Friday, September 16, 2011
Mataura Community Garden
There's not much growing in there at the moment - the ground is too wet, but the team that's developing the garden at Mataura has been busy building. The sign at the roadside is a very attractive one but is overshadowed by the huge just-completed tunnel house that stands in the background. There were tremendous volumes of vegetables harvested from the garden last season and that will be challenged by the coming year, judging by the sheer size of the tunnel house and the potential it offers. I'll go back in the late summer and see how well they are doing. It's a great project, being executed with great precision.
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4 comments:
How did they fund the tunnelhouse? Fundraising?
I'm not too sure Kylie. Barbara Cunningham is the mover and shaker there and she did say that she'd sourced the plastic from Chch super-cheap somehow. The person who built the house is a master at the craft - it's beautifully dome. they have a Dutch ex-market gardener driving the cultivating and planting - it's all pretty impressive. The marae have a similarly sized and productive community garden there as well - Go Mataura! They are the Southland community that is leading the way in terms of these kinds of initiatives. We did a grafting workshop with them yesterday and there were around 50 people turned up for it. 91 apple trees grafted and out into the environment there! That's out 4th visit to Mataura for such a workshop, plus their school has an orchard...
'beautifully done
Clearly it's not a dome :-)
Hi Kylie,
I know it is a year ago you wrote your comment but I have only found it. You are wondering how we financed the tunnel house in he community garden.
The plastic was sourced from Ohoka north of Christchurch via Trademe. It was double skin for a tunnelhouse 29 metres long. We got it for $85. How to get it down here? Local transport company Tullochs backloaded it for free. The cost of the piping and wood came from Mataura Licensing Trust.
We have enough plastic to cover the same length for cloches which are also very useful. This year we will open the garden with fresh vegetables a couple of months earlier than usual which was our aim gong this way.
If anyone wants more information just flick me a note at jbham@xtra.co.nz
Hope this answers your question even though it is belated.
Regards,
Barbara Cunningham
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