Waiutuutu Community Garden

Welcome to the Okeover Community Garden

The Okeover community garden is an informal recreation and learning space for students, staff and local residents.  All interested people can come along and help out in the garden, learn new skills, meet new people and share in that day’s harvest.  In over 10 years since establishment this tucked away garden has a life of its own with plenty of fruit trees, shrubs, herbs and self-seeded flowers.  It is situated alongside the Okeover Stream which is a beautiful walk in itself due to restoration of the riparian zone.

Okeover community garden also has a cob oven for making delicious pizzas! The oven is fired up for special occasions and regularly by the student gardening club.

The idea of a community garden on campus was posed by Kakariki environment club in 2000, and in 2002 when a suitable site was found planning began!  The originators had the following objectives which ring true to this day.

• Design a community garden according to permaculture principles;
• Construct the community garden to provide a shared garden, with the option of individual allotments in the future;
•  Accommodate as much as possible all staff, students, and other people related to the University of Canterbury who are interested in the community garden;
• Manage the garden using organic gardening methods;
• Reduce-reuse-recycle wherever possible;
• Provide free food for garden volunteers to take home;
• As food supplies increase, provide free food to students suffering financial hardship;
• Provide the opportunity through the garden for increasing interaction amongst staff and students and wider community;
• Host educational workshops on topics such as self-sufficiency, home composting, and organic growing;
• Provide a means for composting some of the University’s landscaping and food waste;
• Celebrate the changing seasons (e.g., harvest festivals).

Our dream is to continue to nurture community gardens indefinitely and support demonstration gardens and edible landscapes on campus.