Home gardening help
Nelsonians will soon be able to feed their families straight from their own backyard with free help from a new gardening programme.
The Home Gardening Coaching programme has trained 15 community garden coaches, with the latest five volunteers to graduate this week, to work with local families to establish their own gardens.
Programme coordinator Robina McCurdy said the service was free and designed for people who want to grow their own food, but don’t know where to start.
“Anybody in Nelson can ring up and have a coach come to their house and help them get a garden underway,” she said.
“They’ll get expert advice for their particular needs to get growing quickly.
“The coaches provide on-going support and encouragement as the seasons change.”
Robina said the programme would be hugely popular as more and more people realised the benefits of home gardening.
“Everywhere you look, vege gardens are popping up,” she said.
“Families want to reduce their weekly costs at the supermarket. They a want better quality of food and they want control over what goes into their food.
“It’s also fun and a great way to get active.
“What other reason do you need? It just makes sense.”
The Home Gardening Coaching programme was established with funding from the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board’s Nutrition and Physical Activity Programme (NPA) and co-ordinated through the Victory Community Centre, as a means for improving food security for local residents.
The coaches, who already had some experience with gardening, were trained over a 10-week programme which included five, hands-on instruction sessions and five, self directed application sessions.
As part of the course, Robina created several gardening guides which are available here
Organisers are hoping to train an additional 50 coaches by the end of this year so if you have gardening experience you’d like the share, contact Robina at vchinfo@victory.school.nz for future course details.
