New compost system needs help

HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW: Reverend Stephen Kimberley (left) and Alan Fielding need some help with a new composting system for St Matthew's Church.

A church community and a former university lecturer have teamed up to help get Masterton's community garden flourishing in time for spring -- starting with a brand new waste management system.

Keen gardener and conservationist Alan Fielding will be working with St Matthew's Anglican Church to develop more efficient composting methods for the church's communal vegetable patch and glasshouse dome.

With the weather getting warmer, the church members are looking forward to the next bumper crop of vegetables -- but are appealing for various 'bits and pieces' to help make up the composting system.

St Matthew's has run a gardening programme, mainly targeting single mothers and beneficiaries, for the past five years.

Mr Fielding said learning to grow food provides the opportunity to "start a little business".

"At the moment, we're not producing enough organic food to keep up with demand. So selling your produce is an opportunity too good to miss.

"We just need to get a compost system to produce that good, healthy tucker."

Currently, the St Matthew's gardeners use a New Zealand Box composting method -- which Mr Fielding said is difficult to maintain, with waste taking time to fully break down.

"It's quite a masochistic method," he said.

"There's a lot of shovelling involved, which is hard on the spine."

He plans to replace the New Zealand Box with a 'turning' system, based on a product created by one of his students when he was a lecturer at Massey University.

In this system, compost is mixed and aerated as it is passed between two bins with the turn of a handle -- with the oxygen flow breaking down material more quickly.

"You give the machine a couple of cranks, and Bob's your uncle."

Mr Fielding also plans to construct a St Christopher's worm farm, so named as they are made from tyres, referring to St Christopher as a patron saint of travelling.

Worms consume food waste, and the breakdown process produces a liquid which makes a nutrient-rich garden fertiliser.

As both composting items are expensive to buy, Mr Fielding is calling for donations -- large plastic drums to help make up the turning system, old clothes drier doors to cover the worm farm, and trays to catch the worms' leachate.

Food scraps for the worms to feast on would also be welcome.

"Plus, we could do with someone with welding skills to help fit everything together," Mr Fielding said.

"This could also be a good way for the community to recycle things they're not using."

If you wish to help with St Matthew's compost system, call Rev Stephen Kimberley on 06 370 8589.