Grow Me! team from left: Puia Hualngo, Lisa Kokiri, Gina Wong and David Kepa
After a bumper summer season that saw both first-time and experienced home gardeners producing impressive crops of fresh vegetables, the second season of our Grow Me! initiative is now in full swing.
Every two weeks since the middle of March Grow Me! members have picked up a selection of two to four varieties of strong, healthy, organic vegetable seedlings raised at Wesley House in Cannons Creek.
By the end of the current season, which will finish in mid-May, members will have received at least 15 vegetable varieties, ranging from traditional green spinach to more exotic varieties such as golden beetroot and kohlrabi. The cost is $50 per season.
Grow Me! is run by our Mahi Kai team through Te Hiko, our Centre for Community Innovation. It started with a pilot programme of 14 people at the end of 2024 and has now grown to 25 people.
Grow Me! is led by Mahi Kai worker Gina Wong with a team of local volunteers. They raise seedlings in compost made at Wesley House then transfer them into repurposed six-cell punnets.
Most of the seedlings are heirloom varieties. They come from a variety of sources including commercial seed growers as well as the heritage seed bank, Kōanga Institute. Gina has also had some success harvesting her own seeds.
They’re raised using biology-first principles – that means no artificial fertilisers, no herbicides and no pesticides. “It’s all about harnessing the power of nature to grow strong and healthy seedlings,” says Gina.
Every two weeks the punnets of seedlings are packed into repurposed paper grocery bags to be picked up at five Wellington Region Fruit & Vege Coop distribution hubs and taken home for planting.
Grow me! is part of Te Hiko’s wider vision to increase access to affordable, healthy, culturally appropriate food in Porirua East. Gina says the purpose of Grow Me is to work with the local community to develop skills around food production – soil enrichment, composting, seedling production, growing and harvesting nutrient-dense food – and to move towards kai sovereignty.
She says the hope is that eventually participants will be able to sell their surplus produce through the coop.
“Our goal is to help develop a movement of knowledgeable local leaders who can inspire others and keep resources and wealth in their community with a real focus on kai which is a real need in communities like Porirua East.”
* To find out more about Grow Me! contact Gina Wong 021 387 272 gwong@wesleyca.org.nz