Bayfair Community Garden

Bayfair Community Garden began in 1994 on Hillier Centre land for the local community to come and grow vegetables for their own use in a socially interactive environment.

The gardens were so successful that very soon the surplus was sent to the Tauranga Foodbank. The soil at Mount Maunganui is pure sand with a little earth on top. Truck loads of untreated sawdust was dug in along with lawn clippings and vegetable waste to make it more fertile.

When this tract of land was sold in 1999 the top 20cm was moved to the present 700 sq m site on Grenada Park, not far away, in January 2000. The entire garden was all planted 3 months later. For over ten years South Pacific Seeds have generously supplied their quality seed to the garden. Jo Stock, the coordinator raises a great variety of seedlings in a small greenhouse at her home.

Cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, pak choy, parsley, zucchini, pumpkin, kale, spinach, silverbeet, spring onion, capsicum, lettuce, red onions, leeks, tomatoes, beetroot, cucumber, sweetcorn, celery, eggplant, buttercup, butternut, climbing, dwarf and broad beans as well as snow peas. Rhubarb, chokos and passionfruit have been grown with raspberries and boysenberries on the perimeter fences. Crops of kumara and potatoes too. Three varieties of Maori potatoes are already 30cm high- kuri tutae, kowenwene and moemoe and only just Spring!

Jo plants by the lunar calendar for strong and healthy growth. Seed is raised in trays pricked out to 70 per tray and hardened off on top of an old bbq covered in shade cloth in the backyard. In the previous 12 months, 539 banana boxes of fresh vegetables have been sent off to the Tauranga Foodbank to be distributed with emergency supplies to needy families throughout Tauranga, Mount Maunganui and Papamoa.

Even in the last week of August 10 boxes were harvested. Tuesday mornings are harvest days, rain or shine, all year through. Friday mornings are mainly maintenance and planting out. There are usually 12 to 16 volunteers working on each of these two days. Eleven huge wooden compost bins and several portable plastic bins supply nutrients made up with grass clippings from a local franchise, untreated sawdust and manure from a nearby farm and mulched harvest waste go into the mix.

Scraps from home feed the worm farm so seedlings are planted out with diluted worm tea for an initial boost. Underneath the gardens is an aquifer running all the way from Taupo out to the local beaches. Our two bores are only 3 meters deep.

Summer is beautiful here at the Mount and the garden needs plenty of irrigation from the automatic sprinkler system. Birds and butterflies can be a big problem so many gardens are covered with netting. No chemical sprays are used so our produce is organically grown.

The need for emergency food parcels has greatly increased over the past year along with high rents and we are pleased to be able to contribute to our community by growing lots of vegetables.