​Te Anau garden a hub for community learning ​

The community that composts together, thrives together.

That could be the motto in Te Anau where the Fiordland Community Garden is becoming a real hub for people to meet, connect with others, and to learn and share knowledge about growing food.

The mission of the garden, which is situated in Memorial Park behind the Bowling Club, is to promote environmental awareness, sustainability and community resilience through the medium of growing food together.

“There’s a lot of people who are new to Te Anau who come along, and it’s a great space for them to meet new people,” says Coordinator Michelle Grant.

The garden loves their new compost system, secured with assistance through the WasteNet community fund, and are encouraging people to bring their organic waste along to a session so it can be composted or to set up their own backyard bin.

They run weekly garden sessions and normally have about a dozen volunteers come and help out there and at the Te Anau Primary School garden club, Michelle says.

“Most weeks I also go to Southern Stars early childcare centre and it’s awesome to see so many tamariki get excited about bugs and gardening.”

Monthly workshops around food growing and composting are also held, and with the cost of living and food security, it's nice to get lots of people engaged with growing healthy food and living sustainably, she says.

“We have a kai pantry to share surplus vegetables and it’s also a place where others can leave extra fruit and veges.”

Some of the food produced is also used by Fiordland Community Kai, a local group set up to help provide meals for people that need them.