Urban farming in Christchurch
For this go-getting pair, growing food in the middle of an urban centre is a way to help build – and rebuild – both a city and the people involved.
Growing food and a sense of community in the Garden City
The hum accompanying the birdsong is not the sound of bees merrily going about their business - it is the distant roar of traffic along Christchurch's 0ne-way system.
The long narrow bed of salad greens stretches into the distance. Over it, two young men crouch to weed. Nearby, a woman plants seedlings. Around a rickety picnic table by the packing shed, a group is engaged in a goodnatured but intense discussion. The sun beats down through air thick with the mingled scents of lavender and hot compost.
It could be just another day in some remote rural idyll, but it’s not. The hum accompanying the birdsong is not the sound of bees merrily going about their business on the patch of phacelia; it is the distant roar of traffic along Christchurch’s one-way system. Just down the road, a towering crane helps erect an office block and on the footpath, suit-clad businessmen are striding purposefully.
For this farm in downtown Christchurch is on a double section that, before the earthquakes, housed an office block and some flats (all that is left of which is the shrubbery that once separated the two and a row of battered letterboxes).
It is the working headquarters of Cultivate Christchurch, an urban farm enterprise set up by go-getters with a social conscience, Bailey Perryman and Fiona Stewart (who were finalists in the 2016 Gardena Gardener of the Year competition in recognition for this initiative).
The pair run a tight but merry ship. This orderly 3000 square metre site is one of three urban farms they have established since 2015.
The dark and fluffy soil on the long beds that stripe the 3000m2 site has all been made on site. More than 500 tonnes of compost have been spread over the demolition rubble. The mix of wood chips, food scraps and liquid fertiliser decomposed in a clutch of wooden bins is a heady blend – and cause of the rather rural scent.
Currently, there is no council organic waste collection in the Garden City’s CBD, but the group is intent on winning the contract for it when it is introduced. Until then, up to two tonnes of food waste is collected from 17 inner-city businesses every week – which pay for this privilege. In line with the farm’s sustainable philosophy, the organic waste is collected in large plastic bins on a trailer towed by an electric bike.
Having your scraps turned into compost does not guarantee access to the vegetables grown in it, for demand far outstrips supply. Sixteen
cafés and restaurants buy the crops – mainly salad greens – which are grown in consultation with chefs.
“We like quick-growing stuff. We try to get the highest value crops per square metre, which means baby leaves, ‘Red Russian’ kale, mustards, mizuna, coriander, parsley, salad turnips, radish, baby carrots, baby beets and fennel bulbs over winter,” says Bailey. “Over summer we go for field tomatoes, lettuce, salad microgreens and rainbow chards.”
What is not sold to commercial kitchens is sold at the gate, given to the City Mission, or to the throngs of volunteers and a handful or so of paid employees, which include eight interns and the equivalent of five full-time workers.
Thursdays are community days, when the farm is open to all. Youths, gangs, schools, universities and polytechs, even a delegation from Hong Kong, book in and come along to learn what they do and how they do it, or to learn how to grow food.
Fiona is a social activist. The South Canterbury farmer’s daughter says she has always had an interest in human behaviour and in supporting people with behaviour issues. “I studied a raft of different things, including early childcare, then got a degree in psychology and education.”
Her teenage dream was to start a residential farm training programme, and she is not far off the mark now. Cultivate Christchurch, she explains, provides somewhere young people in need of extra support to be in employment can come and learn about working the land and working with others. “We’re supporting young people to have connections with other people in the community as well as giving them opportunities to engage with the land,” she explains.
It is only Jackson’s third day on the farm and the 23-year-old is bursting with enthusiasm. “It’s amazing, I love it here,” he says. “I’ve worked in cafés and done a carpentry course, but I’ve been out of work for a while due to medical reasons. I was apprehensive before I began, but once I arrived here, I just love the place. You can pick your jobs. You get tired, you have a break.”
He says he has done “a bit of gardening in the past” but doesn’t know a lot about plants. “I want to learn to build planter boxers. On my third day I built a trellis. I want to learn new skills to take on with me.”
Seventeen-year-old Seth has been working in the inner-city site for about three months. He had come looking for work experience after finishing NCEA Level 1. “I particularly wanted to get a taste of working life and how it suits me,“he says. “It was challenging at first and I was nervous of meeting people, but also very excited.”
It did not take him long to settle in. “I love it,” he says. “I would love to take this community vibe with me wherever I have to go.”
He says the experience has opened his eyes about being in a garden and where food comes from. “I feel at peace here. This is my aura… good people, good food. I feel like we all should have a garden rather than depending on shops.”
Spreading the word about growing food and helping communities feed themselves is also central to the venture. Bailey calls it “urbundance” and cites Cuba as the model. “Ninety per cent of that country’s daily fresh produce is from urban farms, and 44,000 people work on them. Relative to Christchurch, that’s 10 per cent of the population – the same number of kids the government says is not involved in employment, education or training,” he says. “And we have the space here, not just in Christchurch but in every city in New Zealand.”
After studying environmental management at Lincoln University,
Spreading the word about growing food and helping communities feed themselves is also central to the venture.
Bailey realised he wanted action – not just theory. He got involved in community gardens and just after the quakes he helped set up Agropolis, a smaller urban farm, which he says, compared to Cultivate Christchurch was more like a community garden.
His visionary nature is likely in his blood, he reckons. “I have a long history of agriculture with my family, who were farmers, millers, church builders, and known for their especially radical views.”
While the pair have their eyes ultimately on the city’s extensive Red Zone for farms, they have a three-year contract on a 1.7-hectare site in a new subdivision in Halswell in the southwest of the city, where most of the produce is grown. They are also working with the subdivision’s developer on obtaining the contract to maintain the area’s greenspace and establishing a community garden.
As well, they have recently partnered with the Canterbury District Health Board to use the old propagation unit and glasshouses at Hillmorten Hospital, formerly Sunnyside. Fiona takes particular delight that the historic buildings are once again to be used for what they had originally been created for: growing food.
As far as the couple is concerned, the world is their oyster. “More staff and more land, that’s our aim,” says Bailey with a wide grin.
“And more young people,” adds Fiona.
Looking round at the well-oiled machine that is rumbling along in the heart of Christchurch, you kind of know the pair will achieve it.