Community garden spruced up for spring

The Victory Community Garden has been undergoing a transformation over the past few weeks as volunteers have created the gardens anew.

When Nadia Dysart, the Victory Community Centre’s kai coordinator, took over the job in September, she said there were clear shortcomings of the garden.

“I did the summer months, or the growing season, and realised quickly that it was pretty hard going without a watering system.”

However, installing a watering system would have been “quite a mission” given the layout of the garden.

After a meeting with community stakeholders, the community centre opted to give the entire garden a revamp.

“Part of that was getting these raised garden beds in one area so that lots of different groups can adopt a bed and grow plants easily,” Nadia says.

The raised boxes have since been filled and are ready for planting – kumara and leafy greens are ready and waiting – with the watering system hoped to be installed in the near future.

The garden’s new compost system, funded by Nelson City Council through a waste minimisation grant, is also expected to allow the garden to supply its own compost on-site.

The garden also provides the opportunity for residents to strengthen community relationships and develop skills.

“It brings people from different cultures together in a common space; we have English language students come and garden regularly at the community gardens and they have amazing skills that they have brought over from Myanmar and Nepal,” Nadia says.

“You can learn so much from each other.”

An education area down the back of the garden is also planned to “empower” kids so they feel confident in taking gardening skills back home.

“If they come in and they see a whole bunch of perfect raised garden beds, that can be a barrier.”

Nadia thinks that community gardens and gardening at home are becoming more “normalised” as the price of food remains high and people grow more concerned about food resilience and autonomy.

“It’s starting to hit home a little bit,” she says. “I’m getting different people… contacting me and they’re all starting up their own initiatives of how to empower families to grow their own food.

“I don’t think that was happening on such a broad scale before.”

Nadia invites interested locals to the garden working bees they have each Monday afternoon from 1-3pm at the Victory Community Centre.

“It’s a great space to meet other people and share and learn skills around gardening and growing your own food.”