Gates open at Rotorua Lux Organic farm open day for Sustainable Backyard Month

Jenny Lux with her organic certified vegetable farm. Photo / Leah Tebbutt

Lux organics opened its gate to more than 30 people yesterday afternoon in a bid to better educate people on sustainable living.

The open day was the kick start event of Sustainable Backyards Month, an initiative by Envirohub which offers more than 160 enviro-events throughout the Bay of Plenty.

The afternoon was an opportunity for people to educate themselves about organic harvesting.

Although Lux Organics is based in Ngongotahā, many of its customers had not previously been to the farm.

Owner Jenny Lux said it was important for people to understand where their food was coming from and what exactly organic meant.

"Our method of producing vegetables is different to the conventional. It is small-scale intensive and we do everything with minimal fossil fuels.

"It takes quite a bit of set up because we dig the garden by hand.

"We've prepared the soil without tractors and have the garden beds set up so they are well dug and they no longer have to be ploughed every year."

Lux's greenhouse full of tomato, cucumber, eggplant and beans. Photo / Leah Tebbutt

Traditionally vegetable farmers would spray off weeds, plant the seeds and re-plough the soil each year which Lux believes is a good way to lose carbon content while using excess fossil fuels.

"The way we do it is we prepare the soil and then we never step on it again. We make it like a chocolate cake with lots of air and sponginess in it.

"We have deep forks that we go down into the soil and loosen it up and aerate it."

She said compost and any other nutrients they needed to add were laid on the top and gently mixed with a mechanical rake powered by a hand drill.

"That's as high powered as it gets on our farm. We don't have any rotary hoe.

"We really just need a fork, rake and hoe for the weeds."

Lux said in her opinion, farming un-organically was a sure-fire way to destroy the planet and there would be a certain number of years before there would be no soil left.

Envirohub regional co-ordinator Toi Iti said Sustainable Backyard was a way for local communities to find better ways to leave a lesser impact on the ecosystem.

"It is not about everyone overnight becoming vegan or getting rid of their cars, it's about finding all the little things that you can do to make a change.

"At the end of the day we have to all take individual responsibility, we cannot change how other people are going to behave around us but what we can do ourselves is make the changes that we would like to see happening."

What is Sustainable Backyards Month

In it's fourteenth year, the month brings together a calendar of sustainability-focused environmental events held throughout the Bay of Plenty.

There are weekly themes for the events so make sure you check the What's On list to see what is happening around Rotorua.