Teachers are already required to embed sustainability learning under Te Whāriki, the ECE curriculum framework. Most centres manage food scraps and garden waste but often struggle with:

• Smelly or ineffective compost systems

• Limited staff knowledge about composting best practices

• Difficulty integrating composting meaningfully into educational programmes

The Flower Project addresses these challenges while creating opportunities for children to engage directly with natural cycles. The method is simple enough for 3-5 year olds to participate in—picking flowers, making ‘potions,’ observing changes—while sophisticated enough to genuinely improve compost quality and support teacher understanding of biodynamic principles.

Two Pathways for Implementation

The Floral Compost Activator training is offered through two complementary pathways, allowing centres to choose the level of engagement that suits their needs, budget and readiness.

Pathway One: Online Professional Development

A scalable, accessible entry point for centres across Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally. Teachers participate in live, interactive webinars that build from introductory concepts through to advanced, centre-specific applications.

Structure:

• Session 1 – Introduction (60-90 minutes): Overview of the floral compost activator method, how it works, materials needed, and how to begin. Participants receive a resource list to start gathering supplies.

• Session 2 – Deep Dive (90-120 minutes): For participants ready to implement the method, this session explores troubleshooting, adapting the method for different composting systems, seasonal variations, and embedding the practice into educational programmes. Q&A and peer learning encouraged.

• Session 3 – Advanced Applications (90-120 minutes): For experienced practitioners, this session features case studies from centres who have successfully integrated the method, explores customising flower blends for specific challenges (odour, speed, texture), and addresses long-term garden and soil building goals.

Participants can enter at Session 1 and progress at their own pace. Some centres will implement immediately; others may take a year or more to gather materials and build confidence. The pathway honours different timelines and levels of commitment.

Pathway Two: In-Person Compost Consulting

For centres seeking hands-on, site-specific support, Katrina offers comprehensive in-person consulting to embed the floral compost activator method into the centre’s physical space, workflows and educational vision. She is based halfway between Auckland and Hamilton, and travels regularly.

Service Components:

• Initial Site Visit (1-2 hours, may be remote by video): Meeting with head teacher and garden coordinator. Assessment of existing composting systems, garden layout, available plants, and immediate/long-term goals. Photos, measurements, plant inventory, discussion of budget and community resources.

• Comprehensive Report (5-8 pages): Detailed recommendations for composting system refinement, plant selection and placement, workflow optimisation, materials sourcing, and integration with educational programmes.

• Floral Compost Activator Workshop (90 minutes + 30 min setup, 30 min packdown): Hands-on training for teachers, parents and helpers. Participants make their own flower blend, learn application techniques, and receive take-home resources. Centre receives a prepared blend for immediate use.

• Follow-up Visits (remote if an in person follow up is not feasible): One week post-workshop (checking compost response, answering questions) and one month later (observing integration, refining approach). These visits ensure sustainable implementation.

• Children’s Session: Teachers lead age-appropriate activities with children (flower picking, ‘potion’ making, compost observation). Katrina provides guidance and resources but teachers facilitate this component, ensuring it becomes part of the centre’s ongoing rhythm.

• Final Report: Summary of the full process, observations, recommendations for ongoing practice, and suggestions for next steps in garden and soil development.

This in-person pathway is especially valuable for centres with existing composting challenges (odour, pests, slow decomposition) or ambitious garden development plans. It establishes robust, sustainable systems while building teacher capacity.

Today’s voice notes is a description of how I got into planning a new moon ritual that I did this morning - new moon in Taurus, Sun in Gate 8 Line 2 ‘Service’.

I was asked to make an offering of platinum to the land, and I’ve given it to one of my favourite Harakeke plants, one with ‘white gold’ muka thread.

There’s a huge wave of enthusiasm and energy in the area for Raranga (Maori weaving), and the care of this Paa Harakeke. My hope is that the platinum will add more support to that, and elevate Buckley Fyers’ legacy for Tuakau and the need for weavers to have access to precious cultivars.

Photos below: