Taupō Community gardens celebrates 10 years of growing and teaching

Outgoing Taupō Community Gardens chairwoman Viv Wrathall runs her allotment more for fresh food to donate than personal supplies. Photo / Rachel Canning

Celebrating 10 delicious years.

But Taupō Community Gardens will say there is far more to the gardens than eating the produce. The gardens are a teaching facility running regular workshops about composting and organic gardening, partnering with local events to take on food scraps, making regular donations of surplus fresh produce to Taupō Foodbank and Lake Taupō Hospice, and running events, open days and working bees with up to 100 visitors at a time.

Outgoing chairwoman Viv Wrathall says a decade ago the garden was a bare paddock beside a former bowling club. She says going from spare lawn to a thriving garden in 10 years is a great effort.

"We have made a huge investment in the gardens, with irrigation, a greenhouse, a shade house and enough tools to be self-sufficient."

She says the community gardens have also improved the gardening knowledge of many people in the Taupō community. Organising volunteer time so the gardens can open to the public has been a rewarding challenge, with the gardens now open for three hours each morning, from Monday to Friday.

"The idea is, people come along for an introductory session, and if they like it they come back and work alongside more experienced gardeners."

Individual plots are available for regular members, but Viv says members have tended to take up the allotments to grow food to donate, as most people have enough space at home to grow their own vegetables.

"People come along as they like to be part of the garden community, they contribute their skills and ideas. Some people have a trade, others are good at marketing or fundraising."

Future plans are in place to offer more workshops, improve volunteers' beekeeping skills, improve the irrigation system and extend the children's play area and children's garden.

"We would love to involve a landscape designer to beautify the space, as we are planning on growing our community engagement and would like a purpose-built outdoor gathering area," said Viv.

Looking ahead, it is hoped Taupō Community Gardens will become an education centre for Taupō and that a co-ordinator/educator can be employed.

Viv says the monthly composting workshops are popular, with an increasing number of people seeing the value of using their food scraps to improve their garden soil.

"We could hold more workshops for people wanting to learn gardening ABCs."

The gardens are celebrating their 10-year anniversary this Sunday and everyone is invited.

Later in the day (from 1pm to 3pm), a Biodynamic Compost Building Workshop is being held, and people attending the celebrations may like to stay on for it. This is a great opportunity to bring along your kitchen scraps and lawn clippings and make a joint compost creation. A donation is suggested for this part of the day.

The Details
Who: Taupō Community Gardens
What: An Autumn Harvest Day and 10 Year Celebration. Fun activities and entertainment for all ages including face painting, seed saving, food harvesting, meet-the-bees, feed-the-worms, hot soup and music.
When: Sunday, March 28, from 11am to 1pm
Where : 98 Richmond Ave, Richmond Heights Park at the community hall.
Cost: Free.
Information: Head to Facebook @TaupōCommunityGardens