How does your garden grow? The thriving initiative behind a Glen Innes general practice

Tāmaki Urban Market Garden began with a query to an Auckland general practice about an unused patch of grass on its section. Now, it aims to feed at least 15 families.

Lucy Pierpoint had taken a permaculture design course, which inspired her to want to start a community market garden.

Ms Pierpoint wondered if the empty area behind Glen Innes’ Elstree Avenue Family Doctors, where she is a patient, could be the place to bring her dream to life and asked the practice if she could use the land.

“Long story short, we [could] and we did,” she says.

“It’s great to have it connected to the doctor’s surgery [because] we’re in an area of poor food security.

“There’s a number of reasons for setting it up, but really, it’s about climate change and growing great food and creating soil that sequesters carbon.”

The goal is also to encourage the community to source its food locally, reducing the carbon footprint associated with food miles, Ms Pierpoint says.

Tāmaki Urban Market Garden is a sub-project by the Tāmaki WRAP (Waste Reduction Action Project) Charitable Trust, which has a contract with Auckland Council Waste Solutions to work with the community to reduce landfill waste.

Various funding initiatives have been crucial in helping the garden, including a Regional Environment and Natural Heritage grant from Auckland Council, which it received in 2021.

The Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board Love Your Neighbourhood grant helped provide a rainwater harvesting system and some soil for planting kūmara and potatoes for two consecutive years (2020 and 2021). The Tāmaki Regeneration Company provided $7000 towards training, tools and the initial salary for one of the two farmers the garden now employs to help Ms Pierpoint.

Currently, the community-supported agriculture model provides ongoing funding, with Tāmaki WRAP agreeing to fill the gaps in farmer salaries, when necessary, as the model does not always cover this. “That being said, it won’t last forever, and we are looking into other ways to raise funds so we can continue to consistently provide nutrient-dense food to those who want it.”

The two farmers, Britta Hamill and Dani Spoeth, do 10 hours a week each and manage the premises.

Additional volunteers include Cindy Bradley and Monique Pot, who assist on the farm and also with administrative tasks.

A newly established marketing and social media role has also just been filled to help raise the garden’s profile.

Ms Pierpoint says everyone at the Elstree Avenue practice has supported the project. For example, when rain threatened the garden’s open day, the practice allowed the use of its rooms.

It has also employed a nutritionist who has visited to find out what’s grown in the garden and what advice could be given to patients.

However, Ms Pierpoint says while the Elstree Avenue practice has been “very generous” and accommodated everything she has asked for, it does not “push” patients to use the garden, nor would she expect it to.

“A nurse [might] come down and say, ‘Look, I’ve got a family that’s really in need of some fresh vegetables. Can you help?’ “There’s no reason why patients shouldn’t interact with us, but it’s up to them if they want to.

“The wellbeing outcomes of having a community garden [and] gardening are quite clear, and so people are welcome to join us there.”

Regarding excess produce, Ms Pierpoint says she will deliver vegetables to the practice for the staff to give to patients in need, at their discretion.

The garden grows approximately 20 different types of vegetables across 100sqm.

Ms Hamill and Ms Spoeth plan the garden’s crops, planting schedules and harvest timings.

The garden has several subscribers who use its system, receiving a box of vegetables each week, which they come to pick up.

Tāmaki Urban Market Garden also provides greens and excess herbs to Everybody Eats, a Glen Innes-based social-run enterprise that provides meals to anybody who needs them.

Further, because the garden is a zero-waste site, it composts the local community’s food scraps.

Ms Hamill says there used to be market gardening and growing in the area, but it has fallen away, and she hopes this garden will encourage the community to get back into it.

She says the garden is working with regenerative growing spaces across Auckland to determine what is possible for the vegetable production sector.

The current goal is for Tāmaki Urban Market Garden to grow enough vegetables to feed at least 15 subscribing families. With a cushioned bench under the shade of a tree, Ms Pierpoint says it also provides a lovely outdoor spot for a rest.

“Every so often, a doctor will come and sit down in the garden and just enjoy the peace and quiet there for their lunch break.”