Our Community House, Community Garden and local Primary School are now Community Compost partners, thanks to funding from Waikato Districts Council’s Waste Minimisation Fund.
Together we are putting special efforts into recycling food and other plant waste to make compost. There are now large plastic bins on the school fenceline in Wira St for anyone in the area to bring their food scraps from home. They can dump them into the bins for free, saving money, saving the helping the environment and supporting the community. These bins are emptied into the hot compost system by our community compost coordinator and students in the Enviro Group.
All food waste is welcome in the compost except seashells. We would like to eliminate all food scraps from the Hampton Downs Landfill. Food scraps in the landfill use up valuable space and produce greenhouse gases when breaking down.
Precious compost from hot compost system is presently being used to extend the soil space for growing vegetables at the Community Garden.
Our vegetables have been growing so well, and we have had such a good weekly harvest that the gardeners wanted to grow more food. We also have a good team of happy gardeners who feel well rewarded when the Pataka Kai shelves are cleared by community members who value having access to free fresh vegetables to eat.
The compost is also being raked over grass around our fruit trees, extending the garden and making life easier for the mowing contractors.
On a Tuesday morning while we were all standing admiring our handiwork, we came up with an idea to have a fun guessing game and invite school children and the public to tell us how many cabbage plants might be growing in our splendid community garden. Emma from Te Kauwhata Primary was the winner with a guess of 394. Emma won a box of mixed vegetables and fresh eggs to enjoy with her family.
