Milbrook Edible Garden { MEG }

MPHS have always wanted to establish a community edible garden in its area. Being a keen gardener himself, Green Jon saw this as a great opportunity to work with the local community, to come together and grow its own food.
“After all, growing food is easy,” Jon says; “we just need to remind ourselves how much fun it is.”
Listening to our community inspired us to create a community edible garden and so evolved Meg.

Meg is designed to Teach and Share our gardening experiences with a happy, friendly neighbourhood of gardeners.
Waitakere City Council share the land
Local Gardeners share knowledge and food
Nature shares her resources

MEG's Design

The entrance is in line with the rising sun– based on Sthapatya Vedic teachings and the colder, southern perimeter is closed off. A second entrance is on the northern side. Compost is sited outside of the fenced gardens in the southern corner.

A bamboo fence surrounds the inner garden plots to minimize random damage. There are no gates. This bamboo fence will be an artwork trellis in places and is be used to grow climbing vegetables. The outer gardens present a tidy, colorful picture with flowering annuals and vegetables for public use.
There are 18 garden plots for exclusive gardeners and average 14sq.m. We also have common plots for everyone’s use and these represent the sharing concept. There is a plastic covered area to house a potting-up bench, a worm farm and drums to brew liquid fertilizers. A push-bike pumping system is planned to borrow water from the stream.

Existing fruit trees outside of the site along with the adjacent Oratia Stream will be maintained as part of this community project. We are planning to expand with a market garden approach and create smaller gardens along the Oratia cycle/walkway.

Official Opening

Planting of vegetables at MEG started in August and we quickly started having plots taken up. We officially opened Meg on the same day as our final community plant day for 2008 on the 21st September.

This was a special day for our community with over 350 people turning up to help, to meet their neighbours, to participate in the art and Waicare activities; to gather and share information and most of all to have fun in a ‘chillaxed’ MPHS way.

It was a sunny day planting with our drumming group and acoustic guitar players serenading our efforts. Many of the people who had been previously involved in our project turned up to share the celebration of our event. Although the event was scheduled between 10.30 and 1pm, we had people arrive at 9, and who did not leave until after 4pm.

Our drummers opened with a great intro
then we had a speech from MPHS’s deputy chairperson Gary Stewart,
a Muslim leader – Raafid,
Catholic leader – Jo Van Kempen and Father Andrew.
Raafid talked about Halal food and how Halal meat procedure had overshadowed the true meaning of Halal, which was more about purity of food. Of course this purity of food encompassed growing healthy, well cared for vegetables. He also spoke about the desire of the Muslim community to share-in projects that joined our communities and faiths together.

Father Andrew explained the concept of blessing the garden with holy water and with an accompanying prayer he sprinkled holy water over the plots. The blessing of the plants by Father Andrew was particularly powerful.
Concepts of a similar ethos, from a respect of nature point of view, are often discussed with the groups that are engaged. This is a reminder for our relationship with nature.
To conclude, we gathered our children who then cut the ribbon. We then entered the garden to the beat of the drums.

The garden was financed by MPHS with support from Mega Mitre 10 which contributed $1000 worth of products, Living Earth that donated six cubic metres of compost and WCC’s contribution of six cubic metres of topsoil and four m3 of wood chip.

First Stage of MEGS Construction.

PTS Oratia sees the garden as an opportunity for people to learn how to grow food, so that they can eventually teach others and create their own gardens at home. The overall plan is to establish edible gardens all over Waitakere. As part of being involved in MEG, gardeners are asked to commit to a restoration project on the stream or the surrounding esplanade. Priority is given to locals and groups who are already involved in PTS Oratia.

There are also plans to have an outdoor kitchen and regular feasts prepared by our people, using produce grown by our people and enjoyed by everyone.
Power to the gardeners!

Become involved either as a supporter, gardener or as part of our construction team. Contact Green Jon.