Foodbank replenished with community greens

Jo Stock (pictured) and the team of volunteers at Bayfair Community Garden harvest hundreds of boxes of fresh produce for Tauranga Community Foodbank each year. Photo / Andrew Warner

Fresh, organic, healthy fruits and vegetables are an important part of the diet and thanks to the efforts of the Bayfair Community Garden, struggling adults and children seeking help from the Tauranga Community Foodbank can also eat well.

Hundreds of banana boxes of freshly harvested vegetables, fruits, berries and herbs are delivered to the foodbank each year through the efforts of about 12 volunteers who keep the Gloucester Rd garden running.

Jo Stock has worked at the garden for 19 years and said more than 400 boxes of fresh produce were delivered to the foodbank - which is the main driver for the 700sq m garden - each year.

"The foodbank comes over on Tuesdays and we harvest," said Ms Stock. "Peter, their driver, comes in and has a cup of tea with us then picks up the food."

Volunteers are growing broad beans, snow peas, green peas, parsnips, carrots, broccoli, spinach and silverbeet.

"We're harvesting rhubarb at the moment. Cucumbers, kamo kamo, pumpkin, tomatoes, boysenberries, raspberries.

"I'm having a go at growing goji berries. We've got red and green lettuce and icebergs and a little patch of strawberries."

Ms Stock grows all the plants at home from seeds which are donated by South Pacific Seeds.

"I have to scrounge for funds, we are not Government-funded at all but we have one or two people who help every year."

The volunteers liaise with nearby Arataki Primary School and St Thomas More Catholic School, local kindergartens and garden groups, who visit.

Other local gardeners also contribute their surplus produce for collection by the foodbank.

"There's a guy who comes in who has a lawn mowing franchise who drops off the best grass clippings that we turn into compost along with our own harvest waste."

Ms Stock was a secondary school teacher for 40 years, developing a love of healthy food, and tries to keep the garden as organic as possible.

"I just love to be outside. Being inside all those years there's something therapeutic about being out in the garden."