Green ‘Waste’ Reincarnated in Prison Garden

Christchurch Prison has recently benefited from its Horticultural Manager Stuart Whyte’s longstanding association with Waste Exchange. Thanks to his ‘connections’, Stuart was able to arrange for around 3,000 cubic metres (to date) of compost for the new prison gardens, free of charge.

Stuart has been a fan of Waste Exchange for about five years, and through the service accessed 50,000 plastic bottles (that previously held sterile water for use in hospitals) as containers for the organic apple juice and cider vinegar produced by his orchard near Cust.

Stuart found that Waste Exchange was also able to help in his work operations at the Corrections Department. Both Christchurch and Rolleston Prisons have been involved in horticulture for some time. Rolleston is home to a wholesale native plant and tree nursery which supplies Christchurch’s Waiora Trust, landscapers, garden centres and local bodies. Rolleston Prison also operates a successful organic market garden.

The success of that organic garden operation has led Christchurch Prison to re-open a 12 hectare plot of conventional garden that was closed three years ago, and convert it to an organic regime. However, because of the rundown state of the soil, some conditioning was needed. Being committed to organic methods of gardening meant that natural soil conditioners were necessary.

That is when Stuart called Jim Forsman, Waste Exchange Co-ordinator, and asked ‘what have you got?’ “We could have used a variety of materials” says Stuart. “Chicken feathers, compost, horse manure, sawdust; any of those would be fine. But Jim called Adrian (Marsh, General Manager of Meta NZ Ltd – a business unit associated with TerraNova) and the end result was that we got truck loads of compost.”

Green and garden matter taken to the three Christchurch EcoDepots is shredded and composted in long windrows at Metro Place. The process takes about 100 days. The resulting compost is used locally, much of it going to the Burwood landfill rehabilitation project. Fortunately for Stuart it turned out that at the time he was seeking organic soil conditioners, the EcoDepots had more compost than they could get rid of.

“We like to help out in the local community when we can” said Adrian. “We always try to help out schools with compost or mulch when we have it to spare. Normally we don’t give away product on this scale, but this seemed to be a worthwhile venture, and it just so happened to coincide with a surplus of compost for us.”

Around 50-60 trucks loads of compost have been delivered to the Prison so far. Stuart’s team has spread the compost about 15 centimetres deep and once it has been ploughed in, planting of green manure crops such as legumes or lupins to fix atmospheric nitrogen into the soil will start. They too will be ploughed in to additionally condition the soil.

Following that the garden will be ready for a vegetable crop. It will grow a wide variety of traditional garden vegetables, but a large part of the garden will be dedicated to garlic, as at present most organic garlic is imported. The resulting produce will be sold nationwide by Fresh Direct under the Pure Fresh Organics brand.

Uncomposted soil (foreground) and the finished plots (rear)	The prepared soil is readied for planting	Garlic is the first crop to be planted in the new gardens