Te Puke, Bay of Plenty – The Te Puke Community Garden has been a quiet beacon of resilience, continuing to flourish and provide fresh produce to the community even through Alert Levels 4 and 3.
Despite social distancing measures limiting volunteer involvement, chairwoman Julie Gray has single-handedly kept the garden thriving. “We’re actually doing really well,” she shares. “I’ve been looking after the gardens and I have been regularly taking produce down to the food bank.”
Gray has also generously made produce available for locals to help themselves, a practice that has seen overwhelming support. “I took down a whole lot of Chinese cabbages, feijoas and guavas and lots of people have been bringing excess fruit and putting it on our table as well.” She notes that clear labeling on crops has prevented any theft, with everything “looked after.”
Future Harvests and Volunteer Hopes
While the current season’s produce at the Jocelyn Street garden is winding down, a significant kūmara harvest grown off-site is expected this week. “That will drip feed into the community and then some of the other produce will start to come on,” Gray explains.
With the recent shift to Alert Level 2, Gray is optimistic that volunteers will soon be able to return to help plant for the new season. “We’ve started to get behind now, but I managed to just plant another couple of beds last week.”
For those who discovered a passion for gardening during lockdown, Gray advises that now is the ideal time to plant brassicas such as cabbage, cauliflowers, and Brussels sprouts, as “the white butterflies are disappearing now.”