On a recent trip to New Zealand, Julie and Andrew visited some local community gardens. Read what they found – and how much connects us from one side of the world to another.
Waimarama Community Gardens, Nelson, South Island, New Zealand
In January – February this year, we took a trip to South Island, New Zealand. It was a long-held ambition to see this country, but also, we had a standing invite to stay with some old friends, now resident in Nelson, at the northern end of South Island.
After a few days being shown around the Nelson area, which includes amazing beaches, and several national Parks, most notably Abel Tasman National Park, we were let loose and paid a casual visit to Waimarama Community Gardens, which we had seen signposted in Nelson town.
Established 23 years ago – the gardens were quite a hotchpotch on first sight, set just below the hills above Nelson and at the start of the 175kms-long Great Taste Trail, a food and drink walking/cycling trail, presumably for wobbly cyclists. (One for next time!). The edges of the site were more overgrown, blending into the local vegetation, and a sort of organised chaos reigned.
During our visit to the Nelson area, we were lucky with warm and sunny weather, with lots of birds singing, and cicadas chirruping as soon as the day warmed up.
There was a huge amount that was very familiar at Waimarama: various huts and sheds consisting of a seed shed, a sales area, wormery, a posh clay-brick compost toilet (very envious of this!) and community shed; IBCs (yes, they are everywhere) taking rain from shed roofs; a Rota Board of tasks – advising volunteers of Wednesday and Saturday tasks; and numerous individual small plots being tended by plot-holders busily watering.
Their home-made composting toilet, off-grid, fed by rainwater.
Seemingly, IBCs are the solution where ever you go. Collecting rainwater for the plants is even more critical in Nelson than the UK because the South Island of New Zealand is in its third year of drought.
Rain-water collection to IBCs
Although we had turned up unannounced, we were lucky to be pointed in the direction of Sally (family from Somerset originally), who was about to show round a potential new recruit, an amazingly knowledgeable teenage girl who was very keen to learn and hoped to become a regular volunteer. Her family home had only a yard for the dog and no plants.
Sally showed us some experimental Three Sisters Companion Planting which was thriving. If you haven’t heard of this, it seems to be a native American idea starting with sweetcorn, which provides the support for beans twining up the corn stems, with beans providing soil nitrate, surrounded by a ground layer of squash and courgettes suppressing weeds. We only knew of the Three Sisters idea after reading Braiding Sweet Grass, a book by American writer Robin Wall Kimmerer. Wonderful to see being put into practise – would it work in our rather cooler climate?
We also loved the individual chaotic plots which didn’t appear too rigidly planned but so good to see in their full summer glory. We were staggered by the flowers (lots of dahlias), herbs and vegetables, having left a cold English January.
Their Compost Club met on Saturdays and were making so much compost they had spread some surplus on adjacent waste ground and were growing squash.
Compost: everyone does it but everyone’s different
Drowning pernicious weeds seems universal. Unfortunately, the worst weeds in New Zealand all seem to be from the UK!
We took their Facebook details and took our hasty leave of the community garden as the sandflies started to find us.
(Incidentally, a great Saturday event in Nelson is the Farmers market – stalls full of blueberries, raspberries and lots of produce grown nearby by small producers.)
Have you visited community growers elsewhere? Let us know what you found.