Local Focus: Sowing the seeds of love

Hundreds of “mini bucket gardens” are being given away to help cyclone-affected families recover and replant their home gardens thanks to Hawke’s Bay community group Magic Beans.

Hastings resident Stacey Smith lost her garden during the floods but, with two buckets of lettuce and onion seedlings, she’s looking forward to making a fresh start.

“What I’ve planted has come from so much love from the community, which is just so amazing,” she said.

Phil Hough, from Napier South, opened his backyard to Magic Beans volunteers to sow more seeds.

“I’ve been a gardener since I was 8 years old and I’m now 79. My heart is in the garden. I’ve got a fairly big backyard and am quite happy to let everyone come through,” he said.

Magic Beans plans to go nationwide after it launches an app in late June.

Other Napier volunteers, Gillian Gibbs and Gillian O’Brian, saw a request for help on social media.

“This is being able to bring a little bit of normality back to flood-affected people and we are able to share the aroha,” said O’Brian.

Seeds are donated from people and businesses all around New Zealand. Since it began on Facebook seven years ago, nearly 5000 people have joined the Magic Beans group.

If a home gardener is lucky enough to have excess produce, they can swap or give it away to other locals.

Magic Beans hopes to expand nationwide after it launches its app in late June.

“The app is free to use and it’s going to be much more functional than what we can manage on Facebook,” said co-founder Sarah Grant.

“Over the next two or three years, we aim to raise money to enable us to expand into other markets internationally.”

To find out more about the initiative, check out the Magic Beans Facebook page.