IF you’re out getting your groceries, why not stop into Civic Square for some vegetables and a spot of light gardening? This pop-up garden in the square is part of the Massey University design research project Edible City, exploring how urban design can create a sustainable urban food system. This is the second pop-up garden experiment, building on the success of last year’s garden in Kilbirnie.
Pictured with one of six planter boxes is official gardener and ‘waterer’ Ania Upstill, but the idea is that passersby harvest the vegetables to take home and tend to the garden if they like. Project leader Amanda Yates says her team wants to test the public’s reaction to the garden and see if they are interested.
“We’ve found that people are really engaged. We packed them in on Friday and as we left already there were people standing around eating peas,” she says, “People have been really respectful of it. I had thought that New Zealanders would be much too reticent and embarrassed to engage but they jumped on it the second we left.”
The materials for the pop-up garden cost about $2000.