Tierra Verde (green earth) – new business + non-profit projects

Hello everybody, our names are Nico and Lucinda and together we have a beautiful baby boy.

We are both very passionate about the environment and making this world a better place. Our mission is to help people grow their own food, and wouldn’t it be great to normalise growing fruit trees/veggie plants in public places and in that way, lead the way to a greater and greener earth.

Working for someone else is not as fulfilling as working for yourself and following your own goals and dreams, not your boss’s ideals (generally money generated). Even though it is difficult, we do this to be able to have more family time and to follow our values and beliefs.

So, we decided to create a start-up and we have called it 'Tierra Verde', meaning ‘Green Earth’, and this is our landscaping and organic garden business.

With not enough money in our bank accounts yet, we do as we can to pay the bills, take any job that we come across and are learning all the time. Meeting amazing people and knowing that we are not the only ones who want to make this world a better place enriches and rewards our lives.

"Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food." ― Hippocrates

The basic concept of Tierra Verde is to teach people about food, by making vegetable gardens for them and even maintaining them for those who don't have the time but still want to eat healthier and fresher organic vegetables.

There is no better feeling than harvesting your very own fruits, vegetables and fresh herbs to season your food. This also gives you a better appreciation for your food and a better connection and relationship to your environment.

On the other hand, we are starting to create a massive vegetable garden, so we will be able to start selling produce at an affordable price and free of nasty agri-chemicals.

Now, as a non-profit project, we will be planting native and fruit trees in public spaces. Creating food/fruit roads or at least nice shaded roads with lots of trees is our plan. Wouldn't it be lovely to see beautiful flowers around everywhere? It is also important for the birds and bees.

For our first non-profit project we have selected a local street that is 2-3 km of rural road that does not have many trees at all. We are going to plant lots of New Zealand native trees and of course fruit trees.

We are going to buy some wheelie-bins to lend to people and get their food scraps for our compost piles. That way, less organic material will go to the landfill and their organic scraps will be put to a good use. With the bins, we need to give them a bit of hay to mix with the food scraps and we’ll explain how the compost works - it’s going to benefit them as well.

We are starting to do clones (reproduction from cuttings) of different plants and as the environment is of huge importance to us, we will be using recycled newspaper and tin can pots to avoid using plastic punnets. Some natives - Manuka trees for example, we will be able to do after the summer ends, and probably plant them one year later. So, for now we are going to buy them, so we can start straight away – they cost around $1 each.

To get this going in the right direction, Tierra Verde must expand, and for that we will have to get the right equipment.

We are in the process of selling our cars and will buy a Ute, but we can't afford a decent 2nd hand one just yet.

We are doing raffles around our area to try to get money and we thought why not give it a go with this system.

We are also very passionate about minimum waste in the environment and we recycle things as much as possible. Firstly, we need to seek out second hand tools though it’s difficult to find good usable ones. Some things we will need to buy new as with a large project like this, we need to get durable ones that will last.

We value honesty and transparency, so we came up with a list of things that we know we need to get Tierra Verde going

-UTE ($10.000+) (2nd hand but reliable)

(note: we have a new-born baby and it needs to be dual cabin to fit the baby seat)

-Trailer (we got given an old trailer and we are repairing it atm :) )

- Weedeater - hedge trimmer

- Chainsaw

-Lawnmower

-Wheelie bins (100lt - will try to get around 10 or more) -1

-Spades (1 so far)

-Hard spade

-Shovels

-Pitchfork (found an oldone in the dump)

-Mulch pitchfork

-Grubber

-Hard grubber

-Rakes

-Fencing material (we already have some but not much)

-Hay (will try to get as much free hay as we can from horse farmers that can't use it because it's not edible anymore)

-Compost, we must buy some for now until our compost piles are ready, and it's going to take a couple of monthsCandida

-Potting mix

-Cow-horse manure (free)

-Sawdust untreated (Free)

-Mulch

-Trees for the first project (1000-2000) (Manuka, Kanuka, Kowhai, Kauri, Cabbage trees, Nikau palms, ferns, Pohutukawa, fruit trees, etc)

-Gloves for volunteers

We are extremely grateful for any support or contributions. This project is already in our hearts and we are working on it every day. Regardless of getting any money at all, we will continue this journey to make our world a better place for ourselves and those generations that follow, that they too may learn to respect this beautiful planet and in doing so, enjoy a greener, healthier lifestyle.