Ahoaho Adventures

17/06/2025

🔥 come see us at the Ōtaki College Matariki night market, and pick up some beautiful Cowan Apiaries Honey - produced right here at Ahoaho! We have limited stock of the Mill Road blend, just $15 a jar 👍👍

06/06/2025

🌟 The Ōtaki College Matariki Night Market is only a few weeks away! This year, Ahoaho will have a stall with lots of garden goodies on offer - including seeds we've saved over the year. Today we sorted our seeds and labeled our seed packets - a lovely way to remember all the diverse and beautiful plants in the garden.

🌼 Calendula is one of our most beloved plants in the garden - we admire the flowers all year round, and love seeing the bee's enjoy it too. We use it in salads and posies, and infuse it into oil to make balms. We can't wait to share these and other favorites with you at or stall!

10/05/2025

Another project we've been working know to year is setting up an AQUAPONICS system 🐠🌱

Aquaponics is a way of growing kai using no soil at all. Instead, plants are grown in a continuous supply of water 💧 The water passes through a fishtank, and the fish provide all the nutrients that plants need to thrive. We have 10 goldfish in our tank, and have been experimenting growing herbs, lettuce and strawberries 🍓 The whole system is powered by a solar panel, kindly donated and installed by our friends at Energise Ōtaki ☀️

The system itself was designed and donated by our friend Len, who has spent many hours supporting us with setting up and tweaking the system. Legend! Huge thanks also to the Mana Kura class for their muscle to help install and move the fish tank. And of course many students who have helped feed the fish, test the water quality, and prepare the plants. Setting this up has been a lot of fun, and involved lots of learning through trial and error - and we're not finished yet!

🤔 so what's next?

🌿we have a dream of growing WATERCRESS in our aquaponics system, and supplying it to Ōtaki.

🌥 we'd like to simplify our solar system, to make it more reliable, so we're on the look out for a powerful 12v pump.

If you have access to either of these, or have any knowledge, ideas or any suggestions for how we could develop this system , please leave a comment below 👇

07/05/2025

Kai Power Ōtaki is our latest project at Ahoaho, in collaboration with Energise Ōtaki (with support from KCDC). Together, we set up a biodigester which helps us 'close the loop' using food waste as cooking fuel. Whaea Frost has been bringing her sciences classes to learn about the system and run experiments. Check our their awesome diagram explainers!

🤔so what exactly is a biodigester?
Like a compost bin, a biodigester creates an environment where organic waste (like food scraps) can break down. In this case, it's an anaerobic (air-free) tank, with which is home to methane-producing bacteria (which occurs naturally in cow manure).
🔥The methane the bacteria produce fills up the dome at the top of the tank, and when we want to use it, we turn on a solar-powered pump, which sends the gas to our camp stove.
🌱When the tank is full, it drains out a liquid which is high in nutrients and can be used as a fertilizer.

💪how do you actually use it?
First, we filled the tank with cow manure. Then we 'fed' the biodigester with all the fallen, damaged apples we could find in the orchard. Now, we fill it with any no-longer-edible leftovers from the school lunch programme twice a week.
🍴We use the stove to cook up what we harvest in the garden, like zucchini or Jerusalem artichokes, (as well as popcorn - which we'd love to grow ourselves next year 🌽 and water for coffee too)
🧐The fertilizer (which is pretty smelly!) has been used in experiments, by is really acidic (low pH). Not sure that would be too good or our plants!

28/04/2025

In case you missed it, here's a cool update from Energise Ōtaki about a project we've been collaborating on here at Ahoaho.
It's been awesome setting up these sustainable systems in our space, and working with ākonga to figure out how they work, and what potential they offer for a sustainable future - at Ōtaki College and beyond!

20/11/2024

Salad harvest today! Fresh as, at Te Pātaka 🙏🌱

12/11/2024

09/11/2024

Meet us at the Otaki Market for your fix of local, seasonal, fresh-as vege from Crooked Vege and Ahoaho māra kai.

☀️ 10am-2pm tomorrow (Sunday), opposite New World ☀️

04/11/2024

Cucumber season is here 🥒🥒 straight from the greenhouse to Te Pātaka in the Arcade

$2 each, or 5 for $5 ✨️

31/10/2024

First delivery for Te Pātaka for the season

💫rhubarb 💫artichokes 💫 grapefruit 🌱 parsley seedlings

Shout out to Crooked Vege for keeping the fridge topped up while we took a winter break! As the season picks up, both farms will be supplying Te Pātaka regularly again - stop in at the Arcade on Mill Road to check out the goodies 🤩

ALSO 🔥🔥did you know our ŌSA veggie bags are starting up again very soon? If you'd like to become a member, and enjoy a weekly bag of local veggie at a price that works for you, register your interest at https://www.crookedvege.co.nz/osa

26/06/2024

Come visit us at the Matariki Night Market this Saturday 🔥🔥
We'll be selling these beautiful succulents - rescued, re-potted and beautifully presented by our rangatahi who help out weekly in the garden. We'll also have our crop of delicious walnuts for sale, and a limited supply of honey from our hives (thanks to Phillip Scott Cowan, our resident beekeeper)