Spring Festival at Kelmarna Gardens

On Sunday 11 October, Kelmarna Gardens held their Spring Festival.

One of the highlights was the music from The Remarkables - a blues and country inspired group, featuring guitar, double bass and Robbie, the amazing drummer, wash-boarder, fiddler and even saw player.

This city farm is a paradise in this densely urban environment of Herne Bay - Grey Lynn.
The photograph below shows Chair of the Trust, Mary Paul with Local Board Deputy Chair Pippa Coom looking out over the gardens. There have been questionmarks over the garden’s future since the Framework Trust pulled out of funding Therapeutic Gardening for mental health people at Kelmarna, earlier this year.

A new lease with the council, who owns the property, is ready to be signed and new volunteers are arriving all the time.

New trustees are locals Margaret Fleming (secretary), Pip Wilkie, Karen Mann and John Shaw, who join Simon Wilson and longterm trustees Michael Graham Stewart, Mary Paul and Caroline Banks (treasurer).

I have never seen the gardens look so tidy and well looked after, but the trust is not resting on its laurels and has new development plans with the help of a landscaper and other volunteers. Conversation with the DHB is continuing so Kelmarna can regain some funds for training and supporting the gardens as a therapeutic centre.

Adrian Roche is still at Kelmarna doing a sterling job as manager, after some 20 years of service. He is supervising spring planting and blossom and flowers are appearing everywhere.

Staple food grown at Kelmarna includes potatoes, pumpkins, courgettes and sweet corn. As well as those vegetables, salad plants have always been a feature of Kelmarna Gardens, and locals can buy a bucket load for a few dollars, picked while you wait.

Adrian welcomes more volunteers. After gardening, everyone sits down together to a lunch cooked from the gardens. During the winter you can almost guarantee that delicious pumpkin soup will be on the menu.

A new mental health group called ‘Cook Ease’ from Richmond Fellowship is gardening at Kelmarna once a week.

Another new development is that Kelmarna is now part of the ‘Gardens for Health’ network, a DHB funded programme which supports community-based organisations to set up edible gardens.

Nine weaner calves from Mt Albert Grammar School are out in the paddock behind the gardens and a flock of sheep is due to arrive soon. The place is a hive of activity, a real treasure in our urban community, and one that we should all endeavour to nurture. Good luck Mary, Adrian and all the volunteers and trustees. Kelmarna is what ‘community’ is all about. (JOHN ELLIOTT)

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