Gardens yield jobs

Press, 10 November 1983, Page 7

Gardens yield jobs

Home gardens in the Riccarton area will be developed to provide jobs for the unemployed. Under the scheme, run by the Riccarton Neighbourhood Trust, owners of properties in the Riccarton area who cannot manage their gardens will make them available so that the land can, be used to grow marketable crops. The Riccarton Neighbourhood Trust last week approved an initial grant of $2500 for the project, which

will provide jobs and horticultural training for two workers.

The chairman of the trust, Mr Brian Pauling, said yesterday that a Lincoln College graduate, Mr David Stanton, had been awarded a six-month contract to supervise the scheme. A special committee was investigating how much more money would be needed, and devising a planting programme. The Waimairi District Council had made a big plot of land available for plant-

ing, sz and between six and 12 home gardens in the Riccarton area would also be used. As the project developed, the trust would appeal for the use of more home gardens. Mr Pauling said that the trust was still debating whether the produce from the gardens should be used for its neighbourhood kitchen or sold on the open market. The original idea was to plant vegetables, but Mr Stanton had suggested that other crops such as. flowers might be sold more easily. Work on the gardens would start in the next two weeks so that autumn crops could be grown.

The two workers would be employed on the Voluntary Organisation Training •Programme for 12 months. It was hoped that after the first year the gardens would earn enough to support the two, and possibly more, workers.