A brand new Te Anau Community Garden is being prepared for a public opening on Friday (November 27).

The brainchild of a newcomer to town, Andrea Staben, and a few keen supporters, the idea was born from a simple question raised on Te Anau Information Facebook page “Does Te Anau have a community garden?”.

The post received more than 20 replies and several people offered to help start a garden. A meeting was held, resulting in the formation of the Te Anau Community Garden Charitable Trust with Andrea Staben as its president.

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Ms Staben is a force to be reckoned with. She moved to Te Anau in July 2019 with her partner and two daughters (now aged 8 and 3). Within days of their arrival she was off to a meeting with seven people she had never met before and together they started a project that seems to have exploded under her leadership, although she underestimates her role in making it happen.

“It wasn’t my dream. It just happened because of all the people who supported the idea. I’ve never done anything like this before,” she said.

The first big hurdle was selecting the site for the garden. They looked at several sites, but the one that ticked all the boxes was in Memorial Park, behind the Bowling Club. It’s close to the town centre, easily accessible, safe, with plenty of parking nearby and close to public toilets.

“It took eight months of negotiations with the [Southland District] Council to get a five-year contract for this site, but if we are very good at maintaining it we can negotiate an extension,” Ms Staben said.

Once the site was approved, work started on erecting a tunnel house, building raised beds, a sandpit for children, and a fence. The garden is intended as a social learning space.

“It’s a place to observe and learn, a great opportunity to meet like-minded people. We will hold educational workshops. We are trying to make it really family friendly, getting kids of all ages involved, from kindy to SIT students, teaching them the skills. We also want to make it wheelchair accessible,” Ms Staben said.

The produce grown at the Community Garden will be available to people who volunteer their time and any excess will go to those in need.

Board members of the Te Anau Community Garden Charitable Trust inside the tunnel house. From left: Sue Marwick, Nicole Abraham (and son), Isla Marwick, Linda Lambeth, Trace Dainty, Michelle Grant and Katherine Mitchell (supporter). PHOTO: Andrea Staben

The previous Community Garden started at Fiordland College around 2012 petered out after just a few years, so the question arises why should this initiative succeed? 

“We looked at the Fiordland College garden when we were looking for a suitable location for our garden. One problem with it was accessibility,” Ms Staben said.

Adding to the demise of that project was insufficient community buy-in and lack of an enthusiastic champion. Eight years later these problems seem to have been overcome. 

“The amount of support we received for our project was huge. It wouldn’t have happened without the guidance of Sarah Greaney, Chair of the Fiordland Community Board, Megan Seator the Southland District Council Community Liaison Officer, and the Manager of the Southland Community Law Centre Denise Lormans. We received encouragement and advice from Robyn Guyton of Riverton and visited other Southland community gardens in Riverton, Invercargill, Lumsden and Winton,” Ms Staben said.

The trust received grants from the Meridian Energy Manapouri Power Up Fund ($5500 used for fencing), Southland District Council Community Initiatives Fund ($4500 landscape designer, public liability insurance, tunnel house and raised bed materials) and Foodstuffs South Island Community Trust ReSTART Grant ($5169.58 garden shed).

The local community has also contributed more than $9000 in money, labour, materials, plants and equipment donations within the last two months.

Ms Staben admits to having learned a lot of new skills on this project, such as forming a charitable trust, formulating a business plan, negotiating and applying for funding. She has started studying Applied Management at the Southland Institute of Technology (SIT) to formalise the skills she learned on this project.

The Community Garden opening and blessing will be held on Friday, November 27, at 5pm.