Wellsford Community Garden blooming with NorthTec

Media release: Wellsford Community Garden blooming with NorthTec horticulture and sustainable rural development programmes on-site

The transformation that’s taken place on the former council depot turned community garden in Wellsford is nothing less than extraordinary, says Healthy Communities Coordinator for the Coast to Coast PHO Julie Hawkes.

“The site had been unused for many years and became a storage site for broken down machinery. 18 months ago Coast to Coast PHO moved into the offices here and rebuilt and renovated them. We wanted the site to be a resource for the whole community. With the vision of Nancy Malloy (CEO), a lot of hard work from many people, and a great garden design from NorthTec tutor Daniel Tohill (Sustainable Habitats), we’ve created something that everyone can use to enhance their healthy living.”

The Wellsford Community Garden occupies a 5-acre site and is under development. The site has been cleared of old machinery and overgrown paddocks of rubbish, to begin the creation of a community garden. The vision is that an environment can be created where knowledge, equipment and garden space is available on site for individuals, families or groups to establish their own vegetable plot or raised bed garden, just by investing their time. The produce grown can be used to provide healthy kai for families and whānau, or traded with other gardeners.

“It all started with a display garden that we set up close to the road to see how things would grow here and to demonstrate to the community what it was that we were trying to do. Some people had concerns that the garden would be vandalised or produce taken but we haven’t had any problems.”

The produce from the display garden has been made available to community organisations such as Foodbank and Budgeting Services. Families have been encouraged to come to the garden and help themselves to fresh healthy produce in exchange for a little weeding or garden tidying.

One family comes regularly and tidies the vegetable patch taking old leaves for their pet rabbits.

NorthTec is delivering horticulture and sustainable rural development programmes in a classroom space that it has set up on-site, with students also working on developing the community garden as part of their programme.

“There’s been a huge amount of work put in by many people, initially from small beginnings.

“A local Raranga (flax weaving) Group has established a flax plantation (Pa Harakeke) within the community garden with plants donated from Manurewa Botanical Gardens and a local plantation in Mangawhai. Flax weaving provides a great setting for talking about health and other issues.”

The support that has been given to the Wellsford Community Garden concept has been fantastic and is continuing to grow now that people are able to see what eating your own produce can do in terms of encouraging positive health outcomes.

“We were able to access WDHB (Waitemata District Health Board) HEHA Oranga funding (Healthy Eating, Healthy Action) to progress some elements of the Community Garden, for example to employ a Garden Coordinator for one year. Wiremu Ruka was recently appointed to give gardeners advice on their plots and to guide the development of the garden.”

“Anybody can come and set up a plot,” said Wiremu. “There’s no cost, but people do have to do some work! People can grow their own veges and swap ideas and produce.”

Local farmers and contractors have lent a hand with heavy equipment to plough land and establish track that will eventually provide a space for children to ride their bikes while their parents and relatives garden. Contractors and farmers from the district have also provided useful organic bi-products such as wood chip and soil, to help create a good growing mix to add to the site plots.

Local iwi have also contributed.”

“We’ve leased an adjacent paddock to keep sheep that have been donated for Wellsford Foodbank. The garden planting plan has been developed to ensure everything planted has a use, with fruit trees, bushes, flowers, ferns and medicinal plants. We’ve recently planted mandarins, citrus, almonds and plum trees. It’s all part of a vision for proactive Healthy Eating and Healthy Action that is sustainable and owned by the community which it serves.”

NorthTec tutors Chris McIvor and Daniel Tohill will be delivering Horticulture level 2 and 3 and Sustainable Rural Development level 2 and 3 at the site next year. This will be the first time that the level 3 programmes and the level 2 Sustainable Rural Development programme have been offered at the site.

ENDS

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