As snow caps the mountains, cauliflowers and broccolini keep growing in Temuka.
After being donated two tunnel houses from The Caledonian Lodge No 16 in April this year, Temuka’s Community Garden has lengthened its growing season.
Inside the tunnel houses cauliflowers were starting to head.
The donation, which was initiated by a volunteer at the garden, would not only help the organisation to feed the community through the winter months but also deter the white butterflies through the warmer months.
Community garden organiser Tracy Iles Leith said in the past season the white butterflies had arrived earlier and stayed for longer.
‘‘It maybe won’t stop the white butterfly problem but certainly helps keep their greedy little munchers away from our brassicas,’’ she said.
Slugs had also been giving the produce a hard time, but volunteers found leaving saucers of beer in the middle of vegetable beds worked a treat.
Beer left over from her son’s 21st birthday party five years ago was being used to lure the slugs in, where they plunged to their death.
Committee member and volunteer Grant Morgan had been hosting trips to the garden from Brownies and Pippins along with local schools.
Mr Morgan said the compost pile — which was heaving with tiger worms — had proved popular.
At the end of each school visit, when he asked what the kids liked the most, the answer was mostly the worms.
Except for one young boy who replied, ‘‘I like yoghurt’’.
If anyone in Temuka was needing worms to start a compost pile, he encouraged them to pop to the garden and ask, Mr Morgan said.
They could supply tiger worms to every school in the area and still have an excess.
‘‘Nothing knows what it’s doing at the minute,’’ Ms Iles Leith said.
Raspberries just finished fruiting and an asparagus had begun growing.
The Opihi Leo Club had recently helped volunteers to harvest potatoes.
While it was the second crop from the same line of seeds, they had harvested around 60kg.
Although lighter than the first crop of potatoes, Ms Iles Leith said it had ‘‘still done the job’’.
Despite the garden’s continuous supply of veges, there was still a need in the community.
‘‘It all goes,’’ Mr Morgan said.
‘‘Put it this way, we could double the produce and we’d still be underwhelming society.’’
The garden had not only helped meet a need in the community, it was also reusing refuse.
Among the things the group had recycled was netting from the old Plantorama site; while it had arrived with holes in it, it had been a quick fix with a needle and thread.
The garden’s raised vegetable beds were from Fonterra’s recycle centre, which allowed volunteers to move them to another spot if the plants did not flourish in the original location.
Mr Morgan said volunteers had learnt, ‘‘if something is working with mother nature you go with it’’.
