Garden project boosts healthy living in Marlborough
A new garden project is helping Marlborough residents to stay healthy.
Maori health provider Te Hauora o Ngati Rarua launched Maara Oranga, or healthy gardens, this week.
The project involves gardens being put in place at the homes of 12 Marlborough families.
Horticultural scientist Dr Richard Hunter helped set up the gardens using recycled broken posts that were donated by vineyards.
One garden had been completed, while the other 11 gardens were expected to be finished over the next two weeks.
Gardening was a quiet, peaceful activity, Hunter said.
‘‘We’re trying to encourage people to get back into the ways of nature and growing their own vegetables.’’
Te Haora o Ngati Rarua chairperson Dr Rod Bird said the project was a constructive effort to improve family health.
‘‘We see this as being in line with our overall goal of being a service that works to improve whanau health.
‘‘So much of the time in health, and in Maori health, we’re focusing on things that go wrong.
‘‘This is focusing on something positive.’’
Rapaura resident and Te Hauora o Ngati Rarua client Mary Beesley gave up gardening two years ago because of a lung and cardiac condition.
The new raised garden bed, which features lettuce, spring onions, cabbage, cauliflower, herbs and celery, would be easier for her to maintain.
Beesley said she was ‘‘elated’’ about getting back into her garden.
‘‘I missed being able to go down there and cut something for tea, or grab a tomato and lettuce for lunch.’’
Beesley said gardening was an outlet for her.
‘‘It’s healthy getting out in the garden and getting your hands dirty, breathing the fresh air.
‘‘You think you’re only going out there for a few minutes but you come back inside and an hour’s gone past.’’
The Maara Oranga project was the second project in Blenheim to be funded through Te Putahitanga o Te Waipounamu, Whanau Ora’s South Island commissioning agency.
The first project to be funded through the agency was Tiramarama Mai, an alternative education programme delivered through Maataa Waka in Blenheim.
Te Putahitanga chair Norman Dewes said people involved in the Maara Oranga project would benefit from education on the planting, maintaining and harvesting of crops.
There was potential for surplus fruit and vegetables to be stored, preserved or passed on to other people in the community, Dewes said.
People are only going to find elsewhere to carry on drinking when bars close which will create trouble in suburban areas because there will be more house parties.