Tapawera School and Community Garden (TSCG) has a high decibel addition stemmed from fertile helpers.
A chipper was entrusted to the 2.0 garden, which is next door to Tapawera Area School, on 22 January, and it’s hungry for prunings and other suitable green waste which will translate to mulch.
Garden project lead Gavin Scoble says the garden has been spruced up since early last year and it currently has raised garden beds, fruit trees, time irrigation, a tunnel house, and a small equipment shed.
He says the garden has hosted gardening workshops, and an old garage at the site will be converted to an outdoor classroom for the school kids to learn about biodiversity.
Gavin says the chipper, from Stihl Shop Richmond, was a welcome addition, and he acknowledged those who chipped in to make it possible.
“We need a huge amount of mulch in the garden to use in various ways,” he says.
“There’s a project to plant more fruit trees around the village which will be pruned from time to time again, and then we’ve been asked whether we can take suitable material from the community [for mulching].
“This year we will have working bees on a monthly basis and we’re looking at whether people can drop disease-free material off [for mulching] which will increase our amount of mulch that we have on site to use in the garden.”
Gavin says chipper funds were cultivated from $3000 worth of firewood sales which came from Judith and Kim Rowe’s donated timber, which was split by Andrew Burden.
The other $3000 came from a Tapawera and Districts Community Council grant which is funded by the Tapawera Community Op Shop.
