This weekend is the annual garden tour – a fundraiser for Pukaha Mount Bruce and many people will be taking the chance to travel around Wairarapa and enjoy the many home gardens that are on display.
However, this year there is a chance to see a garden of a completely different kind – a flourishing community garden on the grounds of St Matthew’s Church in Masterton.
This garden – the GROW garden – came about as a response to address food poverty in Wairarapa and has been a great success. The Wairarapa Community Centre set the wheels in motion when they opened the Community Kitchen, providing food for struggling whanau, then commenced classes for those trying to cook on a restricted budget.
Learning to grow your own food in a sustainable and relatively effortless way was the obvious third step, and the neglected garden space at the rear of St Matthew’s Hall was the obvious place to start.
The first step was the installation of a huge water tank, then once that was in place a series of raised planter beds was established for community groups to help their clients to learn about vegetable gardening. Different groups took up the challenge – disability organisations, youth groups, refugees and ropu interested in gardening using Māori maramataka [gardening by phases of the moon] to produce food for young mothers and their tamariki all took up the challenge.
The gardens are established using the ‘lasagne’ method, where alternate layers of brown materials [cardboard, newspaper, pine needles] and green matter [garden waste, lawn clippings, food scraps etc] are laid on the surface, then topped with a layer of pea straw. The effect is a no-dig method of gardening using compost that is generated on the soil rather than in bins.
The gardens have only been established for a season or two, but they are already showing the great benefits the process – the beds are almost weed-free, and pests and diseases are kept to a minimum with a variety of organic tricks.
As well as the main beds, use has been made of almost every square inch. Mulch was slipping from the edge of one of the pathways, so some old coffee sacks were repurposed to act as a home for taewa [Māori potatoes] as well as the early ‘Red Rascal’ variety. Filled with compost, they act as an edging for the space as well as providing some spuds for Christmas.
The western boundary fence is also put to use – wires strung along its length provide the framework for an extensive collection of espaliered fruit trees, established while running a workshop. The fruit from the vertical orchard will be bottled and distributed to the community.
Another space is given over to a small fowl run, with a group of contented brown hens providing a steady stream of eggs as well as helping convert some of the plant waste into fertiliser. The hens are fed daily by volunteers – each volunteer has a day a week on the roster.
The garden beds are filled with produce – a lot of brassicas have flourished over the winter months, with rudely healthy cabbages and broccoli in abundance, but space has also been dedicated to summer crops, with tomatoes protected from the wind and cold as they get a start, and a tunnel house in the garden providing shelter for some frost tender crops and a plethora of seedlings.
For the first season, the garden was mainly planted with seedlings purchased locally, to ensure that the first-time gardeners were given every chance of success. At the end of the growing season, the produce was harvested, along with a bunch of seeds. This was then sown at the start of this year to move towards a more self-sustainable garden.
As well as vegetable beds, there are lots of herbs growing in pots and other containers, as well as many planted as companions to other crops.
One of the youth groups chose an unusual method for their plot – they planted it out in triangle shapes, to represent pizza slices, then planted for various toppings, including some strawberries for dessert. They also planted sunflowers and sweet peas as they wanted more vibrancy in the garden. They grew some popping corn last year, which they harvested and cooked on the open fire pit which is part of the garden.
Most of the beds are maintained by outside groups, but a couple of beds are maintained by GROW volunteers, mostly people who want to spend some relaxing time in the garden and help support the community.
Local organisations have helped too – the most recent being a large donation of potting mix and compost from Mitre 10.
At the weekend, the GROW garden will be enhanced by a market to be held in St Matthews Hall, along with food trucks in the grounds. A small shop will also be open, selling some seedlings from the tunnel house, along with seed trays and harvest baskets, and volunteers will be on hand to explain the processes used in this remarkable community garden.
